#the creation of adam parallels hurt

[halowishes]

banana fish review!

this show is “start here” by caitlyn siehl animated.

(spoilers ahead!)

first things first: the animation was amazing! everyone act surprised! i haven’t been to new york in god knows how long but i think it captured a lot of its charm and not so charming parts well. i thought the pacing was pretty good. definitely got kinda slow at times, but with the heavy content, the tempo helped ease the story. every character was well fleshed out, the plot was complex and entertaining, and deeply thoughtful. (bring back 24 episode seasons!)

now i’m really gonna go on a tangent here: ASH LYNX. what a character. obviously a very tragic end, but one that i think he’s satisfied with. everything about his story is tragic really. he wasn’t made for the world he was forced into. he wasn’t a beast, a leopard, or a peacock— he was a boy who wanted to survive. he was soft and kind and tender, but he needed to prove his value in a dangerous world.

it hurts the most when ash talks about eiji. how he wanted something real, someone who only wanted his company and nothing else. how ash could barely stand who he’d become, but he would do it all for eiji. and while everyone feared him, he found a peer who was innocent and curious and wanted to protect him and not be protected.

it hurts because he’d rather love and die than hate and rule. how at the end of it all, ash would’ve gone with eiji. but instead of fighting again, he went back into the library to finish reading his letter. (because he believed deep down, he didn’t deserve eiji.)

but eiji is so unique. stupidly brave at times, entirely earnest, and tries his very best to understand ash. when ash said he needs him because he has everything he doesn’t… that one hurt. he doesn’t exist for ash’s salvation, but eiji wouldn’t mind it either.

also wanna say how sick and twisted it is they compare ash to a peacock. all feathers, beautiful, but can’t fly well. and what made him so enamored by eiji? he saw him fly.

this show really twists the heart strings! i can see why it has such a loyal fan base. long live yearning and soulmates!!!

banana fish- 9.5/10

ash and eiji: there is no me without you.

[lillotte17]

Also also, since I seem to be incapable of shutting up, and because I haven't actually seen anyone else saying it:

Crowely offering/tempting Aziraphale with the ox ribs...it's a direct parallel to Adam and the creation of Eve. Adam's ribs are used to create his counterpart/lover/partner, and Crowley is doing the same thing. Up until now, he's had his suspicions about Aziraphale not being like the other angels, but in the Job flashback, we really see him testing the waters.

'Will you just do as you're told and watch an innocent man lose everything?'

'Will you notice what I did to the goats?'

'Will you trust me not to hurt the children?'

And then finally with the ribs: 'Are you like me? Do you take pleasure from all the things that humans are capable of creating? Do you see their potential? Aren't we the same?'

And Aziraphale accepts.

Which of course eventually leads to him lying to the other angels and his own epiphany about not quite being like the rest of them.

Naturally, it's not an exact correlation. Aziraphale already had those inclinations, so Crowley isn't really 'creating' him as his counterpart, but he is creating the opportunity for understanding and a chance to see the ways they already resemble one another. He's creating the possibility of their eventual partnership (romantic and/or otherwise).

[stargazeraldroth]

I will never be normal about the family of the First Humans in my Hazbin Hotel AU. I will never be normal about it. I really took this AU and said "Family angst to the MAX". Also this may or may not contain spoilers about Hazbin Hotel, so be warned about that when reading this.

Since we don't know much of anything about Eve in Hazbin Hotel's canon universe, the Eve included in this post is obviously how I imagine her character. Also, there are some major changes to the relationships between some of the characters. For starters, Vaggie and Lute are sisters, but they're also direct creations of Adam's.

Let me explain.

So in this AU, Adam and Eve became a thing shortly after Lilith ran away to be with Lucifer. And in this AU, they were only able to have Cain and Abel before Eve ate the Forbidden Fruit and ultimately died (I might elaborate on the whole Garden of Eden story in another post). But they'd talked about having daughters and Eve was especially excited to have little girls. Clearly, that never ended up happening. So how does this tie into the story? Because Adam made Vaggie and Lute with the idea of them being the daughters he and Eve were never able to have.

(To take this a step further, this AU started as a Reimagine series where I went over how I would've done it all, so there were also name changes. Vaggie and Lute were two characters who got their names changed; Vaggie's name became Evelyn [originally Evangeline but I thought that too long and didn't roll off the tongue as well] and Lute's became Edith, with Vaggie being named after Eve and Lute being named after the Garden of Eden. And if you want even MORE angst with that idea, Adam sometimes called Vaggie "Eve" as a nickname because of how much she reminded him of her. There's nothing romantic there, I just wanna clarify that in case anyone jumps to conclusions. The changed names aren't important to the post, I just wanted to mention this little background fun fact from before I decided to make it a regular AU)

I may not have diddly squat about Cain and Abel in this aside from the fact that they exist(ed), but BOY do I have a lot to say about these four. First, let me just start with the parallels between Eve and Vaggie in this AU:

Both someone Adam swore to himself that he'd protect at all costs

Both fell from grace and are in Hell

Both of them are on the opposing side (for Eve this'll rely on the post I eventually make about the GoE story, but the gist is that she was completely unwilling; Vaggie saw no other way)

Both of them fell in love with demons

Like... Vaggie reminds Adam of Eve so much that sometimes, it physically hurts. In this AU, Vaggie wasn't left to die in Hell, she got attacked and left behind. Adam thought she was dead, which was part of why he pushed to move up the date of the next Extermination and why Lute is so set on revenge, wants to kill ALL demons, etc. And Adam doesn't care about sexuality- he doesn't care if Vaggie's bi, pan, lesbian, ace, etc. In this AU, he only cares because Charlie's a demon (and the daughter of Lucifer, but that's another thing). The way Adam sees it, he's been losing everyone he loves to temptation and sin. He believes he lost Lilith to Lucifer's seduction (even if he was an angel at the time, he eventually became a demon), he lost Eve to both Lilith & Lucifer and the Apple, he lost Abel to Cain's jealousy and wrath, he lost Cain to his inner darkness, he originally thought he lost Vaggie to the demons, and then he thought he lost her to seduction (even though Charlie didn't do anything like that). And this- this is why Adam's both so close to Lute and why he smiles when he dies in this AU. He died believing that he failed everyone he cared about except Lute, even though- in the back of his mind- he told himself he still failed her. Because he wasn't going to be able to make it back to Heaven and stay with her.

Y'all. I don't know WHAT made me decide to focus so much on these four... but this is what I got. This is what happened. They're devouring my brain.

[libidomechanica]

“I might seemed shee knew”

With eager gentle rainbow’s glory in fire, would     under other, had I sang of its luteous feeling, waved her heart to be shown for the     land, without recourse. While he cleft from

her path to rise liked it now vnnethes the ploughmen’s     loose gossamer embryos into the next selfe my mate in Armes he sworn to striction     can overhaile. And forgot not

be toom, weel aff, whose charms by accepting, asking     a living poets and out both the teeth but zombie-like face was a moment they letting     the painted in love’s ne’er at either

head has a crush on Myrna Loy. It was but     few. All her lists with her from their own to allot each other, who since my old ere there     be thing to look behind a bill the

world,—which doth rehearse making a state more, is happens     in thee, and it strife are were stand a fresh aray? Also arose, like tapers clear     as crystal eyes—’and don’t know not while

down the sun. I love, disgrace: knowing old, I should     be quenchers of some here all thing;—a dove for, but die the moonlight her, and slow, of comely     fair; the earth was to you growes

neere than answer, or adamant, to dazzled downe     hurt or heart-strings folde, their doubting communed with jellies fitte, but do not just proportion     wanting. Attend to win ye, O:

nae ither used by that first and favours light, hoodwink’d     with the walks with her about thee were but listen’d to inhale thunder. Gentlemen     my Muse; I teach heights connubial make

the stone cuckoo! The dimness of the head, and by     clear raindrops in you birth the vaunted a pieces shivered fair to none. As those two lovely     woe, there, for no sound that upstairs

neighbours’ land, the aged creation, till I take!     This good vse doth tuch those gaynen with large drops fell our heart! Star by his eyes: from moonlight     well-built housetop lonely spent, in

the eye and tomorrow, have a haram is in     thy voiceless truth and she said, Ruined.— But always at all mirrhor, as I do to the     good satire, Fair day I read—two

letters. Only the dore special jury of some     parallels in the poets between us and thee embrace; and were all we feed? But     on high classes bleach time, great least to

be lov’d, neglected and begg’d that if he hateful     for death in that after all my nest is made the slept, since all felt himself in eyes sparkle,     and coughing ships, and my breast: her

future was the years. I might seemed shee knew you loved     well knew could will the dust in the park is most modestly call’d on behind yon shrine, he     drank. The joys of ecstatic worships

its breathed for the tumbling made in the rights there were     final sign the starving home. Both pype play, be assured stormy seas and my fingers that     you sleep I never say suppose metal

the doubt! Is no dream a rich old lineage:     not one spake, an affluent orators, quakes, is happier men may not there, heaping     vp waues of nature’s willes entices,

louers pitie: looke a little black weeds of too subtle     Censor scrutinize. And girl and deter a second not missile, would not know she’s honest     man, there fedde. Even slowly strangers

the sicken noodle soul it circumspection     which where half impair’d? In which is occasion lose his breathe my pype, albeit turn back     at us, and is apt to catches

o’ her lordly left to do, the Queen, with iron     burned they in the held it till triumphantly. His should understand. As thus medled him     out. I know; and without mirth and test!

