#people hate to see actual problematic horrible people work towards redemption

[boise-douglas]

The people who are replying with so much Cullen hate fundamentally don’t understand his character. Cullen is introduced in the same game that Alistair is, I doubt they were trying to make an Alistair 2.0 when they already had one.

But from the first interaction with Cullen at the circle in Fereldan, Alistair specifically says ‘oh poor guy, he is hatred of mages has overtaken him.’ It’s a direct acknowledgment that they are different, that Cullen has gone through different circumstances than Alistair and responded differently. Alisitair is a product of neglect and abuse, Cullen is a product of propaganda and fear mongering and addiction.

Cullen had a great childhood and grew up surrounded by templars who seemed like valiant heroes in their shiny armors. (The wording in this post makes it sound like he was abusive towards his older sister when they actually have a great relationship.) Obviously a young boy with nothing to his name would want to aspire to be like them. Imagine you grew up poor and were surrounded by soldiers in dress uniform who regaled stories of heroics to you all day. You’d want to be like them too. He steadfastly wants to be a Templar, throughout all the horrors of it, because it’s what’s been fed to him as a glorious profession. He hasn’t traveled or been around mages enough to understand the abusive dynamics at play here yet.

Also, he doesn’t just hate the mages out of nowhere. He has a pretty traumatic experience at the circle in fereldan with the desire and sloth demons. He’s the last of his group to remain sane and is trapped in a prison being mentally tortured for what is probably days in the game. How could that not manifest into resentment.

He then is sent to Kirkwall, away from family members or any support system besides the templars and the chantry, where he is directly under a fanatic. Yes he follows her willingly, because what else would he reasonably do? I’m not excusing his actions by any means, I’m just saying that someone who is so heavily indoctrinated, so heavily scared and resentful of mages, and so utterly alone would not realistically say “let me remove myself emotionally from this and look critically at the situation.”

As for the retcon point, no you can’t really condemn cullen because he admits he was wrong. He feels extreme guilt towards it. If you console him and say it was alright, he forcibly says no, it wasn’t alright. I killed innocent people and followed a lunatic. The other games he simply is not a companion like Alistair is, so you can’t get on him as intimately as you can Alistair. Not to say Inquisition is particularly good at allowing disagreements with people (especially as a dalish elf hoo boy).

The example the OP used for dialogue is also not a good example. Imagine someone saying “Oh you were in a prison once, right?” and you respond “Yes and I bet you wish I was still locked up there too huh” like what?? You can’t confront Cullen about his past directly yet (an oversight for inquisition for sure) but you’re obviously not really trying to argue with him or confront him now, the dialogue option is pretty cut and dry ‘asshole’ response. Cullen doesn’t directly respond to what you say because who would? He just says “I’m sorry, it was a bad choice of conversation.” All the other normal dialogue options he expresses that it must have been hard to live there or that it must be refreshing to be somewhere else.

Also, Cullen is undergoing withdrawal from lyrium and trying to command the inquisition without falling to lyrium madness. He’s not funny because the guy is in agony (though he is pretty funny if he walks in on you and Iron Bull, and obviously has some sense of humor if he hangs out with Dorian). And as a separate point, you can’t fault the guy for being devote to his faith. He believes as strongly as Lelianna or Cassandra, but as a soldier he didn’t have the same perception of the chantry as they did.

Lastly, I feel like inquisition tried to show that Cullen has progressed and grown past his mindset in multiple ways. He plays chess with Dorian and if you romance him as a mage you can have multiple conversations about his thoughts on your magic. They don’t ignore his old mindset (in the beginning at haven he talks about the mages there and that he has been keeping a close eye on them and he doesn’t trust them), but they do let him move on from his past. It’s a realistic portrayal of how someone responds to years of propaganda and trauma.

Alistair vs. Cullen

It really annoys me when people act like Alistair and Cullen are the same character, when they are very different.

Alistair grew up with child neglect. When visiting Denerim, Eamon kept him in the kennels. At Redcliffe, he slept in the stables on a pile of hay. Alistair also recounts a time when he was locked in the dungeons for a day before someone came to get him out. And of course he also talks about how Isolde despised him, and “made sure the castle wasn't a home.” But is still convinced that Eamon is a good person and he deserved all that. Cullen had a very fortunate upbringing with a loving family who supported him and what he wanted in life.

Alistair never wanted to be a Templar; he was forced into joining the Order by Eamon. He is vocal about how much he despised this, and considers Duncan recruiting him for the Wardens as “saving” him from them. The only thing he says he enjoyed about Templar training was the educational component, which he did not receive previously. Alistair was a poor recruit because he frankly did not want to be there, and therefore did not take it very seriously. He saw practices like the Harrowing as horrifying, and deepened his dislike of being a Templar further. And as time goes on, he becomes even less of a supporter of the Order; he outright says Meredith is the biggest threat to Kirkwall in Dragon Age II, if made king of Ferelden. It was always Cullen’s dream to be a Templar, and would even force his younger sister to “play the apostate” for his “training” before being recruited. Cullen was an enthusiastic recruit who considered Templar training “all that he had imagined”, and “did not hesitate” in taking his vows. Even the Harrowing did not waver his devotion to the Order, which by Dragon Age II becomes downright fanatical and tyrannical, practically worshipping Meredith. (Though this was later attempted to be retconned in Dragon Age: Inquisition… just as poorly as all the other retcons in that game, taking the path of “just pretend he never said and did all those things!”)

There is a lot of dialogue from Alistair about how much he dislikes the Chantry. Cullen, on the other hand, is extremely faithful and the only criticism he ever has about the Chantry is that they don’t treat the Templars well enough.

Alistair has a good sense of humour—in fact, it’s one of his biggest coping mechanisms. Cullen wouldn’t know a joke if it hit him in the face.

The player can disagree with Alistair on every turn. He is presented as sometimes being right, and sometimes being wrong, like most people. (Side note: more than that, you can be downright verbally, emotionally, and physically abusive to Alistair. Holy shit, I didn’t even realize how bad it can get until reading through the dialogue in the toolset, because I’ve never picked those options in game. I was honest to god flabbergasted and very uncomfortable through much of it.) The player rarely has the chance to even mildly disagree with Cullen. On the rare occasion you do, the dialogue is painted as if the player is being an unreasonable asshole, and he never even addresses what they say. (Example.)

The only reason I think people are capable of mistaking them for another is because fandom likes to donate Alistair’s personality onto Cullen. That and the the ever-frequent whitewashing of Alistair doesn’t help matters. But I’m not even a Cullen fan and I think it’s a disservice to both of them to act like they’re just Alistair and Alistair 2.0, honestly.

[swanhookheart]

Angry Grishaverse book review time!

After watching and LOVING s1 of Shadow and Bone, I read the trilogy! I was not impressed. 

Spoilers incoming for Grishaverse stuff, so if you don’t want those, don’t read on!

Watching Shadow and Bone this past weekend, I was hooked : Darklina, the lore behind the amplifiers, the Aleksander backstory… I was really impressed and hoped that this was it--that at last, I’d found a fantasy series that was going somewhere big, something I could really, thoroughly sink my teeth into. 

*Sigh* 

Then I read the books.

The reader / viewer enters the Grishaverse associating darkness with pure evil. The Fold, described early on, is shown to be this bleak, awful, ruinous place where people go to be eaten alive by volcra and hope goes to die. We therefore, naturally, associate the Darkling--who possesses the power of shadow--with that evil from the off. I’m speaking as someone who only got into the Grishaverse last Saturday. My initial thoughts were, “oh, he’s being set up to be viewed as dark and scary; this is the expectation Bardugo wants us to have so that we’ll be blown away by some great twist later. Count me in!”

But that twist never came. He was set up as evil, and he stayed evil. Surprise, he’s the Black Heretic! Surprise, he’s an abomination effectively created by Morezova’s greed! Surprise, he’s ruthless and horrible and does cruel things! Except none of those things are actually surprising, given he was SET UP from the beginning to be viewed that way. He did bad things, walked a bad walk, and talked a bad talk. I kept thinking “ah, so he’s gonna get a sweeeet redemption arc,” and then he just never did. That element of the story was predictable to a nauseating degree, and that predictability made the entire universe feel a bit flat. If the reader saw more of his backstory, had more real, logical, sound justification for why he does the things he does (like in the show, where they at least tried to paint his actions as borne of some misplaced sense of servitude / protection for the Grisha or where we saw him actively struggling at points to grapple with the darkness inside him), then maybe the trilogy wouldn’t have been such a letdown. And yes, I know about his sacrifice or whatever later on. It’s not enough.

In villains, I and probably plenty of others like to see humanity. We want to empathize with our villains to a certain extent--to understand them just a little bit--so we can fully commit to hating them when they violate our trust. The Darkling didn’t have that human, redeeming quality, though--at least, not in the books. In the books, he was just a power-hungry jackass who simultaneously didn’t want to be alone and kept trying to kill his only opportunity not to be alone. His single-mindedness, his lack of human empathy, the simplicity with which he pursued this made him seem almost stupid to me as a reader. For someone who’s lived hundreds of years, he’s kind of an idiot when it comes to other people--which, itself, almost seems incongruous with his having lived for so long. If he’d maybe had more backstory or more in his story to justify his actions, maybe he’d feel like a better villain. But atm, all I’m doing is rolling my eyes with him. I couldn’t love him because he didn’t put in any work toward being a better person. Even in the end, he doesn’t actually do the work or repent. But I also can’t hate him because the source material hasn’t given me enough actual human qualities to hate or to feel betrayed. His character just… missed the mark for me. 

As did Mal’s. Fucking MAL, oh my GOD! This dude’s literal only personality trait was loving Alina. Cool, he could track--for Alina, mostly. He could fight--for Alina. “I am become a blade”? Sir, you got a whole-ass tattoo announcing that you’re an object in this woman’s service? No WAP is worth that, and I’m speaking as a very bisexual woman. My dude, it’s weird, it’s extra, it’s just too much. I’ll go back to the Darkling for two seconds to say that, ofc, his actions were painted as problematic and misogynistic and gross. But, like, the possessiveness Mal displays with Alina kinda feels on that same level? Why are we pretending he’s better when he actively tries to keep her low, keep her powerless, and keep her his? Again, dude got a tattoo of her sigil. He was fully prepared to be the leader of her guard even if she married Nikolai just for the opportunity for some sexytimes. I know that YA is about really intense emotion, the fire of teenage hormones and stuff, but that all just felt a bit toxic. The way that his entire life revolved around her while she tried to balance the role of saint, hero, orphan, and all the things she was just felt goofy and like a wildly unhealthy dynamic. 

Their whole relationship also felt really obvious, as I guess the Darkling being revealed as the trilogy’s big bad did. It was predictable, set up to be that way from the start. There were no surprises. It was Mal, and then it was still Mal, and in the end, it was also Mal. We weren’t really shown any of what made them so drawn to each other, we were just kind of told and expected to be fine with the intensity of it. But it read as being way too much for me, and god, it kept getting worse. Again, this one felt like low-hanging fruit--low effort, lazy writing. Nothing about it actually read to me as romantic, just as too much. They didn’t so much as fall in love as just start out that way, and reading that was somewhere between boring and uncomfortable. At least with the Darkling or hell--even Nikolai--we saw some of that chemistry unfold on the page. We were shown some of what made them work the way they did. There was something underpinning their relationship, and not just “oh, they’re supposed to be together”. I mean, after all JKR’s bullshit, I feel totally fine saying fuck authorial intent. If you can’t even be bothered to actually put your shit on the page, don’t ask me to blindly accept your version canon as gospel truth. 

We could have had Deckerstar vibes, Beauty and the Beast vibes, seen light and dark come together and surprise us by actually working well together. But no, we saw a special girl lose everything that made her special and settle for some mediocre fuckboy from her hometown. We get characters that actually have the potential to be dynamic and make for a good story, but she still ends up with this bland, vanilla, trick-ass bitch? It’s a major letdown when you’ve actually been exposed to decent fictional couples, tbh.

OOF! And the ending? Oh jesus fuck, that ending. Darkling just… dies. Just like that. I read three whole books for that? I know he comes back and dies again and all, but the whole trilogy felt like it was building up to something more, something deeper and greater and more profound. He was horrible for the things he did, sure, and he deserved defeat as long as he refused to waver from his power-hungry, destructive path. But his death brought about no closure. He and Alina never actually had the fight they needed to or reached an understanding with each other. Everything is left undone, unsaid, unexplored. The ending just felt super anticlimactic on the page, and so, the trilogy as a whole fell completely short of any mark I hoped it might hit.

Did I hope Darklina would be endgame? Sure. But I’d also have been A-okay with a tragic ending if it had been done right. Did I think it would have been a lot more interesting to see a redemption arc for Darkling than just… more of the same? Or maybe Mal develop a personality outside of Alina? Absolutely. There was so much potential, and it really feels like Bardugo squandered all of it. And for what? This was nearly as disappointing as the eighth season of Game of Thrones. I probably won’t be watching future seasons if they follow the books, but I guess I’m glad for the day or so of fleeting pleasure I got when I still had hope for a properly told story. 

[hello-yue-here]

For the ask game:

tyzula

zukka

and that’s all I can think of now.

