#you could not have had this same level of exploration of character in s1 because there was arguably too much plot going on

[graham--folger]

okay i’m probably going to attract a bit of um. bad will for saying this but. all the people complaining about this season not having a plot or not a well-developed plot. i feel like they’re missing the point a little bit

s1 and, i imagine, s3 are where the real plot is. like the seriously important plot, the whole heaven and hell business, armageddon, the second coming, general good omens insanity. but neil said himself s2 was kind of a break from that (quiet, gentle, romantic, etc) and here’s why i think it’s a good thing.

this season was soooo character driven. and mainly exploring crowley and aziraphale’s relationship yes. but to make a serious thematic commentary, okay? the conflict between these two characters and by extension the central treatise of good omens would be nothing without this season or the attention given to the character arcs.

all of the minisodes were there to yes 1) build up the relationship and shared history between crowley and aziraphale but also 2) to demonstrate their differing world views if you will

you see aziraphale's continued black-and-white thinking and how he is still unable to shake heaven's hold over his concept of morality at literally every turn. he struggles to reckon with his own betrayal of heaven in the job minisode even when on some level he knows he did the right thing and then the whole resurrectionist business illuminates that rigid sense of morality again. and you see crowley repeatedly doing what he personally knows is right—completely free of heaven or hell's influence. he is operating as a free agent for the entirety of s2 just as he was in s1. aziraphale is sort of on the same page as him but hasn't quite gotten all the way there. yet.

and then you have the final argument and we really see this come to a head.

aziraphale thinks he can fix the system that he recognizes is not working as it should and wants crowley by his side. crowley knows that the system is too broken to repair and wants to get as far away from it as possible. neither of them is completely right as i know people have been talking about. regardless, this is the conflict, this is the commentary, this is the thematic basis of the show: the struggle against polarized thinking and the breaking from systems of abuse and moral absolutism—finding the shades of gray by working together. crowley and aziraphale's relationship makes it so they can actually take steps to wrestle with this fact. and i think it was important we got to see their relationship with humanity (and also human love) a lot more closely this season to further support that since humanity represents the shades of gray in question.

so, going back to my main point, this season was so necessary to really illuminate the stakes going into s3 and for the audience to understand on a much deeper, more intimate level the struggle these two characters are facing. we needed s2 to really ground the huge concept of the dichotomy of heaven and hell in the everyday and possibly even mundane (or as mundane as you can get with two celestial beings as the mcs) situations.

i don't think it would be possible to go directly from s1 to whatever s3 is going to be without s2 there to bridge the gap. it would cheapen the character arcs so much. maybe it could achieve the same level of commentary, maybe it couldn't, but i don't think it would have the same impact on the audience as all of the little moments in s2 gave us. it was incredibly character driven as a season because in order for the story to make this commentary it needed a moment to breathe and ground itself. season 2 was that moment.

[milk-ducts]

I'm so glad to have encountered a fellow Cecil stan. I freaking love coming up with headcanons for Cecil, platonic or romantic, because he's such an interesting character. For real though feel free to dump any Cecil headcanons (platonic or romantic) on me anytime.

AWAAAA!! YES HAII OTHER CECIL AFICIONADO !!! im so glad theres more of us sprouting out here. my wife is so underappreciated, you have no idea how much he means to me. i'd love to req n swap headcanons anytime !! I have so many thoughts on that morally ambiguous gilf.

[messy, disorganized surface level autism rambling ahead. this will be just random scenes and characteristics i like of him]

BUT YES .. cecil's character is just so interesting to analyze. he does unethical, necessary things. But he doesn't subscribe to idealistic notions of "the greater good" or justifying his actions to make himself sleep better at night. He knows the harsh reality that someone has to make the difficult decisions, no matter how unethical. The psychological toll it takes to calculate how many civilian lives can be spared, and how many are inevitably lost in order to achieve the optimal outcome. He doesn't celebrate after victories like the other heroes do. After the dust settles, his mind is already racing - calculating, strategizing how to prevent future catastrophes. How to minimize casualties next time.

his methods are...questionable,, as ive said,, but there's a hint of nobility to it that just makes you respect him, A SHADY GOVERNMENT CHAR that does the dirty work and takes in all the heat for it so no one else has to? SIGN ME TF UP! i love exploring his character and all the little glimpses of humanity we get to see from him,, especially with debbie, SO SOFT FOR HER, there's so much depth there. that old fuck would MOVE mountains for her if he could,, TRUST. EVEN though he doesnt deserve her .. <<

LETS CONTINUE TO CIRCLE BACK TO S1 with his confrontation w Nolan in the desert, the way he entrusted his survival to the skills of his team operating that teleporter watch (I'm aware he can control it himself, I think this was just my interpretation of it since the employees seemed directly involved here). The margin for error was nonexistent. One miscalculation, one millisecond too slow, and Cecil would have been reduced to a red smear across miles of sand. MY WIFE HAS BALLS ON HIM. (also love walton goggins breathy lil giggles here .. hwaghffhh)

All this, All the whilst Nolan could have ended him with a casual backhand, as easily as swatting a fly. And for what? For humanity's (mostly his) right to know the truth. For Debbie's right to understand what she had truly married because Cecil respects her that fucking much for her to have a part in all of this, and what fate may lay in store for her son.

AND what I particularly liked about that scene is that unlike most SHADY GOV CHARS ™.. Cecil isn't afraid to regularly place himself in life-threatening situations, and for that im just.. FKING obsessed. finally. a hyper competent gov char that gets shit done and occasionally by his own hands instead of always puppeteering in the shadows. Love u .. love u honey snooch, please stop putting yourself in danger for your crazy alien side-hoes .

but ahem ... back to s2.. and some flaws of his that i'm not afraid to point out. the way he's been treating mark is killing me. manipulating my son by comparing him to his dad then keeping him on lock by saying he's not like him??? The breadcrumming definitely didn't work out at all, cuz Mark is too damn stubborn to continue to be swindled by fear tactics he does not give a shit for anymore (homegirl DEBBIE taught him better) hes not gonna listen to a cranky skullet-having side bitch of nolans who clearly has been tryna manipulate him since s1. i HATED how he went "ur broke tyrannical bitch father felt the same way" in the last minute when mark tried to leave earth and yet i still lobve ceci cause ough,,.. my bastard wife knew something was probably up.

Him wanting to keep a short leash on MARKY could be summed up after all that has happened in s1. i'm not going to justify his scummy manipulations or paranoia,, especially after all the shit mark has done and endured to prove himself over and over again that he's not like his father BUT its somewhat understandable for cecil 2 be wary if you look from it in his perspective.

moving on from that, lets dive back into ep 2 ..

Debbie was semi-right in her deduction in s2 ep2, that this is what it's really all about for Cecil - being in control. Not of any situation, but of Mark. To ensure history does not repeat itself in the form of Mark becoming another Nolan. imo He likely doesn’t actually view Mark as his father, Not saying the possibility of it being a part of Cecil's subconsciousness is out of the equation but the way I see it? He was just exploiting that one weakness, that one insecurity Mark has - the fear of becoming like Nolan. And it’s a fear Cecil seemed to prey upon to keep Mark under his thumb and in the fucking GAME.

awaaaa :3 !!!! psychologically damaging teens by comparing them to their abhorrently shitty fathers !! FUCK YOJ STEDMAN (love you snookums..)

,,,,I'd also like to think in my warped deluded perception (aka hcs) that he sees Debbie in Mark, so he can't help but care for the kid too. IVE ALWAYS seen a lot of comparisons between Mark and his dad, plus the whole motif of this new season hasn't helped it allay. But Debbie and Mark share so many similar characteristics as well and i wish that was talked a bit more often &lt; 3 (I will go in depth about it at a later post.)

n umm like ...,,, bck to cici in gen. I guess the safety of earth is one of Cecil's redeeming qualities along with his compassion for side characters like Debbie. His pragmatism and utilitarianism define him. He lacks normal morals but has his own code that cultivates to his character. this ramble could not do justice to him ughfglg..,, what a compelling jezebel.. how can u captivate me so !!

My inbox is always open to discuss this multi-faceted rat man. here's to more cecil content in s2..,... hopefully with more of his dynamic with Debbie because I LIVE for that shit. though its unlikely their interactions could range to anything positive now since they may be hinting to cecil becoming an antagonist and/or taking extreme measures w/ mark. soo.. i dont think debbie's scolding was enough for that slut 2 take in ..

in the mean time i'll be catching up on the comics/re-reading them, look up more of his backstory and hopefully create 10 novels worth of google docs of analysis' of his character < 3 cuz .. he means .. that much 2 me.. and i want to prod at every crevice n brain matter he has inside that megamind head of his .

((hwaghhhhhh << hoping that one day the discord moots ive been keeping in my basement and most invincible fans fall victim to cecil stedman propoganda.. no one should be immune to my girlboss and his awful skullet.))

[avelera]

How the hell do people think that ANNE RICE is anti sex and homophobic?? TVC is weird sex stuff with queer people the book series??