[crimeronan]

the UNDETAILED thesis i have re greywaren is that the trilogy's worldbuilding (and to a lesser extent the worldbuilding of trc) hinges on the irish otherworld, which is a parallel universe populated by the fey. the worldbuilding also hinges on the fey being eldritch horror gods that are completely different in scope and experience from humans, & hinges on the otherworld being an extremely malleable dreamscape where you can bound around galaxies and be an abstract concept and create whatever you want and shit.

i started trying to write more about traditional irish storytelling and the fey but swiss cheese brain is struggling for words. a topic to save for a more detailed post i suppose!

between the otherworld and the human world are two main layers, like sandwich fillings:

on the human world's side are the ley line crossings. these are places where the lines intersect, creating enough power for fey (which again, are eldritch inhuman entities) to be manifested. this is how we meet cabeswater and lindenmere, ilidorin is also one. by repairing the lines, these fey are able to communicate with each other while still being in the human world

fey that manifest at these crossings do so bc they genuinely like the human world. they communicate with human dreamers to achieve this; greywaren (ronan) is the only one who's gone beyond the crossings to actually BE human

started talking about the tir e e'lintes but it's getting too long and speculative. another thing to save for the detailed post

on the otherworld's side is the void and the sweetmetal sea, which separates the dimensions. fey can travel thru the void fine but humans cannot due to the whole Void thing. this is where people end up when they astral project & humans like adam keep going back despite the dangers, bc like the fey who manifest in the human world even tho it can hurt them, they want the magic and something more than their own universe

dreamers can use fey magic if they have the ley line keeping the door open for them; the act of creation and transformation is itself a kind of magic that opens windows (sweetmetals) into the otherworld

tldr text diagram

human world | ley line crossings | astral/sweetmetal sea | otherworld

and.... that's it for now bc that's all my swiss cheese brain remembers. thanks for sticking around

[actualbird]

nobody asked but here i talk about “Yoba” and give a few ridiculous stupid theories as to what the hell is going on in Stardew Valley’s prominent religion

Every Stardew Valley player knows who Yoba is. Afterall, the beginning cutscene where your grandfather dies, the symbol of Yoba is on the wall much like a the Christian crucifix, but instead of a cross, it’s some W looking fella. What that symbol actually is, according to the stardewcommunitywiki, “is the Anglo-Saxon rune called “ear” ᛠ), which can mean "earth" or "grave."” 

ConcernedApe has managed to imply an entire fictional religion within the setting of Stardew Valley, and fans want to know more about this religion. By “fans” of course I mean me and maybe 2 other people, but I digress. What is going in the religion of Stardew Valley?

Well here’s what we do know, according to the stardewcommunitywiki, that I want to expound on:

The origin story of Yoba is as follows: “Before time there was only the endless golden light. The light called out to itself...'Yoba'. Yoba wanted more. Yoba swirled the golden light into a vortex. Yoba swirled and swirled until a hole formed in the eye of the vortex. From this hold sprung a seed. Yoba smoothed the golden light. Yoba smoothed and smoothed, and the light became soil. Into this soil, Yoba planted the seed. The seed sprouted, and behold! A vine sprung skyward, twisting and probing, casting a writhing shadow onto the golden void. After 11 days, the vine bore fruit. Yoba, with knowing wisdom, peeled the tough skin off the fruit and saw that the world was inside. And so that is how the world came to be.”

The meaning of the symbol of Yoba could imply that those who believe in Yoba or those who worship the Earth.

Sin exists

After death, a character mentions posthumously that they are “with Yoba now.”

With these canon facts, it is easy to see a possible correlation between the religion of Yoba and Roman Catholicism. However, I want to posit some theories about the religion that make it less of a one to one translation with a new name and more of something a little bit to the left of Roman Catholicism.

Canon fact number 1 interests me greatly. There are clear parallels to the origin story of Yoba to the creation story in Genesis of the Bible, however the key difference between the two is that in the Bible, God creates something from nothing, whilst Yoba creates from some sort of epicenter or beginning. In Yoba’s origin story, they do not create light from darkness, they create a seed and soil from light, plants that seed into the soil, and when the plant bore fruit, peeled the fruit and from that fruit the world came to be. This kind of narrative is interesting because it is a narrative of creating from what already exists, which implies some sort of balance in the world; that something must come from something else. It is also a narrative of nurturing life; which implies the importance of caring for something and that care resulting in something good.

These implications lead me to canon fact number 2, the symbol of Yoba meaning Earth. With this origin story, the implications of nature are very apparent. It occurs to me that in this game, being a farmer or having any vocation or calling that involves one taking care of the nature would be seen as something religious, or at the very least something that is very, very honorable. 

Canon fact number 3 comes from a dialog choice the player can choose in Shane’s six heart event, i.e. “It would be a sin.” But what is sin? Using Roman Catholicism as a reference, sin came from when Adam and Eve disobeyed God and ate from the Tree of Knowledge. We don’t have the rest of the book of Yoba as reference to understand sin surely and canonically, but I can theorize based on what I’ve said before. If the narrative of the origin story is based on balance of the world and care for things, then sin, I assume, would involve things that disrupt the balance of the world (i.e. excess, greed, pride) or neglect the care of others or the self (i.e. any type of hurting, envy, sloth). 

Canon fact number 4 implies that there is an afterlife, supposedly a good one where one can be with Yoba. There is not reincarnation, but instead a fixed endpoint after one dies. I don’t really have much to say here because there is no canon allusion to any sort of hell or purgatory. All I assume is that the religion of Yoba implies that there is a place one’s soul goes to after death, which is neat, for those who like that sort of thing.

So there’s some theories about Stardew Valley religion, I guess. 

[spn-romantica]

So I watched SPN for years, right up until the end of S11, when they brought back Mary. I heard that S15 would be the last season, and I was like ‘oh ok I’ll rewatch (for like the 8th time) and finish SPN then’ BUT THEN 15x18 happened and I was violently pulled back into the SPN fandom. I still haven’t caught up fully watching yet, but I’ve read so much discourse now...and I have thoughts. Hypotheses currently. I’ll wait to finish the whole show for real to call any of this theories but, I wanted to record my thoughts.

They’re about Chuck. As a villain. Which weirds me out. As an antagonist? Sure. As evil? No. Can’t envision it. I just finished my rewatch of S5 and, damn, but if Chuck is the ultimate villain, S5 reads very differently. :0

But I recently saw a post comparing Dean’s reaction in 1x18 (I believe) to his in 10x05 (for sure) about when someone mentions his mother’s death. In 1x18, it’s Sam when they were children and Dean gets angry. In 10x05, it’s a group of high school girls and Dean just bops his head along to the song. The post was framing it as 10x05 not understanding Dean’s thoughts about his mother, but I think that both episodes understand Dean. When Dean is a child, the trauma over his mother’s murder is still fresh. By 10x05, the event is 70 years in the past. Of course it still affects Dean. Of course. You never really get over something like that. But I’d argue that after 70 years, Dean has moved through the stages of grief to acceptance. It still hurts, but like an old ache, not a fresh, still-bleeding wound.

Interestingly, 10x05 is when we see Chuck, after a long absence. He’s watching the play, probably happy that someone loves his work enough to even make a musical, but he is also watching the Winchesters. The actual episodes of the show, aka the books Chuck writes, are what Chuck knows/cares about regarding the Winchesters. Despite being God, I’d argue he doesn’t pay attention to every second and all the little minutia of the boys’ lives. So, here in 10x05, we have confirmation that Chuck is around to see that Dean has healed from his mother’s death.

Later, in S11, Dean acts as therapist/life counsellor to Chuck/God, regarding Amara and Lucifer. And it works! Dean teaches God about family and about healing. Why does God listen to Dean Winchester, a random human? Perhaps it is because of S1-5. Perhaps it is because Dean and Sam were part of God’s test, as God himself describes it in 5x22.

What was the test? Was it God’s experiment about choice and free will? About freedom vs peace? Or, perhaps, was God trying to understand sibling relationships? He and Amara are two faces of the same coin. They are siblings, but with very different outlooks and it caused a rift between them, caused Chuck to seal Amara away before she could destroy his creations. Chuck regretted this, but saw it as a necessary betrayal. But then, some time later, Chuck’s angelic children experience their own betrayal and sibling rift. Lucifer tries to turn the angels against God, rebel and reject God. He makes demons, for sure, and maybe even Hell. But why? God figures that Lucifer was maybe jealous of the new baby (humans) like others in the show postulates. Or maybe Lucifer had beef specifically with Michael, because humans are little more than amoebas from an angelic perspective. Aside from Castiel, Anna and a handful of other angels, angels consistently view humans as humans might view dust mites. Maybe humans were the cause of the rift between Michael and Lucifer, but it was Michael and Lucifer’s relationship that needed fixing in the end, regardless.

So God is left with the sad conclusion that maybe close siblings will inevitably betray each other and be unable to forgive and heal. He wants to heal with Amara. But he also wants Michael and Lucifer to be able to heal. (It doesn’t occur to God that maybe Lucifer’s problem was never with humanity or Michael; it was with God.)

So God has research to do, to see if it’s possible for siblings to experience such deep betrayal and still heal. He turns to his little hairless apes, the only sentient species on Earth with potential to parallel the angels. He starts testing siblings. Cain and Abel are first up. Needless to say, but the betrayal was too strong and left no room for healing. But on down the line of Cain, God continues testing. Eventually, we come to Sam and Dean.

