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thegeminisage · 3 years

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my secret galaxy brain reading of spn s11 is better than yours

or: why season 11 is good actually. this is a long-ass meta, so it's going behind the cut

some disclaimers before we get going

absolutely all of this is accidental. nobody does this shit on purpose. this is ~my interpretation~ or whatever. i'm not actually trying to argue the writers meant to do this lol. what i'm saying is that this is the way to make season 11 make sense in your brain because it makes sense in mine and it's one of my FAVORITES. it could be one of your favorites too if you stop limiting yourself

there is heavy discussion of sexual violence in this meta so read safely etc also spoilers for all of s11 obviously

unless you watched the anime, i've seen more supernatural than you have, so i'm right >:)

for the uninitiated, the basic plot of season 11 is that eons and eons ago, before there was heaven or hell or earth or humans or angels, there was only god (chuck) and the darkness (amara). amara kept destroying what god made, so he and the archangels locked her away in a cage, which removing the mark of cain from dean's arm opened. amara escaped and dean was the first thing she saw, so she spends the season using some kind of thrall over him to make him feel drawn to her and unable to hurt her, and also looking for chuck so she can give him a little payback.

ALRIGHT HERE WE GO

season 11 & sexual violence

you don't need to look very far to find examples of sexualized violence and outright sexual violence on supernatural, but s11 is lousy with it. just to name a few examples:

amara's "thrall" on dean, which we will absolutely get into more later

crowley's jokes about altar boys and the tastes of catholic priests

ALLLLL the pedophile jokes made when crowley was raising baby amara

angels torturing cas and threatening to cut his genitals off, only to send in hannah (an angel who formerly had unrequited romantic/sexual feelings for him) to play good cop(/honeypot??) in hopes of making him talk

the return of lucifer, who possessed sam (spn has a history of equating possession and sexual violence) and is heavily implied to have raped sam in hell, and the MULTIPLE times he menaces sam throughout this season, including forcibly touching his soul

lucifer possessing castiel and using him to enact violence on the winchesters, his loved ones

i absolutely REFUSE to acknowledge the lucifer/crowley stuff but if you know you know

the episode with the kissing curse, using "love" as a means to deliver death

dean's possession in the soul eater episode

the "chitters" monsters involving mating, orgies, and forcible impregnation

you get the idea

i could write a whole essay on almost all of these but for this post we'll be sticking mostly to dean & amara

@marcusantonius pointed out while we were watching season 11 that what amara does to dean is basically speedrun his two major attachments - sam and castiel. she starts out as a baby, someone in need of protection, and quickly grows into an adult who attempts to romance/seduce him. the feelings dean has around amara aren't feelings FOR HER, they're feelings he has for SAM AND CAS that are being TRANSFERRED onto her through means of her power. (this is important for later.)

what amara does to dean is sexualized violence bordering on outright sexual assault. compelling him to feel drawn towards her and to protect her, frequently getting in his personal space and touching his face, and even kissing more than once when he is quite literally unable to resist (it's stated many times that he is unable to kill or even harm her, so he is completely helpless in the presence of someone who makes no secret of her intentions for him, sexual or otherwise).

dean says many times that what he feels for amara is not love or desire or attraction. he can't put a name to it at all - not once in the entire series is he able to properly define this thrall she has over him, which leaves us the audience a little confused (amara asking "what IS happening between us?" in 11.06 as a teenager making sexual advances on a grown man does give me a good laugh, because it was written SO WEIRDLY)... BUT we know that it is definitely sexual in nature, and not at all something dean wants to be happening.

this is addressed kind of strangely in 11.13. the villain of the week is a witch moonlighting as a hairdresser, who puts a kissing curse on her clients. the curse must be passed along like a hot potato - if you kiss someone else, it's passed along to them. if they kiss someone else, it's passed along to them. but eventually, a monster called a qareen will show up in the form of "your deepest desire" and kill you, and work its way backwards to the original curse-ee. in the episode, dean kisses the vic (i'll point out this was also technically done w/o her consent, though it was a very businesslike kiss) to put the curse on himself and protect her. the qareen takes the form of amara, and she gives Dean this little speech:

Qareen!Amara: You're a mystery. I can see inside your heart. Feel the love you feel. Except it's cloaked in shame. When it comes to this, you can’t help yourself, so why fight it? Just give in.

then, at the end of the episode, after dean reveals who the qareen was for him, we get this conversation between sam and dean:

Dean: You seriously think the sister of God is my deepest darkest desire? Sam: She isn't? Dean: No! She can’t be! Sam: Why not? Dean: Why? Because if she is that means that I'm… Sam: Means you're what? Complicit? Weak? Evil? Dean: For starters, yeah. Sam: Dean. Do you honestly think you ever had a choice in the matter? She's the sister of God, and for some reason she picked you and that sucks, but if you think I’m gonna blame you or judge you…I'm not.

the "shame" part of both of these is really what stuck out to me - the word itself isn't in the second passage, but dean's vibes are absolutely filled with shame. to me, this always read as being shame about the sexual violence and about the complicity/weakness that "allowed" that violence to happen.

and as a reminder, sam is just a few episodes past the confrontation with his own rapist (he returns to the cage to speak with lucifer in 11.09 & 11.10, and canonically struggles with what happened there even after the confrontation ends). sam made a point earlier in this episode of making sure the victim of the curse knew it wasn't her fault her husband died, but the fault of the witch who cast the curse. sam is VERY emotionally intelligent, and i honestly believe that he was speaking as one survivor of sexual violence to another here. what he's telling dean is something victims often need to be reminded of: it's not your fault. you weren't complicit, or weak. you didn't have a choice. you don't deserve blame or judgment.

