#but they didn't even write it well by supernatural standards

[monstrousgourmandizingcats]

Some books and stories that I think are worth reading in conversation with Yellowjackets

Shirley Jackson, all works but especially The Sundial, The Haunting of Hill House, and We Have Always Lived in the Castle. Jackson might or might not need any introduction in this fandom. The Sundial is her take on doomsday preppers, Hill House is of course her haunted house novel (one of the classics of that genre), and Castle has a female protagonist who makes Shauna look like a plaster saint.

Flannery O'Connor, The Violent Bear It Away. O'Connor's work has some of the most pervasive darkness and brutality of any major American writer (maybe Ambrose Bierce comes close), and the second of two novels that she completed before her death is no exception. (The first, Wise Blood, is also very good; the intended third, Why Do the Heathen Rage?, only exists as a fragmentary short story.) Francis Marion Tarwater is kidnapped and raised in the woods by his great-uncle, who is convinced that Francis is destined to be a prophet. The great-uncle's death commences a bizarre adventure involving auditory hallucinations, sinister truckers, an evil social worker, arson, developmental disabilities, and baptizing and drowning someone at the same time. Content warnings for all of the above plus rape. O'Connor is also a fairly racist author by today's standards--she was a white Southerner who died in 1964--so keep that in mind as well.

Ruth Ozeki, The Book of Form and Emptiness. Teenage protagonist is schizophrenic and also a channel for a genuinely supernatural force; well-intentioned but poorly-considered efforts to treat one of these issues make the other worse. Sound familiar? There are supporting characters who are affectionate parodies of Slavoj Zizek and Marie Kondo. A minor character is a middle-aged lesbian who cruises dating apps for hookups with much younger women. Some people find this book preachy and overwritten, but I really like it and would plug it even if I didn't because the author is someone whom I've met and who has been supportive of my own writing.

Yukio Mishima, The Decay of the Angel. Can be read in translation or in the original Japanese. This is the fourth and last book in a series called The Sea of Fertility but I wouldn't necessarily recommend the first three as particularly YJ-ish; Decay is because it deals at great length with issues of doubt and ambiguity about whether or not a genuinely held, but personally damaging, spiritual and religious belief is true. There's also more (as Randy Walsh would put it) lezzy stuff than is usual for Mishima, a gay man. Content warnings for elder abuse, sexual abuse of both children and vulnerable adults in previous books in the series, forced abortion in the first book if you decide to read the whole thing from the beginning, and the fact that in addition to being a great novelist the author was also a far-right political personality.

Howard Frank Mosher, Where the Rivers Flow North. An elderly Vermont lumberjack and his Native American common-law wife refuse to sell their land to a development company that wants to build a hydroelectric power plant. Tragedy ensues. I haven't read this one in a long time but some images from the movie stick in my mind as YJ-y. Lots of fire, water, and trees.

Leonard Cohen, Beautiful Losers. Yes, this is the same Leonard Cohen who later transitioned into songwriting and became a household name in that art form. Beautiful Losers is a very weird, very horny novel that he wrote as a young man; it deals with the submerged darkness and internal tension within Canadian and specifically Quebecois society. One of the main characters is Kateri Tekakwitha, a seventeenth-century Iroquois convert to Catholicism who was probably a lesbian in real life (although Cohen unfortunately seems unaware of this). This one actually shows up YJ directly; the song "God Is Alive, Magic Is Afoot" that plays in the season 2 finale takes its lyrics from a particularly strange passage.

Monica Ojeda, Jawbone. Can be read in translation or in the original Spanish. Extremely-online teenage girls at a posh bilingual Catholic high school in Ecuador start their own cult based on such time-honored fodder as Herman Melville novels, internet creepypasta (no, this book does not look or feel anything like Otherside Picnic), and their repressed but increasingly obvious desire for one another. The last part in particular gets the attention of their English teacher, whose own obsessive internalized homophobia grows into one of the most horrifying monstrous versions of itself I've ever read. Content warning for just about everything that could possibly imply, but especially involuntary confinement, religious and medical abuse, and a final chapter that I don't even know how to describe. Many thanks to @maryblackwood for introducing me to this one.

Jorge Luis Borges, lots of his works but especially "The Aleph," "The Cult of the Phoenix," and "The South." Can be read in translation or in the original Spanish. The three works I list are all short stories. The first deals with mystical experiences and the comprehensibility (or lack thereof) of the universe, the second with coded and submerged references to sexuality in general and homosexuality in particular, the third with leaving your well-appointed city home for a ranch in the middle of nowhere and almost immediately dying in a knife fight, which is surely a very YJ series of things to do.

H.P. Lovecraft, "The Colour out of Space," "The Dunwich Horror," "The Dreams in the Witch House," and "The Thing on the Doorstep." Lovecraft in general needs no introduction--the creepiness, the moroseness, the New Englandness, the purple heliotrope prose, his intense racism (recanted late in life but not in time to make any difference in his reception history) and the way his work reflects his fear of the Other. These short stories are noteworthy for having settings that are more woodsy and less maritime than is usual for Lovecraft's New England, for overtones of the supernatural rather than merely the alien, for featuring some of his few interesting female characters, and for their relative lack of obvious racial nastiness. Caveat lector nevertheless.

Herman Melville, Moby-Dick. It's Moby-Dick. Once you realize that Captain Ahab is forming a cult around the whale and his obsession with it you can't unrealize it.

#yellowjackets #books #book recs

[talkfantasytome]

It's Instinct - Chapter 1

The Archerons arrive at their townhouse in Yin, settling in for a season of society.

Warnings: Emotional Abuse | Word Count: 3,251 | Read on AO3

It's Instinct Masterlist

a/n: Hello @dustjacketmusings!! Idk which you'll see first, but yes, it is I, your secret santa! I was soooo excited to get you and to have the chance to build something special for you! I hope you like it. I took into consideration your enjoyment of magical/supernatural AUs, am sprinkling in some rivalry, and definitely there will be some angst (I hope it comes across well). However, my schedule did not allow for me to write a short book in one month - how rude - so this will be some time in the making, but hopefully you'll enjoy taking this journey with me!

And thank you @acotargiftexchange for putting this all together and organizing this lovely exchange!

"Will you stop shaking your leg? Honestly, one would think you have to relieve yourself."

Her mother started on a new rant directed at Nesta. Droning on about proper, ladylike behavior again. A lady doesn't reveal her needs. A lady doesn't display extreme emotions. A lady doesn't fidget. A lady doesn't shake the carriage.

Nesta knew all these things. She was typically very good at them. But it took every ounce of will in her to remain even this calm as they neared Yin.

The scent of the dew unfathomably mixed with the first snow of winter grew with each mile they traveled. And the rattling of the wheels seemed to sing to the beat of "closer, closer, closer". Nesta's heart picked up the rhythm, beating along and growing in strength.

She hadn't seen Yin since her graduation day. That night her mother whisked them all back home and then on to a three-year tour of the most eligible bachelors the continent had to offer. Disguised as an opportunity to hone her power further, to learn from the best Reason masters in the world. Unsurprisingly, her mother didn't care to hear much about those lessons. Her thoughts and conversation revolved entirely around what Nesta would wear to the next ball, who she should speak to, what she should ask about, who to accept dances with, and regular emphasis on keeping her thoughts to herself.

For families who cared so much about intelligence and power, they seemed far more interested in finding a vapid and thoughtless jewel to adorn their sons' arms.

Not that the sons had much to offer. Nesta found their conversation bland and mediocre. They had nothing to say that was challenging in the least, save for their misogynistic undertones and expectations.

It shouldn't have come as such a shock that Nesta didn't manage to secure a 'suitable' marriage. The ones that were determined enough to make an actual offer never lasted longer than a week into the planning, much to Nesta's pleasure. And even more so to her mother's chagrin.

Nesta couldn't regret it, though, no matter how unpleasant her mother could be. As excited as she was to travel the continent, to learn from the masters and take in new knowledge they didn't teach in Prythian, she was ready to go back. Back to the city that had stolen her heart in her three years at the Academy.

She hadn't expected to be back so soon after they returned from the continent. But apparently her mother was in a rush, worried that news of her unfavorable disposition would reach Prythian before she could get Nesta married. And Yin was the only place in Prythian where they might find an appropriate match by her mother's standards. The only place that held families rich and powerful enough for that, though none so much as those on the continent - as her mother kept reminding her.

"It's really no wonder you couldn't find a husband. Your lack of self-control will be the destruction of this family."

Her mother had managed to pivot back to Nesta's horrible showing on the continent by the time they finally reached their town house. Her favorite subject.

"Eileen," their father sighed.

"Don't start with me, Owen!" she snapped before he had a chance to say anything else.

He let out a breath and gave in, opening the door to their carriage and leading the family into the house. Nesta was surprised he even bothered trying. Absent is too kind a word to describe his presence in Nesta's upbringing. He never cared for his eldest. Nesta sometimes wondered if she were really his.

The three sisters followed their parents in age order, not one of them feeling a sense of relief for being in the town house. It was never a home for any of them.

From the street, the house gave off a sense of welcome and life that would be drowned out the second Nesta stepped into the foyer. No one knew the lie that was the façade of this house. How the perfectly kept up flowers, bushes, and crawling ivy and morning glory was all just a front for the despair that laid within.

Inside was more of the same. Pristinely decorated, it was designed entirely for show. A place for the family to rest the few times a year they were in Yin. To help keep up appearances, ensure everyone knew they maintained a certain degree of wealth. Everyone who was anyone had a house in Yin. And while many wealthy families did permanently resid here, the Archerons main estate was in the port city of Adriata. It was far easier for their father, as a tradesman and merchant, to do his business from there. And when he had business in Yin, he often didn't bring the family, knowing he'd be able to keep his trip shorter that way.

Nesta hated this house. It was worse than the manor by the sea - at least that one was large enough she could hide, avoid her mother when it wasn't time for her various lessons. The grounds were sprawling. It was so easy to find a tree on the edge of them to settle under and read. It was well decorated, always perfectly clean and ready to entertain visitors, but it was still lived in. Books and notes and clothes were strewn about her room. Flowers from Elain's garden adorned almost every table. Feyre's paintings were hung in the private rooms of the manor. Their father's favorite treasures could be found accenting various rooms, a great conversation starter for those curious.

This house had none of that. It was filled with the latest trends in home décor. The right rugs and settees, tables made from the finest of mahogany or whatever wood was currently in season. Paintings only from the most famous of artists, flowers from some boutique shop, and there was not one ounce of character in any of the bedrooms. Any family could live here and no one would know.

She never truly felt at home in the manor, but here she was a prisoner. Made all the worse by her adoration of Yin. It was easier to be trapped far away from the city than to be just one wall away but unable to enjoy it.

Nesta reached her ordinary room, draped in fabrics of pale blue and silver, and plopped down on her bed. The journey from Adriata was long. She was certain she could've slept for two days, but before she could adjust her body to be properly on the bed, she heard a knock on the door.

"Nesta?" Elain's soft voice called from the other side of it.

"Hmmm?"

Taking that as an invitation, Elain opened the door and walked in, followed quickly by Feyre. They shut the door behind them and walked over to Nesta. "We were going to walk to the market and wondered if you'd like to come with," Elain offered.

"Get some fresh air," Feyre added. "Away from mo-oof." She was cut off by Elain's less-than-gentle nudge to the stomach.

Nesta let out a sigh and sat up. The stresses of travel were weighing heavily on her, but getting out of the house and into the city did sound wonderful. "Yeah," Nesta agreed. "Let me just change first. I'll meet you in the foyer in 15 minutes."

Her sisters nodded and left the room, likely to change out of their travel clothes as well.

The trunk with her dresses had already been brought up to the room, the carriage carrying their things likely arriving before they had. She walked over to it and quickly dug through her clothes, picking out a simple, purple grey dress. It had some minor detail on the torso, but was plain enough it wouldn't draw too much attention.

She pulled off her shirt and skirt and threw the dress over her, using the external straps to tighten the waist enough to show off her figure. The floor-length skirt shimmered slightly in the light breaking through her windows, giving off a slight glow to the fabric. She walked over to the mirror and took out her hair, the updo disheveled from the journey. She brushed through the long, golden brown locks and then re-did it, sticking it right back up into her favorite braided coronet style.

Nesta grabbed her deep purple, valor cloak and fastened it as she made her way out her room and down the stairs. The fur trim around the hood was already beginning to warm her up, and the delicate silver flowers at the bottom popped with each step she took. Elain and Feyre were already waiting for her in fresh dresses, pulling on their gloves and chatting quietly.

"Are you ready?" Feyre asked as Elain handed Nesta her own gloves.

"Absolutely," Nesta replied.

Sharp footsteps that had all three girls straightening sounded behind them. "And where are you three going?" their mother's pointed voice asked.

"We were just going to take a walk to the market, mama," Elain explained in a sweet voice she used to get her way. It almost always worked.

"We just arrived. Surely you three have to get settled in your rooms."

"Yes, but we've been traveling for so long. We thought getting some fresh air and sunshine would be good for us."

Their mother looked at each of her daughters, moving an assessing gaze from one to the next. "Fine. Be home in time for dinner."

"Yes, mama," the three said in unison. They turned and hastened through the door before she could change her mind.

Once out of the house they each took a breath of relief. Nesta was bristling with excitement as she took in the city around them. The clouds were as white and fluffy as ever, drifting across the azure sky. It was midday, and yet something about them looked as if dawn were still lingering, a rose gold glow lining them.

With their house residing in the Rì chū - as the locals called their neighborhood - it was only a short walk to the Lí míng Market, the unofficial center of the city. The true center was still a mile away, filled with golden buildings where business and politics took place. But the market, that was the social center. Shops lined the street and stalls filled it, displaying goods from all over the world. Political hopefuls would gather in the center, preaching their opinions and fighting for change. Old friends would meet in the various cafes to catch up over cups of tea. New lovers would wander the aisles, browsing aimlessly as they sought to know each other better.

There was always something to see or do at the market, always something to entertain. But what Nesta loved best was the variety. People from all over Prythian lived in Yin, and you could see them all at the market. Their different dress styles and how they wear their hair, the various accents and intonations they speak in. It was all here, in this bustling market.

They were browsing a small jewelry stall when Elain let out a loud sigh. "You know, as lovely as this city is, I do wish we could've spent a bit more time in Adriata before coming here."

"Speak for yourself," Feyre said, her eyes tracking a pack of boys around her age that were passing them. "Did all the guys look like that when you were at the Academy, Nesta?"

"Like rowdy, eighteen-year-olds? Yes." Nesta didn't even bother looking at the group, more interested in a rose pendant painted to look like flames.

She could hear the roll in Feyre's eyes as she responded, "Cute, Nesta. I meant cute."

"I wasn't paying that much attention," she explained, placing the pendant down. It was beautiful, but her mother would never let her wear it out. Even looking at it she could feel eyes on her, as if her mother was watching all the way from their house. "Some were cute, some weren't, I'm sure. But if you're truly interested, you could always enroll in the Academy."

Feyre let out a loud snort that drew more than a few eyes, but Nesta tried to ignore it, moving them along to the next stall. "As if I'd be allowed to," Feyre lamented. "Mother didn't allow Elain to enroll."

"Really? As I recall it, Elain opted not to enroll," Nesta countered.

"What?!" Feyre pivoted, eyes on Elain, who suddenly found a new stall she wished to see halfway across the market and rushed off. "She never told me that." Her voice softened slightly as she slid up to Nesta's side.

Nesta turned to give Feyre a small smile. "I think she was worried you'd think she was staying for you. You just assumed she didn't have the option, it was easier to keep it that way."

"Was she? Staying for me."

"Not entirely. She didn't want to leave you alone, but she also wanted to stay for father. And, in the end, she's not as interested in our magic. She was more interested in staying home, getting to spend time on her hobbies and the garden. But it was her choice. Believe me. I tried to convince her to go."

Feyre let out a contemplative sound, her eyes moving to the clocks made from wine bottles that were displayed on the stall in front of them. "I still doubt I'd be allowed to enroll, assuming I could get in."