I have no idea how people got that idea but I have seen posts floating around (mostly during S1) that seemed to be from people who thought that IWTV could "finally" show Lestat/Louis as canonically gay because Anne Rice had passed away or that she would be "rolling in her grave" if she saw Lestat and Louis kiss on screen which is... baffling nonsense of the highest degree. As you know, Lestat and Louis are canonically a couple in the books.

Here's what I think happened:

1)People conflated Anne Rice being anti-fanfic with her being anti-slash shipping. Since many authors of the era did have a problem with fanfic in part because of slash shipping, I can kind of see how this misunderstanding would happen. But no, her issues with fanfic were mostly legal and partially creative (she thought people's time would be better spent writing original works that they could one day publish rather than writing fanfic of her work, but I think that was more her misunderstanding the purpose of fanfic than being necessarily derogatory towards fanfic writers, even if her choice of words was somewhat dismissive, but I digress).

2) I saw one theory that Anne McCaffrey (of the Dragonriders of Pern novels) and Anne Rice might have been conflated, which again, kind of makes sense since they were popular during the same era? Supposedly (I can't confirm this) Anne McCaffrey was very against slash shipping of her characters so that might have got mixed in with the whole Anne 90s-Author is against slash fanfic game of telephone.

3) I only vaguely remember this, but I think a quote of Anne Rice's might have been taken out of context. Something to the effect of Lestat and Louis not needing to be shown kissing or having sex to be a couple. And I think people read it inversely from the meaning. She wasn't saying, "The vampires don't have gay sex." She has almost always said some variation of, "Sex is different for vampires. Blood drinking basically replaces and transcends it, as it replaces and transcends all physical pleasures. Louis and Lestat don't need to have sex in order to be a gay couple. Their existence and love as vampires transcends are our understanding of the physical, it is deeper and more all encompassing and and entirely strange to our understanding of sex and relationships on a physical and spiritual level.

Now, keep in mind, at the time when a creator said, "Oh, these two same-sex characters aren't gay their bond transcends sexuality." They were sidestepping and meant, "I'm uncomfortable with same sex relationships and only want to see them as friends." Anne Rice absolutely did not mean that ^ . Anne Rice wrote tons of queer erotica in addition to her queer supernatural novels. When Anne Rice said, "They transcend gender and their sexuality is completely untranslatable to ours." She wasn't being like "So they're not gay." She wasn't saying they were straight either like other creators meant! She was literally, as someone who spent a lot of time thinking and writing about alternate genders and sexualities outside the mainstream, exploring ideas like the fact that if you no longer had the biological imperative to eat, sleep, or reproduce as humans do, your understanding of intimacy and sexuality would change dramatically as well.

(FFS, as you know, Lestat has a relationship with his mother after he turns her because they basically are no longer related at that point, or they are related on completely different levels as fledgling and sire, the whole plotline is tied up in how becoming a vampire is about transcending human norms but also how Lestat is deliberately, gleefully fucking around with taboo and social structure and the forbidden as a matter of course so like... yeah this isn't a one off, the vampire novels are all about how being a vampire means you now naturally break every societal taboo with regards to sex and relationships because you're not human anymore, they become meaningless and therefore we as human readers can also explore the metaphors of gender and sexuality and taboo vicariously and ponder what matters and what doesn't.

I mean, one reason it was so offensive to me to see Anne Rice mistaken as homophobic is that she's basically the reason I'm not homophobic and even felt able to explore my own bisexuality and rejection of gender as a construct after growing up in a conservative household like all you had back then as a teen was Anne Rice and Mercedes Lackey. ANYWAY).

So yeah, this rant got away from me, but while I will say over and over that Anne Rice isn't perfect, there's a lot of things she did in her life that I disagreed with and people have no obligation to like her works or her view of the world, she was actively dabbling in the forbidden and in taboo in ways that might make people justifiably uncomfortable, one way she was doing that was by normalizing same sex relationships way way way before almost anyone else was doing so in genre fiction and that's while I will fight to the death anyone accusing her of homophobia.

[bisexualdawnsummers]

due south for the fandom ask meme

my favorite female character: Victoria Metcalf. I find her fascinating and would love to read novel length fics about her pre and post Fraser life. I love a female villain in general, and I think Victoria is an example of a well done one. I love that she’s smart and competent, complex, and most of all, uncompromising. She does love (and hate) and want Fraser, but she’s not going to ‘go good’ for him. She doesn’t soften or learn the error of her ways, and I think that’s great. At the same time, I don’t think she’s portrayed as Pure Evil or cartoonish in her villainy, she’s still human.

my favorite male character: Ray Vecchio. For me, Ray is a case of if I loved him less, I could talk about him more. Idk, I just love him. I love how he grumbles and protests doing anything, but still goes along with everything – and usually ends up going above and beyond. I love how brash he can be. I love his fashion sense. I love how loyal and caring he is to everyone he loves. I love how he feels like a real, lived in character with real flaws to go along with all his good traits. I would like to write more, but again, thinking about him makes my brain overheat with love and meltdown.

my favorite book/season/etc: Season 1. Overall s1 was the best written and had the most cohesive character/story arc.

my favorite episode (if it’s a tv show): The Deal (THE Ray Vecchio episode) A big thank you to David Marciano for fighting for this one.

my favorite cast member: I guess I’d have to say Callum Keith Rennie (my birthday buddy!) as he’s the main reason I started watching the show in the first place. I’m more familiar with his work outside of due South than any other cast member. (However, my fixation on RayV has bled through into wanting to seek out more of David Marciano’s work - and listening to a few podcast interviews - so he’s catching up. I also love DM for fighting for RayV’s character. We wouldn’t have The Deal without him.)

my favorite ship: RayV/Fraser. THESE TWO!!! This ship just perfectly scratches at a very specific part of my brain. I love the way that Ray just instantly welcomes Fraser into his life, into his home (into his heart). The way he offers Fraser friendship and acceptance on a level that he’s probably not used to. I love that they have a sort of two sides of the same coin thing going on, how they are parts of a whole, how when they’re alone they are incomplete but together better than they are separately!!!

a character I’d die defending: Ray Vecchio. I’m lucky that I wasn’t around for the Ray Wars and didn’t have to fight against the ‘Ray Vecchio is Homophobic’ or ‘Ray Vecchio is a bad friend to Fraser’(LMAO) allegations that apparently were flung at him back then. I’ve encountered a bit of it in some fics and it makes me want to scream. (To be clear, I don’t mind if RayV has some internalized homophobic issues, I think that’s fair to explore, I’m talking about Ray being violent towards Fraser or refusing to be his friend if he’s gay type of thing. The stuff that is clearly written in bad faith towards RayV.)

a character I just can’t sympathize with: Hm, idk…maybe Pa Vecchio.

a character I grew to love: Meg Thatcher. I never disliked her, but I think I grew to appreciate her more in subsequent rewatches than on my first run through.

my anti otp: Hm, I’d have to say RayK/Stella, I guess, but only in an ‘endgame’ scenario. I actually find their relationship and history interesting and like reading about it in fics occasionally. I also love the idea of them reconnecting as friends because they are a very important part of each other’s lives. I just don’t like the idea of them rekindling their romance in any sort of permanent way. I think Stella makes it very clear that she doesn’t want to reconcile with Ray, so I hate to see that happen on her behalf. I feel like she had to work hard to put up boundaries to keep them from slipping back into old patterns, because while they clearly still care about each other, they’re ultimately not meant to be married. I think that’s why she tends to act so prickly towards Ray, to keep that wall up, and Ray might take any softness as encouragement. Also, I’m not a big fan of divorced couples getting back together in general. I’ve seen a lot shows/movies where couples divorce/separate, only to reconcile (usually without really addressing the issues that led to the separation in the first place), and I’m always like “Please let that woman stay divorced!”

Thank you so much for the ask! <3

[mdhwrites]

If Hexside Was Mandated Then Disney Knew TOH's Strengths Better Than Dana

The whole show itself feels much more like plots that can happen at a magical school than it ever does a true adventure show. There are constantly low stakes, very few episodes actually spent exploring the world, and very commonly the obstacles laid out for the characters are inherently non-magical and the magic is only used for flavor.

All of these elements are core to a super school setting (thank you OSP for the term) because, well, you can only make things so dangerous before making them laughable or make the school seem entirely unbelievable. The only times TOH really breaks away from this are commonly in capital P Plot episodes. In S1, there are only 6 episodes that could actually be counted as adventure episodes instead of just being fantasy slice of life/drama like My LIttle Pony or Amphibia was. The focus is never on grandeur but instead just a mundane life thing VERY lightly elevated by its fantasy element.

Of course, that's S1. Low stakes are expected since the plot hasn't really started. It's fine that the head of the Emperor's Coven is doing things like taking a casual walk with her criminal sister or playing mock Grudgby at the same time the school kids are, it's S1! Besides, we have been told by Dana that S1 got meddled with, or at least the first half (neither of the examples I brought up coming from that half) and while we've never had Hexside confirmed as one of those elements, people would argue it doesn't actually count. The vibe changes after S1 after all.