we've had bad guys make sexual threats at both dean and sam many times before this and a few more times after, but as far as i can recall, this is the only conversation in the entire series that even attempts to address the impact of that particular kind of violence on dean. it's short, and strangely written, but nonetheless: there it is.

season 11 & the dean in the closet

for the purposes of this post, i'm not going to go through the entire series and find examples to try and prove dean is bi and has feelings for cas. if you don't believe that then what are you doing here? we're skipping to the goods.

actually, i always got annoyed at people who read the fake-amara's speech in 11.13 (or any of the other times people spoke about dean's shame regarding amara) as being about dean's sexuality, because in my mind it was ABSOLUTELY about his being a victim of sexual violence, which was far more important to me, as it is discussed far less often.

BUT, knowing what we know now (that cas was always canonically in love with dean, and it's all but canon that dean really was bisexual), i'm willing to entertain another notion:

Sam: ...you're what? Complicit? Weak? Evil? Dean: For starters, yeah.

the "evil" bit never really sat right with me as part of the narrative of sexual violence, aside from touching on dean's general self-loathing, but it fits the narrative of being closeted MUCH better. dean, a self-hating homophobic bisexual, would probably use a similar word, if not something heavy as "evil," to describe the way he feels about other men. it's a malevolent feeling. (if you're like me and ascribe to the jackles headcanon that dean resorted to turning tricks to make food money when he was underage, we could also consider the extremely fucked up fact that almost every queer man dean's ever met is someone who hurt him.)

dean is ashamed of who and what he is, and the way he feels about cas. living like that, that's violence. he lives violently day in and day out with that feeling. (and amara knows it. it's worth nothing that she uses cas to communicate with dean MULTIPLE times in this season, both by carving messages on his body and psychically, through his own connection to dean - and when dean "betrays" her to rescue casifer, she's horrified at whatever she sees in his head.)

equating sexual violence to the violence of being closeted

but what's amazing about this weird badly-written little 11.13 conversation (and indeed, the season-long plotline of dean and his shame) is that we don't HAVE to assign it to the purposes of being about sexual violence OR about being closeted. it can be and IS both.

my favorite reading of this is that BEING IN THE CLOSET IS INHERENTLY A VIOLENT AND TRAUMATIC EXPERIENCE. many of the same feelings are involved: shame, guilt, self-loathing. sam's comforting words to dean - that he will not be blamed or judged - are equally applicable in both cases. dean is a victim of sexual violence, and he is also in the closet, and both of these experiences are traumatic ones, and they are intermingled with each other in a big way (again, if you're into dean-turned-tricks headcanon, they are intermingled INSEPERABLY - the sexual violence being one of the direct causes of dean not wanting to accept or address his own sexuality).

the bait-and-switch

the real galaxy brain moment of this whole thing begins at the end of 11.22 (an otherwise lackluster episode that played sam's lucifer trauma for laughs how dare they ugh god whatever that's off-topic but i HATE IT) when amara and chuck finally have the confrontation she's been fighting all season for. she is attacked by witches, demons, angels, and then stabbed by lucifer himself, before she's finally on her knees before chuck, and then we get this little exchange:

Chuck: I'm sorry. For this, for everything. Amara: An apology at last. What's sorry to me? I spent millions of years crammed into that cage alone and afraid...

maybe you already know where i'm going with this. a cage isn't so different from a closet when we're working with metaphors, right?

amara talks about her grievances with chuck many times throughout season 11 - that he was spoiled, that he created the earth to stroke his ego, that he couldn't handle her as she was. and once he finally makes his appearance he tells it his own way - that he had no choice but to lock amara away, that she couldn't stand the things and people he made, that he did it to protect people. but something about THIS conversation in particular - even though it's not written into the dialogue - gives me a particular kind of vibe.

there is something innately, unspeakably WRONG with amara. i don't mean unspeakable as in very bad, i mean unspeakable as in LITERALLY undefinable. it's just like dean being unable to put a name to the pull she has over him. no one talks directly at it or about it, they go in circles around it, but facts are facts: amara simply couldn't be allowed to exist as she was because there was just something innately wrong with her. and it's this conversation in particular, the first one they have together onscreen, that really slams that feeling home for me.

the entire time chuck and amara are talking, the camera repeatedly cuts to dean - he is so visibly upset that the first time i watched this, i was certain he was about to jump into the middle of things and put himself between the two of them. we're meant to believe that dean has trouble hearing this because he "cares" about amara, but i have a different take.

i think it's empathy. real, actual empathy - not the kind of feeling that amara had to force out.

stay with me here. eventually, after chuck tries to lock amara away again, she gets her second wind, attacks him, and leaves him for dead - and as he dies, the sun dies with him, and so too does all life on earth.

in the following episode, the finale, amara finds her way to a park, where she takes in god's creation, visibly upset as she realizes that his flowers die at her touch (again, hammering home the point that there is something innately wrong with her that means she cannot live in this world), and eventually speaks with an old lady feeding the birds.

