#why bother? why struggle? why?

[radgeorgie]

trying my hardest to just remain afloat.... god I'm so fucking tired

[hajihiko]

Advanced technique

[turtleblogatlast]

No but like every time I think about Splinter and what he had to go through just to keep the boys alive, my heart hurts for him so badly. Is he perfect? No not at all, but none of them are and by god does he love his sons.

The fact that all of them are alive, and grew to thrive despite the circumstances surrounding them is a testament of how much Splinter loves his boys. He raised four babies following the most traumatic time of his life, all alone with nothing but the sewers to house them (to hide them.) I feel like he’s not given the credit he deserves for all he’s done.

And I get that it’s easy to hold up his flaws and faults when it comes to parenting, I myself like looking into them because flawed characters are super interesting and said flaws make them more realistic and engaging, but he tries, and again, so many others would have given up on the boys or failed along the way but Splinter didn’t.

He’s their father, for all his faults he did his damndest to make sure they survived.

[breezere]

0/0 is.....

[s0fter-sin]

one of my favourite aspects of supernatural that you very rarely see in paranormal shows is that sam and dean are already versed in the world they live in. there’s no sudden discovery of ghosts and demons and now they have to learn about them along with the audience; they are born into it and already know all about it. it allows the audience to follow their personal story instead of also trying to figure out this new world and its rules

the first season is full of knowledge we never see them learn; “w*ndigoes are in the minnesota woods or- or northern michigan. i’ve never even heard of one this far west.” […] “great. well then this [his gun] is useless.” (1x02), “you don’t break a curse. you get the hell out of its way.” (1x08), d: “it’s a god. a pagan god, anyway.” […] “the annual cycle of its killings? and the fact that the victims are always a man and a woman. like some kind of fertility right.” […] s: “the last meal. given to sacrificial victims. d: “yeah, i’m thinking a ritual sacrifice to appease some pagan god.” (1x11)

almost every episode in the first season is a monster they’ve faced before that they then explain to the audience in a way that should feel patronising; like it’s the same speech given over and over again but instead, the audience almost feels included in the knowledge. it’s stated with such an innate confidence and comfort in said knowledge that it feels like we already knew it too; “spirits and demons don't have to unlock doors. if they want inside, they just go through the walls.” […] “the claws, the speed that it moves; could be a skinwalker, maybe a black dog.” (1x02), “it's biblical numerology. you know noah's ark, it rained for forty days. the number means death.” (1x04), “no no no, not the reaper, a reaper. there's reaper lore in pretty much every culture on earth, it goes by 100 different names.” […] “you said it yourself that the clock stopped, right? reapers stop time. and you can only see 'em when they're coming at you which is why i could see it and you couldn't.” (1x12)

they already know and, at least in the first season, already have what they need to kill whatever they’re hunting; already know to salt and burn bones for spirits, fire for a w*ndigo, exorcisms for demons, a silver bullet to the heart for shapeshifters. there’s only three times in the entire first season that they run into something new to them; 1x14 when sam gets his first vision that leads him to another psychic, 1x16 when dean calls caleb for help on the sigil he put together and he tells him about daevas, and 1x20 when they find out vampires are real- and they only don’t know that bc john thought they were hunted to extinction and not worth mentioning

(there’s also technically two half instances if you count one of them knowing something the other doesn’t - sam figuring out the tulpa in 1x17 and dean already knowing about the shtriga in 1x18 - but those still rely on sam and dean having prior knowledge)

even when they’re uncertain about facing something, it’s not bc they don’t know what it is; it’s precisely bc they know what it is and acknowledge that it’ll be a difficult hunt (“i don't know, man. this isn't our normal gig. i mean, demons, they don't want anything, just death and destruction for its own sake. this is big. and i wish dad was here.” 1x04)

so much of the tension in paranormal shows typically comes from the main character(s) not knowing what is happening to them/the people around them and having to find out how to resolve it. supernatural is unique in that it operates more like a police procedural. the tension comes from solving the clues and identifying patterns to figure out who (what) the killer is and intercepting before they can take another victim

it’s such a different tone to go for when compared to other shows that came both before, during, and after its run. it sets sam and dean on even footing with each other since they both have the same knowledge going in, and it puts them in a place of authority usually reserved for an outside character