"You'd get in. You're an Archeron."

"Doesn't change the mother of it all. She'd never let me go. She'd never spend that kind of money on me."

"Feyre," Nesta sighed, knowing exactly where this was going.

"Nesta," Feyre parried. "Don't pretend. Our whole lives, everything has been about you. She doesn't care about us. Only you."

Nesta simply shook her head. "That's not true."

It wasn't about Nesta.

It never was. Not one thing in her life. Not the dance lessons, the private tutors, the fancy dresses. Not even her birth. As her mother always said, she was bred. No, she wasn't born or conceived or made with love, but bred. Like a prize show pony.

It was one of the reasons Nesta enjoyed her time at the Academy so much. The freedom. She could stay up all night, engrossed in a book if she wanted to. She could spend hours in the various museums, devouring chocolate from her favorite shop, or strolling through the Lí míng Market.

It hadn't been perfect freedom. Her mother's eye was far-reaching, she still kept Nesta 'in line', but the boundaries were far larger than Nesta had ever experienced. She just needed to stay away from Instinct - the other school of magic. Emotional, raucous, intense - they were dangerous. Nesta had heard the stories of Reason practitioners who'd gotten mixed up in Instinct. It never ended well.

Feyre could lecture her all she wanted on how Nesta was given everything. How their mother's life revolved around Nesta, but it never truly did. Their mother's life revolved around their mother, and Nesta was a mere tool in the process.

Her tone turned sharper. "Well, that's how it looks to me." And with that comment, Feyre stalked away.

One day Feyre might understand, but Nesta sure hoped that would never happen. That her mother would never shift her focus to Elain or Feyre. She prayed to the gods every day that they would never know what their mother's 'caring' felt like.

Leaving her sisters to their own interests, Nesta continued her path down the aisle of stalls, stopping whenever something caught her eye. She never lingered for long, unable to shake that feeling that she was being watched. The hairs on the back of her neck remained upright, a tingling sensation spreading through her body.

Nesta was sure she was growing paranoid. There were hundreds of people at the market. Plenty probably looked at her for a moment, but surely no one was watching her. And her mother hated the market, she certainly wouldn't have come out to it just to watch Nesta shop.

When she reached the end of the aisle, Nesta looked around for the tenth time, her eyes scanning every divot and alleyway when her gaze fell upon a pair of bright, hazel eyes that were clearly following her. Even being caught, they remained on her, a spark igniting in them, mesmerizing Nesta and holding her stare. She lost her breath for a moment. It took a minute before she gathered the strength of will to break away from his gaze and look upon the face those eyes held.

His face was nearly as intense as his stare. A strong jaw and high cheekbones, with a scar through the left eyebrow, half-hidden by some of the dark hair that fell in his face. His lips were spread into a knowing smirk. It ignited something deep within her that she couldn't quite name.

He was leaning against a lamp post, his ridiculously muscular arms crossed over his just as insane torso. Even in that stance he was daunting. She could only imagine what he'd be like at full height.

Meeting his gaze again, she finally realized what it was she was feeling.

Fury.

The audacity of this man, to watch her go through the market. To give her such a smug grin, as if he knew she would come up to him now that she's seen him. She had the mind to do just that and tell him off. Before she could, she heard her name being called.

"Nesta! You must come see these!" Elain exclaimed, walking up to her and grabbing her hand, beginning to pull her toward some stall. Nesta looked to her sister reflexively, and when she looked back the man was gone. As if he'd disappeared on the wind. "Nesta?" Elain asked, noticing her sister not moving.

"Sorry," Nesta breathed, turning to Elain. "I was lost in thought. What are we looing at?"

Elain grinned widely and led her to a stall selling cloak clasps. Feyre was already there, holding up a beautiful clasp of stars. Nesta wasn't entirely sure how the designer was able to make a full clasp of defined stars, but there it was in her sister's hands, one of the most beautiful cloak clasps she'd ever seen.

"That's lovely, Feyre," Nesta said, the best peace offering she could provide. Feyre gave her a big smile and nod, her form of an acceptance.

"And look at these!" Feyre held up two others, a floral bouquet clasp and one of silver flames.

"Oh, wow!" Nesta could hardly get the words out as she took the clasp of fire and examined it. She'd never seen its equal.

Feyre could never full explain it, but whenever she was painting a representation of her sisters, she always painted these three symbols. Flowers for Elain, stars for herself, and flames for Nesta. Nesta's favorites were always the ones where she turned the flames silver, 'like your eyes,' she would say. Not that Nesta's eyes were actually silver, but apparently they could look that way in some lightings.

"It's just too perfect, isn't it?" Elain asked, already reaching into her coin purse and handing money to the keeper of the stall for all three of them.

"It's more than that. It's fate," Feyre agreed.

Nesta smiled softly as she wrapped her hand around her new clasp. "It's certainly something," she murmured.

a/n: I hope no one minds some sisterly moments. It wasn't truly purposeful, but there's something about giving the sisters a better bond that felt right for this fic.

I stuck with East Asia as inspiration for aspects of this city - particularly the names for now, but I'm going to be trying to work in more around fashion and other things throughout the fic - because this is meant to take place in the area that would be the Dawn Court in canon Prythian.

Pronunciations - I am linking to "word hippo" for the words I used. They have a little speaker icon you can click on to hear the pronunciation, as technically the English spelling is the phonetic spelling. I did speak with a native Mandarin-speaking friend to make sure I got the right words, but she could not help me with phonetic spellings, so this is the best way to do this, I believe.

Lí míng | Rì chū

Tag list: @live-the-fangirl-life @generalnesta @secretlovelybeauty @julemmaes @boredserpent @autumnbabylon @moodymelanist @sv0430 @nesquik-arccheron @gwynrielsupremacy @katekatpattywack @moonstoneriver77 @swankii-art-teacher @lemonade-coolattas @emily-gsh @my-fan-side @champanheandluxxury @imsointobooks @sayosdreams @simpingfornestaarcheron @imsointobooks @perseusannabeth @shinya-hiiragi @a-court-of-milkandhoney @pintas3107 @embersofwildfire @superspiritfestival @thewayshedreamed @lunabean @xstarlightsupremex @mis-lil-red @wannawriteyouabook @dealfea @bridgertononmymind @daydreamer-anst @chosenfamily-valkyriequeens @hiimheresworld @c-e-d-dreamer @kale-theteaqueen

#nessian #acotar gift exchange #nesta archeron #it's instinct #magical au #historical-like au #period drama-ish #but with magic #emotional abuse #archeron sisters #cassian #angst #a court of thorns and roses #acotar #acotar fanfiction #acotar fic

[paellegere]

final thoughts: supernatural season 15

holy shit. i did it. i finished supernatural. i actually finished it a couple hours ago but i'm still having trouble processing it. i've been working at this for six months (but with a one-month break back in december) and i'm finally finished. honestly i don't think i really believed i would do it because shit this show is long, and i am not predisposed to enjoy shows like this. so this is a huge mark of pride for me, that i can finally say i did indeed sit down and watch all 327 episodes of supernatural :)

anyway all that to say i hated this season with a passion lmao, hasta la vista baby ✨

honestly i think i'll end up keeping this short because frankly most of my criticisms boil down to

how did you fuck up your own lore this badly

holy plotholes batman

this is so disrespectful and irreverent toward kripke's supernatural

nothing about this writing makes any kind of sense

well, that's convenient (in the most boring way imaginable)

so it's basically just a game of spin the wheel and see what it lands on.

the season started super weak; the concept was bad from the get-go and executed only to a mediocre standard, so i couldn't help but cringe my way through it. rowena's death was really well done, but her character was never well developed, in the same way most side characters on this show are never well developed, so while i appreciate the care that went into that scene it felt rather empty. it made me regret how poorly and inconsistently written she was. and yeah most side characters get this treatment—hell, cas gets this treatment which is why i don't care about him much—but she had such a provocative death scene that it had me lamenting that she didn't get a better foundation and better development. alas, that's just what it means to be someone other than sam and dean on supernatural.

after that was... the eileen subplot. i do really like eileen despite her being a rather flat and uninteresting character the way most women are on this show (y'know, kickass independent "girl power" women without nearly any other significant personality trait), but i really didn't appreciate the substantial pivot sam took from dean-focused to eileen-focused in this season. yes, season 12-14 did go to great efforts to make sure this wasn't The Sam And Dean Show anymore, but season 15 is so dramatically incongruous from even 12-14 that it just boggled my mind. the sam/eileen stuff was a major part of that, and it just didn't feel good because it was one more nail in the coffin with regards to how little the showrunners respected the foundation of the show (y'know, "the epic love story of sam and dean"). the only real salmondean moment in the entire season was the 7-minute incest speech in the finale—like what? i couldn't even properly enjoy that because of how poorly it was set up, thanks to the four seasons of retconning their relationship and making it less important to the series overall.

anyway all that to say, they had this massive sam/eileen subplot and then nothing even came of it. sam didn't even call to check if she was alive after jack resurrected everyone? he didn't meet up with her on screen even once? like if you're going to give him this season-long romance with someone other than dean, you could at least have the balls to commit to it. i find that just. godawful writing. eileen didn't have to be sam's blurry wife or anything, but he should have had some kind of resolution, literally anything at all, if we're meant to believe she's in any way important to him. c'mon.

more incongruous moments: dean got weirdly angry in this season. like what's with episode 17 man? there is nothing about dean in that episode that feels even remotely in character. from "jack's not family" to dean pulling a gun on sam, it all felt wildly overblown, way too melodramatic and sudden, and just not anything dean would do. yeah he's an angry guy, but???? this was too much, even for him. and the whole jack argument between sam and dean made me roll my eyes hard. because how do you expect me to believe that after all of the developments up to that point, that

dean wouldn't consider jack family. first of all that's stupid, dean drops the f-bomb on literally anyone he thinks is useful to further his goals. second of all it contradicts the bond they've formed since season 13, and it no longer fits with the parallel themes set up between sam, dean, and jack. it undermines what's been established, what's been developed, and what jack means to them on a thematic level. so so so stupid. cannot stress how dumb this move was. it just felt like the writers pulling out yet another OOC moment just so they can conveniently move the plot in the direction they wanted. so annoying.

sam and cas are equals in dean's eyes. like that's just hilarious to me. the last time cas died dean got sad for a little bit and burned his body on a pyre. the last time sam died dean committed suicide. these are not equal reactions. and sam and cas have never been equal to dean because dean always chooses sam over everyone, again evidenced in the series finale. so it was just hilarious for this one episode to pretend like sam and cas could ever be equal.

of course season 15 did really push a destiel agenda in the most unexpected and bizarre way. like wow, and i thought seasons 12-14 were a totally different show. no, season 15 is so much worse than that. i have absolutely no idea why they made the choices they did with this season, but they were not good, they routinely disrespected kripke's foundations of the show, and they ignored every theme ever laid out up until then. all for... what, exactly? so dean and cas can have a weird little non-romance together for 18 episodes only for them to slip wincest back in at the end? what's up with that? no like seriously, what were they trying to do here????

i told my friend this earlier, but i do think it's funny how cas's death speech is just straight-up factually incorrect regarding dean. i'm 100% fully willing to believe that castiel was blinded with lust by dean winchester that he simply made up some guy in his head who looked like dean. and that will be my headcanon going forth because wow it's shocking and funny as hell how much he got wrong while waxing poetic about dean. "you're the most selfless man i know" when kripke spent 5 seasons pounding it into our heads how fundamentally selfish dean (and sam, obviously, but the speech is about dean) is. girl what are you saying. dick so good he rewrote dean's basic character traits to be more convenient to him. i respect it truly i do.

anyway the finale. i hated it! to absolutely no one's surprise. a few days ago i wrote out what i thought would have been the most thematically cogent endings for supernatural. i knew what actually happens, obviously (hard to miss tbh), but my resolve on this front was only strengthened by actually watching it. yes the 7 minutes of incest were very nice and compelling, but... wow. this episode has some of the worst pacing i've ever seen in my life. dean died halfway into the episode? and the rest of that was... a sequence of short scenes that are too drawn-out to be a montage??? like there was no tension, no buildup, and no setup for what they did. it felt so lazy and underdeveloped, lacking any kind of poignancy or thematic cohesion. and then i had to watch TWENTY MINUTES of half-baked scenes of dean in heaven and sam growing old. i wouldn't have hated this ending so much if they had better pacing, i'm serious. like the outrage i feel is predominantly because of how badly it was written. the concepts aren't good, but they were par for the course. but TWENTY MINUTES OF MONTAGE. A MAJOR CHARACTER DEATH WITH NO EMOTIONAL BUILDUP, WHICH ACTIVELY CONTRADICTS THE THEMES OF THE SHOW. WHAT!!!!!!! WERE THEY THINKING!!!!!!!!!!

anyway i disliked that a little bit.

so overall i pretty much hated every part of this season and there were very, very, very few redeeming features sprinkled in. it's fine though! i'm fine. it's all over now :)

a few brief thoughts on the series overall: i regret ever speaking badly of kripke's supernatural; i didn't know how good i had it until it was gone. in hindsight, a lot of the seasons i thought were dogshit were actually not the worst things ever—i just didn't realize how bad bad could get. i know now. i will carry that knowledge with me forever.

dramatics aside, i honestly did enjoy watching the show. as much as i hated so many of the writing choices, the plotholes, the retcons, the way the writers just handwaved away anything inconvenient and rewrote characters entirely just to force them into the story they way they wanted them—it was still, like, fun. the agony was enjoyable (things masochists say). i think it helps that the fandom at large generally agrees that the writing is bad; it gives a sense of community and solidarity in the misery. there's no uneasy disconnect between myself and the rest of the fanbase, and that honestly does make all the difference. it's fun to suffer together, and i don't regret watching this show one bit :)

so with that said, here's my final ranking for every season:

season 1 (thematically strong, tight writing, incredible vision, truly foundational in its establishment of overarching themes, tone, and genre)

season 2 (such an interesting plot which builds on what was established in season 1. this is where the meat of the show is, where the heart is exposed to daylight as the chest is ripped open)

season 3 (well written, though disappointing in some areas largely due to kripke dropping the special children plot thus leaving a hole. not very noticeable due to the good writing, but still there. i'll never forgive them for killing off henricksen)

season 4 (this is the first real drop in quality imo, but it's relatively insignificant. the writing feels more meandering, and the tone shifts rather drastically away from the horror of its origin. the introduction of angels destroys a lot of the religious anxiety that formed the foundation of the show, but at the same time introduces a fantastic story about fate and doom)

season 5 (same as season 4, but with the flaws a bit more glaring. castiel's unclear motivations and underdeveloped shift in perspective are a major point of contention for me; i don't think it was handled well and could have been written better to make him a stronger character from the get-go, possibly allowing him to be a better character in later seasons instead of the conflicting mess we ended up with)

season 9 (the writing is atrocious, but the vision is so good. i still don't know how they managed that. they had such a great idea and they took kripke's supernatural and expanded on it in such a satisfying way. it drove me crazy! but holy shit the actual writing is so bad)

season 8 (i feel largely the same about 8 as i do 9, but i just think the writing was overall worse. it does get brownie points for having benny in it, though)

season 10 (boring. boring and paced so, so, so badly. the sole redeeming feature was how committed it was to its vision. it has the exact opposite problem as season 6 in that it has too little content to fill out the season. but god, the vision. you'll hear me waxing poetic about the season 8-10 vision on my death bed)

season 7 (it did a lot to pave the road for seasons 8-10 which i can't ignore. it also got itself fairly settled after the mess season 6 was and didn't try to bite off more than it could chew. i didn't love it, but it had a lot of moments that were provocative and interesting, and it provided pretty good setup for season 8. the writing was not good, but i think that goes without saying)

season 6 (introduced really interesting ideas, but tried to cram so much into one season that it failed to deliver satisfying payoffs for any of its setup. soulless sam was an interesting exception and really redeemed it for me)

season 12 (12 and 13 are about equal for me because i hate the plots, i hate the intense diversion away from The Sam And Dean Show, i hate the writing, i hate the concepts, etc etc. but they both introduce supporting characters which show off new and interesting sides to sam and dean: mary in 12 and jack in 13. it allows for focus to stay on sam and dean's relationship a little longer even though they're no longer generating any organic conflict between them, so i appreciate that at least)

season 13 (i fucking HATE the apocalypse world. that is my deciding factor between seasons 12 and 13. also i hate what they did to mary here)

season 14 (honestly an inoffensive season. i still hate the writing way more than anything else pre-12, and it doesn't have the benefits of a new character introduced to provide external conflict between sam and dean, so while it was relatively inoffensive it was also boring, lacking, and really obvious how little the writers cared about maintaining sam and dean's relationship as the emotional core of the show)

season 11 (the writing all things considered wasn't the absolute worst thing i've ever seen, if i'm being fair. on the other hand, i hated everything about this season conceptually, and i hate that it vouched for christianity as the ~one true religion~ which again undermines kripke's original series. this is me being petty and i'm okay with that)

season 15 (see above. oh but i'm honestly surprised it managed to surpass my ire toward season 11. like honestly it's impressive because i hold a massive grudge toward 11 which should have been insurmountable. a feat has certainly been achieved here!)

anyway. i said this wasn't going to be long but then i just kept on writing and writing. because that's what i do. i never learn 😔 i'll end it here then. i intend to go back and rewatch seasons 1-5 now that i'm finally finished, so i'm looking forward to that. i want to see if my rose-tinted glasses that i've been looking at kripke era with are based on reality or simply a longing to return to less terrible times :P

#liveblogging: supernatural #oh my god o h my god <3 #i did indeed rank every season from 1 to 15 in here. for funsies #spn reviews #.txt

[where-theres-smoak-2]

I'm a ship and let ship kind of girl but one thing that does grind my gears a bit is those antis who deliberately tag there anti sylki posts in the sylki tag. I have got way too many newly blocked accounts since the finale its kind of disheartening and also annoying, its not that hard to probably tag your posts.