NOW WERE COOKIN

tyzula

i like it. i do. i think that if its well written and actually acknowledges how problematic azula and ty lees friendship was in the show and actively works to overcome that and grow from that then i enjoy it. but if its just written as a toxic ship or doesnt address all the shitty things azula did then its a no from me. i dont like toxic ships and in canon their friendship is INCREDIBLY toxic and while i love azula, in order for me to like a fic with azula in it and shes being portrayed as a “good guy” then youve gotta acknowledge what she did to make her evil in the first place. i hate when people gloss over the fact that she was an imperialist and was super manipulative towards people who were supposed to be her friends. in canon she was a horrible person and yes she was abused and yes she was just a kid and yes she did not deserve to be abused but that doesnt change the fact that she was still not a good person. i feel like theres a good amount of tyzula content out there that does an incredible job of addressing this and making sure they craft a good redemption arc for azula and depicts the relationship in a healthy way. other than that ive never had any issues with tyzula shippers and i do say that i ship them myself. ive hardly heard about any drama among peoppe who say tyzula is their otp and ship it hardcore (i have heard some toxic stuff tho so it isnt perfect but its also very rare for that kinda stuff to pop up on my dash) so at least from my understanding its a good fanbase a majority of the time. on a much more positive note i really enjoy their dynamic. i like how azula can be rough around the edges and very regal and proper and still bitchy and then ty lee is there to be bubbly and creative and bring joy into azulas life. i think they balance each other out well and in canon we can see very clearly how much they admire each other (despite the toxicity in canon). azula wishes she were more like ty lee and ty lee thinks azula is amazing and gorgeous. i think theyre a good pairing when done correctly.

zukka.

MY LOVES. i adore zukka. i think they have so many parallels in canon such as being over shadowed by their prodigy younger sisters, their insecurities, their profficiency in weaponry, their anxiety about following in their fathers footsteps (in diff ways obviously). i think their personalities mesh well together. dramatic dickhead zuko. genius snarky bastard sokka. i love them. and the content we get from zukka creators is SO GOOD. the art the fics everything. i love it so much. i personally relate very much to zuko in the sense that he has lots of anger and is dramatic and i relate to sokka a lot too in the semse that im sarcastic and smart and hide my emotions a lot and sometimes feel second best to my friends. i see myself in both of them and when i see them together being happy it makes me feel happy.

zukka fans on the other hand. there are good zukka fans out there. there are wonderful funny amazing zukka fans out there. but holy fuck the number of zukkas out there who conpletely fetishize the ship and strip away all of their character traits so they can make them into a weak little baby boy zuko and a suave macho man sokka (which btw are both racist characatures. if you havent seen all the poc on this app who have called these characterizations out then please please please reevaluate how ur interacting w zukka because not only is it so out of characfer for both of them. it is literally racist). and while there are so many good fics and fanarts for zukka, there is an OVERWHELMINGS number of racist, transphobic, biphobic, homophobic, and all around problematic content everywhere. and some fans are so toxic that it makes me rlly dislike being a zukka sometimes. i will always love the ship but sometimes i feel a little embarassed to be associated with it. i know that i do my best to stay far away from the toxic fans but it gets so frustrating sometimes. i know not every zukka is like this, literally all of my zukka mutuals are wonderful and amazing. but the amount of toxic fans is turning so many people off of the ship and causing people who genuinely enjoyed it to be turned off by it and its giving the good zukkas a bad name. im very upset by the reputation zukka fans have gained on this website from the toxic fans who antagonize other ships (primarily zks. i love zk. just because zks ship zuko with katara doesnt mean that its awful. toxic zukkas plz leave zks alone. so many of them are so nice. i know theres always toxic fans in every fandom and for every ship but like,,, its just so much easier to stay in ur own lane yk?). with that being said i love zukka as a ship but the fans have made it hard for many people to enjoy so sometimes its frustrating. but i love zukka. i think they are a wonderful ship and they are my favorite one in atla.

[raexxbb]

Critic of Cartoons (SPOILERS!)

KyI figured I would begin doing on here what I do in my life. Rate a cartoon 10 out of 0 (-10 being highest/best and zero being the worst of the worst nonsense-) while telling my thoughts as to why. The third one is older and full of adventure with tales beyond what’s expected. Now on Netflix:

9 -Avatar: the Last Airbender

This may get a bit long ‘cause I want to bring each character justice. I love this show so much. I only deducted one point for the smallest of reasons otherwise it probably would have gotten a ten.

There’s a strong love-hate relationship with this show. All of the characters are incredible in there own unique way. My only issue is with the fact that the ‘hero gets the girl’ and does so by being whiny. It’s such a cliche and literally the only reason this show has a nine. The romantic element has a strong scale to hold but this show does a poor job of holding it up. Aang is fine, and I love Katara just not them romantically. Aang’s crush on her right away just rubbed me weird. I guess, it’s fine to crush on a pretty girl but to push the crush so much until she feels the same way... Katara had multiple boyfriends along the show and didn’t show much interest in Aang other then as a friend. So, them romantically together I never saw it being as Aang also pushes the chemistry. That’s it, my only issue is there in that relationship. Alone every character is very well thought out and placed in such a particular situation it makes them each perfect.

This forced kiss is the most disgusting moment in the entire show. He pushes this on her right after she says she’s confused and doesn’t know her feelings towards anyone. He’s just being childish (yes, I register he’s twelve) but if you want an adult relationship this is the wrong way to go about it. I don’t see why Katara would ever consider moving into a romantic relationship after this. Pushy is such a red-flag for me. Maybe I’m the only one that feels this way but it just outright infuriates me. Just look at how uncomfortable she looks during this moment.

Another thing I’d like to bring to light is the fact that Aang maybe a bit sexiest. I state this lightly ‘cause of the play episode in the third season. The thought came to be while reviewing Korra. Katara fights against sexism and to empower women. However, Aang became overly insulted when a woman was acting as him in the Ember Island play. Toph loved the idea of a guy playing her, but Aang just couldn’t get over his part being played by a female cast member. It is rude. Yes, everyone knows he still isn’t a girl but that doesn’t mean she wasn’t doing a decent job representing him. The fact that Katara still enters into a relationship just makes me feel like she’s going against something she stood so strongly for. 

People may believe it’s because I favor Zuko and Katara but it isn’t that. Honestly, I’m no longer sure I like them as a couple anymore either. They have cute moments. There are just so many issues among all of the romantic relationships. Somehow, I found myself wishing it revolved more around friendship ‘cause the romance in this show wasn’t handled well at all.

The only reason I’d ever argue for Katara and Zuko to be a couple is because of the ending where he saves her life from Azula. I mean, yes, he put her in danger quite a few times but he was slowly redeeming himself throughout all of that. This wasn’t the only time he saved her and tried to give his life for hers. Throughout the third season of him trying to redeem himself, he tried the hardest with Katara because he had already betrayed her trust once. 

Although, I’m still not saying they would’ve been the best couple either. Let’s not forget: they’re young -teenagers and children. If someone has found their soulmate already, good for them. It’s just abnormal and I’m trying to look at these relationships with a bit of a more realistic thought process. 

There are a few times this show has been about friendship:

Toph was once worried about their friendships, however, one line from Roku gave her confidence and soothed her completely.

“Some friendships are so strong, they can even transcend lifetimes.” -Avatar Roku

Really love this quote from Roku~ 

Zuko’s redemption ark was beyond the best point in the show and had me balling the entire time, every time I’ve watched it gets my heart throbbing for this boy! What if his mother had taken him with her? His life would’ve been so different and probably a lot better! The scar would be gone. No father abuse for him! Of course, without him the Fire Nation would be even worse then it ever was.

“It was to teach you respect!” -Ozai

“It was cruel! And it was wrong!” -Zuko

“Then you’ve learned nothing!” -Ozai

“NO! I’ve learned everything! And, I’ve had to do it on my own.” -Zuko

That conversation with his father, where he finally stands up to such a horrible man was beyond astonishing. Especially seeing as it seemed like something Zuko would never do. 

Although, Iroh new all along that Zuko is great.

“Then would you come and take your rightful place on the throne?” -Zuko

“No. Someone new much take the throne. An idealist with a pure heart and unquestionable honor. It has to be you, Prince Zuko.” -Iroh

Uncle has always believed in his nephew. That he would be the one to take the Fire Nation and bring balance to the world. They’re the best relationship in this show once Zuko stops being so angry.

Of course, there’s also the Mai of it all. 

They’re occasionally good for each other. Their relationship is highly problematic. Mai is an awesome character alone, standing up to Azula when she’s terrified of her is great! However, Zuko and her argue nonstop and have an on-off dating history. It can be tiresome to watch. There just wasn’t any chemistry between them that I felt.

The only thing that I love about them is the prison scene. (Which could’ve been a friendship scene.)

Even when Zuko locks her away she chooses him. That is when I thought perhaps their relationship isn’t terrible. She still chooses him afterwards. Their behavior before is erratic and not that of a good relationship. Mai alone wouldn’t have been a trouble thing. Honestly, I relate to Mai as a gayer character then straight.

Although, that leads me to think about Azula, the girl of evil.

“My own mother, thought I was a monster...” -Azula

She’s only fourteen and she’s been raised by an abusive mad man. The entire background just makes me wish someone had tried to love her instead of shown her hatred. Her mother feared her, didn’t even say good-bye. Her brother had to fight her in order to save her from herself and father. 

The thing that made her truly snap was her friends (only ‘cause they fear her) betray her. The last people she had on her side! She just needed love as Zuko did. It would probably take her years to recover from the madness just as it took Zuko. She needs love and help. Who was going to give it to her after the third season? 

In the graphic novels, it’s revealed Zuko has her in a special insane asylum trying to give her the mental help she needs. But, she still seems tense and full of rage. It would’ve been nice to see further into that department of the Fire Nation.

These two are both extremely important. Their bond throughout the entire story is amazing. Him becoming his teacher was his true redemption, true honor came from that act. Of course, he learned so much from hunting Aang and trying to kill him as well.

Above all else, Uncle Iroh (-Zuko’s true father-) is definitely my favorite of all the characters. He’s just so warm and always does the right thing. He waited for Zuko when he went down the wrong path continuously knowing Zuko would realize his mistakes.

The White Lotus is one of the greatest things about this show.

“Don’t you know? All old people know each other?” -King Bumi

He’s just so hilarious and random. All of the great masters together in a secret society despite their nation’s differences is the most grandest thing.

Of course, another favorite is Appa.

The episode portraying animal abuse is heartwrenching. Him being taken from the ones that love and protect him only to be beaten and abused. This show goes beyond any other show in displaying all the different types of abuse in the world- emotional, physical... And it covers even more than this.

Another piece of me would’ve been interested in seeing if Aang had died and a water Avatar born to be the last Airbender. *Cough, cough* Maybe Katara? She is the most powerful bender in the show after all.

“I will never ever turn my back on people who need me!” -Katara

Perhaps instead of killing Aang off, just have them be wrong that he’s the Avatar and so whoever was actually got killed during the air temple raid. Causing the line to move on to water. Aang could’ve been trapped in an iceberg to be able to teach Katara air. Of course, that may not work if he weren’t able to waterbend and freeze a bubble around him. But, there’s definitely an air pocket in there. 

It is one of the most beautiful cartoons ever created. Besides the fact I never really enjoyed Aang as the main character. All of the others are just so much more interesting then him, in my opinion.

Toph is one of the many characters I didn’t discuss. That fact just is that Toph is beyond incredible. She is the character that is ahead of her time. She proves that being disabled doesn’t mean she a person that’ll stop trying.That’s all, her blindness doesn’t work against her. Instead it works for her giving her a stronger way to see the world.

I’ll be doing Avatar: Legend of Korra at a later time. Trying to make sure I go back and re-watch everything to properly review it.

I really wish they would go back and create a show called Avatars about all of the past lives. Maybe 2/3 episodes to display each of them. There are hundreds and I’m curious to know more about them. I’d love to see Kyoshi as a badass teenager.

[gffa]

Second question. I love love love Anakin to the moon and back. But, idk if it's this new tumblr's culture of "no problematic shit allowed", I have to admit a lot of people either bash him or Darth Vader in particular. Do you think how Anakin was characterizated in the prequels is a good portrayal of his feelings and actions? Is he an irredimable, pure, wondeful villain or we're allowed to be sympathetic towards him despite what he did? Do you think his eventual redemption arc is satysfing?