You all know where this is going. Just to demonstrate how completely untrue this is: Luz has, if you REALLY stretch to count Affearances and Eda's Requiem, FOUR plotlines with Eda. Combined, she has about 6, at most, episodes between King and Eda where the focus is on them. Meanwhile, she has SEVEN with Amity. And that's not including the fact that Amity has two episodes where she has plots on her own. If you don't count Falls and Follies, you get 6, which still puts the low stakes, never a part of the plot, love interest who came from the magic school and embodies its elements on par with Luz's 'found family' who are rebelling against Belos.

When the show does ramp up, it's really bad at it. Elsewhere Elsewhen is maybe the most boring time travel episode of anything I've ever seen because it's effectively just a lot talking without any consequence, a twist that's just bad in the grand scheme of things with an unnecessary reveal and the action element is specifically neutralized by not being an actual threat. The finale for S1 has a great action scene but very boring magic we've literally seen before and how Lilith takes out the kids before that is painfully easy and simple. When Luz has to break into the Conformatorium, we don't get to see that. She just... Does it in spite of having magic for maybe a month.

Hollow Mind is a lot of just talking and exposition while people claim there are stakes but the last time people entered a mind makes those stakes a retcon, how they fix it breaks several levels of continuity and the fake out death with Hunter is lame even when just compared with fakeout deaths in general. The combat in S3 is just laughable because it's not actually demonstrably more impressive than in S1 or 2... And even for one of the specials, for a third of its time, the stakes are still ROCK BOTTOM as they deal with a threat they have several times before... For the sake of liberating the school which isn't actually in danger from the threat in question, just mildly manipulated. AND the majority of Season 3, just to hammer this point home, have NOTHING to do with Eda and King, let alone their relationship with Luz.

And why shouldn't this be the case? The show is MUCH more interested in character drama and making social statements than actually telling a story most of the time. It has LOTS of plots that would not feel any different being in Amphibia besides being a kind of boring, toned down episode for it.

All of this is without getting into the logistical nightmare that would have been not having Hexside. Hexside is actually one of the very few efficient elements of TOH. One of the few times TOH doesn't spend an eternity making any progress on something and that actually stays true even into S2. It makes it so a lot of characters can simplify their situation and just move on from introductions than would otherwise be possible.

So yeah, if Hexside was mandated by Disney, A: good on them for doing good work with what was forced upon them since either Hexside episodes, or elements that arose from Hexside, are easily the most popular parts of the show and B: Disney very clearly could tell that Dana was way more equipped to retell Harry Potter's books when it was mostly school drama rather than her ever being able to tell a proper fantasy epic. Not when the last thing I would call TOH, ever, is 'epic'.

It's way too low key for that to have ever been the case.

======+++++======

I have a public Discord for any and all who want to join!

I also have an Amazon page for all of my original works in various forms of character focused romances from cute, teenage romance to erotica series of my past. I have an Ao3 for my fanfiction projects as well if that catches your fancy instead. If you want to hang out with me, I stream from time to time and love to chat with chat.

A Twitter you can follow too

And a Kofi if you like what I do and want to help out with the fact that disability doesn’t pay much.

[cavehags]

to be honest i find this season overall a let down when it comes to its female characters and politics: michelle is now villainous instead of just a nice woman who fell out of love, rebecca is still as hung up on her ex as she was in s1 but now her entire arch is about motherhood, too; sassy is there just to fuck ted; keeley is completely passive in her storyline and failing at her job; + jack, who is a cartoonish fanfic bad girlfriend; "i'm her ex not her current father" etc. i'm assuming it's in part due to the rewrites and real life factors and think it's a real bummer.

i completely agree. the michelle stuff particularly bothers me because i had praised her first episode for being a very level headed depiction of a woman who wishes she was still in love with her husband and just isn't anymore. making her new relationship ethically questionable was totally uncalled for and disrupts a perfectly nice, mature storyline about adults whose feelings changed!

i would also add:

shandy was brought in as an example of another woman from keeley's same professional background but instead of matching keeley's maturity or being mentored, she was quickly written off as flighty, unreasonable, and dare i say even hysterical

rebecca & the psychic- i'm never a fan when psychics or mediums or whatever show up on a show and make little comments that a level-headed female lead doesn't take seriously because she's a RATIONAL ADULT. the end of this story is obviously telegraphed from the jump - the psychic will be proven right in some meaningful way in the end. it feels uncharitable to rebecca as a woman who doesn't fuck with superstituous bullshit. why are we trying to get one over on her for being smart and rational?

dr. sharon has completely disappeared. i imagine her few pop-in zoom sessions with ted were added in reshoots because i recall jason promising in a small interview that she would appear this season and i suspect it may have been a last minute add in response to the fans who liked her (and sarah niles' 2022 emmy nom). her few scenes are quite divorced from the rest of the plot - whatever she says to ted is never brought up again in other scenes, and it's all strictly therapeutic. i'm bummed, because she had a personality and some obvious baggage surrounding intimacy that was practically begging to be explored. also, this leaves us once again without any women of color in the core cast (see again: shandy being written out quickly), and in a season where trent and colin and new character barbara have all been added or promoted to main cast, that is really disappointing.

the model nate went out with was treated totally unfairly - it wasn't her fault nate chose to take her on a first date to a restaurant he has weird family baggage around, so yeah, if i were her and dealing with such a sappy first date, i'd be trying to get out of there too. presenting her as rude and bored and disengaged enough to fully leave in the middle of the date just served to make nate look pathetic and sad so jade could take pity on him. it's using her as a prop to manipulate his feelings.

which brings me to jade. what does she even see in nate? genuinely, why is she dating him. this isn't a burn on nate; i'm honestly asking why we are supposed to believe in their chemistry. with any tv relationship, you kinda need to convince me they like each other. i said this same thing with sam and rebecca's bizarrely soundless date in season 2. show me why she's into him so i can get behind it!

[spacelizzbian]

Ahsoka s1 ep6

Love how they reminded us of the fact that there are "former imperials working at every level in the new republic" ain't no way they're getting back to the normal galaxy this episode? like bro, dw I didn't forget the New Republic kinda sucks 😂

Deadass thought Ahsoka was gonna spill on her world between worlds experience 💀

Hm, Ahsoka seeing Sabine giving the enemy the map as a fault of her own shortcomings as a teacher when it shows that she really was Anakin's padawan.

Urging Sabine to do what's right and putting feelings aside, while being unable to do that herself and fearing what could happen because of it..... this coming after the episode where Anakin's legacy and Ahsoka's unease with it was explored is 😭😭

Though it is throwing me off that she's still saying the same stuff as before her epithany last episode?

I understand it would be too easy if those fears caused by Anakin's betrayal would be healed after one episode and they probably wanna save that moment for a more exciting scene than her and Huyang sitting in the mouth of a space whale. But it'd have been better if Ahsoka showed that she has progressed in this regard?

I cannot believe they did the cheesiest thing and actually had Huyang say the thing.

This show so corny I love it

Pour one out for the Wolfren people, there was a prison on board lmao

God I hope he keeps his promise, he's a more interesting dark sider if he does

Something about them being so far from civilisation is actually creeping me out....

They were in hyperspace for all of the events of last episode, probably longer, that distance between galaxies is incomprehensible.

If anyone gets stranded or hurt they'd be so far away from help, the typical "fleet arrives to the rescue" at the last second can't happen now.

I don't think it's ever sunk in for me how hopeless Ezra must've felt being stranded here

A signal?!? Really??? That was fast lol

You know, for a literal different galaxy, I'd have expected this planet to look funkier.

Even Dathomir looked more mythical than this

I guess I take back all that dreadful pondering about being stranded far from home in a deserted galaxy cause apparantly there are fucking people living here

ok sure

Poor Sabine, not Jedi enough for Huyang, too Jedi for them witches 😔

I swear to god if they show us another iteration of order 66

I don't think I've ever commented on Shin and Baylan's designs but I love how they almost have a game of thrones fantasy knight vibe about them. Makes sense as this convo suggests they seek glory from the past.

Props to Kevin Kiner, the music is stealing Thrawn's intro scene

Wild guess Im throwing out there, Enoch is Ezra but like ... brainwashed as Savage was

Either that or he is deep undercover as one of those stormtroopers, that def sounds like something he'd do

Bro why there so much familiar kind of typical star wars life on this DIFFERENT galaxy?? 💀

OH HE JUST A BIG LIL PUPPER 🥺🥺

Damn, last episode really felt like clone wars in style and this one really feels like rebels lmao

Shin self identifying as a trained Jedi? Interesting.

Her doubting what Baylan is saying?

Oh?

I cannot wait for Baylan "destroy the past" Skoll to face off against Ahsoka "recently started healing from the wounds of the past" Tano again. I can practically feel the emotional culmination of this show and Ahsoka's character concluding

Oh these creatures are gonna get fridged so bad aren't they?