But anyway there were quite a few posts of antis gloating about a couple of interviews that Sophia did and claiming that she hates the sylki ship so I figure ok lets talk about these interviews. Here's the first one:

First off the part saying Sophia isn't super into the idea of sylki as a couple isn't a direct quote from Sophia, so this could be the interviewer paraphrasing or it could be the interviewers interpretation on Sophia's comments, either as its not a direct quote and I don't know what the context is I am taking that part with a whole handful of salt and disregarding it.

What Sophia did say was that sylki is weird because they variants of the same person and also that with everything they have gone through the relationship is complicated. It seems like antis saw the word weird and went oh bad, she must mean she hates them but when you actually look at the definition of the word weird it doesn't necessarily mean something bad. The definition from Cambridge dictionary is: very strange and unusual, unexpected, or not natural. The Merriam-Webster definition is: of strange or extraordinary character, of, relating to, or caused by witchcraft or the supernatural. Which lets be honest fits Sylki, they are unusual, strange, unexpected, extraordinary and you could argue with the whole variant thing its got that supernatural element to it as well. I mean them being weird is what makes them fun and entertaining to watch so honestly I'm not mad that she said they were weird.

Another thing to bear in mind is that we don't know the question that goes with this answer for all we know it could have been a very leading question like don't you think its weird they are both variants of the same person, or what do you think of shipping in general, we don't know so we don't have a whole lot of context even with her direct quote. But to me Sophia's answer just seems to be your standard diplomatic, vague, non-committal answer that most actors give when asked about ships which is I like my character and I want the best for them. Sadly we live in a world now where actors have to be very careful and ambiguous when talking about ships because if they say something that upsets one side they may get sent hate, from what I've heard Sophia has already been sent death threats and had other hate hurled at her so it would make sense to me that she wouldn't want to give anything but vague answers to any questions about ships.

But say Sophia really isn't that into Sylki as a romantic pairing, so what? She's allowed to like or dislike a pairing on a tv show just like anyone else, even if she's playing one half of the pairing. She wouldn't be the first actor to dislike a ship they are a part of or to prefer a different pairing for their character. She's a person like everyone else and she's allowed to have likes and dislikes and her own opinions. But trying to argue that the Sylki ship is dead because Sophia may or may not (seeing as this interview doesn't confirm either way) like the ship is absurd to me. Especially as we've already had the head writer and producer of the show confirm that they are canon and that it was their romance that was driving the show. Seeing as they are the ones that write the show and decides what happens, I think I'm ok if Sophia thinks the ship is weird somehow. Now if the producer of the show said that they didn't intend for my ship to be romantic and wrote them as just friends I might be upset and think my ship was dead. Luckily for me that isn't the case.

The other interview I've seen antis throwing about as evidence that Sophia hates the ship is this one where she is talking about their kiss:

This one just baffles me even more. Personally I just don't understand how someone reads this and jumps to she hates the ship and the ship is dead. They were the ones saying the kiss was nothing but a trick, a distraction. Now here we've got Sophia saying the same thing Sylki shippers were saying which is the kiss was more of a good bye kiss. Honestly I love what she said about how it was a thank you and a good bye, it showed how much of an impact Loki made on her, heartbreakingly though it just wasn't enough to break through that need to complete her mission. To be fair this mission was something that had fuelled her throughout her entire life, that pain and those scars left from HWR and the TVA run too deep, really she needed alot more time with Loki before being able to choose him over that mission, maybe if they had more time together before facing HWR it would have gone differently but sadly we'll never know. Sophia recently said in another interview that there is an unspoken agreement between Sylki that they can't kill each other. Which is what makes this moment so tragically beautiful in a way, she knows she can't let her mission go, but she also knows that he won't let her kill HWR, and she also knows that she can't kill Loki so in her eyes her only option was to push him through that time door. She knows that will break their relationship so she just wants one kiss, one moment to say thank you and to say goodbye. Sorry but this isn't what a dead ship looks like to me. A slightly broken one maybe but not dead.

Ok so this is off topic but its something I am curious about. This is more to do with what I saw in the main Loki tag so unrelated to the antis mis-tagging their hate posts, I don't want to lump regular Loki/mobius shippers in with them. But I saw some posts talking about there being a track named L*kius and some shippers felt they had been baited because there was a track on the official sound track with their ship name but the producers were saying it was meant as a friendship and even I thought that was an odd choice on the Loki teams part, but then I've just been listening to the official soundtrack by Natalie Holt, its as amazing as last seasons by the way so if you get the chance I would recommend checking it out, but there is no track on there with that name. I checked the official track list titles as well and I'm not seeing it. So what happened there, was someone trolling that fandom? In which case not cool, or was it just misinformation that was spread, I'm very confused because there were screenshots that looked legit. Saying that I was listening to an epic cover of the track titled Ascension on the official soundtrack pre-release and they had named it glorious purpose seeing as the official name of the track hadn't been released yet, so maybe this was the same situation? It was just a placeholder name by whoever uploaded it? I never listened to the one with the ship name that was being posted about in the main tag so I am curious as to whether it is a track on the official soundtrack but now has a different name?

So wrapping it up, those are my thoughts on Sophia's interviews, the official soundtrack for season 2 is amazing and everyone should go listen to it and ship whatever you like but please, please can people tag their posts correctly because my finger is starting to ache from constantly hitting the block button.

#sylki #loki x sylvie #anti antis

[theographos]

They all became what everyone said they couldn't be. All except Toby that is...

Once again i'm sharing my Trollhunter propaganda onto my loved ones, and by that I mean trapping them in the same room as me and forcing them to watch the show. (with consent) And this time, it's my bestie who has to go through that. And as I rewatch the show, I think about what I see and compare it to the rest of the franchise.

Jim, despite everyone and himself telling him he couldn't, became the Trollhunter in his very own way.

Claire, despite Morgana saying otherwise, became the new owner of the Shadowstaff in her very own way.

Blinky, despite Vendell and overall the whole Troll market telling him otherwise, became the mentor of a brilliant Trollhunter in his very own way.

AAARRRGGHH!!!, despite the Gumms Gumms and Queen Ursuna saying otherwise, became a fighter for the right cause and left his role as Gunmar's spawn for good. Or in other words, he learned how to be a fighter in his very own way

Toby, despite the plot telling him otherwise, became a hero fitting the common standards of heroism in medias and a hero fitting the Tales of Arcadia's standards.

But wait... Toby's character development doesn't really make sense with the rest of the main characters now, does it ?

No it has nothing to do with the fact that Toby is a "fleshbag"

So I already discussed on how the screenwriters could have given a more interesting role for Toby in another post, but I didn't deeply explained why in terms of storytelling.

First and foremost, no I do not think that Tobias would have been better if he wasn't a human, this post is more because I believe that Aliens and Toby lack "plot important" features (except for the movie) (waiting a whole franchise to give that kind of feature to a character or an important specie in your story isn't something we should acclaim). So I thought of ways to kill one bird with two stone, and give plot-interesting features to both the race and the character. Plus I think it's more interesting to think of solutions that fits the already established universe, and then think of solutions that fits my way of writing stories.

Second of all, yes the human bestfriend of a character can be wonderfully done, like in Teen Wolf for example. From the start we meet Scott McCall, the main character, and his bestfriend Stiles Stilinski. Throughout the whole show they are exposed to supernatural phenomenon, the entirety of the cast becomes linked to the supernatural world either by being hunters or by being a supernatural being. Everyone except Stiles.

And despite being human and a comic relief character, he is relevant to the plot. He is the "detective" of the group, he is always the one noticing strange things and finding a solution to the current threat they're dealing with. He is also incredibly funny, voluntarily or not, and the screenwriters take their sweet times showing how hard the plot is taking a toll on the characters through Stiles. Which means we see him having panic attacks, doubts, nightmares, etc.

And guess what ? He is the fan's favorite character ! In the last season, when Stiles's actor couldn't be more present due to an injury, it showed. You could feel the lack of Stiles in most the scenes, and the bestest parts were the scenes in which he appeared, also because they came up with an excuse to explain why Stiles isn't as much present as before.

But that excuse is so well done that when you see Stiles again, you're not only relieved to see him well, but also very interested because suddenly the plot drives forward so quickly. If you take away Stiles, the plot isn't going anywhere (because he was the one investigating most of the supernatural threats), and even the serie isn't that interesting anymore : it's less funny, less human and even.

Heck, the plot wouldn't even exist without Stiles ! In the beginning of the show Stiles takes the main character in the woods because they're looking for a dead body (dumb teenager idea)(his dad is the sheriff so it's not that weird). And in those woods, the main character ends up lost, gets bitten by a werewolf and the story starts.

So yes, a human bestfriend can be interesting in the story in an emotional point of view, he can be relevant to the plot and have an interesting dynamic within the main group.

Dreamworks isn't good with "bestfriend" characters

Trollhunters is in many ways similar to How to Train your Dragon. While Hiccup is trying to protect dragons following his own morals even if they differs from the rest of his village, Jim is trying to protect trolls following his own morals even if differs with the rules of Trollhunting. Of course both franchise have their own identity, and not everything is similar to the other. But they do share the fact that they're both animated by Dreamworks.

Yet I see one major problem that the HTTYD franchise had who's also present in ToA : The bestfriend character has nothing more than a "helping hand" kind of role. Astrid is interesting and has plot relevance, just like Claire, but they're more the love interest kind of person. Stoik, Valka and sometimes Gobber have plot relevance as Hiccup's parent figures and/or mentor, kind of like Blinky, Strickler and Barbara. I think I could compare AAARRRGGHH!!! with the dragons in some way. He has a link with the main bad guys of the show, just like the dragons (dragons and dragon hunters) he has that loveable side like the dragons and big fighting skills like them. (I'm not saying that AAARRRGGHH!!! is similar to an animal, i'm saying that his role plot-wise is similar in some ways to the role of the dragons in HTTYD)

But when we take a look at Snotlout, Ruffnut, Tuffnut and Fishlegs, even if they have distinctive character traits from one another and some sort of character development in some episodes of the shows, in terms of plot their role are basically "well the main character cannot do everything on his own, plus we need humor". Some episodes are based around them, just like for Toby, but no villains are directly linked to them, no plot points are directly linked to them. They're only in the plot because they are the friends of the one who's relevant to the story, whether it's the dragons, Hiccup or the rest of the Trollhunter team.

Toby, just like Snotlout, Ruffnut, Tuffnut and Fishlegs is a supporting character. Yes he has helped a lot but more because they needed a third hand more than because they needed his specific competences. And no Warhammer isn't what I can call a competence, since Jim's status as a trollhunter works with and without his weapon, and Claire's shadow magic has been awaken by the shadowstaff and even when it ends up being broken into pieces, she is still relevant without her weapon.

Warhammer was something that Toby wanted a lot, couldn't use, so they put a curse on it to kill two bird with one stone. The biggest competence that he had so far in Trollhunter was his dental problems. Without that, they wouldn't have meet Gladys the changeling or they wouldn't have found the Janus order. Because the rest of the time it's just luck. Luck isn't a competence, it's literally just luck.

In terms of a fighting team, Toby doesn't have a distinctive role.

Jim is the front fighter. He is the one that is going to go straight to the enemy.

Claire is the mage, even if she knows how to fight, her main feature in combat scenes is her magic.

AAARRRGGHH!!! is a tank. He is strong and big, and is able to take on bigger enemies and take a lot of damage upon him.

Blinky is a councellor, he might not be the best at fighting but he will be able to come up with a strategy based off his knowledge as an historian, and also serve as some sort of therapist and moral compass, giving back faith and the will to fight to his comrades.

I have a hard time understanding Toby's role is this team (combat-wise) other than "the helping hand". The moral compass is already occupied by Blinky, he is hardly a tank since AAARRRGGHH!!! can take upon the offensive and defensive aspects of that role. He cannot be the "troll-nerd" one who knows everything about troll culture since Claire and Blinky already take upon that role. The best I could come up with is either the one who deals with humans, even if when it happens it's always more or less accidental and he is not comfortable in those situations (or not good, like when they had to exchange the formula with Vendell's staff), or again a helping hand, a sort of plus one in case there are a lot of ennemies or everyone else has a task and that problem must be taken care of right now.

That's why I proposed that he could be a healer. Not a very good one, since that would just make the team invicible (most of the times their difficulty comes from injuries or being tired, if you have a character that can fully help those problems there is not a lot of hardships).

Truthfully I have a hard time thinking of an actual role he could have within the team. Because being the "plus one" is already the role of the Creepslayerz.

It has to fit with the serie's message

Like I said in the introduction a recurring theme for the main characters is that people around them do not believe they are fit to become what they're supposed to be or what they want to be. A some sort "against all odds they managed to become [insert role]" if you'd like.

As I have established before Tobias is more of a "helping hand" kind of role, and no one has ever kept Toby from being a helping hand other than him. (Meanwhile every other main characters in Trollhunters doubt themselves because of everyone telling them to do so.)

The only thing he has been kept from doing by other characters (especially the villain) is to be the hero. He is only a human with nothing else, he can help but he can't make a difference on his own. But if we continue to follow the story's theme, he would need to become a hero in his very own way. To claim that title and to use it in a way that is most definetly his, whether with his own competence or his own moral compass.

Toby doesn't have that, since he became trollhunter after Jim, after Jim proved that humans can be trollhunters. He would only be repeating Jim's story with some differences, but the struggles would be the exact same. Meanwhile Claire is having her very own difficulty because she has her very own role as a hero. Her struggles are similar, but not completely the same.

See, when I talked about alien!toby it was because it was easy to tell yourself that aliens might not recognize Toby as one of their own, which could create some sort of "you want to be like us but you'll never be, you're just a human/too bad at it". It's also easy to imagine Toby having trouble with that part of him, either physically or mentally. After all he always thought he was a human, learning that you're part alien is a whole pre-written identity crisis.

And yes even his sacrifice at the end of RotT doesn't really fit the story's themes. Yes Toby saved the world in his own way, but what I don't like about it is the fact that he is considered a hero because he sacrificed himself.