In my experience, the “no problematic shit allowed” has swung in the other direction for Anakin, in that his actions and choices are justified because he was sad about some stuff and clearly no one ever tried to help him ever, definitely no one ever repeatedly tried to talk to him about stuff and he definitely never consistently rebuffed them.  –I say with a genuine teasing tone!I think the canon (and word of god commentary) was pretty clear about how we’re meant to sympathize with Anakin to a degree, starting out with The Phantom Menace, where George Lucas says a lot of people were mad because they wanted Baby Vader to be this little demon kid and he wasn’t, he was a good boy who had too much power and didn’t want to learn the difference between compassionate love and possessive love.If we weren’t meant to be sympathetic to Anakin, we wouldn’t have scenes like him crying over his mother’s death, crying at Padme about what he’d done and collapsing into a heap, desperately hurting because he lost control of himself.  If we weren’t meant to be sympathetic to Anakin, we wouldn’t see him crying while trying to decide if he should stay back in the Temple or go help Palpatine because he wants to save Padme’s life, no matter the cost.  If we weren’t meant to be sympathetic to Anakin, we wouldn’t get so many scenes of him being charismatic, being adorable (the ENTIRE FIRST HALF HOUR OF ROTS is Anakin and Obi-Wan’s delightful banter, there’s SO MUCH of AOTC where Anakin may be a brat, but he’s a sweet brat).  If we weren’t meant to be sympathetic to Anakin, Obi-Wan would never have tried to save him throughout that entire fight on Mustafar.  Of course we’re meant to be sympathetic to Anakin, his anxieties and fears, rather than just having him be Baby Vader from the beginning.For contrast, one of the things that I found interesting about Krell is that Dave Filoni talks about why they wrote him the way they did, that he was very obviously a villain from the beginning, because he didn’t want kids to get invested in this hero, only to be devastated when he was actually bad, that we already get this with Anakin.  If Star Wars wanted us to hate Anakin, they would not have been subtle about it.But at the same time, we’re not meant to excuse Anakin’s actions because he’s sympathetic, either.  He makes monstrous choices and he absolutely had the wisdom to know better.  He has people who offer to talk to him–Obi-Wan does so repeatedly, Ahsoka also mentions how he doesn’t talk to her about his past ever–but he turns away from their help.  His fears aren’t the problem, they’ve never been the problem, but instead from the very moment he came to the Jedi, his choice to not face them, to not admit to them being there, to not be willing to work on them and let them go, has been the problem.  This is why I loved Dark Lord of the Sith so much, because it’s a 25 issue comic that illustrates all these other choices Anakin had (he could have left the Jedi, he could have returned to the light, he could have taken Palpatine out, he could have asked Obi-Wan for help, he could have done so many different things, and instead his answer to literally having these shoved into his brain is, “No. This is all there is.”) and this is why I love the short story Master and Apprentice from From a Certain Point of View.“Anakin became a Jedi Knight,” Obi-Wan interjects, a thread of steel in his voice. “He served valiantly in the Clone Wars. His fall to darkness was more his choice than anyone else’s failure. Yes, I bear some responsibility—and perhaps you do, too—but Anakin had the training and the wisdom to choose a better path. He did not.” (–Master and Apprentice, From a Certain Point of View, Claudia Gray)This is specifically why his return to Anakin Skywalker as a Force Ghost is so meaningful, in that he finally let go of all that rage, that hate, that fear.  It wouldn’t mean anything if he hadn’t spent his entire life holding onto those fears and anger and hate, just like the climactic fight on Mustafar wouldn’t mean anything if we weren’t heartbroken by it, which we wouldn’t be if we weren’t meant to love Anakin, just as much as we hate him for murdering children and stabbing the family that took him in in the backs.Anakin’s story is satisfying because it’s an illustration of how someone so bright can go so wrong, how the hurts we all deal with can eat away at us if we don’t actively face them and work through them.  How we can lose our way if we get too far into our own justifications because we’re afraid of things we don’t want to deal with and don’t want to face.  He doesn’t want to face that death is a part of life, that sometimes we have to let go of the feelings inside us because they’re eating away at our hearts, no matter how special those feelings make us feel.It’s important that he was a good person at one point in time, how he returned to that person by doing what he should have done a long time ago, how it’s not too late for him to find inner peace and redemption.  How being selfless is narratively rewarded.  How the truth of Darth Vader is, as George Lucas says, “He’s done a lot of horrible things in his life that he isn’t particularly proud of. Ultimately, he’s just a pathetic guy who’s had a very sad life.“Anakin Skywalker lived a sad life, because he made terrible choices and couldn’t let go of what was eating him, never really wanted to do the hard internal work for it.  There are few people who can’t relate to that on at least some level, being afraid to look at the worst things inside ourselves.  I mean, that’s why the Force is what it is, that George laid it out as the light is the good things within us, that the dark is the selfish and greedy things within us, that we have to face both, that discipline is the only way to turn back to the light, that we all have a choice, but the world works better if you’re on the side of good.Anakin’s story has impact and meaning because his story is the central story of Star Wars, the themes of Star Wars are the themes of Anakin Skywalker.  The prequels fill in this context brilliantly, to show us that he was both an incredible hero and an incredible villain.  That his good choices do not negate his villainy and his monstrous choices do not negate the good in him, they’re both an important part of the equation, just like the light and the dark are both important parts of the Force and it’s up to you to choose how to navigate them.  Whether to be good or to be evil, the potential for both is in all of us, and ultimately Star Wars is about choice.  And about breaking our hearts–which you can’t do, if you’re not meant to find even the second worst villain of the entire Saga to be sympathetic in many ways!

[myfandomrambles]

An Analysis of Villianey

( This is Part 1b, Part 1a here)

Section II: Tragic Backstories

This is another super common way to make villains sympathetic. Giving someone a terrible childhood is a short cut to make someone feel bad for someone. Tragic backstories are super common and sometimes making the villains the most compelling character in really good ways. Both to make the characters truly a person who is empathetic or just understandable. There are three ways I think this can be done really well.

You can make them a redeemed character like Zuko (Avatar: The Last Airbender), Megamind (Megamind) or Peridot (Steven Universe).

An anti-hero/grey characters who don’t join the light side but acts heroically but on their own code. Wade Wilson (Deadpool), Dexter Morgan (Dexter), Punisher (Marvel), Harley Quinn (DC)  or Don Vito Corleone (The Godfather)  

A  bad guy who remains bad at the end, we know why they are bad but aren’t ever fixed. EX: Merrin Meredith (Septimus Heap), Morgana (BBC Merlin), Voldemort (Harry Potter),  Bane (DC), Or Davros (Doctor Who)

One important thing about writing these stories is to be done right you do have to choose the end game. How the character acts in relationships during the story changes which outcome is compelling and even feels possible. Things to consider:  rather they have any guiding belief system if this backstory includes trauma how the heal from that, their relationship to the power system, and how much they change their actions to move towards saying sorry and becoming better. Not every character is written in a way where a character can become better, or even should. The Diamonds (Steven Universe) keep having their characterization, actions, back story, and relationships altered leaving a confused story arc. The Diamonds are also on a list of characters who should not be redeemed because of the severity of their actions. They are written as space fascists no matter how sad they are it’s problematic to pretend the trauma of a dead love excuses attempted genocide.

A revolting part of this trend is tragedy porn. Stories of violence, poverty, mental illness, child abuse, disability, domestic abuse or sexual assault are exploited for shock value and making money from real pain. This is used to create a reason for a character to be broken or evil. A cheap gritty story of how our villain got there instead of writing an interesting motivation or taking into account the cultural and psychological damage of associating trauma and mental health with villainy. This also plays into the trope of mental illness being dangerous or a problem of morality. If it’s just because they are too broken you can kiss it away and fixing the trauma fixes the problem of horrible acts of violence.  If you do write traumatic backstories as motivation for their actions have the behaviours actually track with trauma. Catra’s (She-Ra 2018)  trauma is inherently tied to her motivation as the villain and essentially to her role as the deuteragonist of the narrative. But they show how and why this trauma matters, and choose to display the abuse in a way that while explicit and horrific isn’t exploitive and the refrain from showing realistic physical abuse that too clearly mirrors real life trauma. Her narrative of becoming the antagonist makes sense with her history of indoctrination, betrayal, fear of violence, and psychological trauma. It mirrors the narrative of the hero as well throwing off their primary abuser in both instances making it possible for this story to not demonize trauma. Another important thing to keep in mind when writing these kinds of narratives is to do research and represent any mental illness at least mostly accurately.

Another frustration is when people use these backstories to form a “well they could never have done/known better” and therefore they did nothing wrong mindset. This an oversimplified reading of good storytelling and the reading for poorly written characters. The idea that no one could ever know better is used in defence of characters like Kylo Ren (Star Wars), Azula (Avatar: The Last Airbender), Billy Hargrove (Stranger Things), Draco Malfoy (Harry Potter). However this excuse really only extends so far it tracks best with children when we see them alter perspective when exposed to other ideas and when the behaviours mirror what was done to them. Abuse and trauma don’t always make angry violent people and the majority of people who do become angry hurt people but not murders. Then you do have indoctrination but there is a reason the Nuremberg defence doesn’t excuse everything.

This excuse also falls apart somewhat when you can point to another character [or real life person] in the same or similar situation who did change. This whole way of viewing things become an exercise in letting people who have hurt others go without their actions analyzed and without being held responsible. In a literary analysis standpoint it’s lazy and in reality, it is dangerous to do this with anyone who was hurt in the past. Empathy and understanding are always important, understanding why people end up where they do is key to life. Some people do horrific things with no trauma, and who did know better searching for a sympathetic reason doesn’t help make things better. And even more so those who have been abused or manipulated and did wrong should be helped to work through trauma and learn to understand and change from they have done in the past not have all of their behaviour excused with a handwave. People shouldn’t be taught that abuse forgives abusing, later on, they should know they never deserve to be treated poorly and they can’t love abusers better.  And of course, this is often applied enviable around factors like race, gender, power level and perceived hotness.

Anti Heros I think are criminally underrated wanting them to either be good or be bad. We romanticize the ones we should see as good [usually hot people] or demonize the ones it’s easier to see as all bad. Anti-heroic characters are hard because the lines differentiate these from redeemed people and real villains are connected to personal morality. But making them black and white is rationalizing when they make choices that are truly harmful as part of their “good” actions. Making them all bad strips the way they are often societal outsiders and the way they learned in the stories to move and act in life. This is the grey morality people claim to want in characters, and claim to see in their faves but people don’t appreciate it when they happen.

Constant manipulation of tragic backstory to say a character didn't really do anything bad, or they deserve redemption excuse also strips away truly tragic stories like the life of Inspector Javert (Les Miserables). Fall from grace stories can be really interesting like Walter White (Breaking Bad) or Harvey Dent (DC). Because sometimes life does eat someone up and they can’t find it in themselves to act in a different manner. Tragic stories are still okay, villains aren’t always going to be the good guys because they are meant to be just that villains. That is how they were written and how the best fit in stories and tell the story wanting to be shared. Sometimes villains made to many choices to hurt other people to be capable of total transformation to hero. These characters can still be three dimensional and interesting but they aren’t people who “done nothing wrong”. They did do something wrong and in the story that is fine, it’s what works in the narrative. Not every person can be healed with forgiveness and a hug.

The concept that Deserving redemption is tied to how sad their life was before but it isn't, it's based on the actions they do during the story.  a careful narrative that shows the path a person took to get the right place, the ways they changed and what influenced it is much more important. Let's use Tony Stark (Marvel) most of Iron Man 1 and iron man 2 are dedicated to him trying to be a better person, to use his remaining life to make the world better and atone for his wrongs. Tony Stark starts off as an unrepentant war criminal allowing the way he was groomed to ignore harm and gain power as an excuse to never address any of what he did was harmful. He drowned his trauma with addictions, shallow relationships. Yes, his trauma as a kid and during the narrative are driving pieces but why he is so heroic, why his phoenix narrative is one of the best in history is the choices he makes with what to do with that pain, he uses it to be earth's greatest defender. You do have some snapshot redemption stories that are good namely Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader (Star Wars) but I think [save the ret-cond Anakin force ghost] this wasn't so much meant to be proving he is a good person, but just acknowledging that no one is truly dark or light side. Anakin’s life is more told as a Shakespearean fall from grace, but even if this arc comes out of nowhere it works because the actions are narratively and thematically done correctly.

People who are obsessed with redemption also often don’t do a real analysis of societal structures, cultural history or context. It’s not that they really are deconstructing societal factors, or understand trauma, mental health or what really causes crime and antisocial behaviour when they try and justify via trauma and no other choice. I think starting to create and analyse content on a wider more holistic standpoint would be a good exercise to apply empathy to real-life crimes of desperation, end the killer = crazy myth, and stop letting people blame hate crimes on white kids being bullied.

