#mirroring season 8 and 9 was so fucked up of the showrunners actually

[incesthemes]

i'm so wincestpilled but seriously the last like. 10 minutes of do you believe in miracles has completely melted my brain. what's up with that whole "i lied" thing anyway. it's so deranged on every level.

in 9.13 sam tells dean that given the same circumstances with reversed roles (on the brink of death with the only option being angel possession), he wouldn't try to bring dean back from the dead. aka, he wouldn't strip dean of his free will and autonomy just to keep him alive.

but sam lied. not just about what dean thought he heard—that sam wouldn't do everything in his power to bring dean back. no, sam lied about exactly what he meant.

because when dean's life is actually, tangibly on the line, all those promises he told himself go out the window. he'll look for a spell, sam says. he'll defy destiny yet again to keep dean alive.

he even disregards dean's wishes and will to die. dean is becoming something he doesn't want to be; he wants to die, to stop that from happening. but sam won't let him. "don't worry about the mark," he says, because he doesn't care what dean turns into as long as he's alive. and he doesn't care what dean wants or doesn't want, because he needs dean to live.

and then dean dies, and sam brings him back to the bunker, and he tries to summon crowley to make a deal and bring dean back to life. sam lied—he doesn't value dean's right to choose death any more than dean values sam's.

and for possibly the first time, sam is completely honest about this: to himself, and to dean. he tells dean that he needs him, that he'll go to the ends of the earth for him, that he'll do anything for his brother, just the same as dean would for him. no more lying, no more hypotheticals. the cards are laid out on the table for everyone to see, and sam is fundamentally the same as dean. this much is obvious, to anyone but them; it's not sam's first time doing completely unethical and unhinged things to keep dean alive. but now the facade has been torn off, and they can finally both see each other for what they are (psychotically, irrationally, erotically codependent on each other).

between this and sacrifice, they've both now obtained the stifling, all-encompassing, possessive love they desperately wanted from each other, like the sick fucks they are. how am i supposed to be normal about this? hello?

[melroesplace]

Gonna steal your question and ask for your top 10 ships of all time for Valentine's Day :D

Ok this is super late (and also super fucking long) because it took forever to narrow down my top 100 ships to only 10, but here we go:

1. Ron & Hermione (Harry Potter)

My very first OTP and still my favorite.  Their slow burn development from enemies to friends to lovers makes this the best relationship of the entire HP franchise.  Haters can deny it all they want, but these 2 have always and will always belong together.  Harry & Hermione would be together if Ron wasn’t around?  Nope, Hermione and Harry was pining for Ron when he was away in Deathly Hollows.  Ron & Hermione will get divorced because of their arguments?  Lol you thought, they are planning to renew their vows after 20 years of marriage.  I’m sort of gloating now, but Idc because this is one of the very few endgame ships I have.

2. Zuko & Katara (A:TLA)

In the exact opposite of what happened with Romione, this was my first ship that wasn’t canon and the first one to make me cry angry tears over the fact.   Zutara introduced me to the dark side of my fangirl, engaging in shipping wars, hating on Bryke for not getting them together even tho I should’ve known it was never gonna happen.  I’m not proud of everything my preteen self did in the Avatar fandom, but *tune of God Bless the USA* I’m proud to be a Zutarian, where at least there’s fans like me  They are twin flames, 2 sides of the same coin, and forever friends.  Plus, Dante Basco and Mae Whitman shipped them, so neener neener neener.  (Sorry, my 12 yr old fangirl came out a bit)

3. Katniss & Peeta (The Hunger Games)

#RelationshipGoals  That is all.  Ok, not really.  I love seeing a hardened badass fighter like Katniss with such a gentle soul like Peeta.  He is her anchor, she is his passion, and I am their bitch.  No matter how many times I read the books or watch the movies, I fall to pieces over them in the best way.  And to think when I first started reading the books, I was convinced Peeta would end up dead because all the signs seemed to be pointing that way.  I’ve never been so glad to be wrong in my life.

4. Magnus & Alec (Shadowhunters)

Let me start this off with #SaveShadowhunters.  I will miss Malec, I will miss the Malec fandom and I will especially miss the showrunners being so lovely to the fans.  After being disappointed by JKR, Bryke, Plec, and Shonda, it is such a relief to feel validated by a creator.  Todd, Darren, and Matt Hastings are real supporters of the LGBT community who actually listen to fans’ concerns and fight to include as much diversity as they can get away with.  I’ve never watched a show that treated an interracial same sex couple the same (or imo better) as all the other couples.  Magnus & Alec had me at “Who are you?” with their amazing chemistry.  I love one badass shadowhunter/warlock team who are also adorable boyfriends.