He is not a hero because of who he is, he is a hero because of what he has lost. This is a one time kind of heroism, because as you might guess you do not come back from the dead every so often. I am not saying that he shouldn't have sacrificed himself, i'm saying that every main character became a hero before trying to sacrifice themselves. You saw a big part of their competences before that, but like I said Toby doesn't have particular competences in the show.

It still fits the theme "don't think, become" of the show, but if we look on the plot from afar it means that Jim had to fight to become a hero, Claire had to fight to become a hero, same for AAARRRGGHH!!!, Blinky had to lead to become a hero and Toby had to die.

This is quite a horrible thought don't you think ? That the only way for one of the main character to be fully recognized as a hero in the plot is to die. It worked in some shows, especially for morally grey characters, but throughout this whole post I showed you how Toby had nothing meaningful given to him, and the only thing he always had was ripped from him.

This is not something carefully planned, it's just that they did not cared.

Nothing in the whole franchise justify the tragedy that is Tobias's character arc. Changelings became heroes, Gumm gumms can be heroes, humans too, except for Toby.

Toby is left with crumbs. No magical ancient weapon, just a warhammer that doesn't even have a story worth mentionning in the show. No cool and original duty, just the one that his bestfriend had and who decided to give it to him to make him happy. A big act of heroism, that only Jim will ever remember because this happened in another timeline.

His role as trollhunter, his warhammer, his role as "protector of arcadia" at the end of Trollhunters, even his dynamic in the group is merely a pat on the head in hopes that it will make him shut up and comply. And while some characters are beautiful tragedies, Tobias is not an intentional one. If it was one, you would have seen it coming. If it truly was meant to be a tragedy, the writers would have dropped signs, they would have portrayed it in a particular way.

Even if they lacked time in the later seasons of Trollhunters and Wizards, they had time in 3Below. They had 2 seasons to give anything to Toby, whether tragical or magical.

But they didn't, so nothing shows that they intentionally did it. I even think that they did realize what they had done at some point, and their only way to arrange things was to make him die so that he could finally be a hero.

A hero that only one character will ever remember in the show, because they couldn't even give him that glory, it had to be reaped away from him in one way or another. Because at the end of RotT, in terms of timeline, it never happened, or at least it didn't happen yet.

In conclusion to all of that, I will repeat what I have said a thousand times in this post : Toby wasn't done justice with this movie. He didn't have the ending he deserved, and his story arc in my opinion isn't really a story arc. It's more like him complying and shutting up about his situation because he was given something that looks shiny, but holds no real importance nor deep meaning (or some twisted meaning).

The writers did not want to include Toby in the plot for most of the franchise, and when they did it was in the only way they knew of : something that looks shiny and cool but is in reality just a way to shut everyone up and move on.

#Not so much of a fun ending for that one #Trying to fix things doesn't erase those said things #if you want a human character in a fantastic story #3below tales of arcadia #tales of arcadia wizards #wizards tales of arcadia #trollhunters tales of arcadia #tales of arcadia #rise of the titans critical #tales of arcadia : rise of the titans #rise of the titans tales of arcadia #tales of arcadia rise of the titans #rise of the titans #toby domzalski #toby domzalski critical #tales of arcadia critical

[yunoteru4ever]

A big review of Sakae Esuno's 'Big Order,' Part 1: The Actual "Review" Part

It begins.

This all began with a simple ask from @bluescxrs, but I've definitely made it grow in my mind since I received that request. What began as "Can you outline the story differences, particularly in relation to Eiji/Rin" became me thinking "I should make that just one part of a much larger, thorough review."

So for a while now, I've been sporadically writing parts of this post while simultaneously asking myself "How do I even do this?" More specifically: How do I review a manga AND an anime that are so different from one another? How do I explain the differences between the mediums without proliferating tons of spoilers? And is that even really part of a standard "review," or does this need to be multiple posts?

My ultimate conclusions are that I need to treat this like any other anime review I've put together on my main Tumblr. I think going deeper on what separates the two versions of "Big Order" is going to require its own post with more spoilers, though.

I'll just be upfront about this,, and state what any regular readers of this Tumblr probably already know: I've come here to praise "Big Order" as a manga, and to be less kind to its anime incarnation.

Background/Behind-the-Scenes

In case you didn't know, Big Order was Sakae Esuno's follow-up manga after he struck gold with Mirai Nikki/Future Diary. I'm sure he was feeling the pressure to produce a worthwhile follow-up after he hit it big with that one. But thankfully, Big Order was a successful series for Monthly Shōnen Ace. At least it was successful enough to run for almost as long as Future Diary did and get collected into 10 volumes. Kadokawa has never shied away from ending a series early if it fails to catch on, so that speaks well to Big Order's reception. Admittedly, it never generated the same numbers or level of passion among its readership. But as Esuno himself has said, a mangaka is lucky to create even one series as beloved as Mirai Nikki. And it's not like Big Order didn't have devoted readers of its own — especially in Japan, but to some degree also in China and parts of Europe.

It never made much of an impact on the Western hemisphere, though. Mirai Nikki's success in America and much of the Western hemisphere came largely in the wake of its popular anime adaption. I can't speak to how well Big Order did as a scanlation. But unfortunately, the manga wasn't officially published in North America until AFTER its anime adaption had finished airing... to pretty much the opposite of acclaim.

The anime was produced by the same studio that adapted Future Diary a few years earlier: Asread. Although Esuno has stated his overall satisfaction with the anime adaption of Future Diary and said that he sat in on some story meetings to see how they were adapting the manga and provide some feedback, I've never seen him comment whatsoever on the anime adaption of Big Order. In fact, I don't think I've ever read or seen any interviews that were conducted with him since post-2015! The closest I've ever seen him come is confirming that they were developing an OVA prior to its eventual release in late 2015. That's it. As such, we have no idea how involved he was or wasn't with the development of Big Order's anime, nor do we know what he thinks about the end result. I don't want to assume his feelings... but I have to imagine that they're less positive than his opinion of Future Diary's anime.

We'll circle back to why I think that at the end of this post, though. For now, let's dig into what this series is actually about.

The First Chapter/Episode's Plot Setup

Ten years prior to this story, everything changed. A massive cataclysm struck the globe that killed approximately 3.5 billion people... about half of the world's population. At the same time, the world saw the appearance of the first "Orders" — people with supernatural abilities that can be activated verbally, or sometimes just mentally. People become Orders when when a floating, intangible fairy-like girl named "Daisy" appears to them and grants them a single wish. The Order's ability is based upon how Daisy interprets their wish... but no one who isn't an Order or potential Order can even see Daisy, so how or why these superpowered individuals come into exist remains unknown to the general public.

Daisy's first appearance before Eiji.

In the aftermath of that disaster now known as "the Great Destruction," the majority of the world's governments collapsed. It fell to the United Nations to create and establish interim governments and oversight councils as a way to maintain a semblance of order. Most of these governments are led by Orders who are put under the U.N.'s well-paid employ, with their supernatural abilities serving as a means to both maintain local control and enforce the law among normal civilians.

Eiji Hoshimiya is our focal protagonist. He's an 18-year-old high school student who lost his parents in the cataclysm 10 years ago. To make matters worse, he's the very person who accidentally caused the Great Destruction — an unintended side effect of his wish to "dominate the world" running amuck. Yup, Eiji is an Order, although he's sworn off ever powers after what happened back then and kept the secret of his guilt to himself. After both his parents died in the Great Destruction, Eiji's main focus has been to simply give his terminally ill stepsister, Sena, whatever joy and attention he can manage to provide during the limited time she has left. When our story starts, she supposedly has just six months left before a rare form of leukemia takes her life. And once Sena passes away, Eiji's fine with accepting whatever punishment come his way for his actions 10 years ago. He only wishes to hide his guilt for as long as it takes to keep Sena smiling.

A symbol appears on the user's palm whenever they invoke their Order ability, which also calls forth a "stand" or "avatar" figure that embodies and ultimately enacts the user's Orders. Just like Daisy, these avatars are only visible to other Orders.

(This is a VERY LONG post, so I'll put the rest under a cut for everyone's benefit.)

Rin Kurenai is our secondary protagonist despite the fact that she's also something of an antagonist — a dichotomy that's certainly famillar to anyone who's experienced Future Diary. When Rin shows up at Eiji's school one day, Eiji immediately crushes on her. Unfortunately for Eiji, Rin isn't the sweet new transfer student she initially appears to be. In reality, she's an Order that's come to this school to fulfill a personal vendetta. After spending 10 years working training herself up while trying to locate and identify the person who caused her parents to die in the Great Destruction, she's finally arrived at her chance for vengeance. Her sole dream stands before her: A chance to kill Eiji Hoshimiya.

Some facts to consider about how Eiji and Rin's Order powers work:

Eiji's power of "domination" lets him control absolutely anything within his "domain," which is defined as anywhere he's been + a surrounding radius of roughly 2 meters. This domain ALSO includes anything vertically aligned with that same space/radius. (In other words, if he walks the entireity the first floor of a three-story building, he now can control anything that happens on not only the first floor, but ALSO all the same spaces above him on the other two floors. Or if he flies above the ground, he can now control the ground directly below that airspace. Get it?) Oh, and his control/domination isn't limited to just giving orders to people and/or creatures within that space — he can literally control the laws of physics if he so wishes. He basically controls reality itself within his domain. But importantly, the moment that something he's controlling leaves his domain? He loses all power over it. And he can do nothing to anyone or anything that never enters his domain.

Rin's also an Order, and her power is regeneration. Whenever she so wishes, she can heal herself as well as anyone and anything within arm's reach. This allows her to repair broken weapons or heal wounded allies, of course, but it also auto-triggers any time she dies, reviving her in seconds. This renders her effectively immortal.

Given the above facts, when Eiji is faced with a relentless immortal assassin whose only wish is to kill him by any possible means, he makes the decision to use his powers on Rin by giving her two consecutive orders:

Order #1: Rin can never harm him or his sister.

Order #2: Rin can never leave his domain. (Because if she did, she'd break free of Order #1.)

Just like that, our lead characters are thrust into an unlikely, antagonistic "partnership."

But wait; there's more!

If you're wondering how Rin knew that Eiji caused the cataclysm? That's because she's an agent of the Ten Hands — a group of ten powerful Orders who made up the interim U.N. government of Kyushu... until now. Because when Eiji and Rin wind up at their headquarters in Dazaifu, it turns out that the Ten Hands have just declared they are the next evolution of humanity and intend to rule the world. (If you're familiar with the X-Men? Just picture Magneto's Brotherhood of Mutants :P). Rin's went rogue even from THAT rogue organization, though, because Ten Hands wanted her to capture Eiji alive! They're after Eiji because his powers are useful to them AND he makes the ideal figurehead/decoy to front their organization. Once they declare war on the United Nations in Eiji's name (going so far as to include the public announcement that Eiji is the one to blame for the disaster of 10 years prior), Eiji find himself forced to cooperate and act as the figurehead/puppet ruler of the Ten Hands. Where else can he go when he's now the most wanted and hated person on the planet?

A spread giving an overview of the Ten Hands, aka "the Group of Ten."

But as an extra carrot-on-a-stick, the leader of the Ten Hands — Colonel Hiiragi — reveals to Eiji that they've kidnapped Sena. And he then suggests that if Eiji expands his influence over the world, he should logically eventually locate an Order that could cure Sena of her terminal illness.

So wait, what kind of story is this?

For me, the primary joy of Big Order's main plot comes from the characters constantly working to out-manuever and out-manipulate one another. This is often done in the form of Order "battles," sure — but rather than being about who can hit one another hardest with a superpower, those battles are still fundamentally about pulling tricks, feints, and ultimately out-manuevering someone.

Eiji thinking what EVERYBODY in this story is thinking, essentially.

You can see it built into where the setup I described above leaves off. See, it's like this:

Because the Ten Hands has already announced Eiji as their leader and the cause of the great destruction PLUS they've got his sister, he is blackmailed into becoming their figurehead leader.

To try and counter this, Eiji swiftly places his domination order on every member of the Ten Hands, giving him the ability to control them individually while they're inside the base — providing him with leverage. IN THEORY.

But what he (and we) don't initially know is that Colonel Hiiragi had already put his own unique Order in place that covers the same base, and Hiiragi's power completely counteracts Eiji's control of the Ten Hands' people. (Hiiragi's power does NOT, however, counteract Eiji's control of the objects, air, physics, etc. within the base's property.)

But there's another complication to consider: One of the members of the Ten Hands is using his ability to stop time to freeze Sena, preventing her disease from progressing. As such, anything Eiji does to attack within the base or undermine the Ten Hands' plans will obviously cause that person to unfreeze Sena, returning her lifespan to a ticking clock.

With all that going on, Can Eiji really do anything to push his own agenda and exercise his free will? That's just ONE example of the complicated tit-for-tat thinking that makes up so many of Big Order's character interactions and confrontations.

Eiji and Rin's relationship is a microcosm of this stuff. Eiji knows Rin can't kill him thanks to his Order ability, but he also knows that she's foolishly obsessed with killing him personally to the point that she refuses to let anyone else have that pleasure. As a result, the person who hates him the most also becomes the person he's most able to trust. But that doesn't mean Rin's ready to give up on trying to trick him into a not-quite-accidental death, either. There's a push and pull to their mutual trust-laced-with-distrust.

Even within the Ten Hands themselves, there are a couple members who turn out to have more faith/trust in Eiji than they do in Colonel Hiiragi. Hiiragi's mission is ultimately somewhat compromised by his need for personal vengeance, whereas Eiji manages to gain faith and trust from some of the members based on how he indepently handles some things. All these personal motivations, unique powers, and relative/comparative intelligence mix to make a stew of actions and counteractions that I greatly enjoy reading. And by the time the story starts to move away from focusing on these complicated showdowns, you're far enough in that you should (hopefully) be attached to some of its characters already.

The Narrative and its Characters

From a writing POV, it's worth noting that Sakae Esuno took a different approach to writing Big Order as compared to how he wrote Mirai Nikki/Future Diary. See, Esuno had a pretty strong outline for the story when he started making Mirai Nikki. (Actually, he says he created two outlines for Mirai Nikki: One for "I get to write the full-length story" and one for "I have to wrap things up quickly because the series gets cancelled early.") However, on Big Order, Esuno opted to only plan where the story would go in a much looser, vaguer way. He said he wanted to leave himself more leeway to explore whatever new ideas he thought of as the story developed, not constrain himself so much to a tightly pre-planned narrative. I'm not telling you this as a form of judging his choice negatively, though; I can see the appeal to both approaches. I'm just telling y'all this because I think those differences in approach are sometimes noticeable.

There are occasionally pieces of info or hints within the manga that don't seem to go anywhere, and you might even notice some of these are dropped entirely in the anime. A prime example: The early chapters of the manga have Sena referencing that the doctor working caring for her at the hospital is her and Eiji's uncle. Whether she's speaking literally or somehow metaphorically, this never goes anywhere. Heck, we never even see or meet that character! So it's understandable that those references are left out of the anime. It doesn't feel like it's some lost subplot that was left hanging, but it's just the kind of detail that feels like it might hold meaning down the line... yet never does. Those sorts of "dead-end details" get increasingly rare the longer the manga goes on, however. The story grows leaner and tighter as it nears its end.

Beyond that, this story has all the hallmarks I've come to love about Sakae Esuno's works: Tons of plot twists (much more in the manga), the ability to vascillate wildly between darkness and comedy, engaging psychological underpinnings to the characters (mostly in the manga), a twisted focal relationship... it's all here. What's not to love? Well, I suppose Big Order and Future Diary share one weakness: Despite both stories supposedly having a global impact, the entire story stays isolated to Japan. Future Diary justified this with some passing text explaining that Deus has intentionally developed or lured his future god prospects into one area. Big Order's justification is that the entire "Great Destruction" was caused within Japan due to research taking place in Japan. Perhaps not as strong of an overall driver for the localized focus, but it works decently enough.