Woman: Do you want to feed them? Amara: I shouldn't. Woman: I've been feeding these birds going on 20 years now. They're practically family. And I know that makes me sound like a crazy old bat, but...heck. My husband died a couple of years ago, and my son keeps slipping me these brochures for retirement communities - a.k.a. where they send old folks to die, but not to make a fuss about it. Amara: So you hate him. Woman: Well, a little bit. Sometimes. But you know family. Even when you hate them, you still love them.

this speech brings tears to amara's eyes. what's more, she spends this entire section with her hands in her lap. after a season of killing her way through humanity to get god's attention, she is afraid to touch these birds for fear of killing them. she feels empathy for them. she and dean are connected, after all - so as soon as he began to feel true, genuine empathy - so did she.

when dean shows up to kill amara (via a bomb made out of souls hidden in his chest), she immediately clocks his plan. she practically dares him to do it, and - he can't. he is, as always, helpless against her.

what dean does instead is talk to her. more importantly, he listens to her. when she says her brother sent dean here to execute her, he tells her chuck actually didn't want this - that it was actually his very last resort. he asks her if this, the death of everything, is what she wanted, and she tells him all she really wanted was payback. again, dean EMPATHIZES:

Dean: Yeah, that's revenge. It'll get you out of bed in the morning, and when you get it, it feels great... for about five minutes. I've been there. Me and Sam, we have had our fair share of fights—more than our share. But no matter how bad it got, we always made it right because we're family. I need him. He needs me. And when everything goes to crap, that's all you've got—family. Now you might be a—an all-powerful being...but I think you're human where it counts. You simply need your brother.

what's really neat about this section, and the scene before it where amara confronts her brother, is that they mark the first times dean felt any sort of genuine emotion for amara at all - one that she didn't force out of him or one that he felt for someone else that she just took for herself. dean genuinely EMPATHIZES with her - after everything she's done to him and his loved ones, and to the people on earth, dean sees the humanity in her. that's kind of his and sam's M.O., loving monsters into men - the number of non-human adversaries who eventually became allies because of the winchesters’ empathy or liking for them or even just their influence is staggering. cas, gabriel, meg, benny, crowley, rowena, metatron, to name a few off the top of my head - and now amara.

and then we get THIS:

Dean: You don't want to be alone. Not really. I mean, hell. Maybe that's why you wanted me. But deep down, you didn't really want me... 'cause I'm not him.

(emphasis mine)

and here's my galaxy brain take: dean empathizes with amara - TRULY empathizes with her - because they're both queer (or queer-coded).

I KNOW THIS SOUNDS NUTS BUT LISTEN. this weird creepy stalkery hetero "romance" was fake on both sides all along. dean and amara are the same. that unspeakable and innate wrongness lives in both of them. they're self-loathing and furious at god for his failures and callousness, outcasts in a world that isn't for them, a world that has HURT them simply on account of them being what they are. the violence done to amara was done to her BECAUSE of this unspeakable wrongness about her - her queerness, or her queer-codedness - and we already decided this was, for the purposes of this season, functionally the same violating and traumatic experience as sexual violence.

amara's been using dean to try and replace chuck this entire season. it's some weird comphet bullshit tied in with the fact that dean was the first part of chuck's creation she ever saw. it stands to reason then that she was trying to force dean to be with her and love her the way she wanted to force CHUCK to be with her. that's part of why she started life as a baby - as someone he'd protect as he did his own sibling.

so in some weird, warped, very roundabout way, amara was enacting on dean the violence that chuck enacted on her - making him feel the same shame and weakness that chuck made HER feel when he locked her away eons ago. if amara unknowingly replaced chuck with dean, then she also unknowingly took part of her revenge on him. the only way she knew how to love someone was to force them to do it, because the only ways she had ever been loved until now involved violence - until dean and his moment of genuine empathy.

consider this final speech:

Dean: Maybe I can kill you. Or maybe I can't. Maybe if I pull this trigger, we all live happily ever after, or maybe we die bloody, or maybe it doesn't matter, because maybe there's a different way. So I'm gonna ask you again. Put aside the rage. Put aside the hate. And you tell me...what do you want?

dean is the only person in BILLIONS of years to ask her this! one queer to another! and it turns out that and all she wanted - the ONLY thing she needed - was to be understood and accepted by her family. immediately after this, amara summons chuck to their park, and the two of them talk it out in what is genuinely a very moving scene. amara - perhaps because of her connection with dean, perhaps because she's finally admitted to herself that she does still love her brother - sees the beauty in the world now, and feels love for it, and she doesn't want to destroy it anymore.

and at the end, after she's made her peace with god, and the sun has been turned back on, amara says:

Amara: Dean, you gave me what I needed most. I want to do the same for you.

and what do we get at the end of this episode? mary winchester, risen from her grave. dean's family. and - SPOILERS FOR SEASON 12 - though at first mary rejects dean (and sam) as being the same children she remembers from 1983, after a long and rocky road, at the end of the season, they eventually come to a reconciliation where she sees them for who they truly are. it's never ABOUT being queer because this show uses the fucking hays code when it comes to dean's sexuality, but it's still about being queer!!

dean gave amara what she needed - acceptance from her family - and she gave him that back in turn. all it took, the entire time, was one SHRED of empathy from one queer to another. all dean had to do was recognize her - REALLY recognize her - not as a replacement for sam or cas but as who she really was. and he saw himself in her, and the empathy that followed was genuine because it was the most natural thing in the world. in the end neither dean nor amara needed the "romance" they thought they did/were forced to want. they never did. they only needed acceptance and understanding.

supernatural is always about family and the power of love, and this season is no exception.