the shows i compare spn to most is charmed, buffy and teen wolf; every main character in those shows are brought into the paranormal world knowing nothing, putting them on the same level as the audience, and they have their mc interact with others already knowledgeable about that world in order to overcome their problem/monster of the week. the audience organically learns about this new world as the characters learn about it. it’s a sound writing strategy that prevents “as we already know”-style exposition but something that complicates it is if your world building isn’t unique or intriguing enough, this slow introduction can become boring

we’ve seen shows like these before; sitting through the same tropes of characters learning to use their powers, struggling with no longer feeling normal/relating to the regular world around them, and not knowing how much they can trust the people already involved in this new world gets repetitive. all three shows eventually reach the same level of comfort with their new world that spn starts with but if the characters aren’t enough to draw you in, you can end up dropping it before they reach that point (and often, before the overarching plot can really kick in and evolve the show beyond the villain of the week format)

it’s the superhero origin movie in tv format; dragged out and overplayed. dropping the audience into an established world of course comes with its own problems but you also have the benefit of pre-existing established character dynamics that let the audience slot in like they’ve always been there instead of just getting to know all the characters while the characters also get to know each other

sam and dean already knowing about the supernatural lets the audience immediately get to the core of the story; the conflict between sam and dean, the search for their father, and the mystery of what killed their mother

[bdoubleowo]

Got super bored in a college lecture and suddenly treebark had possessed me

[bitesizedpoetry]

Sylvia Plath's "Letter to a demon"

Last night I felt the sensation I have been reading about to no avail in James: the sick, soul-annihilating flux of fear in my blood switching its current to defiant fight. I could not sleep, although tired, and lay feeling my nerves shaved to pain & the groaning inner voice: oh, you can't teach, can't do anything. Can't write, can't think. And I lay under the negative icy flood of denial, thinking that voice was all my own, a part of me, and it must somehow conquer me & leave me with my worst visions: having had the chance to battle it & win day by day, and having failed.

I cannot ignore this murderous self: it is there. I smell it and feel it, but I will not give it my name. I shall shame it. When it says: you shall not sleep, you cannot teach, I shall go on anyway, knocking its nose in. It's biggest weapon is and has been the image of myself as a perfect success: in writing, teaching and living. As soon as I sniff non-success in the form of rejections, puzzled faces in class when I'm blurring a point, or a cold horror in personal relationships, I accuse myself of being a hypocrite, posing as better than I am, and being, at bottom lousy.

I am middling good. And I can live being middling good. I do not have advanced degrees, I do not have books published, I do not have teaching experience. I have a job teaching. I cannot rightly ask myself to be a better teacher than any of those teaching around me with degrees, books published and experience. I can only, from day to day, fight to be a better teacher than I was the day before. If, at the end of a year of hard work, partial failure, partial dogged communication of a poem or a story, I can say I am easier, more confident & a better teacher than I was the first day, I have done enough. I must face this image of myself as good for myself, and not freeze myself into a quivering jelly because I am not Mr. Fisher or Miss Dunn or any of the others.

I have a good self, that loves skies, hills, ideas, tasty meals, bright colors. My demon would murder this self by demanding it be a paragon, and saying it should run away if it is being anything less. I shall doggedly do my best and know it for that, no matter what other people say. I can learn to be a better teacher. But only by painful trial and error. Life is painful trial and error. I instinctively gave myself this job because I knew I needed the confidence it would give me as I needed food: it would be my first active facing of life & responsibility: something thousands of people face every day, with groans, maybe, or with dogged determination, or with joy. But they face it. I have this demon who wants me to run away screaming if I am going to be flawed, fallible. It wants me to think I'm so good I must be perfect. Or nothing. I am, on the contrary, something: a being who gets tired, has shyness to fight, has more trouble than most facing people easily. If I get through this year, kicking my demon down when it comes up, realising I'll be tired after a days work, and tired after correcting papers, and it's natural tiredness, not something to be ranted about in horror, I'll be able, piece by piece, to face the field of life, instead of running from it the minute it hurts.