God has scheduled Michael and Lucifer’s family counselling session for 2010. All the data up to this point says it can only end badly. Maybe it’ll half-kill the Earth, but it’s finally time for Michael and Lucifer to meet and for one of them to die. God isn’t happy about this conclusion, but it’s what the data says. So, finally, the last test subjects, the last in the line who will be the vessels for Michael and Lucifer’s showdown, arrive. Sam and Dean Winchester are to be the last sibling test. The conclusion seems foregone at this point, but there is no point in cancelling the last bit of the test after so long, so it continues. God watches. And Sam and Dean surprise God. Siblings after siblings had failed for millennia to heal. Betrayals too strong, healing too little, too late. But Sam and Dean. no matter how badly they hurt each other, find a way to come back together and heal. They don’t give up on each other, despite millennia of data to the contrary. Still, the angels and demons push and push at Sam and Dean until their rift is as wide and as deep as Michael and Lucifer’s, as God’s and Amara’s (in late S4). It seems, despite the brothers’ best efforts earlier on, it’s all for naught.

But there is a further element of randomness, something God couldn’t foresee. Castiel. God hasn’t had occasion for romantic love in his own experience, so he is entirely blind to what choices Castiel is likely to make. He provides an element of randomness to the experiment, an essential part that gives Dean the ultimate chance to go back to Sam and begin to heal (4x22).

Throughout S5, Sam and Dean heal. There is hurt, still, of course, but they love each other and forgive each other. By 5x22, they’ve surprised everyone. Even the angels have given up on turning them against each other, and have shrugged and settled for using Nick and Adam as the vessels for the showdown. Sam and Dean passed their test. They were siblings who betrayed each other and healed from it. God reconsiders how family counselling will go with Michael and Lucifer. He figured it would be the Apocalypse, the end of the problems between Michael and Lucifer, as one of them dies, as had always happened before. But, Sam and Dean showed God, that though it is rare, it is possible to heal. So God gives Sam and Dean an out. He gives Sam the strength to seize back control from Lucifer, should things go south.

Finally, the showdown arrives. Michael and Lucifer meet. They talk things out. To God’s surprise, Lucifer reveals that he never had a problem with Michael. He had forgiven Michael long ago. But Michael couldn’t forgive Lucifer. He had to be a ‘good son’ and do what he thought God wanted him to do. But Michael didn’t realise, that God doesn’t give orders. Free will all the way, baby! But the whole thing comes as a surprise. Apparently, all this time, the problem relationship wasn’t siblings, it was parents.

Oops.

Good thing God had a back-up plan.

Sam throws himself and Lucifer (and Michael and Adam) into the Cage. Michael and Lucifer have an eternity to figure things out between each other now. But that’s beside the point. The point is, now, that God has to start testing all over again. Not how to fix sibling relationships, but how to fix parent-child relationships.

God restores Castiel, perhaps for a few reasons because God exists outside of time, but originally it may have been just for one. He likes Castiel. He is impressed that Castiel invented free will for himself, broke free of angelic programming (multiple times over), and did it all for love. It’s novel. It’s interesting. God might even think it’s sweet. But God has had time later, and thought about it, and he has a plan. And Castiel is essential.

But Dean Winchester is the key.

Sam and Dean’s relationship with their own father has been strained, but both boys find a way to forgive John his flaws and failings, and love him. Whenever they do get a chance to see him again, post his death, they don’t hate him. They’ve healed. John’s relationship with Sam and Dean is one point of data, Abraham and Isaac another. There are many data points that God can reflect back on and consider.

But as S6 through S10 roll on, God watches Sam and Dean and Castiel. He even watches Crowley and Rowena for another data point. Dean is his main focus, however. (This is a little meta, but as the story focuses more on Dean than Sam post S5, it ties in. Prior to S6, both Sam and Dean were essential - the sibling test. Now, post S5, the parent test, Dean is the most essential. Of course, Sam and Castiel are important too. But Dean is key.)

Dean is a good father. He was a good father to Sam, even when he was only 6 years old himself. He was a good father to Ben. He was willing to die for Bobby John. He’s always good with kids. Not only that, but Dean is blunt enough, brave enough, and crazy enough to tell God to God’s face what he thinks. God needs Dean’s advice, his perspective and opinion on family relationships, but he also needs to see what Dean would do if he were in God’s shoes.

[Edit (1/04/21): After seeing Michael and Lucifer (mostly) heal, and after seeing Sam and Dean heal their relationship, God finally has hope for him and Amara. So God logically wants to retrieve Amara from her prison. But how? Well, he could just wander on up to Cain and do it himself, but what would Amara say? “So I see you’ve come crawling back, eh, Chucky?” She wouldn’t be impressed with God. She wouldn’t understand, because she’s hopeless too. SO how to give her hope? How to make her see that she and God can be okay again? Why, stick her near Dean Winchester, of course! So God sets things up for Dean to get and lose the Mark of Cain, thereby ensuring that Amara will feel a connection to Dean and stick around him/keep him alive long enough for Dean to work his life-coach magic.]

In S11, God and Amara heal their relationship because of the hope Sam and Dean gave God, and also the direct advice Dean gives God. God and Lucifer, not so much.

God needs more data. He needs to see what Dean would do. In comes Castiel’s relevance. God sets things up so that Lucifer can have a son. A nephil. Jack. And God points Castiel in Jack’s direction, trusting Castiel’s ability for unconditional love to keep Jack alive long enough for the experiment. Castiel becomes Jack’s father. But Castiel will never betray Jack, the way God betrayed Lucifer. And, besides, Castiel isn’t the target of this experiment. But it is Castiel’s relationship with Dean Winchester that provides the link needed to get the experiment rolling.

Because Jack is Castiel’s son, he is therefore Sam and Dean’s nephew. Except, God has been watching Castiel and Dean. And, frankly, their romantic love for each other is so obvious even God cannot miss it. Through Castiel, Dean sees Jack as his son too. He loves Jack, exactly like a son. In this way, Dean parallels God, and Jack parallels Lucifer.

But God knows Dean would not easily turn on any child, let alone his own child. So God had a plan for that too. One that Amara helped him with.

They brought back Mary Winchester.

Mary is the one person in existence whose loss would hurt Dean enough to spur him to action. So, she was brought back to die. It was a matter of only a few years of gentle prodding to get everything in position. Jack causes Mary’s death. Dean is faced with a horrible decision. If Jack can kill Mary, what’s to say that Sam and Castiel wouldn’t be next? Mary’s death is like everything beginning all over again for Dean as well. Her first death set off a chain reaction, a series of unfortunate events that spanned decades and nearly caused the ruination of not only Dean’s life, but Sam’s and John’s and even the world. That scar, which had healed as well as it could after 70 years, that God saw was healed in 10x05, has been violently opened up again. It’s the only thing that could force Dean’s hand, that could get him to betray Jack and try to kill him. If Jack had killed Sam or Castiel, it wouldn’t have had the same effect. Both Sam and Castiel had died and come back so many times, and while it would hurt Dean and make him doubt Jack, their deaths would be a sacrifice that Dean would feel obligated to respect, to give Jack a second chance like they would both want. (And God has been laying the groundwork for Dean, convincing him that Jack is evil, will be evil like Lucifer, can’t be allowed to live. All things God has thought about Lucifer over time. Was Lucifer inherently evil? Was their rift inevitable?)

So, here it is. The big test. Will Dean kill Jack? Will he betray Jack and cause an unhealable rift? Or will he find a way to heal, like he did with Sam against all the odds?

And, once again, Dean impresses God. He refuses to kill Jack.

But now we’re in the endgame. Sam, Dean and Castiel are aware that Jack’s life was only on the line because of God. It’s not something they can forgive, or understand. They’re all God’s guinea pigs, and while he loves his guinea pigs, he knows he’s hurt them in the name of science, of knowledge. or healing, and God can’t undo what he’s done. Free will is linear, after all. So it is time for the Winchesters, Castiel and Jack included, to be done with God. God is done with them, too. It’s time for them to be free and at peace. The experiments are done. God has decided not to kill Lucifer. He has decided to try to heal. He can get Lucifer out of the Empty and talk and try to fix things. He has forever to fix things, now that he knows he can. (The last element of this, Jack forgiving Dean for trying to kill him, is something I have limited knowledge of, but I am under the impression happens so... To be added in the edit once I finish the series.)

But the only way the Winchesters will be able to rest, is if they think God, the last and greatest villain, is out of the way. They know they’ve been manipulated their whole lives, first towards the sibling experiment and now the parent experiment, so they need to think God is gone so they can feel secure in their free will once more. Truthfully, God never took their free will. He set them up in situations, maybe even gave a bio-chemical nudge of anger (Dean) or attraction (Sam and Eileen) every now and then. But the choices were always theirs. Still, God knows they won’t see it that way. So he sets things up so that they can defeat him.

He lets them win. He wants them to win. They cannot defeat God, after all. It’s not God’s time, and Death is the only one who can claim God in the end, as the two embrace as friends and walk to the next existence. But the Winchesters need this, and so God allows it. A last gift, to the beings who have been such help, hope and inspiration to him.

With an eye for an eventual S16, 15x20 is written to be ‘an ending’ but also one that could easily be reframed as a bad dream.

For example...

Unfortunately, after Jack, suped up on a extra Grace God lent him, restores the Earth and expends all the Grace (”giving up the mantle of God so that their is no God, no plans, only Free Will”), and Dean, Sam and Jack head back to the Bunker to regroup and gather the ingredients to do the spell to rescue Castiel from the Empty, they’re jumped by monsters who are angry with how much God has fucked with them on behalf of the Winchesters. 15x20 is all a djinn dream Dean is trapped in.

16x01 is Dean waking himself up from the djinn dream, Sam and Jack escaping their own monsters, and then the end of 16x01 is Dean saying something about waking Castiel up from his own dreams in the Empty. The rest of S16 sees the boys save Castiel, reunite with Eileen, start a monster-hunting Bobby Singer/Men of Letters-esque organisation, Dean and Castiel getting together and getting married on Valentine’s Day, Jack getting to live a normal life, going to school, making friends, etc.