other great parts of season 11

if you're still not convinced, season 11 is full of other things that make it amazing:

GOD'S RETURN. after SIX YEARS he's back, this is canon, we finally get to hear what he has to say. they did more with him in a handful of episodes in this season than all of season 15

also, something else returns after six years. i'll give you a hint: it glows hot in god's presence. it was last seen being dropped into a motel trash can.

and of course the big one: lucifer and sam. what great callbacks to seasons 4-6 when lucifer and what he did to sam in hell was actually scary and mattered a lot! lucifer returns to being scary in this and i can't get enough of it.

this is also inseparable from sam's arc involving his faith - he begins praying again, having visions again, and is GUTTED when those prayers and visions lead him back to the place of his worst trauma. he gets to MEET GOD this season. it's fucking insane

the inherent melodrama of castiel, someone loved and trusted by the winchesters, being possessed by someone who they hate and who has hurt them. you get all of the sam drama with him accidentally trusting lucifer with his soul and his brother's life, and all the dean drama where he watches the devil run around in his boyfriend. also, misha collins does an uncanny impression of mark pellegrino. it's actually really creepy

somehow, they managed to make metatron, a deeply hated villain by all, ACTUALLY LIKEABLE. for TWO whole episodes. it was NUTS

this season starts off rowena's long arc with lucifer and her lucifer trauma that eventually becomes the catalyst of her bonding so profoundly with sam <3 best friends forever <333

sam and dean bond with a pair of canonically gay hunters who DON'T DIE

billie is introduced in this season and she's super hot and cool and awesome

eileen is also introduced in this season. her arc mirrors sam's so well, it's SO good. i never though i'd care about sam and a girl who wasn't jess, but i care about them SO MUCH it makes me insane. if you don't love eileen you're wrong!

anyway, watch season 11. it's weird but it's really fucking good. THANK YOU FOR COMING TO MY TED TALK

[spn masterpost]

#supernatural #dean winchester #amara #supernatural meta #destiel #in a roundabout way #i needed a 5th tracked tag lol #i stayed up ALL NIGHT writing this but im gonna be a smartie and schedule it to go up at noon when ppl are awake #liz watches spn #liz's meta #liz's spn stuff #liz makes stuff #long post #just in case the cut fails #this meta really is 3800 words long lol #as a bonus it was implied in late season 10 that amara is the older sibling #even though they retconned it and made them twins later #like amara and dean are both eldest sisters.......

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doux-amer · 3 years

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The reason Wandavision ultimately was a big disappointment was that it didn’t say anything new or add any depth to Wanda. Some people have argued that we shouldn’t have expected much because this is the MCU we’re talking about, but I hate that logic for two reasons:

Marvel is using the Disney+ series to expand upon characters and plots that they couldn’t/didn’t get to explore in the films

This dismisses the existence of MCU works that have, while dealing with the trappings of being a blockbuster/studio film or “just” a superhero film or show, tried to go beyond that with their stories and characters

You can’t ignore Marvel’s goal with D+ nor can you paint all the works with the same brush.

This was Marvel’s opportunity to give a side character who has been given such shoddy writing the growth she sorely needed. We didn’t get that. Wanda is very much the same person she was in Age of Ultron; we still barely know anything about her besides the fact that she’s powerful and traumatized. She is very much defined by that. Who is she outside of that? Who is she outside her grief? Why, for instance, does Vision love her so much? We know why she loves Vision. In fact, I’d argue that the star or at least the heart of Wandavision was Vision because we learn more about him and see him grow.

There’s no movement, either positive or negative, here. Wanda continues to behave the same way, never learning or truly being shaped by her actions for good or bad in any significant way, and the MCU refuses to commit to making her anything. She isn’t a good hero. She isn’t a good antihero. She isn’t a good villain. They want to make her someone complex, but we’re left not understanding if we’re supposed to root for her despite her troubles or see that this is a troubling evolution towards emotional and moral corruption. Is she a messy hero? Or is she a sympathetic villain?

As a recap, here’s what we’ve seen of Wanda and why I’m saying she hasn’t had any meaningful growth:

Wanda volunteers for Hydra. You know, Nazis? If you want to quibble about whether they’re “technically” Nazis, whatever; they’re still a terrorist organization, and Wandavision explicitly states it as such. Here was a chance to address the awful decision Whedon made, but we get a white woman nonchalantly excusing her voluntary involvement with the world’s most famous terrorist group with a blasé “We wanted to change the world.” This is the most we get from her about this.

Wanda mentally violates and assaults the Avengers. She forcibly traps them in their worst nightmares. She coerces Bruce into transforming into the Hulk against his will, ripping him of his agency and sanity. When Bruce confronts her about this later in AoU, she straight up refuses to apologize. Wanda has yet to apologize to any of the Avengers.

In her thirst for vengeance, she decides to use the Hulk to hurt innocent people, most of whom are black, in Johannesburg. The only reason people aren't killed is that Tony tries to get people out of harm's way, get Bruce away from civilians, and help Bruce regain control before subduing him when he fails. We never see Wanda thinking about what she did in Johannesburg.

Wanda knows Ultron is evil and follows him, standing by as he hurts Helen Cho, yet another innocent civilian POC. She only cares about Ultron’s destructive nature when she reads his mind and realizes he wants to commit global genocide. Wanda is also arguably one of the Avengers most responsible for creating Ultron. Without her, there is no Ultron. Without her interference, we get Vision. We don’t ever see her grappling with her culpability. This is not the case with the others who made Ultron.