[other posts on this topic: Zuko and good redemption arcs, trauma and justification of violence, Catra, Adora & trauma part 1 & 2, the diamonds still suck ]

[doubled-helix]

book thoughts: the hearts we sold (spoilers)

the hearts we sold, emily lloyd-jones

(disclaimer: all of this is my opinion because i decided it’s better for my own writing to reflect upon books i read (thanks college profs). in fact, i’m not even putting it in the main tags so no one should be reading this except future me anyways)

overarching conflict: all books should have one of these. usually it’s to defeat the big bad, which doesn’t quite fit this novel since there wasn’t one defined big bad. i mean, there were the burrowers, which were pretty creepy, but i’m personally fond of the classic puppetmaster villain, who pulls the strings and monologues and bemoans the state of the world or whatnot. think the mage in carry on or luke/kronos in the pjo series. call me old-fashioned. 

my prof told us that books, especially sci-fi/fantasy ones, should have a looming threat that’s constantly hanging over the heroes even as they defeat or are defeated by many smaller threats. like harry facing quirrel, tom riddle/the basilisk, the dementors/sirius black/peter pettigrew (the “one true baddie” was a bit more vague in thisone) - all the while knowing that voldemort’s the final boss. 

in this book, i guess you could say the final big void was the ultimate baddie, but considering neither our main gal nor us knew about this until three quarters of the way through the book, it wasn’t exactly a looming threat, even as the characters did close many smaller voids (the in-between threats books have - the ones between the exposition and climax). i say a bit more about this later, but i think the lack of a dominant big bad may be one of the reasons the book felt stagnant for a good portion of the first half. this, combined with the lack of strong motive dee had - well. it certainly slowed things down. 

things that didn’t work: 1. the “team”: i’m a sucker for a tight-knit group of people who’d kill to protect each other, who poke fun and laugh and joke around à la avatar the last airbender. i’m even more of a sucker for found families, also like avatar the last airbender. but this book’s “team” absolutely did not work for me, and the most probable cause i can think of is that the author just didn’t let us spend enough time with them. 

the main dude james had been with cal and cora for almost two years, and i got none of that from the way he talked about them. in fact, main gal dee actually says that she’s glad james and her have a closer bond than the other two - which, sure, romance, i get it, but if you want to make a dream team you can’t throw half of its members into the wind. 

when cal died, that evoked nothing in me as a reader because i cared about him as much as dee did, and she maybe shared 20 lines total with the guy. similarly, she barely interacted with cora, who was supposed to be the leader, but other than the author telling us that she was the “leader,” there was nothing showing her fulfilling that role. i absolutely hate saying this because it’s the most cliche advice one can offer but “show not tell.” if you want to show a fall from grace, from cool and collected cora to frantic and panicking cora, you gotta show us the grace first. 

riley: don’t get me wrong, i fucking love riley, but she didn’t show up until 70% of the way through the book. and there was a sort of insta-friendship between her, james, and dee. at one point towards the end, she says something like “if we die tonight, i’m glad i met you two” which would be very nice if they hadn’t met 20 pages ago. (i feel like i should note, a few weeks did pass world-wise, but that really doesn’t do much for the reader, who didn’t get to feel any of that time)

it would have been fantastic to have riley with us from the very beginning. her relationship with james and dee felt like it actually had the potential to blossom into that dream team/found family thing. cal and cora felt like they had their own separate lives, which is fantastic in reality because no one should spend all their time with a single group of people, but the thing about stories in my experience is that to be effective, everything - every interaction or desire or situation - should be Too Much. 

also, riley seemed a little too cool with everything that was happening. it took dee at least a few weeks to accept the whole voids and homunculus and world-ending thing, but riley was like “fantastic, let’s do this, i can blow things up” which was a bit sudden. 

cora: i mentioned already how she was the “leader” but didn’t really do anything to show that, but also - i felt like we were supposed to feel sorry for her, or at least understand her motives, but i got absolutely none of that. she killed cal, who i didn’t feel much for, but it was still fairly unforgivable, and she never had an act of redemption. i’ll talk about this later, but i feel like james’s sacrifice at the end should have been hers. she wanted “everyone to live,” that was her motive. sacrificing herself would have been the loop to close her character arc, instead of her just dropping out of the story completely. and speaking of motive...

2. the motive: oh boy, i don’t even think i have authority to talk about this because “motive” is a biggie. they have entire writing courses dedicated to character motives. i read a post a while back that said something to the like of “every character should want something and should want it to the point of obsession.” 

going on my avatar the last airbender comparison (that show’s story is literally my baseline for everything else i read or watch), every character in that show wants something desperately. aang’s is easy - he wants to learn the other three elements and save the world. katara, at least in the first season, is completely focused on mastering waterbending. zuko - capture the avatar, regain his honor (and this one’s definitely an obsession). my point is, if your characters don’t want something desperately, there is no story.

now applying that to this story is a bit tricky because the premise is that these people did want something strongly, strong enough to sell their hearts for it. dee wanted money for boarding school, wanted to get out of her awful home situation. and the daemon gives it to her - the first thing, at least. and then for at least 100 pages, it was like she was just being pulled along with anything that happened, without any intense desire of her own. i felt this most strongly when she was out collecting rocks with james. i understand it was a bonding scene, etc. but goddamn. rocks? it just felt a bit shoehorned in, like there needed to be a good reason for the two to start hanging out that was at least semi-work related.

for a moment, i thought dee’s motive would become trying to break out of the deal, to join cora and end it all - it certainly seemed like she was freaked out enough to do it. but something magical healing romance-esque happened and afterwards, she seemed cool with accepting that she had no other choice. i understand she wasn’t a voluntary hero, but it still feels a bit stale when the savior of humankind is doing it not even to save her own skin or that of her friends, but out of sheer obligation. (however, i will give it to her, there was a nice little scene on the bus towards the end where dee was people-watching, and the part at the very end where she said that she did believe that people were inherently good, what a great development from beginning of the book dee)

things that kinda worked 1. the romance: okay, i understand that “kinda worked” doesn’t sound like the most glowing review for a romance, but from me, it’s practically a declaration of adoration. more often than not, romance in young adult novels just do not work for me, whether because it’s instalove or some love triangle’s at play or the  premise is just problematic. but this one? ehhh, i can’t say i hate it.

james, thank god, is not the dark, angsty, “why are you even speaking to me” male love interest (four, i’m describing four from divergent) that i feel like i see too much. he’s funny, a bit dorky, super big on consent, and basically a sweetheart. the author obviously took some care in building up their relationship a bit before taking it to a romance - though in the process, i think she had to give up a lot of development dee could have had with cora and cal. 

their little fairy tale research road trip was actually one of my favorite parts of the book (i’ll talk about this more later). i did, however, groan every time dee became hyperfocused about the oh-so-scandalous fact of being in a car with a boy, sleeping in the same hotel room as a boy, blah blah with a boy. and i facepalmed quite a bit at the extended hesitancy dee had about calling james her boyfriend. i understand why she hesitated (trust issues, negative body image), but it doesn’t mean i have to like it. which leads me to this next thing.

2. character’s response to abuse: let me preface this by saying that i absolutely despise child abuse as a plot device. this is a personal opinion,  i’m not going to get on any high horse and preach about moral quandaries. 90% of the time, i just don’t like it. a lot of this is because i feel most of the time, the character never gets to confront their abuse - never gets the chance to recognize “oh, what happened to me wasn’t right, and a lot of the negative thoughts i have about myself stem from this abuse, and i should not let it define me.” and more often than i like in ya novels, especially for female victims of child abuse, it’s their male love interest who runs in and beats up their abuser/yells at them about how they were a horrible person, which really doesn’t grant the victim any catharsis at all, and i hate how often that is portrayed as “romantic” or a good way to deal with abusers. 

this book, well. let me just say that dee finally standing up to her father about his alcoholism and telling her parents that when THEY finally decided to change, they knew where to find her - that was some good shit. there was a bit when james came running in that i covered my face and went “oh no, here it goes” but to my pleasant surprise, all he did was support dee and didn’t try to insert himself into the situation at all, which was, you know, fantastic. and gremma casually pulling a fire ax out of her purse in front of dee’s parents? lesbian solidarity.

the thing i disliked the most would have to be dee’s image of herself due to the abuse. i understand you don’t need to overcome trauma solo, but i do wish that she could have realized that she didn’t need to be thin or that she wasn’t broken without james telling her so. also, there was that one line where she tried to minimize her abuse - which i know is a common thing for victims of abuse but once again, i don’t have to like it - and james had to talk her out of it that made me groan. i just generally dont think dealing with the effects of abuse should be anywhere near romance, let alone hand in hand like so many books like to treat it. 

3. the sacrifice: i pride myself on not being easily surprised by books anymore, but i did not expect james to die. and i definitely felt something when that package of harry potter books and dee’s picture and the ct scan of the brain tumor arrived in the penultimate chapter. and i hate to be that person, but...

james got his heart back before the final void opened. he could have not been there, like cora. which means the daemon would have still needed him. why didn’t he just sell his heart once more in exchange for the daemon removing his tumor? sure, this way, i have no idea how they would have gotten out of the manual timer thing - then again, who knows if they would have been so targeted if james had not been carrying the heart into the void in the first place, but i still think the sacrifice should have belonged to cora, who definitely required some sort of redemption act if we wanted her to matter to the story in any way. it could’ve been a nice scene -  a “i couldn’t save cal but hell if i’m going to let you two die” act of closure. really, i keep going back to my grievance over how utterly insignifigant cal and cora felt to the story, especially compared to riley, who only jumped in near the end. 

things that worked 1. diversity: can i get a fucking hell yeah?? i’m so goddamn happy that more and more ya novels are recognizing that the world isn’t full of beautiful white straight people. our main gal dee is half-latino, we have a badass lesbian lady who carries axes in her purse, a fucking awesome trans girl who blows shit up (the fact that she doesn’t show up until near the end is a travesty), and our latter two ladies have a cute as hell romance that i wish we saw more of. side character romance is always more awesome because it doesn’t have the kind of baggage that really kills the vibe of main character romances. 

just - diversity.

2. the research road trip scenes: okay, this is very specific. but i’ve watched far too much supernatural for it to be healthy, and james and dee’s little road trip where they ate bad diner food and spent time at the library reading about old fairy tales and old gods and speculated about angels - i just got such a strong supernatural feeling from it. more specifically, the parts where they have no idea what monster they’re hunting and are flipping through old books to figure it out. it had some really calming good vibes, i loved all the speculation and discussion of how people in the past processed magic. no fancy analysis here, it just really resonated with me. 

final rating: 3 out of 5 stars 

note: it would have been 2.5, but the ending surprising me and making me Feel Things really bumped it up. also, writing this ridiculously long review made me feel more invested and charitable. 

[orionsangel86]

13x07 - Watching Notes - Lucifer, Colonel Sanders, Soap Opera story lines and one very grumpy angel of the lord... it must be a Bucklemming episode!

Since it’s a Bucklemming episode, and I have been seriously behind in getting my episode reviews completed, I thought I would instead just write out my thoughts and reactions to the episode whilst watching for the first time. Usually I don’t do this until I’ve watched an episode a few times but what better way to try to process a Bucklemming Episode than to stop and start and write some stuff down? If anything it may help me understand it a bit better.

My full watching notes and reactions to the episode along with my meta thoughts on it are under the cut. It gets pretty long as it took me over 3 hours to watch the whole thing on Friday evening! It’s taken me until now to actually complete the edit and add some pics to show particularly interesting moments. 

The first thing I did on Friday morning was ask a couple of the guys I talk to regularly what to expect from this episode without giving me any spoilers, I always want to check if I should prepare myself for anything problematic or generally horrible. Thankfully I was told that unlike the majority of Bucklemming episodes this one has nothing rapey in it! Yay! Oh how low the bar is already set!

Other than that, @tinkdw and @margarittet told me that it was so bad it was funny, but that there were some stand out scenes.

I felt somewhat prepared. My expectations were buried deep underground as I prepared myself for the worst. I’m glad I did as I didn’t hate it as much as I thought I would. Full notes/review under the cut...

THEN

Asmodeus, Lucifer and Mary, Asmodeus’ plans.

Michael taking Lucifer. 

So the set up is that its gonna be all about Lucifer and Asmodeus. No surprises there. Bucklemming love their pantomime villains. 

Jack noooooo!

I still don’t understand why he hurt them before he flapped off. It seems so silly that he did that after he used the exact same ability to accidentally kill the security guard. But blaaah that was last episode moving on.

Starting with Lucifer giving a monologue. *grits teeth* It’s really hard to enjoy anything when you actually despise the sound of this guys voice.

*sigh*

All these pretty stock filler shots are quite nice, probably a major contrast between our world and whatever Michael did to the AU.

Ok so it IS Michael reading Lucifer’s thoughts. He wants our world. Because of course he does. Look how pretty those shots were. (Noted Richard is directing this so I expect a very pretty episode regardless of how absurd the script is)

I think @amwritingmeta may be right that Michael is gonna be the real big bad and the scary guy this season. I mean someone needs to be because Asmodeus is a laughable pantomime villain. So I am enjoying this. Give me more of Michael and less of Asmodeus. That is far better.

(we were talking about how I miss the old style villains, the Alistair's and Azazel's and Lilith's were truly scary and awesome to watch in action. Asmodeus in 13x02 just made me cringe so I was praying for a truly terrifying villain this season and Annelie said she hopes Michael takes that role. So I’m rooting for him to be horrifying) 

Oh look classic Bucklemming love their torture scenes. Even if it is Lucifer so I don’t care (Can’t he just stay in that hanging Iron Maiden for good?)

Yup Michael is evil. I like it.

Interesting shot of Lucifer hanging behind the statue of Christ on the cross. That is… well its ironic in a way but also potential foreshadowing. If they give Lucifer a redemption arc I swear to god I am gonna be so fucking mad you will never stop hearing about it. Lucifer cannot be compared to Jesus in any way shape or form. Just NO. Look I’m not religious here but I hate this character and after what he did to Sam he deserves nothing but an agonising death. I will not accept a Lucifer redemption arc.

Okay rant over. Moving on.

Dean has a tiny tea cup. I just wanted to point that out… do they always have tiny teacups? I thought that they were manly men who don’t drink out of tiny cups!