Ah shucks my wild angsty guess disproven so quickly

Tho Ezra just chilling with a bunch of lil creatures is also very him

They can sense Ahsoka approaching in the whale?¿?¿? That sure is convenient for them

Lmaoooooo Morgan is so angry she's like "sOMEONE FUCKIN KILL THIS DAMN WOMAN ALREADY IVE HAD IT

👏 UP 👏 TO 👏 HERE 👏

WITH HER IMMORTAL BS"

Thrawn upon learning Ahsoka's master was Anakin: "oh, psssht, I know what buttons to push, easy"

[starry-eyed-steve]

I wish S4 explored Nancy and her tendency to isolate. It feels weird to keep yourself apart from the only other people who know about the Upside Down, yet we know that she never hangs out with the others (excluding Jonathan) outside of world ending scenarios. I wish we saw that reflected in her interactions with the group; have her fumble interactions with the kids and have no idea how to approach Robin and Steve. Have her know how to plan but not where she stands with anyone anymore.

I don't think it is weird for Nancy not to hang out with the majority of the people who know about the Upside Down.

If you look at the group, we have 3 people her age. One is her ex she had a very messy breakup with, next we have her ex's bff who seemingly comes as a package deal with Steve and then we have her current boyfriend who also has negative emotions towards her ex. If I were Nancy I would also only hang out with my boyfriend.

And then we have Mike and his friends, which are younger than her and she doesn't share the same interests with them. I doubt she sees her younger brother and the party as mature enough to hang out or discuss problems with. Which is fine btw, I have a younger brother and never in a million years would I want to hang out with his friends. It's no secret that the Wheeler siblings aren't close and I'm fine with that tbh it seems like a realistic depiction of a sibling relationship, or at least I can relate to it so it seems realistic to me personally.

So there are no other people that she could hang out with. After s1, she had both Steve and Jonathan because there was no weird history between them, but after her breakup with Steve, she only had Jonathan. Both Nancy and Steve are barely friends, like they weren't friends before they dated, and after the relationship, both were hurt by the other person, which made staying in contact difficult. And idk if Nancy would love to hang out with Robin if she would bring Steve back into her life, when she showed no interest to be friends with him before s4. Nancy never went out of her way to get to know Robin because idk it seems messy to befriend your ex's bff.

But in general, I don't think Nancy only had Jonathan. She seems to be the kinda girl who can keep school friendships. Like she was fairly popular in the school paper. She had two off-screen friends that were mentioned in s2 who she was close enough to have sleepovers with, without Karen being surprised by it. So, to me, she can make surface-level friendships, but as soon as school is done, she won't contact them anymore.

I also think after her split with Steve and her getting together with Jonathan, her reputation greatly suffered. Like dumping the popular guy to get together with the school creep just looks bad. On top of that, Tommy and Carol would spread the nastiest rumors about her and Jonathan, like it was already teased a bit in s2. I would have liked to see the aftermath of it. What do her friends say? How does she feel about that? Does she develop an even stronger us against them mindset with Jonathan and thus isolate herself further?

But again the reason why she doesn't hang out with the people in the UD group is the messy history she has with her ex and in extension with her ex' bff who are together 24/7.

I agree with you. I would have loved to see Nancy struggling with finding her place within the teen group at least. That would mean to acknowledge the complicated feelings she has towards Steve and Robin and vice versa. But we don't have time and there are bigger things to worry about. But if she were the driving force to befriend Robin, the pay-off would have definitely been better than what we got. It would have ensured that Robin didn't act out of character, and it would give Nancy more depth and room to grow as a person.

I don't think she would fumble her interactions with the kids, like they hung out when she was younger and the kids like having her around in s3. I think if they would question her authority because she sees herself in charge, then I think there would be problems, but the kids mostly listen to everything she has to say. They admire and respect her, so really, I don't think the kids are the problem. And because she sees herself as the older sibling, she doesn't expect them to check up on her between seasons. She doesn't see them as her equal because they are younger and she wants to protect them, but that doesn't mean she would love spending time with them outside world ending scenarios. Only if she truly has to. She has her own life and interests.

[weirdthoughtsandideas]

When you were younger and watched Violetta, what was differerent with how you thought compared to today, and what is the exact same in your experience watching today?

Here’s a list of things I thought about the show when I was a kid that I absolutely do not think anymore:

I thought Matias was funny

I also found Jade annoying, even if I could find her funny too

I didn’t like Gregorio

There was a small, dark period of time where I thought Priscila was ok (didn’t last for too long luckily)

I thought the Roxy and Fausta plot was the funniest thing ever (though I still think the concept of the characters are fun, but the actual plot and use for them is 😶)

I thought Tomas was better than Diego 🫠

It’s hard to remember everything, there were probably a lot of smaller things too, like some scenes or eps I just changed my mind about later.

Now, here’s things that always has been the same for me:

My love for Leonetta. Always big. Always there.

I essentially have the same opinion about every ship, only that I may not feel as strongly about them at all times, or feel more strongly.

Some scenes I always react the same to. Like, the ”the kiss was my kiss” scene and the 2x20 non-con kiss always brings me rage. There’s also a million scenes that brings me just as much serotonin as the first time I watched them.

I always, ALWAYS, dislike Germangie. It felt just as weird when I was 12 that they were endgame as it feels now

My favorite songs have not changed at all. My least favorite songs change every other hour, but my top 10 songs? Always the same. Guess once which song is on top and I’ve been blasting since I was 11 ;)

The way I analyse this show. Of course, as an 11 year old, I couldn’t analyse the show in the same way, but I always had an interest to. Much because, I felt like everyone else who watched ”just watched”. I had a ”no one else understands the depth of this show besides me” moment. Not only because, the loudest V-lovers were like 8 years old, and I felt at times too old to watch. But in reality, this show was really more for preteens, even if they marketed it like a preschool show

My favorite episodes then are still my favorite episodes today

My favorite characters have not changed

While I’ve appreciated the adults more now, I still will take the kids sides a lot. Especially Violetta’s. Many people think she’s annoying in early S1, but they fail to remember she hasn’t had the time to become her best self yet, because she’s so stuck and hasn’t been allowed to explore herself with her overprotective father

And here are things I didn’t think about as a kid and I thought about now:

How unbelievavbly on crack the show is. I knew it was chaotic from childhood but at THIS level of insanity?

How fruity the show is. I think it’s a universal experience to rewatch the show as you’re older and realize ”wow, this is fruitier than I remember”

And with that, I certainly did not realize like… how the real love triangle in S3 was between Naty, Ludmi and Cami? Not to mention FRANLETTA????

Franletta is interesting though cause Fran has always been my favorite character. But I never really… cared much about her love life. I liked her and Marco a lot. Honestly I always assumed they would’ve been endgame. I wonder if they were thought to be it, but due to Xavi leaving the show, they had to change it. Or, they were planning on having some love triangle between Marco, Diego and Fran, but had to change it to ”Diecesca hiding from Violetta”. Idk, that plot felt like not their first choice. I have however, always loved Francesca around her friends. Especially her relationship with Violetta. So really, I’ve always been ready to ship them without knowing it at first.

Really started to see more perspectives and be able to see some things from different character’s POV.

Also realized the more problematic aspects of the show… of course not only the whole deal with the censored episode and the really uneccessary depiction of the chinese restaurant workers, but also how there’s ableism and at times they just joke about people’s mental health and don’t take it too seriously. Also how quickly everyone forgets each other for non-consentual actions. Much of this is also problems in other DCLA shows. I feel like with every new show they go one step forward and two steps back with some things.

So yeah, it’s not all sunshine and rainbows, but I am glad I can recognize the problems too and call them out.

In the end though, this show will always mean so much to me and I can enjoy it just as much now as I did then, even if I may enjoy it for other aspects now.

[ladyluscinia]

Honestly I'm starting to suspect the issue might be that Ed's a side character.

Like. I don't think he should be a side character. I wouldn't have deemed him such in S1. I called it "still in the setup phase of his arc" when I was writing S1 meta, because he had a lot of characterization and importance and it made sense in the story that he hadn't really begun exerting agency and experiencing consequences yet.

But if he was in setup, then 1x10 would have kicked off said arc. Yet S2 isn't interested in giving him agency for change, either.

The only thing he's working through is being Stede's love interest.

Stede is a protagonist. His abandonment of Mary was conceived of as an essential character flaw from the initial development of his journey, and the whole of S1 was about his arc to reckon with that choice and the consequences. Similarly, while the inept and oblivious boss persona is played for laughs, it's still a point of characterization at the same time. One that develops as he goes through the story. I personally think his arc as a character stumbles pretty hard in S2 - killing Ned leads to partying it up and then saving the day by helping massacre British mooks, but also it's maybe really bad and traumatic? - but I don't ever doubt they are approaching him with the intent for character development as a main character.

I'm starting to doubt with Ed.

Yeah, all his mirrored issues to Stede's felt like the basis of letting Edward grow and change for himself after S1. He had family trauma. He has his own version of Mary and a crew he was obligated to and failing. I thought it sounded super interesting to explore Blackbonnet similarities and differences while seeing them address different versions of the same challenges and flaws... Only coming at them from wildly different directions. And just like they acknowledged Stede bore some measure of responsibility to make right with his supporting characters, I expected Edward would have to do the same.

Only... I guess he doesn't.

It makes no sense from the angle that Edward is also a main character in this show. His disregard for the people around him - most of whom are subject to his authority and whims - is not treated as a potential point of growth. It's barely even treated as an issue. But if you consider the parallels are less about establishing flaws for Edward and more about creating points of sympathetic understanding for Stede...?