Wanda therefore plays a huge role in the destruction of her home country of Sokovia and the countless resulting deaths including Pietro’s. We see her sad, but we don’t see any guilt. We don’t even see survivor’s guilt.

Because she can’t control her power, Wanda commits manslaughter, killing innocent black people in a Lagos hospital. Other than seeing her react in horror at the scene and turn away from the video that Ross shows later, we don’t see how this impacts her or the way people treat her as an individual. She’s briefly detained under house arrest, essentially grounded, a logical response to what happened.

Despite the damage she caused, she flees the compound with Clint to the airport even if Clint doesn’t give her a valid reason for doing so, not before slamming the person she cares about the most, Vision, through dozens of feet of concrete and earth.

Rather than seeing Wanda be reluctant to use her powers after learning she doesn’t know how to control herself, we see her chiding Clint for being soft and taking it easy on the other side. The Avengers are doing that because they’re fighting against their own teammates and friends; they’re acting to escape or subdue. She doesn’t care if she gets people hurt while trying to stop them as evidenced by what she says to Clint and her actions thereafter.

Wanda takes a whole town hostage and mind controls them. All of the people whose identities she wipes and whom she turns into her puppets are in extreme pain. While what occurred happened instinctually rather than as a deliberate, conscious choice, she becomes aware of what she’s done at some point (Dottie’s cry for help, Wanda’s refusal to listen to Jimmy’s message, Monica breaking free of her conditioning, Vision bringing it up, etc.). She doesn’t let them go. She refuses to believe that they’re in pain even when she’s told that. Only when she’s backed into a corner does she let them go. She then never apologizes or even speaks a word to them. (It doesn’t matter whether or not she thinks they’d accept her apology; you don’t apologize on the condition that you’re heard and forgiven. You do it because you should, even if it doesn’t change anything for the people you hurt. She only apologizes to the one person whom she knows will accept her apology/be lenient on her.)

When Monica starts to remember the real world, Wanda gets hostile and slams her through multiple houses, past the ends of town, and through the reality boundary.

When Vision becomes aware of the problem at hand, she repeatedly gaslights him and tries to control what he can/should and can’t/shouldn’t do. She gets upset when he doesn’t act the way she wants him to. She doesn’t apologize to him beyond saying she should have told him earlier which is only part of the problem.

Wanda tells Agatha the difference between them is that while Agatha did what she did intentionally, she didn’t. This isn’t true.

What Agatha says about Wanda is true; she’s cruel. For the third time in a row, Wanda decides to violate someone’s mind and control them. She essentially murders Agatha, even if it’s bloodless and reversible (and she only says she’ll reverse it if she wants to use Agatha).

After the fight is over, she decides to leave Westview rather than face any consequences or help clean up. She leaves the Westview residents with all their trauma and the destruction of their town without a word to them.

In the post-credits scene, she has fled the country and is isolated in a remote cabin, reading a book she doesn’t understand about concepts she doesn’t understand instead of seeking help when she has a terrible track record of self-teaching or understanding her powers.

When you put all of this together, everything screams “villain,” but as I said, the writers refuse to come out and say that she’s that. They refuse to say anything, and maybe you can argue that they don’t have to make it clear right this moment. You can argue that Wanda should be allowed to be messy, just like many other characters in the MCU are.

The thing about that line of reasoning, though, is that those other characters who are messy? The writing acknowledges that, and we see them deal with the ramifications of their actions and they’re held accountable to them. We see them apologize. We see them try to be better people. We see them work to make up for their mistakes or sins. We need to see Wanda do that if we’re supposed to see her as a hero. Or if she isn’t (and there’s nothing wrong with that! Wanda doesn’t have to be a hero, and in fact, she could be a compelling antagonist or villain which can be exciting), well, she still needs to face consequences.

She doesn’t. She is, by far, the uncontested champion in getting away with what she does; yes, we get some handwaving for certain things other characters do, but no other character has nearly all of their deeds and behavior ignored to the extent Wanda does. It’s extremely frustrating to see. We keep seeing a cycle:

Wanda is full of anger/vengeance and/or grief.

She acts from a place of trauma and prioritizes her desires.

Something bad happens.

Often, it’s something she didn’t mean to happen or she didn’t mean to go that far.

She’s horrified or sad.

Very occasionally, she gets a slap on the wrist, but it’s so brief and doesn’t actually change anything that it might as well not have happened. Most times, it’s as if she never did anything and the story never brings up what she did again (unless it’s to show how she’s sad or powerful).

She doesn’t do anything. She does the same mistakes/crimes again. Wash and repeat.

It’s so unbelievably vexing and tiresome. Despite all my issues with Wanda up until Wandavision and, most importantly her casting, I wanted to like Wanda, whether it was as a hero or villain or someone in between. BUT WE GOT NOTHING NEW. I don’t know anything about Wanda even now beyond “vengeful, sad, powerful white woman who is traumatized and clings to family because of that”! This is the SAME EXACT THING we’ve been dealing with since the beginning, and it’s so frustrating. Wanda deserved better.

#wandavision spoilers

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animebw · 4 years

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Binge-Reading: Fate/Stay Night VN, Fate Route Day 3

In which the true protagonist enters the fray, and I gush about one of anime’s most enduring heroes.