The demon would humiliate me: throw me on my knees before the college president, my department chairman, everyone, crying: look at me, miserable, I can't do it. Talking about my fears to others feeds it. I shall show a calm front & fight it in the precincts of my own self, but never give it the social dignity of a public appearance, me running from it, and giving in to it. I'll work in my office roughly from 9 to 5 until I find myself doing better in class. In any case, I'll do something relaxing, different reading, etc. in the evenings. I'll keep myself intact, outside this job, this work. They can't ask more of me than my best, & only I know really where the limits on my best are. I have a choice: to flee from life and ruin myself forever because I can't be perfect right away, without pain & failure, and to face life on my own terms & "make the best of the job.

each day I shall record a dogged step ahead or a marking time in place. The material of reading is something I love. I must learn, slowly, how to best present it, managing class discussion: I must reject the grovelling image of the fearful beast in myself, which is an elaborate escape image, and face, force, days into line. I have an inner fight that won't be conquered by a motto or one night's resolution. My demon of negation will tempt me day by day, and I'll fight it, as something other than my essential self, which I am fighting to save: each day will have something to recommend it: whether the honest delight at watching the quick furred body of a squirrel, or sensing, deeply, the weather and color, or reading and thinking of something in a different light: a good explanation or 5 minutes in class to redeem a bad 45. Minute by minute to fight upward. Out from under that black cloud which would annihilate my whole being with its demand for perfection and measure, not of what I am, but of what I am not. I am what I am, and have written, lived and travelled: I have been worth what I have won, but must work to be worth more. I shall not be more by wishful thinking.

So: a stoic face. A position of irony, of double-vision. My job is serious, important, but nothing is more important than my life and my life in its fullest realized potential: jealousy, envy, desperate wishes to be someone else, someone already successful at teaching, is naive: Mr. Fisher, for all his student-love, has been left by his wife & children; Miss Williams," for all her experience & knowledge, is irrevocably dull. Every one of these people, the divorced Schendler, the unmarried Johnson, has some flaw, some crack, and to be one of them would be to be flawed & cracked in another fashion. I'll shoulder my own crack, work on my James today, Hawthorne for next week & take life with gradual ease, dogged at first, but with more & more joy. My first victory was accepting this job, the second, coming up & plunging into it before my demon could say no, I wasn't good enough, the third, going to class after a night of no sleep & desperation, the fourth, facing my demon last night with Ted & spitting in its eye. I'll work hard on my planning, but work just as hard to build up a rich home life: to get writing again, to get my mind fertilized outside my job.

I shall not, carrion comfort, despair … etc.

No more knuckling under, groaning, moaning: one gets used to pain. This hurts. Not being perfect hurts. Having to bother about work in order to eat & have a house hurts. So what. It's about time. This is the month which ends a quarter of a century for me, lived under the shadow of fear: fear that I would fall short of some abstract perfection: I have often fought, fought & won, not perfection, but an acceptance of myself as having a right to live on my own human, fallible terms.

Attitude is everything. No whining or fainting will get me out of this job & I'd not like to think what would happen to my integral self if it did. I've accepted my first check: I've signed on, and no little girl tactics are going to get me off, nor should they.

To the library. Finish James book, memorize my topics, maybe the squirrel story. Have fun. If I have fun, the class will have fun.

Come home tonight: read lawrence, or write, if possible. That will come too.

Vive le roi, le roi est mort, vive le roi.

From "The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath", dated October 1, 1957

[sualne]

drawing my ocs cause i missed them

[buckyscap]

you know when you experienced something so traumatizing or grieved too hard your brain sort of temporarily locked that memory to protect you from the pain? i think that's what's been happening to me after deadpool 2 bc tell me why every time i rewatch that movie, i always forget how painful these scenes are?

they always leave me sobbing and totally wrecked but with each rewatch i'd just... forget they would eventually happen and i'd eventually get hurt??

[skunkes]

never underestimate a cheye's ability to think "what if this is as good as it gets" about any situation

[breakingdownsomebarriers]

Rex doodles as a treat <3

[suguru-getos]

cockwarming geto sama while he tends to the visitors and lets them worship the both of you 🥵

[sonknuxadow]

my honest reaction

[jellysmudge]

Conversations at like 4 am

[appropriatelystupid]

this might be an unpopular opinion but i’d rather have a full agnes of westview spinoff than only get more future agatha as a mentor/sidekick to billy and tommy

[non-un-topo]

Sometimes I procrastinate writing a fic by “storyboarding” it 😅