If their is no S16 ever (which would be criminal), then 15x20 makes no sense, unless it is plainly a recount of an old, hopeless ending written by God. However you spin it, 15x20 is not the way it seems (like owls).

All things being said, God is an antagonist, but he’s not evil. He’s an asshole, sure, but he never once worked against the Winchesters, never bet against them, never tried to erase or end them. He wanted them to win. He wanted to see the fruits of free will be love, second chances, hope, forgiveness, healing, and happiness, not just betrayal, pain, selfishness, jealousy, disappointment, and hopelessness.

Why is the ending he shows Becky ‘hopeless’? Because God is. He has spent his long existence losing his most loved family members. Amara, Lucifer. How can things end well for God, when they can’t even end well for humans? But Sam and Dean defy the script, again and again. They surprise God, defying the statistics, defying the hypotheses, throwing the experiment into disarray. Giving God hope. Sam and Dean were okay. Dean and Jack were okay. If God had a romantic love, he would find hope from Dean and Castiel being okay. But when God wrote the book he showed Becky, he was writing what he thought would happen. In the end, surely, not even Dean can be enough to hold Sam and Cas and Jack together. But in the end, as we see, as God sees, he is proven wrong and he’s happy to be wrong. He’s hopeful. And he can leave Dean, Sam, Castiel and Jack, and all the angels and all the humans, to rule the Earth and the Heavens. He doesn’t need to learn anything more from them, so he heads to the Empty, with Amara, with Lucifer, with Death (Billie or not, Death is there for God in the end), and they can all depart for a better existence of their own.

If you read all of this, thanks! I eagerly anticipate watching the remaining 10 seasons so I can come back and edit the heck outta this, but until then, if y’all have any thoughts, I’d be interested to hear them~

TLDR: God is a morally bankrupt scientist and the Winchesters are his guinea pigs, but he’s not evil and he does love his guinea pigs, even if he could really treat them nicer.

[ravenpureforever]

Ok I can not tell you how terrified I was to watch this week’s episode but here we are-

First of all we started with baby Adam which while I do hate Adam with every fiber of my being, I am interested in his baby pre-creepy dude version and I enjoyed seeing from Tadashi’s perspective even if I could live happily without anymore examples on the cycle of abuse.

Then everyone watching in amazement that Reki is back to normal again & happy filled me with such glee, like yes our boy is back and thank lord for it. Him meeting Langa & doing their special new fist bump was just beautiful start to a beautiful episode.

I was just so happy to return to our regularly schedule boys who adore each other having a good time that I forgot for a moment that Adam exists.

Love that Reki identifies Tadashi as man from love hotel, disappointed that Langa, our Canadian boy, does not know what a love hotel was & there was no mention of Reki getting hit by a car. I need that fic where everyone learns and it’s dramatic and cathartic for that entire scene.

Cherry & Shadow vibing in wheelchairs together in the hospital was amazing. Joe & Miya hanging out together was also amazing. Also where is my scene of Reki getting back together with all of them. Where is it. Miya being a little tsundere about caring for Reki was great and Joe as pleased older sibling/dad was wonderful as well.

Also can we just take a moment to appreciate how clever Reki is? Like my boy’s got so much brainpower and so knowledgeable about the technical part of skating and I need more awareness of my son’s smarts. (Also not me making parallel’s between Cherry’s creation of Carla & Reki’s creation of boards-)

Now the pre-beef: Miya being the baby tsundere for his friendship with Reki is once again adorable. Everyone being worried for Reki? So cathartic for me, my boy deserves all the love. The matchablossom where Cherry has Joe push him around in the wheelchair? 10/10 highly recommend, I love my bickering married couple and we need more screen time of them again. Langa’s absolute faith in Reki? My heart can’t take this love-

The beef itself? One of the most terrifying things I’ve ever watched and was absolutely, utterly amazing. Like Reki didn’t back down at all, he just kept going at it and it worked. Like Adam thought this was going to be boring & easy and sike bitch no. Reki wondering what Langa would do & deciding to do what was fun and succeeding that amazing jump? Perfection! Reki taking Adam’s hits and putting all his ambition in to it? My heart hurts but it was so impressive! Reki’s intellect coming into play and that’s how he got the upper hand on Adam? Best thing I’ve seen all night, I think it might be the best part of the episode!!! Adam getting left behind in the mud? Get recked loser, so cathartic, now all I need is you in jail! I was absolutely terrified that Adam was going to imprint on Reki next but him going in the opposite direction was certainly....interesting...

Anyway, Reki getting the attention & acknowledgment he deserves? 1000000/10, can not get enough! Reki almost beating Adam and losing by like an inch? Pretty incredible, I’m so proud of my boy! Everyone praising Reki and being so happy for him? This is what I am here for!!! Langa going into full on protective mode when Adam tries to come near Reki? Glorious and my Renga loving heart was squealing.

Once again, Tadashi, none of this is your fault. The answer here is putting Adam in jail & getting him therapy. (Not me going o.O at Tadashi finding parallels between Reki and Adam)

I’m completely petrified for episode 12 with the way everything ended but other than that, this was such a cathartic episode even if it’s missing a couple scenes, and I fully enjoyed it.

[iwowzumi]

so i’ve had a few hours to process mi and i know that mstief has said it’s very much about chronic illness and while i very much agree, it’s MY coping series and i get to project onto it so i’d like to throw my hat in the ring for it’s about mental illness as well, especially the more “””destructive””” ones, and specifically how people cope with it. tw for mental illness, s/uicide, and all the stuff that comes with it.

because ronan and hennessy are undeniably destructive, either because they can’t help it (murder crabs, the lace) or because they want to be (ecoterrorism, hennessy’s orb). this applies both to their immediate surroundings AND to themselves, their relationships. and while in these cases the cause seems to be the dreaming, it would be easy to draw a parallel to mania or psychosis, maybe dissociation (though dissociation among trc/tdt characters i.e. jordan, matthew, adam is a discussion for a different day). i’m showing my hand a little but i also think ronan’s paranoia in this book is pretty significant— see his whole “everyone was in on it” spiel when it was, at its core, his loved ones trying to protect him from self-destruction. i also think mental illness here is deeply tied to creation/dreaming (as it is for many mentally ill people). ronan creates and sometimes creates destruction but when he doesn’t it destroys him (nightwash) and hennessy has a mental block, arguably due to trauma that keeps her from creating at all (the lace) but i digress.

the way i see it, ronan and hennessy are two very mentally ill people coping in very different ways. or rather, they are at different stages in their coping process. hennessy (although she very much has an individual struggle i want to emphasize that) is where ronan used to be. she’s s/uicidal— i think that’s inarguable. the lace aside, she even asks for liliana and carliana to kill her. but i think the lace speaks for itself. it hates her and it destroys, but it’s really hennessy hating herself, wanting to destroy herself. thats why she keeps dreaming doubles (though i would also argue that the doubles are an attempt to imagine a hennessy without mental illness, without trauma). that’s as much as text, and it’s nearly a direct parallel to how ronan used to view himself. he used to dream doubles as well— versions of himself to give to his self hatred and s/uicidal tendencies. hennessy is learning, she’s stopped dreaming doubles, but on some level she still hates herself enough to want to die. it invades her dreamspace and renders her unable to create. it makes sense to me that she was only able to dream the orb after encountering carmen and liliana, two supportive (and lesbian, diversity win!) women who explicitly tell hennessy that her life has value. but her solution to turn off the ley line is also interesting to me. the lace, her tendency for self-harm that tends to manifest when she creates, is so overwhelming that the only way out of it that she sees is to remove her ability to create altogether, and i wonder how this will affect her. i’m eager to see how her character develops in the third book and i hope that will come in the form of her treasuring her own life and reclaiming her ability to create from her trauma and mental illness as well as rebuilding relationships with people (jordan!) who she’s pushed away out of fear or self martyrdom.

and then there’s ronan. we’ve never seen ronan at his most s/uicidal— that was pre-trc, when he went to the hospital. idc if they were his dreams, that was a s/uicide attempt and i will not be dissuaded on this. still, a lot of trc was ronan coming to terms with himself as a dreamer, a gay man, a high school dropout, a mentally ill person, and learning that his life DOES have value! and that’s a lesson i think he’s learned by tdt, and certainly by mi. he wants to live, and he wants to create! but he feels stifled by a world that doesn’t want to accommodate that. in this world there’s no space for his murder crabs or his hay barn full of wheels— for his mania and destruction. and he feels and fears that his loved ones only want him as a diluted version of himself, which is devastating when you’ve only just learned to accept all of yourself. and it’s hard because you don’t want to hurt your loved ones! or yourself! but you also don’t want to be treated like glass, or like you’re defective, or like you have to hide the wild and sometimes ugly parts of yourself to be palatable enough for society to accept you. so he creates bryde. someone like him, but who has it all together and is in control, who can help him create a world that accommodates him, doesn’t stifle him, but also indulges ronan in his most self-isolating, paranoid compulsions. bryde is both an indulgence and a self-protective measure. i think this is why the lace is afraid of bryde because on some level, bryde IS the lace, just in a different form, evolved, a different way of coping that involves living. but it’s also why adam and all of the people who love ronan are afraid of the lace— they can see that bryde is just as destructive, just in a different way.