So let's dig a little into that "twisted focal relationship." Despite what I said previously about Rin and Eiji's "dual protagonists where one is also kind of an antagonist" dynamic being similar to Future Diary's Yuki and Yuno, these characters almost feel like counterpoints to the leads of Mirai Nikki. Although Eiji visually looks a lot like Yuki and Rin might initially give off Yuno vibes thanks to her aggressive nature and twin hanging hair-tails, they're each more unlike their Esuno-created predecessors than they are similar to them. And so — as I said in that old post I just linked to — Eiji and Rin almost feel like a reaction/response to Yuki and Yuno, intentionally designed to flip or trade off a lot of their individual traits while still maintaining a select few similarities.

Rin's blind rage at Eiji can make her kind of a moron at times. Delightfully so.

Both of them get to grow and change a lot over the course of the manga's story, though they don't get anywhere NEAR as much growth in the anime. The ten or so manga chapters following the end of the anime are particularly good for Eiji, who goes through a period of trauma-response depression that's very well-portrayed IMO. I think him already being in his mindset helps him cope with the wild perception-warping crap he sees and experiences shortly before the final stretch of the story kicks in. Rin's growth is more gradual; at first, she's just forced to gain some empathy for the person she's spent a decade hating. That helps her to eventually shift her desire for revenge onto other parties. But in the end, she gets smarter AND kinder, learning to let go of her desire for revenge and legitimately finding a way to forgive something that once seemed unforgivable. It's actually touching, IMO.

But you know, Yuki/Yuno's relationship never got a strong outside competitor. Let's face it: Yuki never showed any interest in or attraction towards Akise, regardless of Akise's own feelings. On the flip side, the Eiji/Rin relationship actually gets a pretty strong third party thrown into the mix: Iyo.

Iyo! No surname needed, evidently?

If there's a tritagonist in Big Order, it's Iyo — a member of the Ten Hands' leadership who demonstrates fr more compassion thant he rest. Iyo's a shrine maiden/miko whose Order granted her the power to predict the future with 99% accuracy by asking any question to the heavens, summoning a slip of paper that provides the answer. The downside to this is that whenever someone acts upon her predictions they are inherently changing the course of fate, so their actions will affect whether the prediction remains true. And for Iyo, that's a personal matter: Her very first question to the heavens (and thus the first prediction handed down to her) was to find out who her future husband would be... which is when she learned that she was destined to marry Eiji Hoshimiya and bear his child. This prediction + Eiji's natural kindness towards her are two reasons why she finds herself swiftly infatuated with Eiji as soon as he aligns himself with the Ten Hands. And thus, Iyo winds up being the third spoke in a love triangle that also includes Eiji and Rin. But she's not hanging around just to undermine or irritate Rin, because she proves to be an invaluable partner to Eiji's goals in her own right.

I adore both Iyo AND her twitchy bunny-ear head-ribbon. Part of me can't help but want her to win Eiji's heart, because she deserves the world. However, because her infatuation with Eiji is driven by her prediction, her attraction to him is kind of questionable IMO; does she only fall for Eiji because she was told that she would by her powers? Regardless of the reason, her feelings drive her to try and spend more time with him/get closer to him. The knock-on effect, however, is that because she's acting upon her own prediction, that means her actions have every possbility of destroying/altering the very future she's pining for.

The writing here definitely favors Eiji and Rin as the core couple, but unlike Future Diary, Big Order isn't going to give you a clear-cut answer as to who the characters wind up with. Future Diary wound up cementing Yuno and Yuki's relationship canonically because, well, that was the whole point of the thing. The central Yuki/Yuno relationship was the absolute core of Future Diary's narrative, but conversely, the Eiji/Rin relationship isn't the most important relationship in Big Order. It's a major focus, sure, but it's not propping up the entire narrative — which I think is why Esuno feels no need to canonize it. Although the story definitely seems to favor Eiji/Rin, neither the manga nor the anime explicitly state who Eiji winds up with (if anyone).

Instead, the core relationship that's propping up Big Order's story is a familial one: The one between Eiji and Sena. Sena is the stepsister he didn't think he wanted and who he was initially hesitant to get to know. Ultimately, however, she won him over with her warmth and sweetness. When their parents were killed in the Great Destruction, Eiji wound up isolating himself from everyone BUT Sena. Which is a big reason why Eiji's ultimate goal is merely to protect her and give her happiness for as long as she lives (which, as previously stated, is currently expected to be only six more months). It definitely calls to mind Yuno's own simplistic goal of "one day of perfect happiness," etc. But while Yuno's goal is inherently flawed, Eiji's is theoretically possible... right up until the Ten Hands ruin it. Because just a few chapters into the story, they start telling her all kinds of shit that Eiji had been trying to hide from her.

Sena starts out as little more than a background MacGuffin, but she isn't content to stay on those sidelines. Once she has agency to do so, she starts participating in her brother's struggle despite this being against pretty much everybody else's wishes. Her unwanted intervention makes for a pretty fun spanner in the works of the story... but I'm not going to get too specific about it. I think it's really fun to watch her fight back against her own "MacGuffin" status — too much fun for me to spoil how it all happens.

Anime vs. Manga: The Short Version

The anime adapts the first 32 chapters of the manga over the course of its ten episodes. MOST of the major plot beats are the same, at least. But along the way, there are LOADS of scenes altered in small ways, as well as some added and some entirely deleted. And of course, once it reaches the final episode? There's a new ending and denouement so that everything stops there. They do not leave anything open for a possible future season that would adapt the remaining 22 chapters of the story — those are simply ignored.

Now yes, the anime aired while the manga was still ongoing. But... the manga was also MUCH farther along than the anime would lead you to believe — 50 chapters had already been published when the very first episode aired! So the decision to cut the manga's story off at Chapter 32 is definitely a weird one.

To briefly summarize the most common changes made to the first 32 chapters in the process of turning them into 10 anime episodes, it's like this:

The anime turns the nudity / sexual content / fanservice WAAAAAY the fuck up. Like, a simple hug in the manga becomes grinding/dry-humping in the anime. A girl in full clothing in the manga will become a girl in a very loose-hanging dress with most of her body exposed in the anime. And, look — for better or worse, Esuno is no stranger to tossing female nudity into his manga, either for some pointless fanservice or sometimes to further accentuate the horror on display. But even the most fanservice-y manga scenes are extended and expanded upon a lot in the anime.

Ton of background information that provides foundations for how things work in this world is removed. The manga often ends a chapter with an info page providing details on a supporting character's backstory or how one specific powerset works. These are the kinds of lore-dumps that are often used as screens that frame commercial breaks in a lot of major anime (Attack on Titan and My Hero Academia both have done this). In Big Order, however, the framing cards for ad breaks are just pieces of art, and no attempt is made at providing any of these additional details in any format. They're just left on the cutting-room floor, which I think definitely makes a lot of things both more shallow AND more confusing.

An example of one of these "data pages" within the manga.

THE MOST IMPORTANT CHANGE OF ALL: This one bullet could be an entire essay of me complaining ALL BY ITSELF, but I'll try to keep this brief: In the manga, a number of characters point out that Eiji and Sena aren't actually related by blood, so they theorize that maybe their relationship is somehow romantic/sexual etc.? This suggestion is always shot down by a disgusted Eiji, who will usually insult the theory/theorizer while explaining that being "family" isn't just about your blood ties — but regardless, Sena is absolutely his family, and so on, because she's always had his back. And it's sweet. They are willing to do anything to support one another, even when they see the other one headed in the wrong direction, but it's always very pure and warm-hearted and UMMMMMMMMM, the anime goes in the exact opposite fucking direction. These stepsiblings are absolutely fucking one another in the anime. I cannot and will not ever understand what drove them to do this. Whatever the reason, this is SO antithetical to the manga's point and the central relationship of the story that it does a good job ruining the anime all on its own, even without the other changes... and that's without me touching upon the ethical question of 18-year-old Eiji fucking the 13-year-old Sena. One of the weirder aspects of this ill-advised change is how this whole new subplot has NO impact on the rest of the story! The scenes of them being sexually/romantically involved contain no voice work, for one thing. But also, some of the scenes from the manga where he angrily denies his relationship with Sena being like that are still present in the anime. But I guess now they're just really aggressive lies? He literally beats up one character for suggesting he might be attracted to Sena. Which works great in the manga, but now it's like.... wtf? Also, Eiji having feelings for/involvement with Sena *never* comes up when he's dealing with his relationship with Rin or Iyo — he's still flustered by the idea of sex with anyone or being close to a cute girl, etc. It really comes across as though Asread just kinda inserted this gross shit without telling anyone outside of the animation team directly involved with the new scenes.

WHY, FUCKING WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS

Suffice it to say that for as much as I love the suspense and twists of the manga, I can't recommend its anime incarnation unless you just want to see the characters (1) in full color and (2) in motion. It makes a somewhat amusing side dish to the manga, but it's a very poor substitute.

But I'm going to get somewhat more in-depth about all the differences between the two in my next post on the subject, which will include sharing some spoilers about what happens AFTER Chapter 32 in the manga. It's a big enough task that I think it deserves its own separate writeup. And lord knows that this one is already long enough. :P

#big order #sakae esuno #manga #review #rin kurenai #eiji hoshimiya #sena hoshimiya #mirai nikki #future diary

[marveloustimestwo]

Hiya!! I love the way you write. can you do a motherly Natasha (who may be a vamp) who adores the reader( who is around 23-25) but that doesn’t stop mama nat from protecting reader and coddling them to the fullest extent. Please and thank you.

Hi! I'm so happy you like how I write! Thanks for the request!

Warnings: Yandere themes, Vampire! Nat

Nat really does strike you as a vampire, doesn't she? Like, in the supernatural world, that's definitely what she would be.

And she'd be one of the really old ones, too. One that's been around for a really long time and seen a good chunk of history play out.

But because of how long she's been alive, I don't think Natasha would want to get too attached to anyone, especially not a human.

She has a few other vampires she's friendly with. For example, her sister Yelena, as well as the vampire hybrid Bruce.

Still, Natasha tries not to make it a habit to insert herself into human life like others of her kind sometimes are fond of doing. She knows all too well how fleeting it can be, and to expose herself to that heartbreak is something she wouldn't like to experience again.

And Natasha is usually pretty good about her rule. After being alive for so long, her discipline is incredibly strong. Her self-control is something that many vampires admire and strive to achieve.

But despite her self-control and nearly a thousand years of experience, it seemed to crumble around you.

When Natasha first met you, she looked at you as just another human.

There are rarely people who stand out to her, and when someone does, Natasha is quite good at ignoring them. She can't get attached to someone whose life is only a blip compared to hers.

But she had only just moved back to a place she hadn't visited in a century or so. While she could easily move back to one of her other spacious houses in another country, at the time she hadn't felt like wasting the trip.

And oh what a mistake that was.

The longer she was around you, the more interested in you Natasha became. She tried to resist at first. She knew that she was becoming far too interested far too quickly, yet she felt unable to stop herself from being around you more.

In your eyes, Natasha felt like something else entirely. You could never quite place what it was, but she felt like she was from another time; something not quite human, but human all the same.

But the strange woman was very kind. After only just moving there yourself, Natasha seemed like a lifeboat that helped keep you afloat.

She often showed you new spots to eat or shop, and wouldn't let you pay either. She always waved you off when you tried, saying she had plenty of money to spare.

You didn't want to push, despite feeling a bit guilty. You'd seen her apartment, as well as her clothes, jewelry, and furniture. Even the way she held herself screamed that she was as rich as she said.

For Natasha, it was an absolute joy to take you to do these things.

It isn't a surprise that she took on a motherly role for you. As we've gone over, she's very old, even by vampire standards. So while you may be an adult by human standards, to Natasha, you're still a small child.

Yes, you can hold an intelligent conversation and can walk, talk, and function on your own, but Natasha can't help but feel the same fear any mother would when seeing their small child walk on their own for the first time.

(Though, she is quite a bit more paranoid and protective than the average parent.)

You're so completely human that it terrifies Natasha. You age so quickly, and she knows that it will eventually lead to your death. Not only that, but you're just so weak.

You really are a child to her considering how easily you can be hurt compared to her. Even the weakest of monsters could kill you without any effort.

So Natasha can't help but coddle you greatly even before she kidnaps you. If she could, she'd be the one to make all of your meals and provide everything for you (though it's hard to reject her offers considering how sweet she is about it. Plus, her cooking is godly with how much practice she's had.)

Sooner rather than later, Natasha will turn you into a vampire, and it will be clear as to why she felt so otherworldly.

You have no say in the matter. She can't have you aging and dying on her.

And hey, it's not that bad, she claims. Now you can keep each other company for the rest of eternity, and Natasha can mother you even more.

Considering she's the one who bit you, she is practically your mother anyway, and she'll be the one to show you the ropes of vampirism.

#yandere #yandere natasha romanoff #yandere black widow #yandere marvel #yandere mcu #yandere spooktober #spooktober 2022

[archiveoftara]

London Boy

Part 2

I found myself under a pile of bills. Utility bills, water bills, rent, things that needed to be paid but I don't even have a single penny to feed myself .

This small precious dream of mine is costing my life but I can't back out right now.

Six months ago I ran away from my toxic family, to make a living in London, to own a jewelry company but it didn't go as planned.

I banged my head on the table in frustration. What am I gonna do?

After a moment of contemplating my life, I begin to clean up the mess. Slowly picking up scattered papers when my eyes fell on an advert.

Lockwood and Co

The prestigious psychical agency requires a junior field operative and an assistant researcher. Duties will include on-site analysis of reported hauntings and the containment of same. The successful applicant will be SENSITIVE to supernatural phenomena, well-dressed, preferably female and not above fifteen years in age.

Unsuccessful applicants will include time-wasters, fraudsters and persons with criminal records. Apply in writing, together with a photograph, to 35 Portland Row, London W1.

I carefully folded the paper and rushed to my room.

33..34..ah 35. This must be place.

I check the advert again just to make sure I'm at the right place.

I fix my hair and clear my throat one more time before ringing the bell.

"Um hi-"

"Are you Arif's new girl?"

"....who's Arif?"

"Runs the corner store, usually sends someone over with donuts as you don't have any, you must be here for the interview."

I nod awkwardly. Not the best start I see

"Name?"

"Y/n y/l/n. Are you Mr. Lockwood?"

"Me? No." It seem like he is offended. "The last girl just went down but from the look of her, she won't take long."

I step inside the wide hallway, filled with artefacts, books and a chipped plant pot around the corner. This is where they keep their rapiers I guess.

"You win George. That was the last one."

"Then who's this?" The boy named George pointed at me as if I'm some alien. (and I took offense to that)

A boy with very bright, dark eyes and nice lopsided grin said "Hello, I'm Anthony Lockwood." I shook his hand and introduced myself.

"What's your talent?" Lockwood asked.

I gave a small smile "I don't have one."

For a minute I thought the time stopped. I tried to read their faces. I'm sure they're gonna kick me out.

"Well that's fine, we're looking for a researcher anyway and it doesn't need much talent, does it George?" He looked at the boy, sitting at the corner sofa.

He wiped his glasses on his t-shirt "I don't mind."

"Do you have any past experience?"

"Not really." I blushed. "But I am a fast learner, I will work hard. I really need this job."

"George will train you so don't worry." He clasped.

"This means..I got the job?"

"Yes. Welcome to Lockwood and Co"

My eyes shined like a diamond. "I'm not going to disappoint you sir, I desperately needed this job. I'll do anything, thank you so so much." I thanked them like my life depended on it and it kinda did. Lockwood and George exchanged a look (they were talking in some code word I can feel it.) It doesn't matter. I won't be here for too long.

It's been a few weeks since I've been working as a assistant researcher. We also have a new member, her name is Lucy Carlyle. She's really cool, we get along well. Lucy stays with them, they offered me accommodation, too but I refused, I still have a dream to chase.

The work is actually interesting but George makes it a bit difficult for me, he's a perfectionist. I don't blame him. I just try my best to live up to the standards. 

It's the beginning of November, the nights are chilly lately. I've just finished some papers regarding the latest case.

"We should head back it's getting late." George looks at his watch.

"Hmm?" People already left the library, it was just me and him now.