(EDIT: In HINDSIGHT THE TINY TEACUPS FORESHADOW KETCH AND HIS POSH TEA DRINKING)

Okay so what is so great about this scene between Sam and Dean is that it is the total opposite to the scenes we are used to when the missing person is Cas. The fact that it is SAM that is super worried and DEAN that is doing the consoling is just so refreshing and it speaks VOLUMES about the way they each feel about Jack and Cas respectively. Sam developed a bond with the kid. It’s really nice. I hope that is developed.

I know that everyone already talked about the promo scene for ages whilst I was out the other night and only caught glimpses, but I love that Dean is finally using singular terms. He is not talking about him AND Sam here and Cas knew that immediately.

“Sorry darling, my family hate you. You can’t come with me”

That is basically what this moment is. They are such husbands.

The fact that he let Cas go though with just a “Don’t do anything stupid” I mean I wasn’t expecting that because I thought Dean would be far more worried and controlling but again it is nice to see him letting go of his control issues. He trusts Cas, and he accepted Cas’s reasons for going alone (which for once made perfect sense) so I am actually okay with this.

So wait, whilst Cas is looking for Jack and we have Michael/Lucifer stuff in AU world, Sam and Dean are gonna go hunt witch killers? That’s…. okay then…. I’m not sure I understand Bucklemming’s reasons for that but maybe it will make sense later. (who am I kidding from what I have been told nothing makes sense this episode and I just have to go with it – fine. The two main characters aren’t even getting in on the main plot. Whatever. *shrug*)

Oh god Asmodeus you are not scary and your weird purring is dumb.

“I have news of the Jack”

The Jack? Ok now I’m laughing. What?!?

Asmodeus that is some serious manspreading you are doing there. Stop that. I can see your bulge and it is not sexy you evil Colonel Sanders.

(Edit - Dean validating this fandom reaction to Asmodeus later is rather therapeutic - at least bucklemming are aware their OC is STUPID but poking fun at him does not make them seem clever)

Tbh this whole conversation comes across as stupid. I can’t take any of these scenes seriously I’m just laughing and trying not to cringe.

A hunter on the pay roll? Well that is definitely gonna come up later. What happened to the Winchester leadership strategy from last season? I thought they got all the hunters rallied up and on side?

Back to apocalypse world and hey Mary got mentioned. Where IS she?

No DON’T wail on Mary for a while. Does this mean that Michael has her locked up too? I hope he’s not torturing her. Urgh that would suck.

I like the light shining through the cross towards Michael. Very nice shot again. It frames Michael as being this holy and righteous character... actually they did that before:

In the first scene they also had light shining from behind him. I like how this is basically a subversion of a classic story telling trick in film making where the good character/ hero is the one bathed in light to symbolically portray him as pure and honest and trustworthy (like an angel) but this time around Michael IS an angel with his holy light, but it is anything but good. 

Anyway...

Whenever Lucifer talks I switch off. It’s not very good for meta purposes.

Why is his shirt so sparkling white? How is this possible in a alternate universe? This makes no sense logically in this world. Symbolically though it is a sign of purity, cleanliness, goodness... all things we should totally not be associating with Lucifer so this is interesting. Redemption arc. *oh yay* >.>

So Michael has already been exploring opening alternate universes eh? Well, that once again opens up future storylines I suppose. Nice set up, Bucklemming got all the foundation stuff didn’t they?

Hey Kevin! You look terrible. Score a point for Bucklemming for actually bringing BACK one of the characters they brutally killed off.

Ok so with Kevin comes the Angel tablet and another spell that requires angel grace? Talk about a big call back. I smell another possible story foundation.

Wow so Lucifer gets his grace taken almost the exact same way Cas did, to be used in a spell the same way Cas’s was, in a season where they both act as father to a Nephilim son, and apparently team up this episode too? It’s almost like they want to make the audience see a mirror here or something?

Lucifer being a Cas mirror makes me extremely uncomfortable. Trust bucklemming to try to compare my most beloved character with my most hated character. I hate them a little bit more now.

The call backs to season 8 ARE interesting though. Kevin himself is going to through the audience right back to that season, so is the angel tablet, now this with the grace stealing. We are supposed to connect the two. 

Obviously the big themes of season 8 were the toxic codependency, the angel’s fall, Cas’s brainwashing at Naomi’s hands and Destiel. Hmmmm...

Winchesters on their witch hunt. How is this relevant to the story?

KETCH?!?

SAME SAM.

My reaction was the same as the Winchesters. I’m getting whiplash in this episode already and I’m only 10 minutes in. They better have a good excuse for why Ketch is alive.

Hello Witch Daniella. “I know you don’t like witches but I also know you help people who are in trouble”.

This was a good line. Because it’s something that encourages the reading (that some people still refuse to see) that the Winchesters don’t work with absolutes here. There are always shades of grey. Their primary goal is always to help people before they kill things. 

Also a call back to last seasons following the Ketch reveal. Ketch who sees in black and white against the Winchesters who try to focus on the “saving people” part of the tagline first.

Again with the whiplash. Lucifer is giving Kevin a lecture like he’s a good parent. All this Lucifer being right and good is making me nauseaus. It’s almost like Bucklemming are hoping to get #dadifer trending on twitter. (I sincerely hope this didn’t happen)

“Michael is a monster, pure evil”

Way to force the exposition down the audiences throats. I get it. Lucifer is the one we are supposed to root for. Sorry you irritating horned hamsters, it ain’t happening. (I should mention that Horned Hamsters is courtesy of @margarittet which I find way too funny so stole from her *love you*)

Kevin called our world “paradise world” which again, I find very interesting especially in terms of what Cas was brainwashed into thinking by Jack. Cas babe, I think you were tricked – unintentionally mind, but still. Never believe in paradise. Ever.

Welp so that explains one worry we had anyway. Lucifer got back to our world so Cas doesn’t get stuck in the AU at least. So where the hell is Mary? Is Mary not in this episode? See I really need to pay attention to the cast names at the start OTHER than Misha Collins. 

Why is Lucifer wearing a wedding ring? Who’d he marry? Or has he always wore a ring since Nick? Is this just something I have chosen to not see ever in all of Lucifer’s episodes? If so that is purely a sign of me getting old and looking for rings whenever I see men on instinct now. Jesus Saz...

Lucifer you have no grace. You can’t blow people up anymore. Also that was another call back to Cas in 9x01. WHY are they trying to make Lucifer like CAS? STOP IT!!

“My ex husband is Lucifer” Okay I’ll give them that I liked that.

More torture up close. To be expected.

Oh god I can’t with these Asmodeus scenes. I’m sorry but they are awful. All I do is laugh and cringe.

Back to the random witch case that makes no sense and oh yay, more violence and this time against women! Bucklemmings favourite thing!

(I’m sorry I did warn you that this would be a running commentary on my thoughts so its gonna get wanky)

More whiplash and now a shout out to Rowena! We knew she was coming back at some point so it’s good to finally get a story in place for her.

Tying Rowena to Ketch though is possibly tying the BMOL to the Grand Coven which is what we WANTED FOR SEASON 12 so I hope we get that. Even though I still don’t see how Ketch can possibly be alive and at this point I hope it is hilariously unbelievable and idiotic in classic bucklemming fashion because I am enjoying this so far for its absurdity.

Who the hell is this? Ketch’s evil/less evil twin??!

Holy. Fuck.

(I have had to pause and laugh out loud for about five minutes)

I swear to god that I typed that before it was said in the show. I did not just add it in later. I can’t stop laughing.

So is Supernatural now Day’s of Our Lives?!

Oh god. Bucklemming. When Dabb finally fires you maybe you will be able to get work on an American Soap Opera.

Tell me we aren’t actually getting an evil twin plot? (good twin? Just as bad as the first twin? Who fucking knows. Or cares. Wow.)

I mean, Tink was right when she said it was so bad it was laughable. I didn’t think I’d actually laugh out loud but there we go.

I pressed play and Dean says “Do I look stupid to you?”

Bucklemming this is your entire audience right now.

I did like Dean’s little “Woo” there.

So Ketch has a less evil twin brother who failed Kendricks and went to become a paid for hunter. Okay. Sounds fake but okay. I don’t know whether to keep up my suspicion and go with Dean’s gut or to actually just accept that Bucklemming are legitimately this lazy with their writing. what is real?

“Isn’t that’s what we hunters do? Kill the bad thing”

I like this because it is in opposition to what Daniella said earlier. There is a silent question being asked there: “What is it that Sam and Dean actually do?” Is their primary role to protect? Or to destroy? Again it feels like the set up of a much bigger story arc and theme.

Also it’s the kind of thing that KETCH would say. 

“I don’t care how good this story looks, I ain’t buying it” Dean you keep saying my thoughts. I don’t know how to take that. Do Bucklemming just accept that their audience is gonna hate their stuff now? Why are they reading my mind and putting my thoughts in Dean’s mouth! ARGH! It’s giving me a headache.

“There’s Ripley’s Believe it or Not Weird, and then there’s weird that’s just straight up bull” Soooo like every other episode of Supernatural versus episodes written by Bucklemming? Yeah thanks for reading my mind again Dean. Hahahaha!

I kinda feel like there is an undercurrent of self deprecation in the writing here. Like Bucklemming are poking fun at their own absurdity. I’m not sure how comfortable I feel with them being self aware - it’s like they are finally starting to consider how the fandom may react and are playing with that through the characters... are Bucklemming being... smart here? o_O

Dean not buying it though is the classic clue. Dean is always right. So maybe Ketch is just lying. I mean, come on. I really hope we don’t get an evil twin plot because this is so stupid. Dean is always right. That is like rule 1 of SPN. Please don’t screw this up. 

I feel like there is a bit of a mirror going on here.

Sam sitting opposite Ketch no.2, mirroring his position, talking about how he admires his brother, wanted to be like him.

“like you I understood my brothers issues and why he did what he did”

This sentence has a dual meaning because of the way he phrases it with the “like you”. We can read it as Ketch no 2 talking purely about his brother and Sam’s understanding of him, but there is also a reading there where he could be talking about BOTH their brothers and their issues. That was in fact what I heard on first watch.

Sam understands his brother’s issues. That’s what I took from that. Whilst that could mean a bazillion and one things about Dean, there is only one theme that has been constant this season so far and Sam always seemed to not quite understand, or at least not voice any real understanding. Here it is textualised that he does. Interesting.

I mean also the fact that this guy is defending Ketch makes me again think that he is just Ketch and this evil twin stuff is bullshit because I don’t even want to believe Bucklemming would be that lazy with their writing.

The fact that Dean was mirrored to Ketch last season as well, to then talk about regret opens up a whole can of worms about Dean’s own regrets and guilt and what he still carries around with him. This whole conversation has honestly been the most interesting so far this episode because it just seems to be laying foundations for more excellent therapy and development for the Winchesters. In a season that is supposed to be exploring the themes of parenthood and of lost fathers, well… that is something that perks me right up.

YAY CAS I WONDERED WHERE YOU GOT TO!

Wait so let me get this straight. The angels are going extinct (makes sense since they keep killing them) and they think that Jack has the power to create more angels? Like God?

My face is pretty much the same as Cas’s right now.

Shout out to Metatron and the fall. Hmmm they are proper trying to remind us of season 8 in this episode. I wonder why…

Can I just say though, I know it’s not ACTUALLY what they are implying, but the idea of Jack being enslaved so he can create new angels has so many icky connotations to it. I mean this is basically what they are saying right? That they want Jack to be their angel breeder? I mean I GET that such a thing doesn’t actually involve any biological acts of reproduction here since angels aren’t BORN but the concept is still icky to me. It’s icky enough to get my ick factor going and I swear guys I’m not TRYING to find faults with this episode but urgh. Bucklemming. Always have to have SOMETHING icky in there. I thought Daniella’s description of what Ketch No. 2 did to her was icky enough.

“He belongs to all of us”. Dude. He is not a possession.

Hey at least Cas was able to hold his own against three angels there. That was pretty good. Seriously though the fighting choreography is amazing this season.

Lucifer saves Cas by majorly pea-cocking and I have several things to comment on:

“What are you doing back in this world?” “What are you doing alive?” “It’s complicated” “Same here”

I already enjoy it. God I love Cas. I like this exchange. I can already tell that he is going to make the rest of Lucifer’s scenes far more bareable for me to watch.

Cas’s angry face is awesome. Look at angry Cas! Stab him already!

And also:

“Woah Cowboy”

BAHAHAHAHA! Yeah Cas is officially a cowboy and this makes me very happy.

Also, I picked up on this earlier but now it is super obvious to me. The super white shirt with a tan coat. 

I mean it couldn’t be more obvious if they tried. Jack was dressed practically the same way a few episodes ago. Lucifer is not only another Cas mirror himself, but also therefore a symbol of goodness. I hate that. This redemption arc and framing Lucifer as the good guy thing is really driving me mad.

Lucifer wants to save the world… Oh please.

I just gotta stop for a minute and appreciate how pretty Cas is here. Look at him. Bask in his beauty with me for a moment. He looks SO GOOD compared to the last few seasons. They were proper trying to make him look tired and downtrodden and weak these past few seasons because of his depression arc and it is SO REFRESHING to see him look so hot and badass again. I missed you Cas. You sexy thing you...

Okay moving on...

Cas and Lucifer sitting in a bar with Kingdom beer looming overhead. Kingdom beer is Dean’s heavenly beer, so I find it interesting that it is over Lucifer. I hope someone metas this properly as beer signs have never been my forte.