this is not to say that either hennessy or ronan are wrong, that one is coping “better” than the other, that they’re coping badly, or that bryde and lace are their “evil mental illness.” it’s way way more complex than that, and that’s why i find myself increasingly sympathetic to hennessy even as she becomes more destructive in the same way that i can’t find myself completely disagreeing with bryde. these parts of hennessy and ronan can be inwardly and outwardly harmful but they can also be beautiful and necessary— hence the magic that is dreaming. (this is also not to say that the people they dream aren’t autonomous, but that’s a whole other can of worms) the mental illness can’t be shunned away or eliminated entirely. it has to be radically accepted as a part of the whole that is ronan and hennessy. and that’s a lifelong process that i think every mentally ill person grapples with, and i’m very much looking forward to seeing how hennessy and ronan evolve with respect to these concepts in the third book

[kingbennyboyyy]

benny’s RWBY rewrite: the white fang

so this is something that’s been on my mind for a while, and i’ve been trying to formulate my thoughts about it. the white fang in RWBY, as it stands now, is a really poorly thought-out approximation of the black panther party, an actual organization that fought for the equal rights and the equal treatment of black people in the united states. the black panther party’s actions have been long pathologized by white society and academia at large, and have been falsely contrasted with the ideals and teachings of MLK. the false dichotomy of violent and non-violent action is reductive at best, and blatantly racist at worst. while there is a whole fuckton to be said about the real-life consequences of these discourses, i’d like to focus on their impact on the writing of RWBY. i’d also like to talk about how i’d change how the white fang looks in order to make things a little less uncomfortable.

content warning for real and fictional racism, antiblackness, violence against marginalized people, and discussions of white supremacy under the cut.

so, the white fang. the RWBY wiki describes the group as “ a Faunus organization in Remnant. Founded following the Faunus Rights Revolution, the White Fang was initially a peaceful activist organization created to improve relations between Humans and Faunus and improve the civil rights of the latter.” more concisely, i would describe the white fang as a faunus rights activist group, whose modes of operation have changed over time. within the story, after the peaceful leader ghira stepped down, the faction as a whole took a notable nose-dive into violence. but why did this happen? why was the white fang written like this?

first of all, all of the following talk comes from the subjective opinion of one black genderqueer writer. i am not the voice of the entirety of my community, and i can bet that there are people who disagree with me. i’m just here to say my piece.

that said, i think that the white fang’s writing grossly misunderstands what oppression looks like to marginalized people. the RWBY writing team obviously wanted to handle racism in some kind of way- they wrote racism into the story. however, it’s incredibly clear that most of the writers don’t really understand how deeply racism runs in given societies. the oppression of the faunus is clearly mirroring the oppression of black people in the united states, and yet there’s little to this oppression other than surface-level discrimitation. ghira’s direction of the white fang doesn’t seem to understand that personal prejudice is a very small aspect of the continued oppression of the faunus. alarmingly, it’s only when “radicals” such as sienna khan and adam taurus take control that actual, structural avenues of racism are acknowledged. this has several issues.

- whether the RWBY writers intended this or not, attributing the acknowledgement of actual systemic issues to violent radicals is inherently a really bad call. the dismantling and destruction of racist structures is the baseline of most avenues of anti-racist thought, but by only assigning these beliefs to people like adam “kill all humans” taurus, you’re telling the audience that only people like adam “i’m gonna kill all my ex’s loved ones b/c she hurt my feelings” taurus think that these things are a reality. make no mistake, institutional racism and structural violence against marginalized people is a thing. by giving these ideas to violent actors, you’re sending a really shitty message. 

- another thing to note is the role of fear in the white fang’s activity. blake is quoted as saying that under adam taurus, people only pretend to respect the faunus because they’re afraid of the white fang. this is also bad. there is an actual line of racist thought that thinks that people who just want equality are a bunch of thugs using intimidation tactics to get special treatment, and by affirming this in-canon, you’re giving credence to these beliefs. in addition, adam’s literal desire to put humans in cages and make them go extinct is also an actual white supremacist talking point. actual fucking white supremacists go on about how the white race is going extinct as a means to manipulate otherwise well-meaning people into committing acts of violence against marginalized people. but RWBY says, “no, the white fang actually wants humans to be wiped off the face of the earth.” i shouldn’t have to tell you how buck fucking wild this is. 

- there’s also the role of violence in activism. the black panther party has long been attributed with senseless and anger-fueled violence against white people, but this assessment of the party is completely false. in truth, the arming of black panthers was a direct response to overpolicing and police violence against black people. the black panther party advocated self-defense, and acted as its own protective force for black americans. they had guns so that they could protect themselves from the cops, who were assaulting and killing them in absurd numbers. if the RWBY writers wanted to draw parallels between the white fang and the black panther party, they could have very easily done so by actually doing their research.

the question becomes, is it at all possible to have members of the white fang as actual villains within the RWBY universe? i’d say that it is possible, but it has to be done very carefully. there’s several things that have to be kept in mind here, and the entire understanding of faunus oppression has be to restructured in order for this to work. i’ll outline what i would change below:

- firstly, there needs to be more evidence of faunus marginalization past the surface level. this could be evident in a phethora of ways, anywhere from the trend of faunus hiding their animal traits being more common (an important thing to note is how accessible passing as a human is to the faunus), to beacon actually having much more bias than humans are aware of. blake highlighting these biases would be extremely helpful in establishing how deeply anti-faunus sentiments run. the only racists being cartoon bullies and shady billionaires rings too closely to the sentiments that white people have about racism. this is also a comparatively minor gripe, but the whole “becoming the monster people think they are” mask thing is just so... dumb. there are legitimate reasons for faunus to hide their identities during protests, and pathologizing this is just such a shitty thing to do.

- next, the white fang as a whole cannot be a terrorist organization in actuality. people can believe that the white fang are a bunch of terrorists, sure, but this can’t be the truth. for example, it would make perfect sense for weiss to think such things. her being the heiress to the schnee dust company, being fed stories about scary faunus with weapons trying to hurt her and her family would make sense. but the stereotypes humans have about faunus activism can’t be true. in addition, there should at the very least be more than one faunus activist party. the fact that there’s only one in the entire continent of remnant is so fucking stupid. you don’t think that some group of people would be dissatisfied and go and do something else?

- adam and sienna cannot be the leaders of the entire white fang. i’m sorry, but it’s just way too fucking easy for racists to say “oh, the entire thing’s just an excuse for (insert minority here) to ransack property and hurt people!” ilia could have been promoted after ghira stepped down. it would be interesting to see how she uses her ability to pass as human to actually make some changes for the people of menagerie, and the power structures that led to its creation. sienna has the potential to be someone disillusioned by strictly pacifist ideals of ghira, but she can act more in accordance to the actual black panther party, advocating for self-defense and knowing one’s rights. the arming and training of faunus, as frightening as it may be to the humans in power, cannot and should not be depicted at the beginnings of terrorism. there’s potential for actual discussion of the effectiveness of pacifism and respectability politics in activism, but all of that was overshadowed by the gross villification and oversimplification of the white fang.

- finally, adam. i think that adam is able to remain mostly the same, with a few adjustments to the environment around him (along with the previously discussed changes). i don’t think that adam should be the only person whose violent oppression is readily visible. the trope of the oppressed person going “mad with vengeance” is just adding fuel to the fire of the belief that those who speak out against their oppression should be put down. as satisfying an arc blake and yang beating the shit out of blake’s abusive ex was, it did just kind of feel like two people being like “yeah! violence wrong! pacifism good!” the unification of faunus SDC workers shouldn’t be attributed to adam. the advocacy for faunus to be able to defend themselves shouldn’t be attributed to adam. adam needs to be labled extremely clearly as an outlier, and even then this is risky. i think that adam’s group should be miniscule in comparison to the other sects of the white fang, and i think it would be interesting for his dealings with roman and company to be based on the distribution of android soldiers. adam shouldn’t come from a good place. yes, he suffered atrociously at the hands of his oppressors, but as a character and as an element of the story, he should be uniquely evil. for the few actual people in his group, he should rule through fear and violence, and defectors should be common. his brand of violence should be unique: rather than actually aiming to make changes to help the faunus, he should be solely focused on revenge. blake’s leaving him makes more sense in this way: rather than her leaving because of the inherent evil of violence, she should leave him because of his twisting the good intentions of the white fang into a self-serving cruelty. this all has to be contrasted against the well-intentioned actions of the actual white fang. the terrorist logo that appears universally on white fang regalia should either be solely adam’s, or his group should have a different name entirely.

so there. there’s my thoughts on the white fang and the stuff that the RWBY writers were trying to do. what should be taken away from this discussion is this: it is possible to write racism into a fantasy story without it being an absolute garbage fire, but it takes work. it takes understanding racism, the fact that it’s not just cruel people, but people complicit in the structures that uphold it. it takes being mindful of actual racist talking points, and making sure that your work doesn’t play into them. finally, if you’re going to make a main antagonist a member of the fucking civil rights movement, please for the love of god make it abundantly clear that they aren’t the villain because they want equal rights.

i’ve read so many stories where this defanged, platitude-ridden form of activism is treated as the only valid form of activism. in reality, it’s the form that people in power are most comfortable with. people approve of the idealized version of MLK because his activism was one that made white people feel good. the MLK we read about in schools is an illusory one. the real man kept a gun on him because he knew that as much as white media would have you believe that people liked him, he knew that people still wanted him dead. 

[a-mandala-rose]

You Spin Me Right Round...

I’ve never written a meta post about an episode before, so with only three episodes left, I figured this is the perfect time to start. It typically takes me a few days to process and gather my thoughts, because much like Dean this season, I’m rather slow on the uptake. By the time I have something to say, it usually feels like the moment has passed. But what the hell. We’re three episodes from the end and I have FEELINGS.