If Edward is a side character love interest with no independent growth arc planned - albeit a cool one with lots of fun personality - then the important bits of echoing Stede's flaws could just be about how Stede can relate? The 1x04 lecture about a Captain's responsibility is a lesson for Stede. Being trapped in an unbearably dull life that maps near perfectly to Stede's marriage serves to highlight how perfectly in sync Ed would be for Stede. Even confessing to killing his dad... the one place that stunning moment of vulnerability goes is *checks notes* giving Ed a reason to go find Stede after Ned and level up their relationship. Again. Stede gets more development out of Edward's tragic backstory than Edward does.

If you want a really hot take, Edward's entire suicide era is pretty much just a vehicle to get mermaid Stede. Not like it gets any acknowledgement once that's past.

In S2 especially, Ed's character traits feel like romantic flavor text. They make him interesting or sympathetic or attractive. Stede is speeding through meaningful dialogue cutscenes like he's romancing a NPC in a videogame. But there's no narrative push for Edward to do anything outside that romance.

One thing I've actually been thinking about for awhile is the parallel between Mary Bonnet and Izzy Hands and, more specifically, how Ed and Stede are treated in their abandonment of them.

Izzy and Mary are mirrors of each other. Izzy is to Ed as Mary is to Stede. The one the captain is duty-bound to. The one they made a promise to stand by. Stede and Ed fail to communicate with them and when they do, they choose the wrong times and method (Ed talking around his boredom with his way of life while they are under threat of death, Stede surprising Mary with the boat). They don't listen to their respective partners (Ed basically ignoring Izzy while Izzy begs for a plan on how to not die, Stede not remembering that Mary hates the ocean). And Izzy and Mary are the caretakers for the people they're responsible for, with Ed and Stede only giving them attention when it's time to play (Ed choosing to stay in his cabin and making Izzy do most of the actual managing of the crew until Ed finds something new to be excited about, Stede being shown to ignore his children until it's time to play pirates). They also both lie to their partners about their plans when confronted (Stede claiming he'll "have it stopped" when referring to the boat before lying about having it made at all, Ed claiming he's planning on killing Stede even though he never wanted to). They both abandon their partners' plans (Ed deciding not to kill Stede, Stede running out on Mary). Izzy and Mary are both shown to be unhappy with their respective partners, but stay with them out of a sense of duty or responsibility (Izzy's threat to resign comes after he's been struggling to manage the crew and his life for some time, Mary saying straight up that she knows this isn't the life she or Stede wanted). There's like a million other things, but other people have made better posts about that

The point is that Discomfort in a Married State is about both Stede and Mary being unhappily married, but also Ed and Izzy being unhappy in the same dynamic. As much as they try, no one in either party are actually HAPPY with the way things are. Ed is bored out of his mind and feels like life is flat and has nothing to look forward to. Stede feels the same way about his life with Mary. Mary is dealing with an impulsive husband while taking care of her children and struggling to manage Stede's mood while still living her life in a way that doesn't make her miserable. Izzy does the same. Even though Mary and Izzy are upholding the relationship and staying true to their bond, they are obviously unhappy too.

What I'm interested in discussing is the way both Stede and Ed are treated by the narrative as it regards their betrayal of their partners.

Stede is shown to be in the WRONG for abandoning Mary. She's happier without him, yes, but it's pretty clearly stated that him just up and leaving her and their children was a DICK MOVE and he has to deal with that. He's made to come back to a world that no longer has a place for him in it. His children have forgotten him or resent him, his wife has found actual love with someone else, and he's no longer fit for the life he abandoned (not that he ever was, really). Stede is shown the consequences of his actions, how he hurt people by leaving and also how people are better off without him. He's punished by the narrative, made to feel uncomfortable and guilty. This makes sense!

Stede being depressed in his life is not an excuse to just... run away from it. We're shown that him leaving was a good thing, but him playing with the emotions of the people in his life by deciding when and if he wants them to be in his life at all and trying to dictate that just isn't the responsible thing to do. It's not until he finally sits and has an actual conversation with Mary where he listens to her that they're both able to move on fully. They're able to agree on an outcome, they Talk It Through and are both happier for it.

Ed imo is never treated the same way as it concerns his betrayal of Izzy. He lied to Izzy and then went back on their plan, doesn't say a word when Izzy is banished from the ship (doesn't even try to stop him from dueling Stede in the first place), and emotionally abandons him pretty much immediately after meeting Stede. Izzy is shown looking for direction and guidance from a man he trusts and who is supposed to be looking out for his best interests, only to be dismissed and mocked. Izzy repeatedly goes to Ed for direction, asks him "what do we do" or "you told me you would do this, so let's follow through" only for Ed to turn around and do something completely different. And then with the Act of Grace, he plans on running away and leaving Izzy behind entirely. Ed's betrayal of Izzy SHOULD mirror Stede's abandonment of Mary.

But Ed is never punished for it. The way Stede goes back to Mary in a time of crisis and the way Ed goes back to the crew (and Izzy) is the same situation. But where Stede has to deal with the consequences for his selfishness, Ed just... doesn't. He has to deal with his breakup, yeah, but not how he really was just going to leave the crew behind. He tortures and hurts his crew and specifically Izzy, but he's allowed back on the ship as long as he wears a cat bell. He doesn't even appear bothered by it. He never has a moment like Stede and Mary get where a conversation is had and faults are acknowledged on both sides.

Where Stede had to recognize his mistakes and grow, Ed gets off with a slap on the wrist. Mary gets better without Stede dragging her down, but Izzy falls apart without purpose until the crew give him a new purpose in being their unicorn

I don't necessarily think this is a bad thing or even poor writing if it was explored more. It mostly just perplexes me. Why make these connections between these characters at all? It fascinates me

I really wish we could see Mary and Izzy interact. Just once. So Izzy could meet someone who understands

[eebledeeble]

SPOILERS FOR RICK AND MORTY SEASON 6 EPISODE 2, "RICK: A MORT WELL LIVED"

---

it's interesting (and also kinda fucked up) that rick essentially lobotomized morty in this episode, but also didn't really have a choice. he obviously left marta behind, but also keep in mind that literally every other aspect of morty's personality was convinced to go with rick by marta.

however she convinced them, either by threatening that they are ultimately insignificant if they don't go with rick, or by playing up how great rick is/how good morty's relationship with him is, or however the fuck she did it, she is ultimately implementing the same idea into every aspect of morty's personality: rick can be trusted, and whatever he says is correct.

this means that EVERY aspect of morty now fully trusts rick and basically idolize him since he had an almost godlike presence in their roy lives (rick says it's not a religion, but they obviously all see it that way). any capacity for critical thought against rick has now been completely terminated.

what's worse, rick basically had no choice in doing this since convincing them to come with him was really the only viable way for the roy mortys to rejoin morty's personality. hence the whole "we don't have 5 billion chloroform rags" bit. all aspects of morty were essentially brainwashed into submission and devotion, and any that weren't (i.e. marta) stayed behind. it's like how every rick on the citadel either abandoned their beth or had their beth die, because any rick who had a living family he cared about wouldn't have discovered interdimensional travel. hence why there are seemingly no dianes on the citadel.

it's also worth noting that this isn't really a "reset" of morty's development. even s1 morty didn't completely trust and often disliked or even went against rick (not killing morty jr, insisting on continuing the adventure, asking for the love potion and demanding he fix the results, demanding he be treated better after learning about the brainwave thing, etc.) but new morty seems incapable of any of that. he isn't really shy or nervous like s1 morty either, he seems like a rick-obeying robot.

idk where exactly the story goes from here, but i don't think the writers are just going to drop any of this. marta is certainly coming back at some point, and and total lobotomy/conversion therapy combos (done on a SYNAPTICAL LEVEL!) aren't easily undone. i'd be willing to bet that this pisses off the family as well. maybe rick prime uses marta to try and turn morty against rick c137? who knows.

as for the independence arc reset thing, i get the feeling that they had to reverse some of morty's development, but i do think it's necessary. mory's arc felt way too rushed, what the hell could they have done with his character for the next 5 seasons? plus, his development kind of erased his most iconic traits (nervousness, moral compass, stuff like that) and didn't replace them with anything.

who is season 1/2 morty? easy, he's a nervous, awkward boy who gets bossed around by rick. under all the acne and stuttering, however, he has a strict moral compass and is willing to go against rick if he feels it's right.

who is season 4/5 morty? uh, he's kind of awkward. sometimes. sometimes he just acts normal though. he goes along with what rick says, unless... well sometimes he just doesn't, and there's not really a clear reason why. he's totally fine with killing innocents, though. he's just kind of... nothing? his character is really inconsistent. the only identifiable arc he has is the corruption of his ethics, which might be interesting if the show could bother to explore it beyond 2 second throwaway gags.

who is season 6 morty? who knows! morty is a blank slate, and the writers now have complete freedom to (hopefully) redo his arc in a more satisfying way.

idk, i don't think new lobotomy morty is a bad thing. it's better to just admit you were wrong than let one of your main characters remain completely static for half the show.