I quickly stood up but felt dizzy. I felt an arm around my waist, I felt a pair of warm brown eyes on me. His mole is cute..has he always been this cute?

"Y/n you alright?" George holds my arm.

I clear my throat "yes. perfectly fine." I quickly gathered my books and walk as fast as I could. The moment I step out of the building I was welcomed by the chilly wind hitting my face. I stood for a moment, my back against the wall. 

I feel so weird.

"Y/n, It's best we see a doctor." He frowned.

"I'm fine." 

"You wanna walk by yourself? Alright, Let's see that." George scoffed.

"Why are you so mean George Karim?" I winced.

"You're being crazy. You clearly need help." 

"George, I can manage." 

"At least let me walk you home." He insisted.

"Nope." With that I make my way home little did I know what was waiting for me.

Maybe I should've been more polite. All he wanted was to help me but I'm a big girl I can manage. It's just a little fever. I slowly made my way to the neighborhood when I felt something strange. I feel nauseas, like something rotten is near me. I felt a heaviness on my chest, something was pulling me away. Soon I felt the cold hard ground, I tried to call for help but nothing came out of my mouth that's when I heard a sound of metal drawn.

"Are you alright?" He keenly looked at me.

"What happened?" I panted. 

"You were ghostlocked. Please just let me walk you home we can argue later." He pulled me with him. 

I think my dream is gonna end before it even starts.

Hello my dear readers, first chapter is done and dusted. Excuse my crappy writing. Hope you like the chapter. Do let me know your thoughts in the comment section. I love you!!! 

Word count: 968

#fandom #lockwood and co #george cubbins #george karim x reader #george karim #35 portland row #reader x character #fanfic

[quietwingsinthesky]

(I got an error message when I tried to send this so sorry if you get this twice!) Yeah "moldy pennies" is just a really unfunny & uncreative play on mark p's name. I 100% agree with that fandom post re: separating actors from their character, & even if I didn't... Misha just didn't do a good job as casifer, & I care way more about the performance/art of television (which I know sounds silly re: late supernatural, but just because something is bad doesn't mean we can't have standards)

Yeah, overall I don't have an opinion on the spn actors beyond 'did they do well at their jobs' because it's none of my business and doesn't interest me. i'm not unaware of The Controversies, but one thing you've got to admit, mp understood the assignment. he understood the assignment better than the writers lmao. i genuinely think his performance is the saving grace of late seasons lucifer.

misha collins. i have no idea if it was the writing, the directing, or his own choices, but he is missing something. it really stands out specifically when you watch the episode where you go from nick!lucifer to casifer, there's just something off about the way he plays it. not to say 'season 5 did it better' but i will forever remember in swan song when we finally go from nick!lucifer to sam!lucifer and how eerily good the transition was. casifer is making the noises and doing the dance, but i. do not think misha collins really knew what he was doing askjdalsjd. again, not totally his fault because late seasons lucifer is a nearly unsalvageable trainwreck of bad writing, but i Do Not Like Watching Him.

#i bring up the swan song transition specifically because it's so similar. if you watch that scene you can see exactly when lucifer stops #pretending to be sam. jared's stance changes the way he talks changes everything is just. Different. #and different in way than he was in The End too! its fascinating! its like! shockingly good acting for the silly brothers drama show! #i don't think misha is a bad actor. i think he's a very good actor with a limited range. that's not a bad thing. #it's just that his range is uh. Not Lucifer. not even late seasons lucifer. #how do i put this. there is still something very genuine in how lucifer acts when played by mark that sort of? disappears? #once he's played by misha instead. it's hard to describe. someone pull up that screenshot post i think lee made about lucifer tearing up in #the cage while talking to sam. that's what i mean. there's Something going on there even when the writing is limiting him to Evil Guy Funny #sorry god im tired and im rambling but like. opinions on the guy aside. he did a good job. credit where the damn credit is due. #ask

[mirrorcatcreditcard]

There's just something I want to say that I think is important if you follow me or look at the occasional thing I post. Also, even if you don't really care about my content or the stuff I reblog to help others out, fandoms as a whole should hear this.

I think the base standard of things that shouldn't be encouraged are inc*st, p*d*philia, and r*pe. Everyone has their own things they enjoy blah blah. Understandable. My issue is that people will write or draw such things then justify it. (So sorry if you thought my issue was people creating it to begin with. This isn't the post to rant about that regardless of my opinions.) If you're into stuff that's morally unsound, put a warning tag so people can avoid it if they don't want to see it. I've seen many people not tag stuff that obviously has p*d*philia in it because of whatever reason they decided to cook up as an excuse. Also, in certain fandoms with supernatural creatures fans will justify their behaviors with "they're xxx years old" or "they're technically not blood related because of how they were created". Okay, your opinion is valid. Now tag your stuff properly so I can make sure to never see it.

Another controversial thing most don't want to hear is that I think a majority of ship debates are really stupid and shouldn't happen. Just because someone doesn't agree with you doesn't mean that you should insult them or try to cancel them. There's countless questionable ships out there. Because of toxic fans, people who ship something with a bad rep or enjoy content of that certain ship cannot openly say they enjoy it for xxx reason because they'll immediately be judged instead of heard out. It doesn't take much to trigger people in fandoms despite nothing being discussed actually being real. This is coming from a person who's reason to live is fictional characters and online friends.

To continue on the ship topic, I'd like to state that there's many different relationships between people and ships and how they add to or take from certain content. Some may actually ship the characters. Some may find the stuff interesting or useful for their own fics. Some may like the dynamic but not like the history between the characters. Some may think it would be interesting but not encourage the ship at the time. Some may not even know the characters but like reading what's put there. Don't assume everyone who consumes ship content wants the characters to be together in the canon universe.

Next topic is headcanons. There's a large difference between thinking fanfic of certain characters is nice and wanting the canon to change to fit your perception of what should happen. I've personally not had many times I wished for canon to change (unless the SML was really good), and it's caused many arguments or sharp responses aimed at me. Saying "I wish the creators did xxx" should mean just that. The verb is wish after all. But, overtime many have come to associate criticism as trying to start a hate club. I'm perfectly able to discuss canon events without bringing headcanons into the mix and saying "oh well this probably is how it was". It's not hard; I assure you.

This last part is a trouble I personally have. I love fanfic. It's amazing. People dedicated enough to write thousands of words of spends hours to draw/paint is beautiful. As a result, I end up binging series and looking up spoilers just to be able to understand the fan content. There's nothing that makes me quite as happy as opening up my favorite fanfic and enjoying what the author decided to add this time. Be it sm*t or fluff, Supernatural or Urban Fantasy, AUs or drabbles — I love what I can get. I cannot talk about certain things because some fandoms are so deeply traumatized or bothered by certain issues within the fandom. It makes me mad. I just want to discuss why these two characters would actually be good friends if xxx incident didn't happen or why we should focus more on xxx plot point because of something the author showed us; but instead, the fandom immediately puts up a ten foot wall around me. It doesn't happen too often, but I still hate not being able to discuss certain things with many other fans.

Thanks for reading all the way through, even if you don't agree with me. It means alot. I hope you have wonderful day and find some great stuff in your own fandom!

#mirr's honesty #fandom stuff #I'm tagging all the problematic things un the following: #obey me #(especially luke btw) #mha #fandom ships #spy x family #kimetsu no yaiba #genshin impact #the promised neverland #death note #queer content in media in general gets alot of arguments #marvel #dc #one piece #aot #istd if i get unto another argument about stupud shiz- #problematic troupes #honestly i'm bad at tagging #yanderes #no but fr #the amount of times #I've been shamed for liking yanderes in media #daddy issues too like why we acting like the person's at fault for having daddy issues instrad of the horrible father #bnha #moriarty the patriot #yuukoku no moriarty #jujutsu kaisen

[booksandchainmail]

Pale 2.4

One of the things I thought but didn't end up writing about the last chapter was that it felt more light-hearted than the story has been so far. Less focused on the dangers of the supernatural world, more on the potentials of magic.

I think in most stories, especially ones with young protagonists, this would be the "correct" approach. Stop worrying and planning so much, throw yourself into the new world you've been invited into and the wonders of magic.

Unfortunately for the Kennet Trio, this story is written by wildbow.

“The shitty thing about people is that they’re going to judge you by what you do, not by what you intended.  And I’ve had to deal with that a lot.  And that’s pretty usual.  But when you’re slapped with the label of being an outsider, they’re going to flip it around on you when it’s inconvenient.  They’re going to make their assumptions about what you intended.  People are going to find ways to make you the bad guy.  You don’t get the luxury of meaning well.”

Don't really have a comment on this one, just wanted to note it.

“Revising my stance and statement,” Verona said, quietly.  “I didn’t realize this bothered you this much.  I get that you think I messed up and I’m not sure why or how.  I’m listening.  What was I supposed to do?”

I like this! This is pretty similar to the kind of thing I say in similar circumstances. In general, its pretty easy to misread cues and accidentally hit a sore spot, and having a way to back down is good if you don't want people getting defensive and spiraling.

“More!  Do more!” Lucy raised her voice.  “Do you think this is fun?  No, don’t answer that.  I’ll say it different.  Do you think this is fun for me?” [...] It’s the idea that this will be it for the next however many years we’re alive and together.  Me, being the level-headed one, while the two of you fuck around.  Cleaning up messes, or worse, that one of you will do something and I’d regret it the rest of my life, that I wasn’t paying enough attention or steering you in the right directions. [...] “You said Verona was good and on the ball for one part of one conversation, but where does that leave me?  You guys get to have your fun, but what do I get?  What release or relief or casual fuckups do I get to have?  Did you think that maybe I want to cut loose, but I can’t because I have to watch over you two? 

When people have different levels of how much work needs to be put into a shared responsibility, it's easy to fall into the trap of the person who cares the most doing a lot of work, while the others mostly ignore it because it never hits the level of being a problem for them. When this refers to like household chores, I feel that generally speaking the most conscientious person should be willing to compromise on their standards, rather than hold everyone to that level.

That does not work when the shared responsibility is dangerous magic. Here, if they fuck up they could be dead or worse. Part of the reason that Avery and Verona haven't had to be worried so much about safety is because Lucy thinks of things before they could become a problem (ex putting extra conditions on awakening). And it's easy to think of that as her specialty among the group, in the same way that Verona is more focused on the mechanics of magic than the others. But safety isn't an interest for Lucy, it's a need for all of them.

“It just occurred to me,” Avery said, her back to Lucy, a bit of emotion in her voice, “that we have what?  Ten teachers?  People who’ll go over the Practice and the different places and the types of Other, and who’ll hand us gifts.  But there’s nobody really to go to for advice on this stuff.  We can’t trust any of them.”

This has basically been my take the story, so far, that even if someone's motives are benign that a) there's no way to really tell and b) benign doesn't mean their prioritizing the main characters' safety. On a related note, Lucy POV chapters are always validating for the level of paranoia I'm bringing to this story.

“She does this, when things get tough.  Sometimes it’s a positive step away.  Sometimes she forgets stuff ever happens. "

hmmm! Shutting down and stepping away isn't an ideal reaction to conflict, but not exactly uncommon or necessarily worrying. Losing the memories of it... seems a lot worse. Also a potential upside of having Avery in the group: I get where Verona's coming from of needing to process alone after a disagreement, but Lucy's not wrong that that leaves her without support.

I think Lucy is probably venting a lot of her own emotions at Avery's family, but man is it satisfying to see her not get pushed aside for once.

And there’s usually these really easy explanations I could turn to.  Could it be this?  Or are they racist?  Could it be that?  Or are they hateful, or ignorant, or that fucking pathetic? Give me this one.  One time I can be sure, and I can put it to rest.  Or give me another explanation.  Any other explanation would be better than wondering.

Not to over/misuse the term gaslighting, but this sounds like the societal/systematic equivalent, and an absolute mindfuck, especially because you'd basically never get confirmation after the fact of whether you judged something correctly or not.

“You deserve it all, because you wronged my mom!  You shattered her happiness!” she called out after him.  “You wronged my brother!”

The way this sentence feels like it should go, both in terms of flow and to play into symbolism, is that there should be a third part. But Lucy doesn't add in, "You wronged me."

Lucy went to her aunt, hugging her- clutching her and probably getting blood on her shirt, and began to sob.  When Lucy fell to her knees, her aunt dropped down with her. “Don’t tell my mom,” Lucy managed.

:(

#booksandchainmail reads pale #pale #wildbow #i read the chapter last night but didnt get a chance to finish writing this up until now #theres probably more i could say but i want to keep reading

[keptin-indy]

When the Angels Left the Old Country review

Full disclosure: I won this book in a giveaway, so I feel like I'm morally obligated to write a public review instead of just talking to people in real life about it.  You are free to view me as an unpaid shill, or a shill who has been paid with one (1) book.

A little background on my perspective: I am Jewish, but not very good at it and I have extremely strong feelings on Good Omens going back more than 20 years.  I have cosplayed Aziraphale more than once like 10 years ago.  I looked up a whole lot of Yiddish words before I realized there's a glossary in the back, so learn from my mistakes.

Overall, I enjoyed this book and was sad when it started wrapping up! If the idea of a Good Omens / Fievel: An American Tail crossover sounds like a good time to you, you will probably enjoy this book.

It's a very quick and engaging read, but I happened to start reading it right before the latest round of internet discourse on antisemitism, which made for a fairly distressing combination and a solid day of Jewish navel-gazing in the middle.

It starts a little slow, both plot-wise and genre-wise, but picks up in the second half.  By genre-wise, I mean that there were long sections of the book where I could practically forget that two-thirds of the main cast were supernatural creatures.  Yes, they talked about it, but after a short burst in the beginning, they basically don't do anything with it until the second half of the book.  Even with more going on in the latter half, this is a very low magic book, so don't expect a Good Omens level of miracles and major supernatural characters outside of the main pair.  Yes, they do exist, but this is a much smaller scale story.  This isn't a bad thing, it's just different and I want to set the correct expectations.

Also speaking of expectations, this is much more a Jewish story than it is a queer one.  Yes, there are baby lesbians and what is technically a non-binary character (though I feel that a being that doesn't have a sex to begin with is a very different, less queer thing than someone who is born into the presumption of having a sex and gender).  Now I am wholeheartedly in favor of stories where the focus is not being queer, the characters just happen to be queer people and the plot does not revolve around their identities, so this was fine.  But if you're expecting a romance focus, this doesn't really have one beyond the bog standard "at the end of the narrative, the people who seem compatible get together".  Yes, the angel and demon are devoted to each other and the story treats that as very important, but I've seen a thousand stories where the same level of devotion could be played completely platonically as well.

To quibble, there are some inconsistences, where the author forgot something they'd said earlier or else made changes during writing and didn't go back and bring some other things in line, as well as some things that aren't adequately explained in my opinion, but they didn't detract much beyond occasionally breaking me out of immersion to scratch my head and go right back to reading.  It could perhaps have used another editing pass, but it's far from a major problem.

Very mild spoilers with my opinions on the main characters below:

Little Ash: I'm going to be frank here and say I didn't hugely like Little Ash because he's the kind of character that seems designed to appeal to a certain demographic of YA reader, e.g. the nonthreatening Bad Boy, who is a Rebel with a reputation for Doing Bad Things but who never actually does any of those bad things except when they're morally justified.  If you like Loki in the Thor movies and complain about him being too mean in the Avengers, or TV show!Crowley, or any of the various YA novel love interests of the leather-pants-Draco variety, you'll probably like him much more than I did.  Of the two divine beings, he's the more fleshed out and the one who feels more like a POV character the reader is supposed to identify with, which I of course was a little irritated by.

The angel: The angel's relationship with identity is the most compelling thing in the book to me, but it is unlikely to be a popular character with people who don't view strong senses of Duty, Purpose and general lawfulness as positive, which is frankly most of tumblr.  I would have liked more emotional responses to the changes in its identity, but I guess it was also learning emotions so maybe I shouldn't expect that of it yet.  While becoming more yourself is a good thing, not all parts of the experience are positive at the time, and when it encounters some of these parts, the angel mostly shrugs about it and moves on instead of mourning the loss of what it used to be.  It's a very sanitized transition.