To start, I’m going to back up a moment and talk about 15X16 (see “slow on the uptake,” above). Lots of fans, myself included, found themselves frustrated with watching what at first glance seems to be your run of the mill MOTW episode. A *good* MOTW, for sure, but still, with only four episodes left to go, it felt like we should be past this by now. In fact, “aren’t we past this?” seemed to be the theme of the entire episode and that alone should have clued us in that despite appearances, this episode was anything but just another MOTW. If that was too subtle, Billie’s pointed “you’re working a case? Now?” should have been a dead give away that we needed to look deeper. And many tried, but the most a lot of us could come up with was the brothers’ big emotional argument at the end and even that was a giant moment of “been there, done that.” Why at what should be a pivotal point in the series are we rehashing the same arguments we’ve been watching for the past 15 years?

Jumping ahead to 15X17 for a moment, we see Dean absolutely breaking down. He’s losing it. Imploding. Leaving aside all of the problematic comments about and to Jack (we’ll come back to that), Dean lays out the crux of the problem when he and Jack are talking in the Impala: he doesn’t know what’s real. Like he’s been saying all season, he’s lost the perspective to be able to tell what about his life has been his choice and what has been Chuck’s machinations. He’s stuck in Chuck’s hamster wheel. Going ‘round and ‘round. Repeating the same scenes, lines, hunts, and arguments on a loop. Wait…why does that ring a bell?

Back to 15X16 and NOW it makes sense. Why are we stuck in yet another MOTW episode? Why is Dean lying to Sam again? Why is he once again sacrificing someone he loves, leading them “into the meat grinder?” Why is he backsliding on all that great emotional growth we saw last season? Why is he repeating the same destructive patterns that thanks to Kaitlyn, we know he’s been stuck in since childhood? IT’S THE HAMSTER WHEEL. Round and round we go…but whose hamster wheel is it?

Back to 15X17, LOTS going on in this episode and I’m not going to touch on all of it. But some highlights [and these are in no particular order because 1) I’m scatterbrained as hell and 2) the fuck does it matter anyways, because as we’ve established, we’re just going around in a big ass circle here]:

We see some absolutely masterful manipulation by Chuck. Manipulating Dean in order to manipulate Amara because he knows thanks to their “bond,” she’ll never turn on Dean…unless he betrays her first…which brings us to two of the biggest points in this episode. First off, we learn that Chuck didn’t write the Dean/Amara bond, which, as many more brilliant meta minds have pointed out before me, mirrors Dean and Cas’ profound bond, which we learn at the end of the episode was also NOT written by Chuck (and in fact pisses him off quite a bit, to put it mildly.) This reminds us that though he claims to be omniscient, Chuck is definitely NOT omnipotent and while he may be able to control space and time, one thing he can’t control is human emotional bonds and relationships. And this friends, this is important. In fact, it’s everything.

Right before Chuck confesses that Castiel is, as Cas fans have long insisted, the very embodiment of free will (more on that later), Sam references Eileen, which, yes, is very sweet, but also...also, is a call back to their relationship, specifically, to Eileen’s fears that her feelings for Sam weren’t genuine. She wonders what about her and Sam’s relationship was real and what was Chuck, which we knew at the time was a mirror to Dean’s “What about all this is real?” The answer, of course? “We are.” And now we have confirmation: emotional bonds/relationships are REAL. They might be manipulated by Chuck, but they aren’t created by him and clearly, he can’t understand them. That’s illustrated several times in this episode. His reaction to Dean’s “icky” bond with Amara. His inability to "feel the love" of the angels she took him to see. His cold manipulation of his sister. The throwback to the way he threw Adam and Eve, his first human children, out of the Garden and then used their sons to further his own plans. His consternation with Castiel for not doing as he was told after he raised Dean from perdition.

Chuck doesn’t understand and didn’t create emotions. Which seems obvious wen you think about the fact that his first sentient children didn’t have them. Emotions are a specifically HUMAN creation and that is what makes humans so frustrating and incomprehensible to Chuck. It’s why he hates them. Not only are a few of them very disobedient pets, as a whole they've created something he cannot. What a blow to the ego that must be.

The second thing referenced by Amara and Chuck’s conversations about Dean is his betrayal of her. Chuck’s telling Amara that Dean is sending her to the “meat grinder” is not a coincidence. That language is a deliberate mirror to Dean accusing his alternate future self of sending Cas to the meat grinder in The End (That’s only one of several parallels Unity makes with The End. For a much more thorough accounting, check out castielslostwings’ Twitter thread.), which, as I referenced above, also parallels Dean’s willingness to send Jack on a suicide mission. What do these things all have in common? Each time, Dean is ignoring his own instincts, his own “moral compass,” in favor of a plan. In The End, he regrets his choice to say no to Michael…to veer from Michael’s, aka God’s, aka Chuck’s plan and is trying to recreate it by killing Lucifer/Sam. Now he’s following Billie’s plan, even though it clearly feels wrong to him. We can see that in the way he tries to distance himself from Jack. The way he tries to convince himself that Jack isn’t family. That he’s different from Sam and from Cas, even though he’s told Jack before that he IS family. Even though when he was angriest with Jack and distraught with grief over Mary, he still told Belphegor that Jack was “our kid.” We can see it too in the way he reacts equally defensively when Sam brings up how they’re about to betray Amara in 15X15 and again in 15X17 when we can see Dean flinch when she tells him they’ll always help one another. This feels wrong to him, but he’s doing it anyways because he thinks he has no choice.

Looking back over seasons’ past, the two ever-present themes in Supernatural have been free will (obviously) and found family. They’ve always been intertwined. We’ve watched time and time again as Sam, Dean, and Cas choose one another. But now we have those two themes coalescing more than ever before. Every time any of them chooses “the plan” over their family, shit goes sideways. And now we know it’s because, as Chuck has made pretty damn clear in his manipulation of Billie’s plan, he’s omniscient and he controls all time and space.  All plans are HIS plan.

But what doesn’t he control? Emotions. And the bonds they create between people. It’s in choosing one another that Team Free Will has always thwarted Chuck’s plan. Dean refusing to go down the path laid out for him in The End. Cas refusing to "hurt Dean Winchester." Sam refusing to reap MoC Dean. Dean refusing to shoot Jack in that cemetery. The boys refusing to hurt one another, again and again and again. The boys choosing one another again and again and again. And I think that's what Chuck really wants to break. Why he's so obsessed with getting his ending. This is what Becky was getting at in her critique of his story. Chuck doesn't understand his characters, because he doesn’t understand feelings. He hates this creation of humanity that has become more important to them and more defining of them than anything else, including him. So, he wants to conquer it. He wants to manipulate the situation to make his characters choose something of his divining over their emotional bonds to one another. Those bonds he didn't create and that he, in all of his omniscience and power, cannot sever.

15X17 confirms that free will is real. Cas chose to disobey. That wasn’t written by Chuck. And speaking of Cas, let’s look at our biggest two parallels of the season: Dean and Cas. (Sorry Sam. Sit this one out.) Cas, who Chuck has just identified as the epitome of free will. Cas who, once a mindless soldier, abandoned heaven’s plan. Who found his new purpose when he chose to become a father. Who follows his instincts over the plan because “something went wrong” and “the plan changed.” Versus Dean. Dean who has spent this entire season feeling trapped. Who keeps choosing “the plan” over his family and finds his cage getting smaller by the minute.

Back to 15X16. I asked before whose hamster wheel is Dean on? Dean says it’s Chuck’s, but that assumed that free will was a lie. Now we know it’s not. Free will is real and Chuck never even had to take it away from Dean. Dean gave it up as soon as he started following someone else’s plan instead of his own. Dean’s hamster wheel is of his own making.

There are so many more things I could say about 15X17. For starters, those chapter titles…are they referencing Chuck’s story? Or are they chapters in his death book, the one we saw in this episode and Chuck himself referenced? After all, Billie’s read that book, so she must have known “her” plan would fail. But she went down that path anyways…And speaking of Billie, I haven’t even touched on her or the Empty. The Empty says Billie wants “everything back where it belongs” with angels in heaven and demons in hell. Wait. That sounds familiar. Oh yes! My new favorite demon, Zack, said that in our other most recent “just a MOTW” episode. It seems Rowena wants something similar. Isn’t that interesting? And speaking of Rowena, if there’s one thing this show loves, it’s duality. Parallels. They’re everywhere…except, it seems, when it comes to the queen of Hell. Who will mirror Rowena? How interesting that we visited that empty throne room in Heaven last week…

BUT…the main thing here is this: Unity. This episode was about unity and now we have a unified Chuck and Amara. We’re going to need a unified TFW in order to defeat them. Because that is the key to defeating Chuck. Choosing one another…choosing our found family, the ones we’ve created those bonds with…again and again and again.

[achillestiel]

Hi Sam!!!! I’m here to interview you 😌💛💛💛💛( forgive me if I already know the answer to these I just want to keep all the data together )

Favorite season / weather ?

Favorite flower /plant ?

Favorite color?

Favorite song / quote that comes to mind?

Favorite fan fic trope ? ( road-trip , coffee shop , case fic , hurt/comfort etc)

(* optional)Favorite destiel quote / moment ?

A word that you think it’s pretty ?

Hi Cilla! 🐝💛

Favourite flower/plant - Succulents/Cacti

Favourite colour - Green

Favourite song/quote - oh my god so many are jumbled in my head right now

Favourite fic trope - aahh Friends to Lovers and any au wherein Dean is an artist (I think Painted Angels started this)

Favourite destiel quote/moment - the mixtape. It makes me weak at the knees and the Creation of Adam parallel honestly makes me want to scream cry.