5. Jackie & Hyde (That 70s Show)

Sigh…..what could have been.  I will never understand how the writers could throw out such an amazing relationship after so many years together.  Jackie & Hyde are the epitome of the Opposites Attract trope.  Hyde is a sarcastic little shit and Jackie is a materialistic snob and they love each other exactly as they are.  He keeps her grounded and she makes him open up.  Since I don’t consider season 8 canon, I like to imagine Hyde opening up his own record shop in Chicago so that Jackie could pursue her dream.  They’re still together.

6. Isak & Even (Skam)

Just look at these pure babies!  You should really watch this show if you haven’t already.  I think you would love them and I don’t mind spoiling that they’re endgame so you don’t have to worry about that.  Evak probably have the hottest chemistry of everyone on this list, but they’re also 100% soft boyfriends.

7. Bonnie & Jeremy (Vampire Diaries)

TVD is responsible for at least a quarter of my ships, but Beremy was my first OTP from the show.  After watching everyone treat Bonnie like little more than a magic wand for over a year, it was nice to see someone want her simply for her.  Jeremy didn’t care about what Bonnie could do for him, he genuinely admired her strength and morals.  Bonnie stopped seeing him as her best friend’s kid brother and saw him for the hot, strong protector he is.  I will never forgive the writers for ruining their relationship twice, but I still head canon that Bonnie & Jeremy reunited as adults.

8. Harry & Uma (Descendants)

My favorite thing about Huma is that Harry is a hook wielding maniac who is also completely head over heels in love with Uma, a beautiful black girl who is Captain of their pirate crew.  He is unapologetic in how utterly devoted he is to her and even tho she keeps her feelings close to the vest, it is obvious Uma has a soft spot for her First Mate.  My least favorite thing about Huma is that despite the overwhelming evidence, I still don’t know if they’re an actual couple.  I hope D3 clears that up.

9. Dante & Ari (Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe)

*There are plenty of amazing fan art of them, I just couldn’t decide which one to post*

You should read this book if you haven’t already, it classic coming-of-age queer literature.  Ari is an introverted smart ass kid with no friends until he meets cinnamon roll Dante.  These are my favorite type of relationships to see/read, especially when its a slow burn like this.  Idk what else to say other than how much I love these two makes my heart ache in a good way.  Right after finishing the book, I went back and reread my favorite parts.

10. Kelly/Yorkie (Black Mirror)

My favorite wlw ship only appears on 1 episode of a tv anthology, that’s how amazing they are.  I relate so much to Yorkie, uncomfortable in my own skin and socially awkward.  All I want is someone like Kelly who can bring me out of my shell, but still love me for who I am.  Their relationship honestly gives me hope that even someone like me (with little relationship experience) can maybe find love.  You know, if I ever leave my damn house for anything other than work.

[elizabethrobertajones]

Hi! Do you think the teeth-gnashing and outrage about queerbaiting that happened after s8 was because s8 was when the Destiel narrative really kicked into gear in a more visible way? Like, suddenly Dean/Cas is a huge part of the story, romance tropes are everywhere in a way it never was before and then as the show got renewed things slowed down and people felt, well robbed? I'm rewatching s8 right and I feel Dean is like so close to just kissing Cas but I think Cas wasn't there yet. And now...

Yeah, I think so, and it seems weird now because it all feels so kind of abstract and NONE of it was REALLY there yet when you look at it with hindsight and knowing it didn’t happen.

A lot of accounts I’ve heard say basically the same thing - that the combination of the Netflix watchers marathoning and Tumblr’s rise as a fandom space made the destiel community blossom here, and season 8 felt like a huge fresh start and the tropes were different and the showrunner was different and there was a whole fresh new optimism and excitement about the show like it was basically brand new but also, like, already closer to 200 episodes than not… And a lot of meta got written which was very very optimistic and excited for Destiel. 

I know at least one notorious fandom-hopping troll got in on it because it was a great way to earn popularity and followers… No one had said it wasn’t happening yet, and the show was using really obvious and easy to read romance tropes and like, it seems to me like a gold rush town fandom? People were writing a lot of speculation and stuff about three act structures and what have you, and I think “meta” became synonymous with “writing about how Destiel will go canon” and it was being gobbled up.