Stopping Point: Dawn of the Second Day

I Need a Shirou

Quick, who comes to mind when you think about anime heroes? Not just protagonists, but the kind of paragon that inspires true faith in humanity’s capacity for good? I’m sure a lot of different names come to mind for you: Simon and Kamina, Izuku Midoriya, Jonathan Joestar- but for me, one of the biggest representations of the word “hero” will always be Shirou Emiya. In a franchise that gives mythic weight to the humanity of the characters at its core, Shirou’s self-sacrificing, determined nature, often desperate to ensure he made the world a better place in his passing, felt like the epitome of the heroic spirit made manifest. In fact, I’m just now realizing that Shirou shares a lot of eerie similarities with another character who’s come to define heroism in anime for me: Hibiki Tachibana from Symphogear. Seriously, think about it for a second. They both survived horrible catastrophes that left countless dead, and they deal with the survivor’s guilt by devoting their lives to helping people as penance for everyone they were unable to save back then. Not to mention how both of their arcs specifically deal with the limitations of that heroic selflessness, and whether or not they’re truly capable of doing the right thing. Apparently, I have a very particular picture in my head of what it means to be a hero.

And slipping back into Shirou’s perspective for the first time in forever was a good reminder of why: I really like this kid. He’s constantly thinking about everyone else’s needs, barely sparing a moment’s thought for himself. He adjusts his morning schedule around Sakura to help her feel more welcome, he’s practically overbooked with helpful side projects, and he helps Sakura learn to cook so well she’s even started to surpass him (and hey, not too shabby that the guy’s got some decent domestic skills alongside the girl). But he’s not an outright doormat either; he’s got plenty of sass and sarcasm for when people are obviously busting his balls. He brushses off Shinji’s antagonism without a second thought (Shinji Shut the Fuck Up Challenge 2020), and he verbally spars with Fuji-nee at every opportunity (”Kids learn from crooked adults.”) He’s far from a dope or a simpleton; he’s a teenage boy with a relatively full picture of the world, snarky and unsure of himself and burdened with the responsibilities of growing up (not to mention the, erm, occasional hormones). But he chooses to help people regardless, because he can’t think of anything else he’d rather do. It’s altruism based not on ignorance, but genuine comprehension of its value. And the fact that he’s able to make that choice, even in the face of everything he struggles with, is a testament to the heroic spirit within him.

The Price of Trying

That being said, man is there a lot he struggles with. What’s always made Shirou so compelling to me is that despite his intense desire to help, he’s stuck in a situation where he has so little power to do so and has to fight like hell to circumvent his own relative powerlessness. He’s about to step into a magical conflict despite not being a magus himself; the only way he’s able to summon a scrap of magical power is basically by constructing an entire nervous system from scratch inside himself every time he wants to bend the laws of reality. This being a universe where magical power is hereditary, he’s essentially had to use his adopted father’s teachings to hack his way into the tiniest sliver of what true magi can access for free. And it is hard as shit to pull off. This is another area where the VN’s language adds a lot; while the magic in the show is mostly played for action, Nasu’s writing is obsessed with the visceral consequences of humans dabbling with such an unnatural power. His magic is agonizing to use, like a living eldritch abomination flaying away at these characters from the inside (you really can tell he’s had experience in horror). It’s the arcane equivalent of forcing your body to surpass its limits; it’s gristly and painful, and if you do it too much, it could probably mess you up for good. And if you don’t have easy access to it like Shirou, then the stress and risk is multiplied a thousandfold.

But it’s not just the physical limitations he’s dealing with; the emotional minefield Shirou must walk is just as impossible a hurdle to overcome. There’s a moment in his flashback to the night of the great fire where he talks about experiencing the horror in very stark, flat terms: “A child understands things quickly in those kinds of situations.” It’s a very telling detail by omission: Shirou’s got some seriously repressed trauma lingering from that night, trauma he’s incapable of forcing himself to really confront because it hurts so much. His own damn mind is his biggest enemy; so much of his need to help people comes from a subtle, but noticeable sense of self-punishment. If only he helps enough people, if only he saves enough lives, if only he accomplishes enough good, then maybe he’ll no longer blame himself for being the lone survivor of such an awful disaster. And that’s all before Kiritsugu taught him that to become a magus, one must first accept the possibility of death. This poor kid’s got a nihilistic sword of Damacles hanging over his head that threatens to crush his self-sacrificing spirit with the weight of how difficult he’s made the challenge for himself. And the tension of waiting to see if that sword drops makes for such a compelling hero’s journey. Shirou compels me as a hero not just because how determined he is to do good, but just how much he has to fight against his worst instincts to do it. And I’m already looking forward to see just how dark the path ahead gets.

Odds and Ends

-”My father said he’s like a yakuza boss, but that’s just prejuice. He actually is a yakuza boss. ...well, that’s a problem in and of itself.” aksjdhakhsd dork

-You do not switch up oyster sauce and soy sauce Fuji-nee you MONSTER

-”You pitying me makes me happy.” ...forbidden Issei route when

-”Emiya, I’m always so pleased when you’re reliable!” FORBIDDEN ISSEI ROUTE WHEN

-”GOOD MORNING EVERY- *face-plants*” god dammit I forgot how great Fujimura was

-”I’m afraid she’ll bite me.” “She’s not a Mimic, she wouldn’t go that far.” askjdhasd oh my GOD

-”Our hearts all become one.” Okay, it is a criminal shame this part was cut from the anime, holy shit.