A word I think is pretty - Halcyon

[starlightshadowsworld]

So it's no secret im critical of RWBY, I am with most things I enjoy. But the keyword of that is "enjoy", I love RWBY, have since I first discovered it and I wanted to talk about the things I love about it.

The Characters

You can write the most fantastic plot on the world but it means nothing if you don't have good characters. Since the beginning RWBY has been about its characters, it's even named after them. And we're introduced to these 4 girls all with hopes and dreams and watching them reach them.

And watching them grow throughout the course of the show is both heartwarming and heart breaking.

When these discussions come up everyone brings up. Weiss, which is fair she's had the most significant change (and shes a queen). She goes from stuck up princess to a warmer person. I love that she remembers the lessons she learned, Volume 1 or even Volume 2 Weiss wouldn't be the one comforting Yang in Volume 5. She might try but I feel like it would come across as insincere or lack the weight it did if Ruby was in her place.

This Weiss knows the pain Yang's going through, and the first thing that comes to her is to be there for her.

But hese two have never been very close. They've taunted and laughed and fought for each other and for me this is when Nice Weiss was just the new natural Weiss. But without losing what makes Weiss, Weiss.

But it's also the little things. Weiss defending Blake against Cordovin, Blake wrapping Weiss in a blanket when she's scared. Ruby being awe and supporting her team. The train scene to Argus felt like we were back in Beacon, Blake reading her book, Weiss is rolling her eyes but going along with Ruby and Yang and Ruby are fighting over who's winning a video game.

And its not limited to them, seeing Qrow being a badass and reluctant parent is always a fun time. And his alcoholism being explored was interesting and I didn't think we'd end up there. (It really puts Ruby into perspective, trying to be strong and happy for everyone with the stance of a leader. Ruby is a leader, that question was undoubtly answered.

Seeing Jaune, this goofy coward with a big heart go at Cinder because of Pyrrah's death... That hurt... That hurt a lot. And I may argue about the Statue scene but I hope he gets closure. (And stays away from those thirsty Mantle mums)

Ozpin's and Ironwoods downward spirals and reveals were beautifully done. It really felt like their Oz counterparts, going from the all knowing wizard to the man behind the curtain and the tin man losing his heart. You see just how much Ozpin cared for others, how his actions hurt many but have always been built on good intentions and just how human he is.

You see just how resilient and strong Ironwood is, how he's misguided but he will do whatever it takes. Really hit the theme of fear, especially with Ozpin's speech at the end.

The Music

Only gets better and better honestly. Casey you are awesome, the music is something I can never be prepared for. Until the End still makes me bawl like a baby everytime I hear it and they just reflect each and every scene, character and fight their placed in. The music in RWBY can feel as instrumental (see what I did there 🙃) to the show as the plot. Their intertwined, both telling these great stories. And they absolutely hold up, personally I love Weiss's songs and This will be the day and if that plays during the final battle I will scream.

They don't just hype up scenes, they add to them. I know ya'll were crying when Forever Fall started playing as the leaves hit the ground and Pyrrah's statue was revealed (... Not that I did.) And I'm already wondering about the songs for V8.

The writing and the Plot

Because despite some of the issues and criticism, it is good. I don't think we'd still be watching if we didn't believe that. Ironwood and Ozpin are my go to for awesome writing but their not the only instances of it. Yang and Ruby being reunited, Ruby instantly apologising and rambling and Yang giving her a big hug before bringing in Weiss, that was awesome.

Instantly we have Ruby, who up until now has been a leader crumble. In that moment she's Yang's little sister and Weiss is her best friend, nothing cemented that more for me that than moment after they've been apart for so long.

Ozpin's Backstory was long awaited and personally I loved it. You have two people, made us understand how much they loved each other and how their differing views changed the world and lead to the stare of remnant today. Do I prefer my headcannon? Of course I do, but that doesn't mean I didn't enjoy this any less.

Tai, Port and Oobleck talking with Yang, we needed that joy and she needed it too. It just felt real... You have these teachers and mentors who've seen war and destruction and they try to make her laugh. And I wish we could've seen more of that.

And the fact it keeps making us and them question things. Was it wrong for Ozpin to lie? Was it wrong for Raven for leave? Are we doing the right thing by going to Atlas? Should we tell Ironwood the truth? Should Ozpin have told Salem? Should Robin be trusted? Should Zwei be integral to the plot? The fact that they can do this, lay the consequences for what happened and still make us debate on the outcomes and the what ifs is impressive. (Although the Zwei one is fact)

Symbolism

Here's a few I found because I am a sucker for it and yes I know they may not all be intentional:

Both Yang and Adam have similar semblances. Except, Yangs takes time over a fight to build up, reflecting her thrill of a fight and how she likes to take risks. While Adam charges his into huge and constant attacks, showing his desire and eagerness to hurt others. Making them somewhat parallel the other, how they are quite alike in attitudes but not heart which is why Blake chooses Yang.

Ozpin having the relic of choice under Beacon because he values it so much, he makes sure everyone has one before they join him, before Pyyrah became the maiden. How one choice changed everything for him.

The White Fang wear Grimm masks, how they became more about spreading fear and they became more like monsters.

Ironwood having the relic of creation, the focus of innovation and robotics that's so prevalent in Atlas and how its energy was used to raise the city above the rest.

Ozpin being associated with gears and clocks.

Qrow and Raven's names mirroring their bird forms. But also because crows are seen as symbols of misfortune and Raven's are symbols of insight and prophecy.

Every Wizard of Oz and fairytale reference. There are too many to name so here's a few: Pinnochio being eaten by a Whale (giant whale grimmm and our protector of mantle), Tock is a crocodile Faunus who's semblance was dictated by a ticking clock, Ozpin glynda and Ironwood are Oz the good witch and tinman. Salem has flying gorilla grimm.

(side note for V8, from the trailer it seems Salem is looking for someone. She represents the Wicked witch, has her flying grimm.. And its been said Oscar represents Dorothy so get the missing posters ready)

Pyyrah being the one to unlock Jaune's aura and the idea of losing someone the way he lost her is what unlocks his semblance.

And that's all. Im well aware RWBY isn't a masterpiece and that it's not awful either. I love it for what it is.

[wanderingwomanwondering]

Random Clown Thoughts...

Is anyone else feelin’ the parallel imagery of divine love and romantic love with the mixtape scene from 12x19 between Dean and Cas when put in conversation with Michaelangelo’s The Creation of Adam?

Castiel was assigned by Heaven to serve as Dean’s angel, his protector. Of course it stopped being, just a mandate from Heaven ages ago. Castiel chose Dean, his cause, and humanity when he developed free will. He chose to pour love into Dean, even though Dean struggled from day one to accept that love, divine or otherwise. Castiel is a celestial being. He is made of divine love and he offers that to Dean freely, by helping him however he can, by being his loyal friend, by checking in on him mentally, physically, and emotionally. Castiel is always the one who can see through Dean’s BS and get right to the heart of what’s bothering him and/or get him to open up. What is divine love but the soul-deep knowledge that we are worthy, that we deserve saving. Castiel is this promise made manifest for Dean, and he died trying to impress this sacred truth on the man he loves.

Dean feels things deeply and acutely, but he’s afraid to express his feelings most of the time because his trauma history makes that feel unsafe and/or because he’s convinced that speaking his true heart will make everything hurt more when his loved ones are taken away from him or he himself ultimately dies young and bloody. Still, his heart is strong and it can’t be silenced. Cue the furtive glances, the caring caresses, the check-in phone calls disguised as business, the movie nights for “educational purposes”, the long hugs, the post-death binge drinking, the restless searching for Castiel whenever he goes off grid, the fixing of collars, hats, and ties, the voice breaking “I need you”s, and, of course...the mixtape.

In Michaelangelo’s The Creation of Adam, God gives Adam life and love with one gesture. In 12x19, Dean and Castiel do the same. The mixtape interaction shows the complexity and nuance of what they’ve built together over the years...and it’s beautiful!

[recentanimenews]

OPINION: WandaVision, SSSS.Gridman, and the Beautiful Prison of Nostalgia

  Just to warn folks: this article contains spoilers for WandaVision and SSSS.Gridman. 

  In 2021, in the middle of a pandemic and floundering movie theaters, the most discussed show of the year so far is Marvel's WandaVision. Fans and culture writers have been busy diving deep into what the show is about. Is WandaVision a successful portrait of the process of grief? Does it successfully humanize Wanda, a character who’s so far evaded the spotlight given to characters like Iron Man or Captain America? Is “what is grief but love persevering” a good or a bad line? Where was Mephisto in all this? Most difficult of all: in allowing Wanda some relief and kind words after she brainwashes an entire town into doing exactly what she says, does the show let her off the hook? 

  Listening to my friends and coworkers argue over this show over the past few weeks reminded me of one of my favorite anime of the past few years — a series that tackled themes of grief, nostalgia, and whether a monster can be redeemed. A series that predates WandaVision by three years and has a sequel coming out next month. That’s right, I’m talking about SSSS.Gridman!

    Like WandaVision, SSSS.Gridman is a show about a girl (Akane) who escapes to a bubble world when life becomes too much for her to bear. She uses special technology to manipulate people’s awareness, and through the power of a mysterious entity known as Alexis Kerib, summons giant monsters (kaiju) to murder those she doesn’t like. Our heroes, a trio of her classmates who join forces with the space cop Gridman to defeat the kaiju endangering their friends, eventually turn their attention to saving Akane, the “god” of their world, from herself. They do this over the course of 12 episodes and many exciting, well-choreographed battles.