Something that makes me sad now is that I see a lot of people in stuff like the arty gifsets, edits, fanart or fic side of the community who talk about how they’re never trusting or reading meta again after feeling burned by its promises? (ETA: And meta is SO much more than this; I think that sort of stuff is just speculation, but actual meta is the deep analysis. You can USE it to speculate, but usually more like themes and plot and character than endgame and story structure and HOW these things will manifest)

Because one of the other things was if you survived the season 8 finale and hiatus, which sound like hell (there was teasing that Cas would have an episodes-long love interest in either/both Nora or April by the sounds of things, and maaaybe Dean would have one too with Robin, so that must have been a delight >.>) and the actual 9x03 AND fandom vs TPTB fight that followed, AND JIB that year where Jensen said they “don’t play it that way” (that is, like a secret relationship where Dean and Cas are fucking off screen) then by the end of season 9 the whole bubble seemed popped, AND after all that, they began what Jeremy Carver kept on calling the “Plot Accordion” of the Mark of Cain, where they still had a plan (that three act arc meta I mentioned tentatively circled as an idea still but with a wiggly line in the middle stretching it all out :P) and they had to keep on stretching and circling, and so all the speculative meta from previously or even just before whatever was currently happening was often useless. And if it’s main plot speculative meta, well okay you can probably nail the themes but be baffled by their application or misuse of connected characters, but you’re not missing out on much. But if it’s waiting for payoff on an emotional arc (ANY emotional arc) it’s a horrific wait, and if you’re only or mainly in it for Destiel, the season renewals start to feel like a horrible game with your feelings?

(I mean I’m a fairly content-to-sit-here type fan, mostly because I’ve been invested since season 2 was as far as you could get in this country, and actually *remember* my friend being excited to grab season 3 DVDs and being there in the shop when she found them :P And I’m invested in a lot more than Destiel, I’d buy season 12 on DVD JUST for Mary… At the end of the day I am a bad sample fan for just being a Destiel blog even though I ship it to the ends of the earth and see it firmly embedded in canon at every level) 

But yeah, idk, I think season 8 is such a weird one to me, especially as season 7 & 8 correspond to a horrendously painful and busy time in my life and I was all hopped up on painkillers for most of them so I really do not remember those seasons clearly. Of season 8, I remember the LARP episode from first impressions, and that’s it. But it seems such a weird and inoffensive season to me (I mean… ignoring 8x15 entirely, as I usually do :P). 

In hindsight it’s got a beautiful and well-written Destiel subtext and romantic arc, which lays it all out extremely clearly, but wasn’t ever really heading to canon, just exploring and explaining, and putting tools on the board, to build up for angst and tension. And a lot of stuff for character development for later - the seeds of a lot of things are in season 8 that get repeated again and again getting closer and closer to the truth underneath them that was only a hint or a suggestion or wry comment in season 8. I don’t think they ever were going to make it canon that year because the build up was subtextual instead of overt. In season 12 a lot of things like the mix tape or 12x10 were so in your face romantic tropes or the elusive episode about angels falling in love with humans that was always needed to crack the whole thing open, complete with making it all about Dean n Cas at the end, and the season ending with a heap of Destiel vs John and Mary or Sam and Jess parallels, that it’s feeling like the REAL build up to what you might have to do… 

It’s SUBSTANTIALLY different to season 8, which for example, used Remember The Titans to make the same point as Lily Sunder, and it would be fascinating to compare them as sister episodes, but the first thing you see is that one is about an allegorical thing with greek gods, and one is *literally* using OUR Cas and HIS feelings in the story, even the historical part of it, and it’s about ACTUAL angels falling in love with humans and doing plot-mirroring stuff as a result. 8x16 has a Crypt Scene parallel the episode before the Crypt Scene and Sam specifically READS THE SUBTEXT that it was about love, whereas in Lily Sunder, Ishim is just like, yep I wanted to bang Lily woe is me, I’m gonna go murder her kid to make myself feel better and also Dean because that will probably cheer you up. 

(I’m now having a weird “I cba to check this but I think Zeus and Ishim wore the same costume” moment)

Anyway, idk where I was going with that. I think to say, that the blowback against season 8 was maybe because it was so unprecedented, and I think we trod the same waters for the rest of Carver era, but now it’s Dabb era and I am very very scared :P

[njawaidofficial]

'American Horror Story: Cult' Premiere Recap | Ryan Murphy on Election Night

http://styleveryday.com/2017/09/06/american-horror-story-cult-premiere-recap-ryan-murphy-on-election-night/

'American Horror Story: Cult' Premiere Recap | Ryan Murphy on Election Night

[Warning: This story contains spoilers from the premiere of FX’s American Horror Story: Cult.]