-I assume these choices at the beginning don’t have much impact on the story at all, right? Whether I help the student council out or go to work?

-oooOOOOOOSHIT HI ILYA

-Okay, Sakura shrinking when Shirou offers to walk her home is setting off my alarm bells. Shirou, go find Shinji and turn him into sashimi for me, will you?

-Aw man, I missed “Trace On”.

-”You die when you die, and kill when you must.” Yes, but do you die if you’re killed?

And thus, we press on. See you next time!

#anime #the anime binge-watcher #tabw #fate vn #Fate/stay night #shirou emiya #rin tohsaka #saber #sakura matou

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ladydragon1316 · 7 years

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Some of the DA Inquisition Crew discuss Assassin’s Creed

(Modern-ish AU. Just something that came out of my brain while both Fandoms were knocking around in there at the same time. Enjoy!)

Aurora threw back the last of her rum and coke and lurched forward over the table. “I just don’t get the whole Connor thing. I mean, apparently so many of those ‘confessions’ are about him pinning them to a tree, but I just don’t see the appeal. I mean, he’s an idiot. He spends the whole game fighting Western Progress only for it to steamroll his own tribe anyway. He strives for freedom - kills the entire Templar chapter to do it - but completely overlooks the fact that freedom does not equal security. And his people pay for it.” She looked desperately up and down the table for support. “Tell me I’m not the only one who sees that. Please.”

Dorian took a sip of his mojito, shamelessly toying with the little umbrella under his pinky, “It’s not that we don’t see it, my dear. It’s that that isn’t the point.”

The woman across from him slammed the heel of her cup onto the table, demanding, “Then what is the point, then?!”

“The point,” he stated, extending his pinky finger in her direction, “is those broad shoulders and that Native American motif.” His hand swayed just slightly atop his resting elbow, evidence of the previous three drinks he’d imbibed in rapid succession.

“It’s not a motif; it’s his culture!”

A dismissive gesture from the Vint. “When it comes to kinks, the difference is negligible.”

“No, it’s not!” Aurora yelled, slamming her cup down a second time. She was far too worked up about this topic for a Friday night.

Blackwall avoided eye-contact, strategically excusing himself to get another drink. Which gave The Iron Bull a few seconds to lean in and ask, “So you want me to wear some war-paint next time?”

Down the table, Sera blew a massive raspberry at the debate. “Ass-in-creed don’t have near enough of the right ass. Needs more tits.”

“It has tits, darling,” Dorian pointed out. “Did you even play Ezio’s first game?”

“Not tha’ rite tits! I mean ass’kickin’ tits. Evie tits! I want ta’ see Evie’s tits!” More than a few heads turned in the direction of Sera’s shrieking. Not all of them at the group’s actual table.

Dorian took a breath...and found his original thought veering off on faulty evidence. “Alright, I’ll give you that. Not nearly enough female protagonists for the series. But that’s the fault of the medium at large. You can hardly single out the Creed as the ur-example.” His hand shot up to cut off Aurora’s tirade before it could start. If he let her start off on Feminist representation or equal opportunity depictions, they would be here all night. “We’re getting off topic. This is not about fatal character flaws. This is about white-hot-sex-appeal. Which of these darling creatures you feel compelled to seize by their sculpted packages and posteriors, and have your way with.”

Another violent raspberry from down the table, as Sera slid down off the front of her seat, landing somewhere at their feet. They’d need to remember to pick her up later before they left.

“And you think character flaws don’t factor into that?” Aurora demanded. She made to take another drag from her glass - only to find it empty. Right; that had happened. “Varric, help me out here,” she pleaded. He was their resident author. This was practically his job.

“Sorry, Bright Eyes. I don’t do Sci-Fi.” Apparently not.

“It’s not Sci-Fi!”

The man cocked a well-practiced eyebrow at her. “A machine allowed people to explore memories stored in their DNA, which reveals the existence of ancient, highly advanced beings who created humans and whose remnants gave rise to biblical depictions of god and miracles, which actually turn out to be technological artifacts that survived the disaster that wiped out the race in the first place.” He snorted softly. “Yeah, that’s Sci-Fi.”

Aurora scowled at him, “Traitor.”

Blackwall reappeared with drinks in hand: two beers - the one for Bull in a pint-sized glass -, and another rum and coke. Which Dorian snatched up before Aurora could get her hands on it.

“Dorian!”

“Ah-ah,” he teased, holding it above his head and well out of her reach. “I’ll have your prefered Assassin ass, and I’ll have it now.”

“You’re an ass!” she yelled, climbing half onto the table after her drink. Dorian only leaned further back, grinning like a jackal.

“And a fine one. But that doesn’t answer my question.”

“Dorian.”

“Spill it.”

“Give! It!” She flailed forward, and the kick he was getting out of this was obvious.

“Ass! Whose!”

“Shay Cormac!” Dorian gave a faux gasp of shock, but with enough dramatic zeel that his companion managed to snatch her drink from his hand, splashing soda and rum on his cuff in the process.

“Well, well, well,” Dorian schmoozed, shaking off what drops he could. “A Templar? You naughty girl.”

“Shut up!” He wasn’t even phased by the accompanying death glare.

“Now Haytham I could understand. I always suspected you might have a ‘daddy’ kink-” He narrowly avoided the spray as Aurora choked on her drink and continued on, undeterred. “-But a traitor?” He tutted, gazing off at a far wall while smoothing out his mustache. “I’m not sure we can remain friends. Disparaging Connor and fantasizing after a turn-coat. Your allegiance is clear as day. Am I to suspect a dagger in the back? Are you hiding a red cross somewhere on your person?”