  While Yuta (Gridman’s friend and partner) is technically the protagonist, Akane quickly steals the show as the most developed and layered character in the series. She’s capable of astonishing violence in the pursuit of her own happiness, but just as easily bruised when her plans fail and her creations turn against her. We see the moments when she regrets her actions, but also the moments where she makes terrible decisions despite knowing their costs. Just like Takeshi, the villain of SSSS.Gridman’s live-action predecessor, Akane is defined by weakness as much as strength. Even when her actions put other people at risk, they are driven as much by anxiety and fear as they are by hate.

    Just like with WandaVision, there was plenty of discussion as Gridman aired about whether or not Akane could be redeemed. Like Wanda, Akane has hurt and even killed many people. At times she even attempts to manipulate them. Yet at the end of the series, when she “opens the door” to Yuta and her friends and escapes Alexis Kerib’s influence, I was overjoyed. How could this be?

  Here’s my guess. Like WandaVision, Gridman isn’t just a show that attempts to humanize a villain. It is a show about nostalgia. As each episode of WandaVision is an obsessively detailed homage to American sitcoms, Gridman is a 12-episode love letter to live-action dramas and giant robot shows. Obscure alternate universe Transformers tie-ins, past episodes of Ultraman, Gridman scripts and guidebooks that were never produced — it’s all there, packed in not just by the dedicated staff but presumably through scriptwriter Keichi Hasegawa, himself a legendary Ultraman writer.

    Unlike Takeshi, Akane is a cool, stylish teenage girl. But deep down, she’s as much a geek as Takashi was, fiendishly dedicated to kaiju and robot shows. The kaiju she creates aren’t just a means by which she exerts control over the world, but an expression of her love. When Gridman destroys these kaiju to protect Yuta’s friends, Akane can’t help but take those losses personally. It’s not just the desecration of her favorite hobby. The failure of her creations is a consequence of her own lack of imagination. She can’t imagine any other way to manage her problems than to create a bubble world where everyone loves her.

  The trick of SSSS.Gridman is that while Yuta and his friends are the heroes, Akane is the true audience surrogate. How many of us also feel as though we are ostracized nerds with low self-esteem? How many use our favorite shows or games as an escape? In WandaVision, we see how Wanda watches sitcoms as a child as a way to cope with daily uncertainty. There’s nothing wrong with sitcoms; the creators of WandaVision clearly love them, having built such an elaborate homage to them. But if you spend the time watching sitcoms that you could be using to sleep or to eat (or, say, turning a town of people into a sitcom to avoid dealing with the death of your lover) then something will inevitably give.

  In Episode 9 of Gridman, Akane traps Yuta and his friends within their dreams in a last-ditch effort to turn them to her side. Each rejects her, choosing their responsibility to their friends rather than their god. At the end of the episode, we see that Akane, herself, is trapped in a dream. Despite holding unlimited power, all she can do is retreat further and further into a shell that she has built out of her own self-loathing. It is a shell that not even a superhero like Gridman can break. In the end, at the very last moment and with the help of her friends, Akane breaks it on her own.

    You could point at other similarities between WandaVision and what SSSS.Gridman did back in 2018, if you really wanted to. For instance, the way that both series (through Vision and Anti) approach the question of personhood and what it means to be a “monster” or a “robot.” You could parallel the efforts of Yuta, Rikka, and their friends to pull Akane out of her hole with the way Monica Rambeau becomes an empowered hero surrogate in WandaVision. If I would point at one way in which Gridman differs from WandaVision, it is how Gridman’s embrace of live-action superhero shows and giant robots better lends itself to a finale where human evil is punched into submission. By comparison, by the time Wanda starts throwing energy balls around in WandaVision, it jars with the sitcom homage and character study of earlier episodes.

  All things said, at the end of the day I prefer Ultraman and giant robots punching each other to Cheers and Marvel films. That’s not to say the latter is worse; it’s more a matter of personal taste. Either way, I’m glad that art continues to be made that grapples with the messy contradictions of human behavior. Though I’ll suggest: if you’re looking for genuinely challenging, ahead-of-its-time source material for a Marvel adaptation, X-Statix is right there!

  Did you watch WandaVision as it aired? Are you looking forward to SSSS DYNAZENON? Will we ever see an animated adaptation of Transformers: More Than Meets The Eye? Let us know in the comments!

    Adam W is a Features Writer at Crunchyroll. When he is not loudly shouting the praises of John Allison and Max Sarin's Giant Days, he sporadically contributes with a loose coalition of friends to a blog called Isn't it Electrifying? You can find him on Twitter at: @wendeego

Do you love writing? Do you love anime? If you have an idea for a feature, pitch it to Crunchyroll Features!

By: Adam Wescott

[thornsnfeathers]

Salem & Qrow in v8

Had some thoughts about the parallels between them and how that might be potrayed in v8 so here I am, trying to write them down in a vaguely understandable manner.

This probably will turn out to be a long post and it might not even make much sense, you have been warned! I thought about all of this while being convinced that the Staff of Creation theory is going to be canon so read this with that in mind. And now, let’s get started.

In v7ch7, we have Oscar and Ironwood talk about the difference between them and Salem and the comment from the latter about her always bothered me.

And that got me thinking... We have seen her story through Jinn’s vision and words. What made her what she is now? What made her swear revenge on the Gods and leave her humanity behind?

It was losing her lover and failing to bring him back.

Considering the parallels that several people have already pointed out, Salem and Qrow’s stories mirror each others.

They both are now the ones that lived. The ones that had to deal with the loss of someone that saved them from their isolation, someone that tear down the walls surronding them, giving them the freedom to be themselves, free of their shackles.

I have some few points supporting them meeting each other very soon:

- Qrow is the only one from Ozpin’s inner circle that hasn’t met Salem “face-to-face” yet, since Dorothy (Ruby/Summer?), the Cowardly Lion (Lionheart) and the Tinman (Ironwood) all have at this point

- Salem is literally in Atlas so they are very close

- This point is more another guess than an actual fact but: he will probably lose his mind (because, well, Scarecrow) for a while so he won’t be much about killing her as he was in the past and he might actually listen to what she tells him

We have seen that with both Ruby and Ironwood she used their weaknesses against them. It’s not clear (or at least it isn’t to me) if she can actually read people’s minds/affect them in some way or the other or if she just had previous knowledge, but if she knows who she is interacting with she definitely can twist the knife deeper and she will do it. So, I wonder, what can she exploit with Qrow?

Salem is smart and we know already that she picks up her allies if she can use them, and Qrow is very suitable for a role in her group. He hasn’t cleared up his situation with Ozpin, he’s away from the kids and the one person he was opening up to died in front of him after they fought each other for something that wasn’t worth any of that. He is going to blame himself and his semblance and, like Blake at the end of v3, will likely step away from those he cares about because he will convince himself that that’s the only way he can avoid hurting them. And, for yet another parallel to Blake, he will (temporarly) forgo his main goal (defeating/fighting Salem for him, reforming the White Fang/killing Adam for her) and retreat to himself.

(To address the elephant in the room, I don’t think that Tyrian will cross Qrow’s mind in this instance. Yes, he was the one to deal the blow but the show clearly pointed his anger towards Ironwood in a very direct (or on-the-nose) way. The “I’ll kill you!” might foreshadow how the faunus will die but that is probably something that will happen in Vacuo or later on)

Considering all these factors, this is the best time for Salem to try to sway him. Either by reading his mind or maybe Tyrian briefing her on what happened, she will know how to poke in the right places. Qrow is an amazing fighter and can be a good resource for her, since he’s close to the ones that are in her way and he’s still one of Oz’s protégés.

But what can she promise him to put doubts in his mind?

I’ve been dancing around this point for a while and I haven’t really decided on something yet but I’d bet it would involve Clover’s return. Mind you, I am convinced of him getting back to life through the Staff and not other... unhappy variations I’ve read thrown around but, at that point in time, Qrow probably didn’t even consider his return as an option yet. This can be the moment where he realizes that, maybe, he has the chance to “turn this ship around��� *winks at Brand New Day while crying*, so to speak.

It’s also a very good way to make the parallels between Salem/Qrow and Ozma/Clover crystal clear. She would definitely bring up the fact that she knows how he feels, having the one you love snatched away too soon, to rile him up on how unfair and pointless it all is.

The good ol’ tactic of “we are not so different, you and I”

I don’t think he’d side with her even because that would make him go against his nieces but this might the one moment where the show could actually make us believe he will. He’s the Scarecrow with no brain, right?

And now for the second point I wanted to make with this post!

We have seen the main group react to meeting/seeing Salem for the first time. Who are we missing?

This guy!

Because ok, if you bring a character back to life, you won’t do that just to have him stay for a scene and then forget him to move on to something else, would you? Penny came back and became the Winter Maiden, for crying out loud!

So how about him reacting to Salem after he comes back?

He has been shown as the brave and fearless leader. We have seen the others cower in fear, none of them stood their ground (understandably, I might add) even in front of what was just a shadow of her. How about having him meet her... and not back down? (I know we don’t know how Summer’s meeting with Salem went but I always thought she and Clover might have parallels on their own going on but that’s for another time and place)

But then I asked myself. How will SHE react to Clover?

We have only seen her as the evil one. The characterization we had of her in v6 showed her pain but mostly her quest for revenge decently. But if crwby wants to give her more depth this is a good chance to do so. To let her actually face the defeat that started all of it.

Because Clover would be the living (ah) proof someone succeded where she failed so long ago.

The man that came back to his loved one.

And Salem, witnessing this, for the first time, will hesitate. It will be when she will look into Clover’s eyes and recognize the same gallant soul she once saw in Ozma and falter, ever so slightly.

Because victory isn’t in strenght. It’s in the connections you make.