The first moment of American Horror Story: Cult is chill-inducing.

“I am running for president of the United States!” announces Donald Trump.

“I am running for president of the United States!” echoes Hillary Clinton.

No matter what side of the aisle, the flashback footage of the actual 2016 presidential campaign is an eerie place-setter, a reminder of how far away that moment in history feels in today’s divided America.

As promised, the seventh season of Ryan Murphy’s FX anthology series kicks off with a minute-long ramp up to 2016 election night. Using real footage of then-candidates Trump and Clinton, highlights down memory lane include mentions of Trump’s wall, Clinton’s emails and a growing “palpable fear” as protestors on both sides clash. “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose any voters, OK? It’s like incredible,” Trump says. The statement, so attacked at the time, now serves as a reminder that hindsight is 20-20. 

Cult opens on Nov. 8, 2016.

Kai Anderson (Evan Peters) is sitting on the edge of his basement couch listening to Fox News as the chuckling anchors declare Trump the 45th president of the United States, winner of the most “unreal” and “surreal” election America has ever seen.

“The revolution has begun,” Kai says softly. He then humps his big-screen TV, his blue hair thrusting in the air. “Fuck you world!” he screams before chanting “USA! USA!” 

Over at the Mayfair-Richards’ house, Ally (Sarah Paulson), her wife Ivy (Alison Pill), young son Oz and their liberal-leaning friends are holding out hope, glued to MSNBC. “I won’t believe anything until I hear Rachel Maddow say it, she’s the only one I trust,” says Ally before Pennsylvania is called. “It’s the politics of fear, it always works,” says her stunned friend, the Asian-American head council member in the show’s Michigan set town, population 10,000. 

When MSNBC announces Clinton’s concession phone call, Ally watches with tears in her eyes as Trump takes the stage, horror music at full swell. “Go to hell Huffington Post! Fuck you Nate Silver!” screams Ally as she falls, debilitated, to her knees. “Oh God, how could they have been so wrong about this!”

But 10,000 is also the amount of votes Clinton is losing to Trump in their swing state. “You want to know who to get mad at for this? Our own state of Michigan. She’s losing by 10,000 votes. That’s the size of this town. And who is at 40,000 votes and counting? Jill Stein.” (In Michigan, Trump defeated Clinton by 10,704 votes, while the Green Party candidate took in 51,463 votes.)

Later, it will be revealed that much to Ivy’s dismay, Ally quietly voted for Stein — Murphy shining his season-seven spotlight on one parcel of American voters forced to face their own complicity in the election results. The council member also screams at his wife for not voting: “Look at our friends on the couch and tell them that they might not be able to maintain their rights as a married couple because you were too busy playing on Etsy to go vote!”

Kai, meanwhile, is busy mashing up bags of Cheetos in a blender, using the crumbs as orange makeup while he practices his “yuge” impression of Trump in the mirror. His sister, Winter Anderson (Billie Lourd) devoted her college semester to campaigning for Clinton. “She was supposed to win, is this really happening?” the depressed co-ed tells a friend before being interrupted by Kai. He then asks her to link pinky fingers. “I’m just so scared now,” she says. “Everyone is,” he replies with a smile.

Then comes the opening credits sequence — the mashup of phobias, Trump and Clinton masks and the franchise’s theme song with a patriotic twists ends with two hands, pinky-swearing, in handcuffs — and Cult truly begins.

“How the show begins on election night, pro or con, I think everybody can relate to the feeling of that evening, and that was the launch of the season,” Murphy said at a recent press event, attended by The Hollywood Reporter. On Sept. 1, when Clinton was the presumed winner, Murphy decided to use the election as a jumping-off point to explore how the cult of personality and leaders such as Charles Manson rise up within a disenfranchised community. After Trump’s stunning win, when Murphy and his writers began to plot the season in December, they changed the opening scene. “It was very easily switched because pro or con, either candidate, Evan’s character, who plays somebody who rises up because of anger in our country, was always the same.”

Murphy went on to explain that despite what many people may think — including the show’s conservative fans who have tweeted at Murphy that they plan to quit watching — Cult is not about Trump, or Clinton.