Aurora clutched her drink with both hands and wailed plaintively, “He’s hot!”

And there it was.

Dorian practically squealed - how did he make even that seem suave? - and surged up onto the table, leaning heavily on his elbows, all up in Aurora’s personal space and absolutely latching onto her admission. “So there is some sexual desire buried under all that character analysis mumbo-jumbo.”

Aurora cast around. “Varric?” she whined, pleading for some kind of support.

He snickered, “Did you notice she said ‘Shay Cormac’. Not just ‘Shay’.”

“Oo!” Dorian’s glee surmounted itself. “First and last name on an impulse declaration. There is something here.”

Aurora shot a glare at Varric before zeroing it in on Dorian. “You’re a menace.”

“Ah-ah. Back on track. Shay. Hot. Explain.” This man was not going to be deterred.

And with no visible means of avoidance, “Well, he’s a good man.” When Dorian’s eyes rolled into the back of his head, she redoubled, “That’s important! He’s principled. Honorable.”

“Aurora, darling, honorable assassins make up over half the cast -”

“But how many of the Assassins put their morals above the Order?”

Dorian gave her a long, level look, followed by an elegant cocking of eyebrow.

Aurora’s brain caught up with her statement and she flapped her hand around dismissively, “Okay, okay. Evie and Jacob and Arno do, fine. But the Fryes go behind the Council’s back and go to London, and Arno pursues missions getting clearance first. But those are both still within the Order. And, yeah, Arno gets kicked out. But the Fryes don’t receive any negative repercussions within the Order for going off on their own. At least not that we see. Shay straight up turns his back on the Order when they’re methods go against his own moral code. With full knowledge of what he’s doing. He knows it will turn the Order completely against him. And he does it anyway. Because it’s what he believes is right. Even if it means betraying the organization he’s been apart of and loyal to for years.”

Her best friend blinked at her from across the table. He gave his head a sharp shake. “I’m sorry. I don’t believe I heard the world ‘hot’ even once during that whole monologue.”

“Dorian!”

He threw his arms out, dramatically, “Is it really so hard to discuss attractive physical attributes of fictional characters in public? Truly?”

Aurora jabbed a finger at him. “The character of a character is what makes them attractive.”

“But give me something!” Dorian pleaded. “Some indication that my best friend has a sex drive!”

She rolled her eyes, but acquiesced. “Fine. His haircut.”

Dorian’s head cocked like a confused dog. “Scruffy? Maker, I think that’s worse than the ‘daddy’ kink.”

“Post-Lisbon,” she clarified sharply, at last lifting her glass to her lips. “After his make-over.”

Dorian got a wistful look, completely with a dreamy ‘into the distance’ gaze. “Ah yes, that’s more like it. Proof-positive a good haircut can take you from ‘meh’ to ‘fuck me, please’. And those shoulders!”

Aurora swallowed a mouthful quickly to agree, “Oh yeah. That coat does wonders for his physique. He’s all sharp angles and broad. And that accent…” Aurora let a pleasant shudder run visibly up her spine for effect, making most of those still listening laugh.

Bull took a swig from his own mug, getting a gleam in his eye. “So you like the moral pillar, tall with broad shoulders, a smooth accent, good hair and a choice coat.” His grin broadened and he didn’t even bother hiding it. “Add some survivor’s guilt, and a military history with the organization he dumps on principle, and I’d say we’ve found your type, Boss.”

This time it was Aurora cocking her head in confusion. That was a little on the nose for Shay’s ‘type’. “I guess.”

Then The Iron Bull’s eyes ticked up over her head, the gleam in his eye turning at once innocent and diabolical. “Hey, Cullen.”

Aurora swiveled around to see the man take the last few steps to reach them. “I hope I’m not interrupting.”

“No, no,” Dorian assured him. “Just discussing our sexual preferences as applied to the cast of a fictional setting based around assassination.

Cullen froze halfway down onto Sera’s former seat, looking like a deer in the headlamps. Aurora grabbed a handful of his fur collar and gave him a good tug. “We can change the subject.” The relief on his face was near-comical. “Watch your feet. Sera’s still under there.”

He had a couple minutes to arrange himself while Bull made the next run for drinks, getting one for Cullen and refilling his own mug. Aurora settled comfortably in place. Sera’s seat stayed where it was. But with Cullen having a wider frame than her, that meant Aurora and Cullen sat close enough together their shoulders brushed occasionally when they shifted. She made a point to pick a position and get comfortable. Which was, in fact, quite easy with the given company.

Dorian gave them about fifteen seconds of said comfort. Long enough for Cullen to take a drink from his cup before the other man picked things back up with, “I can’t remember: did we actually establish you have a ‘daddy’ kink, or not?”

Cullen sent a spray of beer across the table and proceeded to start choking. Aurora pounded on his back while yelling across the table at Dorian, who had burst out laughing alongside The Iron Bull. Even Blackwall had a hand curled over his mouth, trying desperately not to give his chuckle away. Sera kicked the underside of the table, demanding they ‘keep it down up there’ so she could sleep. And Varric scribbled hurriedly in his notebook with tears in his eyes, and the declaration that ‘You can’t make this shit up’.

#dadrunkwriting #dorian #blackwall #the iron bull #sera #varric #assassin's creed #modernish au

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