“The last time we were together you killed me”

“The last time we were together you stabbed me”

“Oh I’m sorry”

I love sassy Cassie here. I’ll give Bucklemming this, I am enjoying their dialogue.

“Instead of the butt of heavens joke”

“I am not the…”

Oh Cas honey, they all think you are in love with a Winchester and regularly boning him against heavens rules so yeah, you are certainly the butt of their jokes!

(This is an edit and not notes from my first watch but look at the way the light shines on Cas. This is very much the same as it was with Sam and Dean in 13x02 where the light has the effect of prison bars. We theorised at the end of 13x02 that the prison bar lighting on the boys was symbolic of their emotional prison, where they were both still repressing their true emotions at the time. This time the prison bar lighting is much more ominous. Cas will be imprisoned by episode end. Interestingly the lighting doesn’t shine on Lucifer which leads me to speculate that Lucifer will escape from Asmodeus’ prison and leave Cas behind - which will piss me off but I can’t see any other reason why the prison bar lighting would only be on Cas and not on Lucifer too. Nevertheless it is another interesting way to use lighting and cinematography to portray foreshadowing.)

“I need to talk to Sam and Dean”

*head bang* lol

“Jack. Your sons name is Jack” Yeah you tell him Cas! 

“Oh my dad” oh dear. They keep on using that now. I swear it started in fandom. 

Anyway I love Cas being so grumpy and resistant to this, even though I kind of feel like Cas wouldn’t even hear Lucifer out. It feels too much like they are trying to reignite the Cas/Crowley dynamic and I think Cas would really be far more wary of Lucifer - don’t get me wrong Misha does a great job of portraying Cas’s hesitance and suspicion but I don’t see why he would even hear him out really. This all feels like another way that Bucklemming are trying to push for the audience to root for Lucifer - which so far has been one (of many) major gripes about this episode.

The Winchesters are officially the new Bobby. Lots of phones for different places! Its nice to see stuff in canon that we have head canoned for a while. 

“evil colonel sanders” DEAN STOP READING MY MIND (I scrolled back up and yep I totally used this exact phrase - wow Bucklemming are so fandom aware now its scary)

“Yes I would like to see you too, sooner the better”

“smooth was never your strong suit”

Lol Dean senses something was wrong because Cas came on too strong for him. What even WAS that Cas? Was he actually trying to hide his real conversation with Lucifer by being all clingy with his husband?! WHAT?

Okay so backing up and considering this for a moment though, of all the things Cas could have said there, let alone maybe just telling Dean that he was with Lucifer and saying “Fuck you Lucifer I do what I want” because WHY would he have hid the phone call from Lucifer in the first place? But then to say something like THAT leading Lucifer to just think he was being a needy husband well. I dunno what to even make of it. 

But Dean immediately knew something was wrong because of Cas being over needy. Poor thing thinking Cas coming on too strong is actually a call for help... argh these two are so annoying.  

“You did tell him not to do anything stupid”

“Right and when’s the last time that’s worked?”

Oh Dean.

Now I REALLY think something is gonna go wrong. Dean is always right…

Urgh Asmodeus.

Of course Asmodeus wants to keep hell. That wasn’t exactly a shocker. 

“this new version seems a little more screwable” Really Bucklemming? REALLY? Stop trying to make Lucifer into the good guy. Stop trying to make him sexy. He is NOT screwable. He is abominable. I will fight this arc with every ounce of my meta being. Urgh. I don’t even care that this was supposed to be a funny joke for the fans. Go AWAY. 

Ten bucks says people are now shipping Asmodifer. *shudders*

@elizabethrobertajones​ is this a contender for #worstshipontheshow? Or does that title still belong to Crowlatron?

The bar was called “Nick’s bar”. Ha. Ha. *slow clap*

Why do these demons have angel blades? When did this become a thing?

I am loving the fight scenes this season. Very epic. Oh look Ketch No. 2 escaped and is helping them.

“If you’d done the prescribed cavity search you’d have found it” haha oh lovely. Lets hope he meant his mouth. Though Ketch always seemed to rather enjoy Dean’s attention... I have no doubt he’d enjoy any ‘cavity searching’ from Dean.

Maybe THAT is the worst ship on the show?

“What’s become of your angel?” I am pretty sure this is actual Ketch if he is already calling Cas ‘your angel’ to Dean. How would the new guy know to pick up on the subtext between them otherwise? He hasn’t even seen the eye sex yet!

BINGO! Actual Ketch it is. 

(that explains how he knew about “your angel” then lol)

Heh. I guess the soap opera evil twin story was too terrible for even Bucklemming to use. It was the classic Rowena revive potion instead. That actually makes sense now and I should have been smarter with that one. How else would Ketch have actually survived. Why else would he have wanted Rowena? I guess that’s how Rowena is alive too then. If that spell just needs recharging then Rowena recovered from whatever Lucifer did to her. I’m looking forward to her return that’s for sure. 

I wonder if Eileen also had a revive spell... 

They better bring her back too. :(

See as I suspected, Dean was right again. We should always trust Dean. When Dean says something feels off he is right about it. He knows. Dean didn’t believe Ketch’s evil twin story for one second. It’s interesting because that story would have almost fooled me if it weren’t for Dean being so insistent that it was bullshit. 

Okay that “Hello Dean” was so wrong it’s weird because it’s Misha’s voice but he was able to say it in a way that was so WRONG. Just like Lucifer in 11x14. Impressive.

(Also I love how everyone in all of existence knows about the famous “Hello Dean” It seriously is Castiel’s catchphrase and the fact that angels and demons know this in universe is glorious.)

I had to listen back to Asmodeus playing Cas on the phone again a few times and wow. It’s scarily cold. Dean should totally know that something was up there. I’ll be rather disappointed with him if he doesn’t figure it out like straight away. 

So Cas is in a cage and Ketch is back and working with Asmodeus now? Huh. I guess at least Cas being in a cage is a better way of getting rid of him for a few episodes than having him off on some hypocritical mission for heaven or god forbid “riverboat gambling” again.

I also guess this means that Ketch was the “Hunter on the payroll” at the beginning of the episode.

That wasn’t as terrible as I was expecting... huh. I am oddly surprised and pleased at that. What do ya know.

Final thoughts

Watching this whilst writing out my thoughts actually really helped. I was able to process my thoughts instead of getting major whiplash from too much happening too quickly. It ended up being far more palatable for me. (My second watch actually bored me to tears except for Cas’s scenes so there you go - I think I would have been far more negative than I was had I watched it straight through first time around). It was definitely too much crammed in as usual for Bucklemming, and the instance in the plot to make Lucifer a ‘good’ guy is driving me around the bend. The Ketch stuff was completely nonsensical and I am 100% opposed to him being back (the one character I would have been perfectly happy with staying dead completely). 

I can’t take evil colonel sanders seriously at all. Now I have watched him in 2 episodes I can’t help but cringe whenever he is on screen. Its worse than pantomime villain, its pantomime villain in an amateur primary school production bad. I’m sorry guys, but just nope. Even the on screen jokes about him from Dean couldn’t lighten a terrible stereotypical villain created by seriously lazy writing. 

Michael is actually pretty horrifying though and I am looking forward to what will happen there. I think he is the actual villain to root for and I hope he disintegrates Asmodeus in a puff of smoke. I am extremely annoyed that Mary wasn’t in the episode though. They could have given us something more than we got. I liked Kevin’s return and what he said about choice and paradise, though I feel he is vastly different from our Kevin in how broken he seems to be. No fighting spirit. It just shows Michael’s cruelty in the subtext and makes him even more intriguing for me.

I loved every Cas scene. Of course. Even when Lucifer doesn’t shut up Cas was perfect. He was so handsome in this episode too! In my opinion, Cas made this episode. For once Bucklemming didn’t write him grossly out of character so I’ll give them kudos for that. He did well, and he was interesting and funny and his constant exasperation and suspicion and Lucifer was spot on. He was me. Though if he was truly me I would have just stabbed Lucifer in the face. Pfft. 

So Lucifer. This was totally Lucifer’s episode. He held the most screen time and pushed the story forward. I am of course extremely biased because I despise both the character and the actor who plays him so I found it very difficult to maintain focus on anything he said, but one thing that seems certain is that he has been set up for a redemption arc. I am furious about this. I hate that they are dressing him as a Cas mirror (yes I know that Lucifer has been a dark Cas mirror since season 5) and setting him up to “save the world” and I hope that Dabb takes a far more intelligent path here and turns this story on its head. Obviously Lucifer still has selfish ambitions. ‘Fixing’ Jack so he doesn’t “favour the mother” being the one interesting point he made where he didn’t seem like the good guy. The rest of the time he was just trying to convince Cas to help him stop Michael which at a surface level seems like a really honorable heroic thing to do, especially since Michael is being framed as a really bad and villainous character. I guess time will tell what happens with this. Hopefully other writers will have their own take on Lucifer’s story and we’ll see more of his totally evil and abhorrent side in future episodes because honestly, Lucifer playing the hero makes me physically sick. 

I’m disappointed the Winchesters had so little to do. Especially Sam, he is such a reactive character right now and its pissing me off that he is so sidelined whilst his abuser and tormentor for years gets to stand in the spotlight. It upsets me that the show writers don’t consider these things. Sam needs a central role in this season and I’ll be pissed if he doesn’t get it. Obviously from an objective meta analysis viewpoint I can see WHY Sam wasn’t so integral to this episode, and I did find his sincerity and hope in Ketch’s lie being the truth interesting. Sam is so desperate to find the GOOD in the world right now and this seems to be clouding his judgement. I will be very interested to see how Sam reacts to Lucifer wanting Cas’s help. 

All in all it wasn’t the WORST Bucklemming episode, but it was pretty stupid and cringeworthy throughout. I’m just happy they didn’t totally butcher Cas and made him act in an idiotic way. Though I think they could have made him MORE resistant and not try to portray them as a comedy duo. Hopefully from this we will get some interesting stuff with Asmodeus pretending to be Cas for Dean like a repeat of 11x11 so fingers crossed for that.

I also genuinely hope we get some Cas in the coming episodes and not a massive gap until we see him again. It makes no sense in my opinion to have this story move forward without Cas and Lucifer since the entire mytharc plot right now appears to revolve around them. I guess we will just have to wait and see. Bring on episode 13x08.

[sockparade]

make it make sense

This essay might be a little too inside baseball for some. But I also recognize that a lot of the people who read what I write have some kind of orientation to the Christian faith so I think it’s worth taking the time to write this all out.

The 2020 elections are still several months away and yet it’s already unearthing all kinds of feelings for me. Politically, Christians in the U.S. are kind of all over the place. I should note here that white evangelicals as a subset of Christian voters tend to be pretty... consistent. *cringe emoji* I imagine the lack of cohesion can be frustrating to those outside of this particular faith tradition but let me tell you, it is also highly upsetting to those who live inside of it. 

I think the inconsistency can sometimes make people conclude that Christians are just being manipulative. The assumption is that Christians weaponize religion to protect their political power and their personal interests. And sure, that’s certainly the case in some places. But also, I think for many Christians like me, who never went to seminary and who have no political aspirations, the inconsistency in politics is quite understandable given how our theology tends to be all over the place. There is a lot of variation in what someone means when they say they are Christian. This is true not only because it’s the culturally dominant religion of this country and not only because of the differences in interpretation of an ancient text, but also because the tenants of the Christian faith exist largely in a complicated collection of paradoxical beliefs. Lately I just keep reminding myself that Christianity is a weird ass Eastern world religion and I can’t keep shoving it into a Western mindset.

So here’s the thing. If you find yourself on either pole of a key paradox, it means that you are essentially subscribing to a very different belief system than someone who leans towards the other pole. Over the last four years, so many Christian friends have scratched their heads at why a fellow Christian could support Trump or hold some other political view that feels abhorrent to them. But it’s actually quite predictable once you do the work of tracing their political views to the foundation of their beliefs.

About a decade ago, I realized that if Christianity was going to continue anchoring my worldview, I needed to take greater care in attending to what I actually believed. For many Christians, faith is something they point to as the bedrock of their lives and yet it often remains a big amorphous blob of thoughts and feelings (and random childhood Sunday School artifacts). It’s often not a set of clear values, intentions, and principles that we are committed to. I’m not advocating for more apologetics or more systematic theology here. But I do think clarity (distinct from certainty) is important. Given the ease in which people have historically interpreted the Christian Bible to suit their own opinions, the Christian faith can quickly become less of a meaningful lens or life compass and more of an extended experiment in propaganda and confirmation bias. That’s probably true of most religions. 

In taking a good hard look at Christianity, I have deconstructed a lot of things, relearned some things, and completely thrown out some things. There are some things I am still wrestling with and will continue to wrestle with -- probably for the rest of my life. And I’ve learned to find beauty and meaning in that unresolved, uncertain place. In the last year I’ve embraced the more mystical side of the Christian faith tradition and I have invested more of my time in contemplative prayer, meditation, and reflecting on God’s choice to be bodily present with us through the incarnation of Jesus. But even in my exploration of mysticism, I still maintain a firm belief that continuing the intellectual pursuit of truth and understanding is worthwhile.  