Rose: I like her, as the sort of too-sensible girl you find in middle grade fiction, which I have utmost respect for.  She felt realistically like a young person who did not know what she was about but was convinced she definitely knew what she was about, which is just how being a teenager is.

I wanted there to be more Grandmother Rivke.  This is my biggest complaint.  She was great.

#When the Angels Left the Old Country #livejournal replacement

[marinsawakening]

Someone tried to argue that fanfiction is better because it has more tropes?? That...sure is a take lol. What are ur thoughts about the whole fanfiction vs published book discourse (just curious about ur thoughts) have a good day :)

Okay TECHNICALLY the post argued that fanfic was inherently better than published fic because it used tropes better, but the way the post was phrased made it abundantly obvious that they didn't understand that a story is not supposed to persist solely on its tropes. I am not digging that post up to screenshot it so you're just gonna have to take me on my word when I say that was perhaps the worst take I've ever seen in regards to fiction.

And THANK YOU for asking I love giving my opinions on fiction because I always have them and I have a lot of them!

The TL;DR on the fanfiction vs published book discourse is essentially that comparing fanfic and professionally published novels is like comparing apples and oranges. They have a different audience and fill a different niche. That said professionally published novels objectively have a higher baseline level of quality than fanfic and pretending otherwise is ridiculous. I also went on a bit of a tangent on how the lack of barrier to publishing in fanfic does not lead to inherently more progressive fiction and, in fact, often leads to the opposite.

Note that in this discussion I'll assume professional publishing by a publishing house (that's not a vanity press). Anyway full post under the cut because this is gonna get really really long.

The comparison between fanfiction and published fiction, and the debate arguing which is better than the other, has always been strange to me, for a lot of reasons. The two primary ones are that fanfiction is written for different reasons than published fiction, and the fact that published fiction just. Obviously has a higher baseline level of quality.

It's certainly true that fanfiction can be as good as, or even better than many published novels. I've read quite a few fanfics that I would consider to be better than some of the novels I've read, or even better than a lot of them. But, fundamentally, publishing has one thing fanfic does not, and that is quality control.

When you submit a manuscript to a publishing house, there are several factors determining whether it will be published, some of which have nothing to do with quality (marketability, most prominently), but manuscripts very much are checked for quality, as well. If you submit an unedited first draft riddled with typos, missing scenes, with horrendous pacing and a confusing plot, even if it's the most marketable thing in the world, it likely won't be picked up. And if a manuscript is picked up, it goes through at least one editor to iron out the grammar and spelling mistakes, and ensure that the writing is up to the standards of publication. So when you pick up a random book in the library, it's pretty much guaranteed to have passable grammar and be basically readable, even if the actual story/prose is trash.

This is not the case for fanfic. Fanfic can be published by anyone, basically anywhere. The most used fanfic site, AO3, explicitly and deliberately takes all kinds of fanfic, with no regard for content, grammar, etc. This means that fanfic, by nature, has no quality control. On AO3, you are free to publish a 300 word fic that's essentially one giant keysmash with the sentence 'and then Dean and Castiel kissed' at the end, and that'll receive a spot on the site just the same as the meticulously researched 50k exploration of divinity through Supernatural character Castiel. If you pick a random fanfic on AO3, there's a very good chance the grammar won't even hold up, let alone the story.

For the record, I am not arguing for quality control for fanfic. That defeats the entire point of fanfic. Fanfic is for fans of a work to expand on said work of fiction. Whether that is an exploration of a work's worldbuilding or a 2k smut fic about the main characters who are not canonically in a relationship, it is fundamentally about a desire to expand on an existing work of fiction. Fanfic, at its core, is about playing with an existing work of fiction. And the primary goal of the vast majority of fanfic is to be fun, for both the writer and the reader. Whether that fun comes from breaking a character's bones or writing a fluffy sleepover fic is irrelevant; the goal is the same.

Published fiction is different. 'Published fiction' as a whole has no defined purpose. There are many different genres within the umbrella of 'published fiction', each with a different purpose. For example, the purpose of most romance novels, like fanfic, is to entertain. But the purpose of re-publishing old literary classics is to provide cultural education. A novel can be written and published purely to make money, or it can be written because the writer had an important message to say. 'Published fiction' as an umbrella is so diverse it makes almost no sense to even make it an umbrella.

But for the publishing house, there is one major goal: to make money. And if you want to make money, you need to deliver a decent product. If you publish an unedited, typo-ridden manuscript, the New York Times won't take very kindly to that, lmao. Obviously, quality of books varies, and the quality of books published by different publishing houses varies also, but if we, the public, do not feel like a product is worth our money, we won't pay for it. So they need to have a baseline level of quality to justify asking money for it.

People read published novels and fanfic for different reasons. Although many people will complain about fanfic's general lack of quality, you don't go onto AO3 in search of a literary masterpiece that will reshape your thinking, or to intellectually stimulate yourself, or whatever. You go onto AO3 because you saw a new show and want to read about the main characters kissing, or because you desperately want a fix-it for that book's ending, or because you want to explore the deeper lore of a game the way the game itself couldn't. If a fanfic is good, then great! But if it's got some grammar issues, or the pacing isn't great, or the writing is mediocre at best, or the plotting is weak, it doesn't matter too much, because ultimately, that's not what you're here for.

'Published fiction' is too wide of an umbrella to say 'this is why people read published fiction'. But published fiction is, inherently, original content. Plagiarism is a crime, after all. So when you pick up a book, the plotting, the prose, the grammar, and the pacing all matter. Maybe they don't matter equally for every book type; a romance novel can get away with weak plotting more than a thriller can, for example. But you read a novel to find a new story. You read fanfic to find an expansion. And the original story can cut a lot less corners than the expansion can.

That's why the 'is fanfic better than published fiction' debate is fundamentally useless to me. Published novels have different standards to live up to and different demands to fill than fanfic does. Fanfic serves a different purpose than published novels. It fills a different niche. Comparing the genre of fanfic to the entire concept of professionally published fiction is honestly kind of ridiculous.

It's also why people who swear to lord and above fanfic is of better quality than published novels tend to sound so out of touch. In the post I mentioned at the top, the poster argued that fanfic is better due to a more creative use of tropes. It mentioned helping to clean out their mother's romance novels and listening to her describe the plot of them, and 'seeing glimpses of tropes', but remembering actually reading the books, and not having the tropes come out. They pointed to fanfic, saying that since fanfic has done every trope and done them to death, fanfic authors have a much better grasp of the way tropes work, and can get to the heart of what makes them enjoyable, and play with them.

But what this point of view fundamentally overlooks is that people don't read books for the tropes. Sure, every book has tropes, that's just kind of how stories work, but they are rarely the main draw, and if your story has nothing to offer but tropes, even tropes used in a creative way, that's a bad novel. Enemies to lovers may be an element of a book, but the novel isn't about enemies to lovers; it's about war and the philosophical implications of it. Found family may feature in a book, but at its core, it may be a horror story about cannibalism. Even books that rely on deconstructing tropes should have more to offer than just that; if your 'love at first sight' deconstruction does nothing more than say 'love at first sight isn't real', then that's a shitty fucking novel you got there, buddy.

But people do read fanfic for the tropes. People will specifically search AO3 for a particular trope, to scratch a particular itch of theirs. Tropes are like, one of the primary appeals of fanfiction. So yeah, if that's what you're looking for, fanfic allows you to mainline it in a way that your mom's romance novels won't. But critiquing your mom's romance novels for not mainlining tropes into your body is absolutely ridiculous.

That's just an example, but it's a pretty consistent reoccurence with critiques of published fiction coming from fandoms. Other examples include the insistence of some people that 'tagging' books with AO3-like tags would not only be possible for the majority of the publishing industry, but also actively improve the reading experience. This concept is obviously absurd and would get you laughed out of a literature major, but for people who prefer fanfic, it makes sense, because they don't want to be surprised by the books they read. They want to stay in safe bubble of similar experiences. And like, I'm not judging them, not everyone is required to like reading novels. But 'summaries on the backs of books don't describe every single aspect of a book' is simply not a valid critique of publishing.

Another major argument I've seen in favor of fanfic is that it's more diverse. This is honestly laughable. Yes, there's more queer relationships in fanfic than in publishing, technically. But when you look at what 'queer' relationships there actually are in fanfic, you'll find that 99% of it is m/m relationships written by people who aren't mlm themselves. Sure, if that's what you're looking for, you'll have an easier time finding it. But fanfic is not better at providing representations for disability, racial and/or ethnic minorities, female characters, or even trans characters or f/f relationships than published novels are. You will also have a much easier time finding novels with m/m relationships written by mlm in professional publishing than you will on AO3, lmao.

It is true that fanfic can get away with being queerer than much published fiction, because to this day, queerness isn't seen as very marketable. Fanfic doesn't have to be marketable to be published, and therefor, can get away with a lot more than published fiction ever will. (This is also the case for self-published novels, which is why many queer writers choose to go that route. It's also why I consider self-publishing to be rather similar to fanfic in some aspects; it has no quality control, and sometimes that's a good thing.)

But a) the fact that it can get away with being queerer doesn't mean it's actually materially better at representing minorities. Men who love men have been arguing against their fetishization in fandom spaces for years, and people of colour (in particular woman of colour) have also been arguing against the overwhelming amounts of racism in fandom for years. Anyone with a disability (that isn't autism or ADHD I guess, but even those disabilities still face issues of representation) can tell you that AO3 is not a safe space for them (shout out to that time I went through the entire psychosis tag on AO3 and found like, maybe two dozen passable fics out of hundreds if not thousands available). F/f ships have been underrepresented in fandom for years, and female characters are consistently ignored, a type of sexism that has also been frequently talked about. Fandom faces much the same problems as professional publishing when it comes to racism, sexism, queerphobia, and ableism; the only difference is the face it takes, sometimes. People's bigotry doesn't stop existing the moment they log onto AO3, and just because they are allowed to post more diverse fiction, doesn't mean they necessarily will.

And b) AO3's complete lack of standards has also lead to a truly disproportionate amount of content romanticizing pedophilia, incest, and other forms of abuse. When you give people the ability to post whatever they want, turns out, they'll also use it for evil. Publishing absolutely has issues with romanticizing abuse/pedophilia/incest, but I have yet to come across a professionally published book in the library that has a child and an adult starring in a main romance as shamelessly as this happens on AO3. Say what you will about Lolita, but Humbert Humbert is not supposed to be the good guy the way, say, Reigen Arataka is in a Mob/Reigen fic.

An ability to publish whatever you want, without some outside force deciding whether it's marketable or 'good' enough, is a great thing that is just as easily a horrible thing. Ignoring the very real, consistent problems this brings for fanfic to complain about published fiction's lack of gayness is a great way to make an ass out of yourself.

Fundamentally, published fiction and fanfic are both morally neutral. While I do think that from a literary standard published fiction pretty undeniably has a higher baseline level of quality, there are reasons to prefer fanfic over it regardless. And it's not bad to prefer fanfic over published fiction! They fill different niches, and if you belong to one but not the other, that's understandable. But pretending that fanfiction doesn't have equal or more problems than published fiction is shortsighted and ignorant at best.

Also if I hear another person say that fanfic is better because it's written from a place of love and care whereas all professional publishing only cares about money I will commit a crime.

Anyway this is super rambly and not terribly coherent or pursuasive bc I'm tired but yeah. @ people who think fanfic is inherently better than published fiction: read a better book.

#my posts #writing wise #asks

[supernaturalworldsofsecondlife]

Unnatural is Anything But. (Part 1! MAGIC!)

I didn't want this one to be the first one I reviewed, but that was one of the first ones I visited when I got off of my hiatus from 2021. While it's become the titan of the urban supernatural community, it left me feeling unimpressed overall. Given that it's the largest, this is going to be broken up into parts because there's just a lot to unpack here. If you want a synopsis, feel free to check their website. Anyway, since I tend to roll casters/mages/witches, I started thumbing through the Phral's section of the site and Discord. While the documentation of the different abilities for Inherent and Learned abilities is detailed, but it lacks the proper care when it comes to truly emulating various magical systems -- both in tabletop and in actual IRL practice. However when you mix the two? Nooooot a good idea. Example time! Ofisa is your basic 'seer'/fortune telling paradigm, but the term is loosely associated with Romani fortune telling booths. More than that, they don't really associate the Romani culture with it or the other terms they use (Armaya, Drabarni, etc). In fact, there's times when terms are even used incorrectly. When I seen white women using West African cultural practices, that was when I started looking for other sims. Cultural appropriation isn't okay -- not for players, and certainly not for staff. There was also the issue of just broadly stereotyping correspondences of magical practice right down to the workings of the moon, which unfortunately writes them into a box that chokes creativity. In their lore, full moons tends to beckon the Phral to gather at their spot (Esbats). Yet Doreen Valiente, especially in regards to witches, the full moon is a "frenetic celebration" where covens can draw down the moon or call on lunar goddesses, among some other things. While there's magical workings here, it's not always powerful workings. Many witches leave that to the new moon to get into the darker aspects of witchcraft; things like shadow work, banishing, and sometimes even cursing. The new moon represents things that are "associated with the hidden arts as well as shadow". And this is freely accessible information at your fingertips. Doreen Valiente established the full and new moon esbats, along with others. Which brings me to their terminology on covens. • Circles; local phral (witch) communities • Covens; standard coven group, though they don't give a number • "Sabbats"; a group of people who are 'bound' by a blood ritual that have an oath, etc. for the special connections of 'feeling each other's feelings' and tends to be a detriment to others involved when a bond is broken. Sabbats is used incorrectly here. "My sim, my lore" doesn't work as what they just described is literally how covens are generally ran. "Circles" are generally for those that are hesitant in joining a group, but want to meet and socialize with other practitioners. Sabbats in witchcraft are eight holidays that are all part of the 'annual cycle of seasonal festivals' known as the Wheel of the Year. I get that they're trying to use fancy words and purple prose to entice roleplayers, but it's counter-productive and honestly comes off as insensitive toward people who actually practice. For those that say, "Oh, it's not that bad", did you read the part about the cultural appropriation? If they were willing to do that with cultures, this is utter child's play. While it's not appropriation, it is mildly annoying that this is the best they could come up with. Why not just use the actual terms? Work smarter, not harder.

#secondlife #secondlife roleplay #urban supernatural #unnatural

[thetruthbetween]

Wrote this almost a year ago (February) on discord and started thinking about it today so figured I'd post it. This isn't really a fic, it's more like a description of a fic. One day I'd like to truly write it, but since that hasn't happened yet, I figure I might as well post my ramblings instead of continuing to sit on 'em so as to not spoil anything LOL

s13 AU, Mary/Mary selfcest (canon Mary and apocalypse AU Mary), omegaverse

*

So throwback to that time SPN made #AlphaMary an official show hashtag and put out a Women of SPN calendar with pics and motivational comments and hers was "be your own alpha" and anyway, now I'm planning out a fic where AU Mary Campbell was still alive when Mary went to the AU and Mary Campbell is an alpha and Mary Winchester is an omega and Mary is her own alpha

Mary Campbell is also a lot more… outwardly queer LOL Like she's kinda butch? But like as a defense mechanism to keep people away. Be rough and rude and nobody gets too close. So like her hair's short (cuz long hair's a bitch in an apocalypse) and grey and she's got frown lines, and she's a good person and all, but she's just kinda mean about it. And Mary Winchester, of course, much softer, much nicer. Less trauma (which is saying something considering she burned to death but y'know. It's Supernatural LOL), or at least different trauma. She doesn't have that level of old trauma that Mary Campbell does.

Thinking about apocalypse AU alpha!Mary and standard canon omega!Mary selfcest again. Where Mary knows about the cupid mark and got hers removed, and Mary Campbell is all angsty over losing John like 45 years ago, so Mary tells her about the cupid mark and she's pissed because angels are murdering all the humans they can and that's bad enough, but this was personal and it effectively ruined her life. So Jack removes her cupid mark, and suddenly she's like, unblocked. Like she can suddenly feel again. The crippling emotional pain is gone. She smiles like for the first time that she can remember.