[sapphicscholar]

I think I remember you saying you were going to write a meta post about the second season compared to the first. Did you ever end up writing that? I love reading your posts!

Thanks, anon! I did not! Real life kind of caught up to me haha and I haven't had the time to go back and watch the two in one go. That being said, the one thing that I've been circling around a lot, basically since the middle of S2 is that the two seasons feel generically different.

To get a little teacher-y for a hot second: what genre does for readers/viewers/consumers is to set up certain expectations about what's coming and how it will be delivered. Obviously those expectations can be refused or subverted--part of the fun of being a writer, after all--but it's kind of like setting yourself on a given course and trusting that the vague outlines will help your readers or viewers follow along with the story you want to tell. (Because, right, if you went into Romeo and Juliet thinking it was a romcom instead of a tragedy, you'd be pretty bummed when they both died. Or if you went into Modern Family thinking it was a documentary, you'd be confused.)

With season 1--both through the show and the after-the-fact commentary from critics and fans alike--we got set up to think a certain way about the kind of show it was and the kind of story it wanted to tell. A lot of fans and critics talked about it as a dramedy, which set expectations for tone, and praised the character-driven approach it took to narrative work, which set us up to assume that level of deep interiority would be sustained. I personally read it as, in many ways, a spin on a traditional künstlerroman (a story about an artist's growth to maturity)--in this version, it was a story about two artists growing into their own creative potential alongside and through the intervention of the other (the "we make each other better and funnier" ethos that we all loved).

Given what we got in season 1, we* as a viewership (*realizing we is not and never will speak as a unified whole) expected more of the same from season 2. We expected the writers to explore what it would mean to take this developing creative project out from the little insular bubble Ava and Deborah had built together and onto the road. We expected the personal-level betrayal of the email to have deep, resonating impacts across the whole season. We expected more glimpses into Deborah and Ava's interior lives that would explain some of those actions or choices that might otherwise seem discordant or inexplicable (or, to use the critics' language, make them deeply unlikeable).

Instead, season 2 (particularly the first chunk of episodes) shifted tone and genre on us. (There are plenty of moments and things I like in S2, but I've already written about them in my ep-by-ep posts a lot.)

A lot of critics have written about season 2 as a journey story, but I'd actually push back pretty hard on that generic classifications for reasons I won't get into for the sake of length and nerdiness haha! I think instead season 2 was more of a picaresque - deeply episodic storytelling where each episode may have built to a vague journey outline but whose ramifications were largely confined. Picaresques trade in interesting, often ever-changing locales; new, eccentric characters; and vignette style plots. They deal in laughs and (mis)adventures and aren't particularly concerned with character growth and deep interiority. Obviously we did see characters confronting their moments of failure, but there wasn't the same kind of protracted reckoning or repercussions I think many of us expected. Instead of the character-driven storytelling of S1, it felt like the tour bus was literally and figuratively driving the second season. The stops dictated the plot, and the plot drove the characters into new situations where they were largely reacting.

And the thing is? It could largely be thought of as a success on those terms. But that disjunction between what many of us expected and what the show gave us makes it feel like it fell short (outside of more specific critiques of individual moments or plots). And I think so many of us really loved the second half of the season because, in many ways, it shifted more and more back to something closer in mood and dynamic to season 1. It started falling back into the kind of storytelling we expected of it.

Anyway, I don't know if this is at all of interest to you, and apologies if not haha, but for what it's worth we can call this my season 2 overarching meta!

[norahastuff]

penny for your thoughts on salmondean codependency ?

Sure. Fair warning it’s long (was longer but I stopped myself.)

I think it’s complicated in a show that’s had so many different showrunners because they’ve all handled Sam and Dean’s relationship very differently. In Kripke’s era (s1-5) there was a romanticization of the bond. Sure there was a lot of in-depth exploration of how they wound up at the place they were at, spoiler alert: it was all because of John and his obsessive crusade to find the demon that killed his wife. That’s all he cared about and as a result, Sam and Dean had to be everything to each other. But Kripke had no intention of dismantling that at any point because he was (and always had been) writing a tragedy. Gamble continued that too. There was no room for anyone else in their lives and it would always just be the two of them against the world. So Cas had to go. Bobby had to go.

(Actually, it's funny because Gamble didn't intend this at the time, her plan was to kill Cas off, but by Edlund creating the masterpiece that is The Man Who Would Be King, he not only saved Cas from being seen as a villain, but he also deepened Dean and Cas' relationship in such a profound way and inextricably linked the two of them emotionally. And since Cas was eventually brought back, that laid the foundation for a lot of what their relationship would become.)

Up until this point, there hadn’t really been any significant dismantling of perhaps the more unhealthy parts of Sam and Dean’s relationship. Enter Carver. He stripped things down and started to explore what drove these characters. What they wanted and why they couldn’t have it. It starts with Dean being mad at Sam for not looking for him in purgatory, which sets up the whole speech in the s8 finale of Sam’s guilt about letting Dean down, but the thing is, Dean was never honest with Sam about his year away either. He never told Sam he could have gotten out much sooner if he hadn’t stayed to find Cas. I mean Dean had assumed Sam was up there alone doing God knows what to try to bring him back, and yet still he stayed in Purgatory because things were clear there. He needed Cas. Anyway, I just find that interesting, but Cas isn’t a victim of Sam and Dean’s relationship in s8.

Who gets the honour of being cast aside? That would be Benny and Amelia, two characters they introduced in s8 specifically to highlight that Sam and Dean’s relationship doesn’t allow for anyone else to be a significant part of their life. I mean that’s nothing new, we’ve watched that happen many times before. Lisa even said as much to Dean. The thing is this time? It’s framed as a truly sad thing. That moment at the end of 8x10 when Dean has just ended things with Benny and Sam leaves Amelia, and they’re sitting alone drinking beer and watching tv is such a hollow empty moment. This is not what they want. But it’s the way things have to be.

I’m actually fascinated by Sam and Dean’s conversation in the church in the s8 finale. Not so much Dean’s assertion that there is no one else he would put before Sam, but more so what provokes it, which is Sam saying “who are you going to turn to instead of me. Another angel? Another vampire?” See the thing is Dean saying he would always put Sam first is not news. We know this and it’s not really an unhealthy statement in itself either. A lot of people would put their sibling above anything else, not less a sibling who you raised and is the most important person to you. But in this context? After what Sam said? It just highlights how unhealthy they are if Sam believes that Dean having other people in his life means he doesn’t love him enough. That he’s a disappointment to him. That’s so profoundly fucked up.

(Note, Dean tells Sam that he killed Benny for him but he doesn’t say anything about Cas. I think like I said before, this is because Cas and Dean’s relationship has largely existed out of the Sam and Dean stuff up to this point - Sam and Cas don’t even really have much of a relationship yet besides both of their connections to Dean.)

And then from here, things start getting steadily worse. But we also keep being shown how bad they are. Dean lying to Sam, taking away his free will by letting Gadreel possess him. Dean sending Cas away, Kevin dying. It’s all awful. The whole “there ain’t no me if there ain’t no you line” from 9x01 isn’t really said by Dean, it’s Gadreel, but that is how Dean feels. He does think that’s all he’s good for. And over the season we’re shown how much of himself and what he truly wants he’s had to give up because of his ingrained “Save Sammy” and “Sammy comes first” mentality. It’s always been this way for him. In 9x07 we see that he had found a happy home, a good father figure, and his first love, a first love might I add that he had to leave behind with no real explanation because Sam needed him, and Sam comes first.

I mean just one episode earlier we had him rushing out the door elated about seeing Cas and spending time with him, only for their time together to come to sad and melancholic end when Dean once again leaves Cas behind without any real explanation, because despite what he wants Sammy comes first. What he wants doesn’t matter.

See I think after the Gadreel stuff comes out is where the narrative starts to get a little wonky for me. You can clearly see that this was intended to be a shorter story that they ended up stretching out to a much longer one because of renewals. There’s also the fact that this is a formula show so they can’t necessarily be separated for longer than an episode or two. S10 is a rough one to get through at times, I think the themes still mostly hold up but it’s a rough one to get through.

S10 highlights all the connections that Dean has, Cas, Charlie, Crowley even, but Sam doesn’t really have those bonds in the same way.  For Sam it’s just Dean, so he goes down a reckless destructive “do anything to save Dean!” path and so many innocents pay the price, and ultimately with the release of The Darkness, the whole world.

They skirted right up to the edge of exploring just how toxic and dangerous their relationship had become in the season 10 finale.

DEAN: I let Rudy die. How was that not evil? I know what I am, Sam. But who were you when you drove that man to sell his soul... Or when you bullied Charlie into getting herself killed? And to what end? A..a good end? A just end? To remove the Mark no matter what the consequences? Sam, how is that not evil? I have this thing on my arm, and you're willing to let the Darkness into the world.