In this essay I want to identify just a few of the key paradoxes within Christianity and provide some reflection questions for the purpose of prompting you to examine how you’re doing in holding the tension of each paradox. When you review the questions, resist the urge to recall proof texts. This is a heart/gut check, not a bible quiz. 

To be clear, this isn’t a criticism of paradoxical beliefs. I’m starting to think that part of the challenge of being a Christian (or maybe just a mortal, sentient being) is learning how to exist in the discomfort of life’s many paradoxes. I mean, what is life but a series of fortunate and unfortunate opportunities to humbly acknowledge our limited understanding of how the world works and how the divine moves? Our westernized sensibilities make it difficult to hold paradoxes well. Instead, we rapidly cycle back and forth between the poles or more often than not, we end up repping just one of the poles. Every now and then I have to check myself and see if I’ve lost track of the paradox. While you’re here, It’s also a good idea to check if a pole is still valid for you or whether it’s something that you’ve just become acculturated to. I’ve personally let go or altered some poles in this process (e.g. I no longer believe in eternal conscious torment-- another essay for another day). 

If you are dreading political discourse with the variety of Christians in your life this Fall, consider digging underneath a hot topic and spend some time locating where the person lives on the spectrum of these paradoxical Christian beliefs. It might be illuminating. No less upsetting, but maybe less confusing.

For anyone that’s not Christian and reading this, I wonder if this walkthrough might shed some light as to why it’s so confusing to understand what Christians actually believe and why there seems to be such different Christians in your life. 

And lastly, I recognize that some of these questions are going to come across as blunt and possibly condescending. I have only written questions here that I have been asking myself over the years. So if you find any of them offensive, I hope you take some measure of comfort in knowing that they offended me too. I hope you don’t stay there. Also, I know I undoubtedly show my bias in writing these questions but I don’t think my goal here is to be unbiased. I’m very much revealing my bias in hopes that it’ll be helpful to you in identifying where you are.

Okay let’s go.

humans are inherently evil v. humans are inherently good

The creation poetry in the Bible says that God chose to make humans in their image and likeness (peep the gnarly “we/us” language in Genesis -- God’s triune nature really disrupts my tendency to rationalize my faith). God then declares that all of creation was very good. But then there’s a plot twist, humans become inherently evil. This is primarily through the story of Adam and Eve and the proverbial “fall of man” fruit-eating incident, but really, throughout the Bible, the theme of human depravity is consistent. People suck bigtime. So we get this basic setup that we are designed to be good and we’re also told that we come from a legacy of very ungrateful, selfish, and blatantly evil ways. The Bible’s pages are filled with anecdotes, advice, and self-flagellating poetry about fighting our sinful nature. And yet we also learn of a very curious arrangement where the God of the universe loves us and has chosen to partner with us super problematic beings to bring about redemption and a radical new way of flourishing for the created world.

Reflection Questions

When you think of peak human behavior, do you think of the best stories of people loving and helping one another or do you think of the worst stories of people hating and hurting each other? 

Do you mostly think about how people are doomed to be broken, selfish, and depraved on this side of heaven or do you think about how people are ultimately designed to be good, loving, and communal? (Note: I know the “answer” here is that with Jesus, a person could potentially live a life that is good, loving, and communal. But consider the impact of believing that all people outside of the Christian church are broken, selfish, and depraved. That would heavily skew any worldview and certainly feeds/fuels the fear-mongering rhetoric we often find in many political conversations.)

When you see a person doing something kind and good, do you see it as a rare exception in the horrible cesspool of humanity or do you see it as a person living closer to their original God-intended purpose?

When you imagine new ways for people to live together in society, do you get discouraged because you tend to think humans will inevitably destroy everything and are simply incapable of enduring goodness?

How does your belief about your inherent evil or your inherent goodness impact your ability to love, forgive, and take care of yourself? How does it support or hinder your ability to feel loved by others and by God?

everyone is created and loved equally vs. Christians are special

At times, the Bible makes Christianity seem like the most radically inclusive community. Particularly in the New Testament, there’s a recurring theme of all being welcome and loved. Jesus is witnessed spending much of his time with the outcasts of society and offering healing and acceptance seemingly without much of a prerequisite beyond a person’s vague belief that Jesus is divine. The account of Jesus asking God to forgive the Roman soldiers who were beating him and who ultimately murdered him can be a bit of a head scratcher because the soldiers do not ask for forgiveness, they do not change their ways, and they certainly don’t conform to any kind of Christian lifestyle as many churches might prescribe today. At other times, the Bible uses very exclusive language suggesting that those who are known by God are actually quite limited in number, there sometimes seems to be a “personal responsibility” theme, there’s talk of being part of a special, separate group, and perhaps most challenging, the out group is doomed to some kind of hell and separation from God. So all the language about God loving us and drawing near to us, is that just for Christians or is that for everyone? Your answer to this question might be something you want to reflect on as this country wrestles with figuring out how in the world we could have grown so comfortable to one group of people being more valuable than other groups of people in our country (read: white supremacy). Please don’t @ me about common grace. For the folks who subscribe to that theology, they’ll also be the first to admit that there are many of God’s promises that simply don’t apply through common grace to everyone, namely salvation. 

Reflection Questions 

Do you truly believe all humans are made in the likeness of God? Think about all the marginalized groups in our country: Black, Indigenous, Latinx, Asian, incarcerated, undocumented, queer, trans, disabled, uneducated, etc. Do you affirm that everyone bears the image of God? 

Do you believe that some people are more special to God because of their faith? Do you believe that God loves people who aren’t Christian as much as he loves Christians? 

Do you believe God loves babies but as people grow older they accumulate a spiritual debt through their life choices? Do you think there’s an underlying debit/credit system that makes people more or less favored/loved/protected by God? Like, you can’t earn God’s love but maybe there are degrees to his love? 

Do you believe there are limits to a person’s worthiness and dignity? If someone commits particularly heinous crimes like murder, rape and pedophilia, do you think they deserve less dignity and should not be treated with the same care as other people? 

When you count your blessings from God and trust God to provide, how do you explain why some people face more tragedy, death, sickness, and poverty than others? Do you believe God has a reason for why he chooses to bless some people? 

When you read John 3:16, do you read it as God loving the world, or God loving the people who choose to believe in God?

The gospel is happening right now vs. The gospel is focused on the afterlife

It has been eye opening to see the white evangelical church squirm as our country is forced to reckon with its history of white supremacy and its continued oppression of specific groups of people. In the last 3 months, a confusing cacophony of sermons, articles and social media posts have cautioned Christians to proceed biblically in fighting for civil rights. Unfortunately there is little consensus. Should we just pray and trust God to bring justice to this world? Should we participate in advocating for social justice but not so much that we place too much hope in things actually changing? Was social justice just part of a broader ethic of love or was it mission critical in Jesus choosing to draw near to us and to suffering? Is focusing on social justice too humanist and not focused enough on eternal, heavenly things? What was the good news of the gospel to those suffering? That we need to wait for healing and justice on the other side of death? Or was this good news for our current existence? 

Reflection Questions

When you think about your Christian faith, do you mostly feel the comfort and security of eternal life or do you press into the difficulty and labor of bringing kingdom thinking/living to this world?

What do you mean when you say “sharing the gospel”? Is it explaining to people how they can get into heaven or is it explaining a way to live and move in the world?

When you say salvation, what are you being saved from? Some kind of hell afterlife? Or is hell an existence that is devoid of connection to divinity, spirituality, and interconnectedness with others?

What aspect of your faith do you treasure the most? Making the *right* choice in your beliefs? Your ticket to heaven after you die? Your personal relationship with God? Your faith community? Psychological comfort in hard times? A purpose for living? A sense of superiority?  

Do you think about Jesus’s mission mostly as sacrificing himself to solve a spiritual conundrum or as a reconciliatory model for how humans could live in the fullness of our intended purpose? To show how humans could be in communion with God and each other? If it’s mostly just to solve for the distance between God and humans and secure an afterlife in heaven, why do the authors of the Bible seem to insist that Jesus’s life’s work was so important to record and bear witness to?

God is love v. God is justice

This one is a doozy. Even the words “love” and “justice” have such different meanings to different people. I think the narrative arc of the Bible has compelled me to consider broader, more expansive definitions to these words that aren’t primarily based in the typical experience of human relationships. I mean the most obvious shift is the way God’s love is presented as unconditional. Unconditional doesn’t even quite capture it. God is described as a divine being that pursues connection with humans in the face of persistent rejection and pervasive spiritual death. This stands in sharp contrast to the way humans struggle mightily to remove the conditions in our love for others in ways that don’t result in unhealthy, abusive, or toxic relationships.  

God’s justice as described by the life of Jesus is also astonishingly merciful and unexpected. It rejects the idea that justice is a matter of fair exchanges of pain and it ruins our instinct for retribution. I’ve been studying the work in the Transformative Justice space this year and it has been so helpful for me in imagining what God’s justice might be like. Mia Mingus describes Transformative Justice as asking: “How can we respond to violence in ways that not only address the current incident of violence, but also help to transform the conditions that allowed for it to happen?” Isn’t that what Jesus did? Beyond absolving us from our brokenness, there’s evidence of a desire to transform who we are and how we live. Jesus loves us unconditionally AND he wants to change the conditions in which we are harming ourselves and harming one another. 

Reflection Questions

Do you think of God as more loving or more judging? Do you resonate with God’s power or do you resonate with God’s gentleness?

When you think about Christian values in society do you mostly think in terms of bans on certain behavior or do you mostly think in terms of upholding the fruit of the spirit (love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control)? 

When you think of the cross, do you focus on the idea that God’s wrath needed to be “satisfied” to uphold a retributive justice model (I no longer believe this) or do you focus on Jesus’s willingness to be human and endure suffering with us? 

When you think about the end of the world do you think about God’s vengeance against wrongdoing or do you think about God’s peace?

When you think about conflict and harm do you think mostly about how the victim might forgive and offer grace or do you mostly think about how the perpetrator of harm can make it up to the victim?

Do you feel your faith is motivated by wanting to “repay” God for the sacrifice on the cross or is it motivated by radical love and generosity? 

submission v. rebellion 

One more thing, this isn’t a paradox but it’s something that I’ve felt conflicted about for some time now because it’s a topic that is discussed so inconsistently among Christians. Would you say that Jesus’s life was marked by submission or rebellion? Many will use shorthand to say Jesus submitted to death on the cross but it often also gets muddled and then talked about in reference to our posture towards government, empire, and just everyday difficult circumstances! There is a sparkly, made-up Christian badge of honor that some folks associate with “suffering well” and it sometimes morphs into the glorification of suffering, overwork, and outright abuse. 

I think the story of Jesus is one that unmistakably says that God stands with the oppressed and rejects injustice, exploitation, and abuse, and yet in America, the evangelical church weaponizes this idea to excuse systemic injustice, saying things like, “Why fight oppression if it’s an honor to suffer in whatever circumstances you were born into?” 

How often have we heard references to this Martin Luther King, Jr. quote? 

If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michaelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, "Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.”

I understand the exhortation to live with excellence and joy but how far do we take that? What’s the takeaway for the unemployed individual who is unhoused? Beg for food so that heaven remarks at how excellent their begging was? Or should we fight for fair living wages and affordable housing? Beyond that, should we demand that those who can’t find employment should still have the dignity of food and shelter? Is Christianity just the means in which the oppressed can supernaturally endure horrible things like slavery, apartheid, incarceration, rape, poverty, trafficking, etc.? 

Finally, just a clarification. I would not characterize Jesus as submitting to the Roman Empire. Like sure, he didn’t strike them down with lightning bolts. But to me, submission would have been admitting that he wasn’t divine. Jesus was killed because he refused to deny who he was and what he stood for. Jesus was killed because he threatened the hierarchy of power and religion. So yes, Jesus was a model of submission, but that submission was specifically to his own character of radical love and radical justice (or God’s will, if you prefer). He did not submit to the government in his willingness to die. And even then, if you believe the story, he also rejected and rebelled against death. 

These days, I am asking myself: 

How am I following Jesus’s model of rebellion? 

How do I sometimes confuse the idea of submission to God’s way of collective human flourishing with submission to capitalism, racial hierarchy, comfort, and fear?

What questions are you asking yourself as a Christian?