One thing the season is about is a “growing sense of anxiety in our culture,” something Murphy explores through Ally’s range of irrational phobias, which are re-triggered after the traumatic election night similar to when she was nearly crippled by her anxieties after 9/11. She has a fear of clowns — triggered by her son reading a Twisty the Clown comic book — blood, holes and confined spaces, to name a few. Later in the episode, when Oz sees a gaggle of clowns murdering their neighbors, the council leader (Tim Kang) and his wife, it’s unclear if he suffers from the same phobias as his mother, or if a Purge-inspired gang of killers is truly on the loose in this idyllic suburb. [At the end of the episode, Ivy reveals the name of their neighbors to be the Changs. Roanoke viewers will remember the Chang family — providing an Easter egg and perhaps the second clue, in addition to Freak Show‘s Twisty cameo, that Cult is indeed within the AHS universe.]

“One of the things that I personally experienced after this election was a wild increase in my life in anxiety,” said Murphy. “I think a lot of people can relate to that, no matter what side you’re on, because there seemed to be such a painful discourse going on, and everything seemed to be at Mach 4 level. You could feel it in the news. You can feel it now when you watch it. We’re on the brink of nuclear war one week, and then, the next week we’re on to something else equally extreme. I want to lean into the escalation of fear in our culture.”

That escalation is embodied in Kai, who delivers a verbose speech to his town’s council on why fear and chaos should reign. His interpretation is deemed delusional by the council. “I’m glad you 4Chan guys feel empowered to join the rest of us in civil society now that Papa Bear Trump is telling you it’s OK,” says that same councilmen from Ally and Ivy’s house, laughing at Kai’s emergence from his “parent’s basement.” But Kai has indeed tapped into the pervading fear surrounding them. He baits a group of Mexicans into beating him up, so he can use the scenario to his own political advantage. And he throws a drink on the lesbian couple he encounters on the street, Ally and Ivy.

As the restaurant owners and their white privilege become a target of Murphy’s satire, they also represent the Americans who long for the days of President Barack Obama. “For the first time I was included in the discussion, in the world,” Ally tells her shrink, played by Cheyenne Jackson.

“Our feeling is that everybody lost their shit after the election — Republican or Democrat — and everybody’s still losing their shit, and nobody’s really figured out from either side where to put those feelings,” Murphy explained. “[This season] is about somebody who has the wherewithal to put their finger up in the wind and see that that’s what’s happening and is using that to rise up and form power. Using people’s vulnerabilities about how they’re afraid and they don’t know where to turn, and they feel like the world is on fire.”

Though the season has plenty of satire on both sides — “I think that we’ve been very careful to be fair,” said Murphy, who laughed at Ally fighting her clown demons with bottles of rosé — the showrunner said he wanted Kai’s Cheetos-happy reaction to the election to represent the blindness many in this country had leading up to Trump’s election. (And yes, those were real Cheetos.)

“Evan really put real Cheetos on his face, but it was also meant to be a little bit deeper,” Murphy explained. “The idea that you can make fun of Trump all that you want to, and you can claim that he’s absolutely a ridiculous figure, which many people do, but there is some anger in the country and passion in the country that he has tapped into that elevates him from a cartoon figure to someone to be taken seriously, in my book.”

That anger and how it has the power to manipulate is truly what the season is all about.

“Evan’s character was making that statement and rubbing it into Billie Lourd’s face, that she really was looking in the wrong direction,” he explained. “You felt it leading up to the election with all the liberal news. The laughter and cackling that all of the liberal news shows would have about that group of people in our culture, making fun of them, talking about then in a negative way, which led to the shock of, ‘Oh, they haven’t been taking these people seriously. They’re not jokes. There’s something go on there.’ That’s what that scene is about.”

The premiere sets the stage for Ally and Kai to again cross paths, as the couple hires Winter as a nanny for Oz. Winter and Kai will also continue to reveal themselves in mysterious ways, but after screening the first three episodes, it’s unclear how the characters will seemingly be joining Kai’s yet-to-be-revealed cult.

Throughout the season, Peters will portray six different cult leaders through flashbacks, including Manson, David Koresh, Jim Jones and even Andy Warhol. And Trump supporter Kai elevates himself from running for city council to running for the Senate. “I think he’s really a young genius,” said Murphy. “He has really taken the part seriously, and done a lot of research about cults and the rise of fascism, and what does that take, and how do you speak to crowds, and how do you manipulate people?”

American Horror Story

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