And like, I already had this headcanon that alpha!Mary called omega!Mary "sunshine" kinda mockingly, cuz she's so much happier of a person. (Specifically she and Bobby were having a drink and watching omega!Mary talking to a few people, laughing and joking around, and Bobby asked alpha!Mary what she thought of her, and she was like "<wry smile, slight eyeroll> she's a ray of fuckin' sunshine" and just started calling her that, cuz it was weird to call her Mary and it hurt to call her Winchester, so she starts calling her Sunshine. Then after the cupid mark is removed, calling her that actually becomes sincere, because she brought light back into her life.

Interestingly, after getting the mark removed, alpha!Mary starts noticing people's scents more. Like, she'd smell them before, but they didn't appeal to her. She'd go into rut, but couldn't be bothered to seek out an omega. (It was a function of the mark to cloud her pheromone receptors, because John was a beta and the angels couldn't have this alpha who was supposed to carry the vessels for the apocalypse get distracted by a nice-smelling omega.) But now that the mark's removed, there's so many omegas and they all smell so good. And it weirds her out, so she avoids them -- except omega!Mary. She smells good, too, but alpha!Mary doesn't really think to avoid her because 1) they're the same person, so it doesn't even occur to her that she could find her attractive, and 2) she wants to know more about her, to know what her life would've been like, if she'd taken the demon deal, what the world would've been like if she'd taken the deal.

So they pair up on patrols, they bunk together, eat together. It basically turns into A Thing around camp, if you're looking for Mary, just keep an eye out for Mary. And one day they're getting ready to sleep, and it's gotten a little colder, so they huddle up a little, and alpha!Mary makes this off-handed comment like "y'know, you really do smell good. It's distracting as hell sometimes" and omega!Mary is just like "oh thank god, I thought it was just me, but you smell good, too. Nice to know I would've been a nice-smelling alpha if the angels hadn't changed my dynamic" (oh yeah, part of the headcanon is that it was literally just the difference between alpha and omega that made Mary take the deal -- since she passed it up as an alpha, the angels changed her to omega in the main timeline, and that's why she took it)

And they're a little shy and like, "is this weird? it feels like it should be weird, but it doesn't actually feel weird" and they start scenting each other a little. Just like as a soothing/calming thing. At first it's just at night, when they're doing to sleep. But then one day there's an attack, and they fight off the angels and all that, but they get separated during the fight, and afterward, when they find each other again, they scent each other. (There's a few people from the camp like "uh wut?" at them about it, but they don't notice)

The nights get colder, they're snuggled closer. And man, when you're touch-starved after 44 years pining for a dead man you didn't know you never actually loved, not allowing anyone to get close… those snuggles feel awful good. And even for omega!Mary, y'know, she's only like a year and a half out from a decade of sleeping next to someone. It's nice, it's comforting, to have arms wrapped around her again as she sleeps, to wake up in the cold morning air all nice and toasty from the body along her back and if there's a morning erection against her ass, well, she's used to that, too, and neither of them mention it, although they both blushed like crazy the first time it happened

One morning, omega!Mary wakes up to find alpha!Mary looking at her intently, then she starts lightly tracing over her features. Says something like "I don't think I ever looked like you. I've been an angry mess since I was 18. Pretty sure I already had scowl lines when I was 30" And omega!Mary smiles up at her and says something cheesy like "you've still got time to make some smile lines" and alpha!Mary says something cheesier like "it's easier to smile with you around" and maybe they realize that they're basically flirting, that these are words and tones best used with mates or potential mates. And the moment draws out, a guitar string pulled tight, waiting to be plucked, and they don't know if the sound it makes will be in tune or not. And then alpha!Mary blinks, and omega!Mary rolls away and they get up and pretend nothing happened.

Later they're on patrol, and they keep sneaking looks at each other, keep remembering being a teenager in love -- not with John, they're remembering someone else, with soft hands and softer lips and the waxy taste of pink lipstick. They break for lunch, rations carried with them, and eat in silence. When they're done, as they're getting up from the rock or stump or log they'd found to sit on, omega!Mary steps close and scents alpha!Mary. She's done that before, it's no big deal. Except this time it's not just the tip of her nose brushing up the bare neck, her lips graze, too. Not a kiss, just a touch, a hint. Open lips pulling in the taste of alpha on the air. She pulls back, their eyes meet.

And it's not unbridled passion. One would think it would be, right? When everything's built up to the breaking point, when they tip past the boundaries. But it's not. It's alpha!Mary gently cradling omega!Mary's face in her callused hands. It's a soft brush of lips together, slow and light, but not tentative. How could she be tentative when she's so sure? It's a melting of their bodies together, candles in the sun. One became two becomes one.

After the kiss, after several kisses, of varying degrees of passion, alpha!Mary presses her face against omega!Mary's neck, nips sharp-edged teeth against the faded scar John's beta teeth had ripped into Mary's scent gland. And omega!Mary tilts her head, supplicating, says "please, Alpha" and it's the first time she's called her alpha, the first time they've really even acknowledged their dynamics beyond "weird that we're different" and who could possibly resist that? A beautiful omega who's never had an alpha, who's never truly been mated, offering herself as a mate.

They're mated before they even have sex. Hell, with the lack of privacy in camp, they don't really expect to be able to have sex, at least not until heat or rut forces the issue. (They want to, tho. And when they wrap up together for warmth in their little nook, their scents turn aroused, their hands wander for the first time, and alpha!Mary kisses her new mate into silence before sucking the slick from her fingers)

Sam and Dean show up, and isn't that a bitch and a mindfuck to explain to them.

When everyone's back at the bunker, suddenly there's privacy, Mary has her own room, and just in time, too, because she's starting to feel rather warm, and her scent is starting to deepen, to sweeten, the other alphas starting to look at her, making her alpha rather grumpy. So they retreat to the room and lock the door and don't come out for days. Omega!Mary goes through her first heat with an alpha. Alpha!Mary is triggered into rut by a mate's heat for the first time.

And the two that became one becomes three.

*

And, because I'm fairly certain that I'm not gonna end up using this bit if/when I ever do get around to truly writing this, here, have the only lines I've actually written, cuz I like them a lot even tho I don't think they'd end up fitting LOL

She was dead for 33 years; they're 33 years apart in age. But it doesn't matter, because Mary Campbell is someone Mary Winchester never knew, and something about her slithers down her spine to curl between her thighs.

It should be like looking into a mirror, but Mary Campbell is nothing like her with her grey hair cut short and permanent frown lines carved into her face, a far cry from Mary Winchester's blonde curls that dance around her shoulders, the hint of smile lines just beginning at the corners of her eyes and mouth.

#mary winchester #mary campbell #supernatural #spn #selfcest #omegaverse #Nic writes #kinda #I had a lot of feelings

[adrunkgiraffe]

I have been through this journey before, so I get to be actually frustrated about it.

IUnder a read more because im not subjecting y’all to this. Also: I should caveat I haven’t watched the episode cause I’m waiting till its on Netflix but I have watched way too many other episodes of Supernatural so I have a right to say these things. 

TL;DR: I mean you all knew Cas’ confession was fucking bullshit and that SPN is...hm. But I’d like to actually express my genuine frustration, for a moment? I’m going to say things you already know, but I have too much knowledge of this show and too much stupid meta in my brain about a series I haven’t genuinely enjoyed for at least 5 years which makes this not just blandly bad but disgustingly insulting to me not even as a gay just as like. A writer?

Or, even shorter: Cas’ confession is just a Charlie Bradbury Speedrun 

So. As some of you may know if, for some reason, you followed me back in 2013 (and till...okay fine 2015), I used to be, uh. Really into SPN. Really, I was into Destiel. Like, as in, I slogged through seasons 1-3 to get to Cas and am also really vulnerable to the Sunk Cost Fallacy and projecting onto characters. (I was in 8th grade in 2013, okay? Get off my back)

Also, because I monopolised use of the TV, I kind of...also got my parents into it? In a “this is silly but fun” kind of way.

Over time, critiques of the show from viewers, learning what queerbaiting is at all, fatigue with how long it was going, and also fatigue from how characters I enjoyed, like Rufus, or Crowley, or Ellen, or Jo, or Kevin, or Charlie, or Cas a few times, kept getting killed off. As time went on, it didn’t escape my notice that, aside from Cas, all of these characters fit one or more of the following criteria:

They were a woman

They were a person of color

Were Queer or Queer-coded in some way (listen Crowley was bad rep but at least Mark Sheppard actually kissed a man on screen)

I also just...generally got tired of the way the show treats women and sidelines people of color. 

The final straw really came with Charlie’s death. It got us all excited, because she hadn’t been back in a bit! And it was interesting to see how reuniting with her dark side from Oz had changed her! (yeah remember the fucking Wizard of Oz storyline? The writers sure don’t!) And maybe she’d get developed! Because at this point, Charlie and the fairly good writing of her character was a major upside for the series! Charlie was cool, fun, gay, and morally complex in a way...none of the female characters had been before her, in large part because by definition, her relationship with the boys would always be platonic.

And then. Offscreen. She is violently murdered. For no damn good reason. Like, literally, her being brought back in this episode after fucking off to europe after having returned from fucking off to Oz seems to have filled two purposes in total. 

The codex is solved (but Sam doesn’t know till next episode)

Charlie is dead, which means Dean can be angry, specifically at Sam, and kill more people because he’s the big bad this season. 

That’s it. Two things. Twooooo whole reasons to do this episode. Whoopee. 

But you didn’t come here for this, you came here for me to rip this reveal to shreds. Don’t worry, I’ll get there. What I want in your minds is that Supernatural already had a really good anddynamic queer character. And then they killed her off to make Dean angry. No, it doesn’t matter that they brought her back in season 13 or whatever. They made that decision. 

After the rage this incited, I started realizing general flaws in the writing (I had probably already noticed them but now I was angry enough to complain.) Every conflict is born of Sam and Dean not communicating/taking on burdens and Dean being angry at Cas for reasons that ranged from good to ridiculous, but in a way that always went way too fucking long, (which...yes, does make the “you do it for love” gifs fucking hilarious). It didn’t help that seasons 11 and 12 were next, which meant Demon Dean and GOD’S FUCKING SISTER, plus the decision to resurrect Mary, which, while I do like her later scenes, as a season 12 finale it...well I’ll be honest it kinda sucked. It undercut the majority of the Winchester’s’ arcs and their slow and painful journey out of their father’s toxic vengeance quest and knowing Mary as a person when it’s too late to know her was one of the last semi-compelling grounders of the narrative. 

By this point it was a hate-watch for my parents and I.

So then, I’m at college, and I’m not watching anymore cause I don’t have the motivation or access to Hulu to continue, and SPN is bad. I watch the Scooby Doo crossover when it comes out and my friend and I make fun of it, and we also continue making jokes about Dean and Cas and queerbaiting because we’re queer, but I don’t keep up. My Dad does though, so when I return, I watch some with the fam and lads. It’s even more tiring without context. 

So flash forward to Quarantine, my sister, the only one with taste, has left, and we have run out of netflix to watch. So we return to the well, and seasons 13-14 are. I’m gonna say it. Bad. Really fucking bad. The cycle of bad communication continues, season 14 has like seven antagonists and the way it’s structured makes it so I literally cannot remember the timeline of a season I watched 3 months ago. Oh also, they have a queer coded cannibal snake monster for...well I guess Jack’s snake bud was cool but like. Huh wow it’s almost like these writers don’t handle queers well. 

Our one saving grace is Cas, but he’s barely in any episodes, though I did note that his deal with the empty, being happy completely for one moment killing him, that struck me as “this has potential and I know they’re gonna half-ass it somehow.” Also Jack and Mary, but then oh...plot….The most compelling it gets is literally the finale.

But then, 3 days later, the first half of season 15 comes out on Netflix and it’s...actually kind of acceptable. The new character they give Jack’s actor is fun to watch him play until they make him evil. Exploring just how toxic Chuck can be gave the series direction again. The alternate future was genuinely scarring, and Eileen’s return was genuinely moving. Most of all, though, Cas got the opportunity to tell Dean no, that Dean was being unfair to him, had always been unfair to him, and he was sick of it. I had no illusions, I knew Destiel was never gonna happen, and Cas was gonna die, but giving him that bit of agency, letting Cas grow and be self-sufficient, and be angry with Dean not for existential reasons but interpersonal ones, was such a good sign for me, and Dean grew too! Dean fucking apologized for being horrible and Jensen Ackles had a...yknow what, ill give it to him, he had a good acting moment. 

But the thing. About. The “I love you.” 

Let’s take it in parts.

What was good: I’m gonna admit it, lads, “Wanting what I can’t have” - AS A LINE - is good, and, structurally, there is something to the Empty Deal that could have been an interesting aspect of Cas’ arc when it comes to self actualization and being on even footing with Dean. The problem is, this is Supernatural, and that arc only comes up when I bring it up because character study, even in bad media, is fun for me. 

What was bad:

I mean. Like. All of it? All of it. 

Okay. Fine. I’ll be specific. 

Cas dies immediately when - possibly because- he is revealed as having feelings for Dean. They kill him as they queer him, that’s a Bury Your Gays Speedrun right there.

Like the least they could have done is have him mention it to someone in another scene or something to establish some romantic feelings on the part of canon a full episode beforehand. That would have been the literal bare minimum. 

When Cas starts praising Dean, for some reason both the writing and Misha’s acting take a bit of a downswing (from...where it already was). Cas, whose most powerful moment this season was acknowledging that Dean’s anger at him is cruel and unfair, flatly praises him for doing everything out of love and it reads with a misunderstanding of both Dean as a character and Cas’ understanding of Dean. Dean is angry! VERY ANGRY! And it’s a problem he needs to work on and rarely does. 

Talking out of my ass, a better speech would have been about how Dean is angry because of his love for Sam, family, and the people around him, how, for better or for worse, he can’t help but be angry on behalf of others, and that his journey of moving that tendency towards the better is what made Cas care so much. Guys this alteration to the metaphor took 2 minutes to write tops I am an Art History student and these are TV WRITERS WITH YEARS OF EXPERIENCE CAN YOU TELL THEYRE NOT TRYING YET? 

A better speech would, of course, have come out of a better series. My point: this part was half-assed. Poorly written. Wow it’s almost like the series is also poorly written. 

 Also, Misha is the better actor of the three(***OF THE THREE), but his choices in that scene are jarringly out of character which. Makes the bad writing worse. It doesn’t help that they cut to the same fucking shot of Dean 3 times. The chemistry in that scene makes it feel so fucking hackneyed. Because it is. 

This combines lead me to the point: (wait there was a point to this?)

As someone who does not have the luxury of watching this capsized ship fall into boiling seas from a distance, it is less insulting to me that they did this so last minute and then sent Cas to the Void than it is how they did it. They had ingredients for something that could have been compelling enough to me as a former fan of the show to think that they had put effort into it, that they had decided months, perhaps even years ago to do this, and had crafted a storyline around it. That this was an intentional decision they cared about. It wasn’t. It was barely even pandering, because it’s almost insultingly blatant. 

SPN kinda proved to me that it didn’t care about queers when Charlie was killed off. It proved it to me again when Cas, not only died in confessing his love for Dean but did it in the weakest result of what could have been a surprisingly strong story.

#destiel #i don't fucking care im tagging it #bury your gays #queerbaiting #homophobia #also: i should say there are a lot of moments where i refer to aspects of the writing as good #this either means i was 14 when I watched it #or #it's something that i find compelling #that #IN ANOTHER SHOW #OR IN A HYPOTHETICAL WHERE THE WRITING ISNT LADEN WITH HOMOPHOBIA #could be fun to explore #like there are these structural motifs #and themes #which could have made the show good #could have made that confession...passable #but they didn't even write it well by supernatural standards #is my point #My other point is i get to actually be mad about this because I actually watched and put emotional energy towards this show #i shouldnt have but i did #so now I get to write about it #and if you reply we been knew to this post #youre correct #but also #wow do you maybe think I was already aware of that?