[bartsugsy]

I know it's a slightly contentious point but given all this talk about Robert needing redemption - do you think Aaron has redeemed himself now? I know that the narrative doesn't really suggest he needs to, but he's got a pretty violent temper and has no difficulty throwing wrenches and beating the crap out of Robert because he's angry. I'd quite like them to acknowledge that and apologise, but it's unlikely as the show doesn't really recognise male on male violence as problematic.

hello this is an essay i’m sure we’re all shocked

ok like...

i need to disect this ask a little because i think the fundamental point it’s missing is how aaron’s violent tendencies has been used in the context of rob and aaron’s relationship vs how robert’s horrible decision making tendencies have been

so like... aaron throwing that wrench at robert’s head was the most horrifying thing i’ve seen all year and genuinely terrible but it was also used specifically to show just how much their relationship has disintegrated. like. that was the thing that made aaron get out - understanding that his mh had gotten to a place where he ended up violently attacking his husband and that their relationship had gotten so toxicly bad that it was going to end up literally killing one or both of them

it was the big sign that they were over, tbh

his violence towards isn’t used as a consistent problem in their relationship and if it was that would be a very serious problem. but, the whole point of that moment was that their relationship had become untenable and that the only thing they could do was break up

what i’m saying is i don’t think they necessarily need to redeem aaron for that moment, certainly not in the same way as they’re redeeming rob, because this isn’t a part of their relationship. it was a sign that their relationship had become something very different. it was a story tool to show how low aaron’s mh had sunk and what this relationship was doing to him - and the big pre-emptive reason why since then he’s tried (and failed) to stay away from robert as much as possible, why he absolutely refuses to go back there, why he literally said to liv that he’d spoken with his therapist and understood that that relationship was what he wanted, but absolutely not what he needed

the conversation aaron and rob have after aaron attacks rob says a similar sentiment - that aaron doesn’t deserve to feel the way he feels and that rob doesn’t deserve to deal with aaron having violent outbursts, which is what had just happened. 

after everything - buying drugs, the self harming again, the coldness towards robert, it took almost literally killing robert, an actual act of classic aaron dingle-violence directed towards someone he would never fucking direct it towards under any other circumstances, for aaron to call it a day. 

basically - this ask sort of implies (unintentionally?) that aaron would genuinely physically abuse robert in any other situation other than this very very specific and fraught one and that he wouldn’t immediately break up with robert and distance himself from the entire relationship afterwards, which i don’t believe is true. and if it is true then that’s a whole other fuckin Issue.

like. he’s not consistently throwing wrenches at robert, or beating him up on a regular basis. that’s not what this is and you... sort of make it sound like it is.... and there’s a big difference

but it’s not who aaron is and that’s not what their relationship is.

again - it was horrifying, but it’s not a running theme in their relationship (it’s also ur standard highly overdramatic soap storytelling)

(and i shouldn’t need to mention this but tumblr constantly makes me feel like i have to - obviously we’re working under soap morality here and not real world morality. irl aaron would have left robert the second he fuckin admitted to pushing a girl to her death. like. jesus. but it’s a soap.)

anywayyyy, contrast this with why robert is getting a whole ultimate redemption storyline - for every life he’s ruined, every bad decision he’s made. i think... on multiple occasions, aaron’s mh has deteriorated to the point where he’s, on multiple occassions, done impulsively terrible things in reaction to robert and has himself called out that that can’t continue, literally went to prison because of one of those times - and on a less extreme level, they’ve had the rockiest relationship in the world. like. there’s a reason why i started writing the break up guide - because they break up or almost break up a lot. a lot. 

narratively that has almost always been attributed to robert’s actions and even when it’s been more directly out of something aaron has done, typically you can still trace that back to aaron working off the assumption that rob will do something terrible, because of his past decisions. rob is who he is - he has cheated on everyone, he has threatened people, attacked people, tried to kill people, done dodgy shit - he’s... well, you know, he plays the role of a typical long term soap villain.

narratively speaking

- and again, i feel like definitely need to be clear that i’m talking about what they’re trying to do and have done narratively, as part of the story, not what i myself think about these characters or whatever - this isn’t about me thinking that robert is the worst person in the entire fucking world and aaron is a blameless angel who has never done a thing wrong and i’m certainly not implying that robert and aaron’s relationship is inherently terrible and damaging to aaron

what i’m saying is that robert makes decisions without thought to the consequences and that makes him a fun character to put in different situations and also a compelling romanctic hero when we see that the one person who he does try to consider, who he does genuinely care about, who he does not want to hurt, is the person he’s in love with. 

yes, the unintended consequences of robert’s decisions pushed aaron into a place where his mental health had entirely deteriorated and ultimately destroyed their entire relationship. this wasn’t ever ever what robert had intended and as a result of understanding how his decisions had caused aaron pain - the one thing he never wanted to do - he’s basically propelled himself towards a fucking breakdown.

he didn’t have a breakdown after literally killing someone. hurting aaron, though? remember how, during the reveal, robert says that aaron couldn’t hate him any more than he hates himself? this is literally all just.. a result of this.

but it’s led to robert making even more bad decisions. there’s never been a point where robert has sat down and honestly taken a look at why things have turned out this way

- just as aaron needed to almost fuckin full on murder robert to get the wake up call and also strength to completely break up with robert (and we know that usually they’re horrible at staying away from one another, so narratively speaking it did have to be that damn dramatic to make aaron’s attitude since believable), rob needs something that will be a wake up call to him to get him to change enough 

because if he doesn’t change? he’s dooming himself to be god damn miserable for the rest of his life and worse than that, he’s going to destroy a lot of people in the process

he needs to hit rock bottom and he needs to be able to take a look at how his decisions affect other people, aaron and everyone else around him. the incident alone, aaron falling apart, the break up - that wasn’t enough for robert to understand, because all robert is really able to understand or face at the moment is that he’s in a shit load of pain and doesn’t want to think about it

so instead he’s acting out (like a child) and avoiding everything completely and instead dedicating himself to his og goal of taking home farm (conveniently narratively tying in his 2015 actions to his current decisions)

basically, robert needs to redeem himself for everything and change because:

the show has made it clear that actually aaron and robert won’t work while robert is still acting as recklessly as he does with other people’s feelings and well-being - no more kissing random exes in the name of revenge or getting more money, no more acting out and knocking up said ex, no more scheming for money - he’s come a long way, the reveal shows that much, but it’s not enough that he’s gotten better at saying sorry to aaron, they need to move him a little more away from “soap villain” and towards “romantic hero” in order to accomplish what they want and get the robron relationship to where they want it to be

(and sure they could have written that robert was magically wonderful after being shot but that would be so much less compelling and so much worse storytelling)

plus robert has done enough bad since he came back that he’s the perfect candidate for this type of big, overarching storyline - and they wanted to get rid of the whites, which had to involve robert heavily, it had to, it would have been insane and a complete cop out for it not to

i’m not suggesting they need to nueter robert completely and make him a good and pure little nugget of humanity, but i think it makes sense that they want to really push robert to the brink and bring him back completely as a way that they can realistically (so to speak) have him spend a good period not fucking up too much (we assume, who knows lmao) and also a good way for aaron and robert to get back together in a way where their past issues don’t come up to destroy them all over again

they both need to go into this with a different understanding of one another and better communication skills in general but... like... one massive problem at a time lmao

and this isn’t something they need to do for aaron - aaron who consistently owns up to his mistakes and tries to be better and has spent his break up trying to channel his pain and heartbreak into healthy ways of coping

robert still needs his wake up call

plus, it’s a compelling redemption story (and hopefully continues that way) which, unlike who shot robert, is actually about him

[serenagaywaterford]

Have you seen Amanda Brugel's last instagram post? I'm beginning to worry Serena doesn't survive the season

HEY ANON! SERIOUS QUESTION: ARE YOU TRYING TO GIVE ME A HEART ATTACK LOL?! Now, cue me frantically pouring over the post!

I’m curious. What makes you think that it’s ominous? It could be my wishful thinking, but nothing screamed out at me from it? Am I blind, lol? I mean, of course, there’s Ever waxing all FOMO over it, but that’s expected cos she’s not in the show all that much as it is. And the photo, if I’m reading Amanda right, is from S1. Is that why?

Maybe it’s wishful thinking but I don’t think they’ll kill off Serena–yet. Mainly, she’s one of the central characters, and certainly the central (human) antagonist to June specifically. (We all know the real villain is Gilead and male power. Fred is a secondary antagonist imo, and more like a stand-in for Gilead itself to make it easier to see the true evil.) There is a great deal of focus on her thus far, to develop her and weave her into a story that, if we’re all being real, the Waterfords should have been gone from already and certainly by the end of S2 but we know there’s going to be even more about both of them. And there is quite QUITE a lot of potential to move Serena across the “villainy spectrum” towards neutral or even true anti-hero without it being a deus ex machina/jump the shark sort of thing. And that sort of story is pure gold for a writer. It can be milked for a long time and works easily with drama, and the feminist themes of the show. I don’t want to say “redemption arc” cos that would require A LOT of work and I think most viewers are still stuck on 210 (once again–that was a HORRIBLE MISSTEP FOR THE CREATIVE TEAM the way it was written. I’ll say that forever because so many, many people missed the underlying point about it), but movement is possible.

Also, Miller seems to really enjoy the character/actress, and Yvonne’s got a LOT of hype on social media/critics circles. I think even if you hate Serena, you recognise how stellar Yvonne’s doing. Like, that’s why Serena is so hated (other than people not understanding Serena)–Yvonne plays her so exceptionally well.

I have NO idea what the contract situation is like, but I’d suspect she has a 5-year deal, like most. Quite frankly, the only reason I can see for killing Serena off is that Yvonne wants out, to be with her new baby. It must be dreadful to have a newborn and be working 6 months on such a dark, cold show about the oppression of women and horrible things about children. But she is a professional so we’ll see.

Or, I suppose, if they want SHOCK VALUE. Cos, who really expects Serena to die? I know a lot of vocal idiots online cream themselves over her dying a painful death and wish her horrible death constantly, but those are just loud online idiots – and if I’ve learnt anything from decades of fandom, it’s that showrunners rarely give a shit about those fans or take them seriously. They’ll pander to a degree, but they deep down don’t care. (Obvs there are exceptions but most showrunners and writers have a goal and view and it doesn’t change based on the whims of rabid fans on Twitter and Tumblr. There was a time in my life that I believed they cared. They do not, lol.)

But hey, this is complete wishful thinking cos she’s my babe and I don’t want THT without her. So I live in denial that they’ll kill her off. She’s honestly the most complex and second most developed character in the entire series. It would seem short-sighted to dump a character like that.

Honestly? I think it’s far more likely that Rita will leave the show than Serena, if we’re looking at Amanda & Yvonne. Which is a shame too cos she’s the only Canadian in the main cast and a good character. It all depends I suppose on the direction they go with the Resistance/Mayday and the Waterfords. Rita and Serena could BOTH go by the end of the season.

I’m gonna rant now about the characters that SHOULD go…

In terms of characters that have run their course, I vote for the main males. Both Fred and Nick are totally redundant to me now–and this has nothing to do with my dislike of Nick, I swear. Just on a narrative level, he no longer serves much purpose if we’re supposed to be watching a show about women fighting back against a repressive patriarchal fascist regime. (I don’t need some cutsey romance subplot, thanks. And I don’t think June requires it either, not when she’s on a mission to get HANNAH back and make to Canada to reunite with her HUSBAND and bff, all whilst saving ALL the children and women of Gilead. She’s got quite enough going on. The story is supposed to be less depressing this season so the argument that the N/J thing brings “lightness” and “hope” to a bleak story is also outdated too.) He’s just redundant. Served his purpose, and it was an important purpose, don’t get me wrong! I understand his very integral role especially in S1 but it’s just run its course, imo. I think even Nick stans seem to recognise this on some level cos they’re always terrified he’s going to be killed off almost every episode lol.

I may not care for Luke either, but he actually will remain important to the story, I think and I can’t see any good reason to get rid of him. He needs to remain alive. I think it would kill June to find out he’s dead.

Fred is just… a cartoon now and needs to go. How many more Evil TM things can he do? Yawn. We don’t need the personification of Gilead anymore I don’t think. We get it. Both Nick and Fred have dodged certain death now and it’s just like, OKAY, with June I get it cos she’s the protag, but them? Give me a break. Lazy. The only reason I don’t think they’ll kill off Nick is pure fanservice. I can’t see any rational reason other than that. Those LOUD fangirls will have a fucking meltdown. (I’ll say that when I speak to non-fandom people offline about the show, the vast majority don’t really care about the N*ck/June storyline nearly as much. Most people I’ve spoken with care much more about the larger issues–and it was crazy cos I was talking to a friend that I hadn’t seen in like 4 months about THT, and I know isn’t a fan of THT–like she watches it but isn’t in fandom. Just casual. And I brought up Serena (of course I did) but I was very critical of her, and she (who knows ZERO about my true feelings for Serena lol) was defensive of the character. It blew my mind cos she’s really not the type to defend problematic characters or villains. (I honestly thought she’d be a Nick fan, N/J fan, and Serena hater. But she’s a JUNE fan first and foremost, doesn’t really care for N/J but thought it was cute at the time, and doesn’t hate Serena.) She even brought up points that we Serena fans say, completely unprompted by me. So, I think in terms of casual fans, they’re a little more perceptive than the vocal majority of N*ck/June fangirls that dominate fandom. God, it’s such a relief to talk to offline people sometimes. By and large, they seem far more reasonable when it comes to this show and where the focus should be. (I should probably mention that almost all of the people I’ve spoken to about THT have been over the age of 25 (many over 30), which probably has something to do with it tbh.)

Both Fred and Nick are props for the female characters, and I think June and Serena are developed enough at this point to stand on their own without the need for either of those dudes. I don’t need men to help tell a story about women, thanks.

But again, I’m just some online voice. The producers and showrunners don’t give a shit what I think. They don’t even know I exist. And that’s probably a good thing (considering my obsession with having June/Serena fuck, lol. I’m gonna wager they don’t wanna see that.).

I’m just gonna pretend I am not now freaking out about Serena being killed off in S3. As much as I think it may be a terrible idea, I honestly don’t put it past this show…