I can’t say evil is the right word, they were never evil, but they were wilfully blind to everything and everyone else when it came to saving each other. S10 tested my love for the show because after watching it, because there was certainly a feeling that the two of them had become the villains of this story. And don’t get me wrong, I didn’t have a problem with that, it’s just after 2 seasons of this I can’t say I had a lot of faith that this was going to be properly addressed or if we were going to keep going in circles around it. Keep being shown, it’s bad and then nothing much being done to fix it. Your mileage may vary on how it was handled, but I think s11 did a relatively ok job considering it wasn’t the end of the story, and the show needed to keep going.

See from Dean’s side a lot of the codependency rests on 1. His father’s orders to always save Sammy 2. His low self-esteem where he sees himself as nothing but a blunt instrument. 3. His guilt at not being able to perfectly fulfil every familial role in Sam’s life 4. His belief that no one could choose to love him but family has to love you. 5. The unhealthy example of what it should look like to love someone that he got from John. You give up everything but them.

For Sam (and honestly it’s not as clear for me as Dean’s side is so feel free to correct me/disagree on this) 1. Everytime he’s tried to leave and create his own life it’s never ended well. 2. His guilt over wanting freedom and a normal life when he was younger (I’m referring specifically to Stanford era here) 3. His guilt over everything Dean has given up for him. 4. John. 5. Jess.

Ultimately it all comes down to isolation. They both had to be everything to each other, and the deeper they got into this fight, the more people that they lost, the tighter they clung to this notion of family and brothers. I think s11 (and 11x23 in particular) was an important turning point, both for Sam and Dean’s relationship, as well as for them as individuals. Because they weren’t alone there anymore. Cas was there. Sam let Dean walk to his death. Of course, it would devastate him, but he knew it was what had to be done. And he didn’t walk out of that bar and go back to the bunker alone. He had Cas, he had someone who cared about him and wanted to help him and talk to him. Sure Dean asked Cas to take care of Sam for him (you know after Cas offered to walk to his death with him) but Sam let him. He let him be there for him. We didn’t get to see much before the BMOL showed up and blasted Cas away, but still, we saw enough.

I think that’s a significant difference to note why their relationship was different in the Dabb era. It wasn’t just them anymore. Cas was an important member of their family and given a level of importance he’d never been given before and couldn’t have been when the story they were telling was of the dangers of their codependency. Mary was back. Eventually, Jack would become a part of their unit too. Just the two of them wasn’t enough for them anymore. This is made abundantly clear with all of Dean’s desperate attempts to get Cas to stay in s12, followed by his inability to keep going when they lose Cas and Mary in s13. Similarly, Sam really struggles when they lose Jack and fail to get Mary back later in the season.

Another big moment is Dean letting Sam go alone to lead the hunters against the BMOL in 12x22 while he stays back to try and reach Mary. Like he tells Mary, he’s had to be a brother, a father and a mother to Sam and he never stopped seeing him as his kid, but in that moment he makes a choice. He lets Sam take charge and he shows that he trusts him and believes in him. He knows he can handle it.

Sometimes it’s not even a character growth thing. Sometimes having other people there stops you from making destructive choices even though that’s still your first instinct. I’m thinking specifically of 13x21 after Sam was killed. Dean would have run headlong into that nest of vampires and got himself torn apart, but Cas was there to stop him. He was able to make him see reason.

Basically, I think that for a long time, they thought the only relationship they could have was each other, which then became a self-fulfilling prophecy because their desperate attempts to keep each other around led to them losing the people around them. They eventually started to learn that that wasn’t true, they could have more, they were allowed to want more, and that it wasn’t an either-or situation. Dean didn’t have to choose between Sam and Cas. They didn’t have to choose between each other or Jack. The same goes for Mary. Different relationships can coexist without threatening each other, and not say that their relationship in s12-15 was all smooth sailing, but it was certainly so very different from everything that came before.

(There’s maybe a point to be made about how they didn’t have anyone or anything in the finale and how that relates to the story we got, but honestly I have no idea what the intention was with any of the choices made in that episode so I’ll leave it at that for now.)

[izzymeadows]

You do realize El was about to kiss Mike in Ep 7 of S1, yeah? She was doing a lean in the same way he was. The feelings between them were already there/reciprocated. It’s common for that tween age group to develop crushes, explore first kisses, ect.

And to say she had no concept of love or a kiss seems quite false. See above as to why she clearly understood the concept of a kiss. And when he kissed her in Ep 8, she was maybe a little surprised but not unreceptive. She smiled at him.

See Episode 8 as well to see that she very clearly understood/understand the concept of love. She was quite able to understand that Papa’s ‘love’ was bad. That that wasn’t really love at all. And who was she crying out for instead? The person she cries for *every time.* Mike. Who does she say goodbye to before she disappears? Mike. Who was she very obviously trying to ‘save’ the most? Mike. It’s a pattern she follows in later seasons too.

And this really isn’t even like, a Mileven thing or something…The fandom has this massive tendency to infantalize Eleven to a huge degree. She can’t have this and that because she was raised in a lab. She can’t do this and that because she was raised in a lab. I see it over and over. Should we say the same about every child raised in an atypical way? Are they all supposed to be hopeless?

Eleven isn’t dumb. And just because she was raised in a lab does not mean she can’t understand abstract things like love, kindness, ect. It’s actually a strength of her character that despite being raised in that quite terrible place, she was still able to develop her own sense of morality, good and evil, love and hate, right and wrong.

To say she can’t understand those concepts does her a distinct disservice.

I'm publishing this because the analysis is really good, but i fail to see where did i say or imply eleven is dumb. Quite the opposite, i'm always saying she's smart and willing to learn. I also never said she can't understand those concepts, I said she doesn't have them at first. Which, I'll concede to you, was wrongly worded, because I didn't mean the concepts themselves, but the vocabulary and resources to understand them in a more conscious level (i don't know if this makes the sense i want it to make, sorry).

Anyway no, i didn't see what you say in episode 7, or i did but i don't remember idk. My memory is a mess, I'm gonna have to rewatch! But either way, when i talked about that kiss, i wasn't saying she didn't want it, i was saying she probably wouldn't have known how to reject it if she had wanted to, because she wasn't allowed to have her own wants met, or even acknowledged, before. Also, even knowing what a kiss was, she probably didn't know everything it could imply (i also worded this wrongly). That's what makes it uncomfortable to me. Again, she had a terrible upbringing, which means she lacks knowledge of certain stuff, not intelligence. The show makes it clear she is, in fact, really clever. Look at how fast she learns! After living most of her life as a tool in a lab, and then what's shown in season 2, which isn't a "normal life" either because she wasn't socializing like other kids her age! And then she acts almost the same as the others! She's really smart and i never said she's hopeless. And if somebody does say it, they're wrong. What i said (or at least, what i meant, i might have messed up at expressing myself, wouldn't be the first time tbh) is that she needs more time than she's had until now to fully learn everything she didn't know. And i'm positive she will, and it will be super interesting to watch, and i'll still be able to be like a proud mother hen with her.

Sorry for the long rant, but i don't like people thinking i'm here badmouthing Eleven. I'm not. I love her. She's good, kind, brave, strong, smart and caring and deserves all the good things in the world. Including a good character development, which she's having from the beginning.

I like how you said El having the strong morals she has, despite having grown up in that terrible environment, is a strength of her character. 100% agree.

[scribbly-dee]

Inspired by this post

I adore corruption arcs, so I graded how well the non-archivist characters would have damned humanity if they had been the archivist.

Sasha James 11/10, would be an ideal archivist, this plus her height is probably why the stranger monster targeted her before she could peak

I have a soft spot for any au that knows Sasha has never seen a brain cell in her life and that any unhinged!Sasha au is really just a regular Sasha au. Picture it with me. Sasha and Jon have parallel archivist tracks, until Sasha (my beloved show off) decides: you know what would make me more efficient at snooping? Becoming a Human Google. And things accelerate. The Web doesn't even need to bother with subtly magic lighters, it slaps all 14 marks on her at once by pulling up next to Sasha in a windowless van with "free secrets 👍" written on the side.

After the Unknowing, Sasha takes over the institute from Elias instead of Martin and Peter. With Tim dead, Jon in a coma, Martin lonely-snatched, Melanie compulsively homicidal, Daisy in the coffin, and Basira on autopilot, she quickly bonds with Rosie, the ultimate nosiness enabler. Sasha is a fully marked archivist for a good long while, but doesn't start the apocalypse right away because she's eager to read ALL the ominous notes Elias left, so the watcher's crown statement is in her to-be-read pile. When the apocalypse starts (Rosie: "Hey, Sasha, I just read something extra fucked up that Elias wrote, wanna see?" Sasha: "God yes."), she books it to become the pupil with Rosie as her anchor. Mayhapse an anchor-archivist polycule with Archivist Jon and Martin? Mayhapse Jon is just a normal eye avatar here and deeply invested in all of Sasha's eyepocalypse statements, so it's Sasha and her plus-three? Mayhapse it's a race across the eyepocalypse wasteland between Archivist Sasha and Archivist Jon to usurp Jonah and become the pupil?

Tim Stoker 2/10 dude's here for a good time, not a long time

The only way I see this working is if Elias disguises not-stranger clues as circus related so Tim is motivated to investigate. Otherwise, his archival assistants are way more curious than him and disobey his direct orders to 🍹chill🏝. Jon, Sasha, and Martin inadvertently bring marks home to him like cats bring home dead birds. He asserts his agency when he decides the best course of action? Actually? Just blow up the archives. This unfortunately puts him in a false sense of security, and Elias makes him read the watcher's crown statement by cat fishing him on grindr and sending the ritual as a dm mid conversation.

Daisy Tonner - 9/10 archivist, would have started doomsday before she was at the archivist job long enough to use her PTO

Daisy already had a lot of experience hunting down fear-entity-related people in sectioned cases, which means she possibly canonically already has all the marks from just hunting avatars who use their powers in self defense. The reason she lost one point is because she's too much of a jock to read, only nerds are culpable to watcher crown statements, so this would be the only delay but oh what a delay it will be.

Melanie King - 7/10 archivist, points awarded for achieving her breakthroughs by smashing her head against a wall until she literally breaks through, points deducted for doing so in full clown makeup.

If Jon got a handful of marks by just asking anoying questions in the same room as an avatar, imagine how much faster Melanie would get marks by bringing her trademark Chaotic Brat personality on fear entity investigations. The apocalypse would have started in like two seasons: one season to hire her off the streets and establish shakey, complex relationships with her new assistants (Jon and Sasha put in the time with the institute but were passed over on this promotion for some random YouTuber (plus they're tighter with Tim and Martin, so proletarian solidarity against the boss)).

Then a second season to stab every mark and get stabbed in return. Melanie would blitz through all 14 marks because what precious little impulse control she starts with is slowly replaced with slaughter juice. One fun moral ambiguity to explore could be if Melanie tries to use her new, dangerous Eye/Slaughter powers to revive her reputation and platform in the supernatural community now that she can, ya know, identify supernatural things for the first time ever. Does she acknowledge her entire career up to her hospital episode apparently only investigated fake sightings? A better question to ask is whether Basira, Tim, and Jon ever let her live down how Ghost Hunt UK's professional dignity was contingent on the legitimacy of her sCiEnTiFiC gHoSt eQuIpMeNt in those episodes, so the temperature spikes set to dramatic music were well and truly just temperature spikes and dramatic music. Sasha found a clip of that music playing as Melanie narrates "it's a message... from the other side..." and made it as her text tone.

Also, it would be hilarious if Melanie tried to kill Jonah on sight in the panopticon, once again botched assassination attempt number 1,963,538, and then Jon quietly snuck in to finish the job on his first try just like in canon.

Jon: "What, like it's hard?"

Basira Hussain 3/10 archivist, her eye alignment manifests as office gossip, like a normal person

Basira has the most formidable super power of all: the power to nope tf out of any conversation or plan she wants. She therefore would probably take 10x longer to start the apocalypse than any other archivist because her fatal flaw is refusal to directly engage with a lot of personally difficult things (like the slaughter bullet surgery she organized, Daisy In General, etc). The marks will be slow going if she resists putting her safety on the line or invests time in making good plans (which is smart, but unhelpful for dooming humanity). She would for sure still get marked and end the world because once she's convinced of a plan (aka Elias convinces her of a plan), she's ruthlessly efficient. So I'd stay out of her way that last year or two, she marks the entities right back at them.

Martin Blackwood 2/10 archivist, considering a prerequisite for creepy eye avatar staring is the ability to make eye contact.

S1 Archivist Martin would probably dote too much on the employees under him to be hugely susceptible to Elias' isolation-dependant manipulation. Any progress Martin inadvertently achieves toward the watcher's crown goal would have to be contingent on it helping his loved ones, which is perfect fuel for a "corrupted by good intentions" arc. This would be key because Martin has superb bullshit and manipulation detection, making the marks are tricky but not impossible to orchistrate considering Jon can't stay put in a safe corner for 10 minutes and Martin's mother would refuse to stay with him where she's safe from avatar threats.

Imagine the petty drama when Jon and Sasha learn he got the promotion they wanted because he lied on his CV.

Other than that, Martin would be even worse about pit stops on the apocalypse road trip than Jon because his Kill Bill mode would have no off switch. Does Archivist!Martin and his anchor Jon ever reach the panopticon? Eventually, but not until after they lose points for significantly reducing the apocalypse fear quantity. Would Annabelle survive to deliver her cryptic MaCHiNAtIoNs and achieve the Web's goal? Hard No, additional point reduction for neutralizing the multiverse invasion. Points potentially earned back if Martin's Web connection is strong enough to come up with the multiverse invasion plan on his own, though.

Georgie Barker 4/10, as a fearless coward, all the fear she feeds to the entities would be khaki flavored. They'd get their apocalypse, but they probably wouldn't enjoy the meal.

Similar to Basira, Georgie has the super power to Fuck This Shit I'm Out. She would overall be a subpar humanity damning archivist; a major archivist success factor of Jon's is that he has enough affective empathy to be afraid with every statement giver he reads, so when Jon archives a statement, he unintentionally contributes to the fear soup seasoning. Combined with how Georgie doesn't want anything to do with entity drama, so any corruption specific to the watcher's crown would stagnate. Even her casual exposition conversations would go like

Georgie: "I've connected no dots."

Melanie: "you've connected a lot of dots??"

Georgie: "I've connected shit all dots."

The reason she gets one more point than Basira is because Georgie's fatal flaw is the passive observer quality the Eye tried to stoke in Jon. Her level of engagement oscillates between two extremes, impulsive over commitment and judging from a distance. This would probably lead her to geting involved just long enough for her involvement to become irreversible, at which point she would try to cut that shit out of her life after it's trapped her. She'd linger, barricading herself on the margins of this problem as the marks that are targeted at her slowly tally up until boom. Apocalypse is on and she only half understands what's happening.

Georgie would wander around an apocalypse hellscape confused, but vibes and physical health fully intact. Anchor!Melanie would have quite the emotional journey starting with Georgie on that pedestal Melanie placed her, and ending with a slaughter avatar stabbing the person who convinced her to work on her slaughter inclination.

[dil-ibaadat]

Glad you mentioned Kate standing up for herself with Anthony, which was sorely missing in the later eps. The way he spoke to her sometimes was pretty iffy, especially how he constantly implied how much he resented what he felt for her. That rough arm pull when she was stuck in mud and dismissing her yelp of pain were gross as hell too. Kate really had no reason to think Anthony felt more than lust for her until he explicitly said it. Wondering if you'll explore this in Dowry? Big fan, btw.

hi! wow i am LATE to answering this one, but.

you brought up an EXCELLENT point and my feelings on it are complicated:

1. anthony did not treat kate like a gentleman ought to treat a lady. he pulled on her arm during pall mall, was short and snappish with her in general, embarrassed her (indirectly) at the soiree, took the cup of lemonade that lumley brought for her at the races for himself (this never fails to make me laugh) and in general, was… well, he didn’t behave well.

2. kate ALSO did not behave like a lady with anthony. she routinely insulted him in public, almost gave the cut direct to his mother, made innuendos about his “performance” 😏😏 in front of his siblings during pall-mall, and in general, was not very kind or gracious to him (the way a lady should be).

i think this is fun to play with for several reasons. did anthony treat kate well? no. did kate treat anthony well? she had her reasons not to, in my humble opinion, but nevertheless, her attitude was at best cold and scathing. THIS IS GOOD because they are showing their true, worst selves to each other in the process. contrast anthony’s behavior with kate to anthony’s behavior with edwina/other debutantes. he’s a perfect, charming gentleman eager to let the girls talk or asking them pointed questions. with kate, he lets his true self emerge — passionate, short-tempered, irritable, annoying. who else does he treat like that, with such familiarity?

HIS FAMILY. ergo, he was treating kate like family long before he even understood the attraction he had to her.

i love enemies-to-lovers in romance fic because neither the hero nor the heroine have to practice acceptable forms of masculinity or femininity (or some confused cross in between for trans/nb characters who are forced to conform to binary societal expectations). the heroine doesn’t have to be demure or coquettish. the hero doesn’t have to be gallant or chivalrous. when someone accepts and even likes you for even your worst qualities, that is when you know they’re suited for you and vice versa. anthony could be his flawed, imperfect self around kate, and she could be the same around him.

was the way he treated her right? i don’t know. i personally think a lot of the “code of conduct” that a gentleman was supposed to follow was rooted in a gentle sexism rampant in that time period, one that continues to persist today. imo, you shouldn’t have to be nice to a woman because they’re a woman. you shouldn’t have to defer to a man because they’re a man. attitudes toward people are, on an innate level, governed by such societal and personal biases, true, but love is something that has the potential to transcend them. in s1, we saw anthony as a misogynistic cad who didn’t understand the sacrifices involved and sheer bloody hardship of being a woman. in s2, we see anthony empathize with and respect kate, something i don’t really think he had done before — with any woman. i think his love for her changed him for the better, and in order for that change to be deep and transformative, it had to have started when he was as uncouth and ungentlemanly as you say. to butcher a quote from legend of korra, it is only when we are at our very worst or lowest that we are open to the greatest change. i think that’s what happened with anthony and i’m excited to explore that further.

thank you for your thought-provoking question!