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veliseraptor · 5 months

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AU scenario: xue yang survives getting disarmed (hah) by lan wangji after the yi city arc! what happens next 👀

i have actually written two versions of this one! one in novelverse where Su She manages to sweep Xue Yang away (my god, I keep mentioning this one lately, but nurture the tiger) and one in cqlverse where Song Lan makes the deliberately contrary choice to leave Xue Yang alive (Walking Far From Home)

this is a rough one though!! because I want things to end better for Xue Yang but they don't look great for him at this point in time unless somehow you bring Xiao Xingchen back to life. though okay let's see what I've got here. going with novelverse for this one and at least starting with the nurture the tiger premise

so Su She manages to bring a half-dead Xue Yang away from Yi City, half-dead and an absolute wreck having lost his last ditch hope of getting Xiao Xingchen back. somehow (Xue Yang's nearly inhuman endurance) he manages to stick him back together

(since Jin Guangyao is busy, probably this is just a Su She effort; they need all the allies they can get with the way things are going, he thinks, even if this particular ally is not going to be very useful, but still. maybe Su She's a little attached, though I don't think he'd be very inclined to admit it. Xue Yang grows on you. like a fungus.)

howmever, he's got other things to do, so he does have to leave Xue Yang on his own once he's (more or less, barely) stable. and then everything goes to shit, leaving Xue Yang entirely on his own because everyone else is dead.

this becomes clear to Xue Yang (that nobody's coming back for him, anyway, though he may or may not realize that's because they're dead and just assume he's been given up for lost and not worth killing personally. dick) and he reaches out to the only option he has left, which is to say his fierce corpse masterpiece (with whom he still has at least a distant connection, as his former master, even without the nails he can at least try to summon him), figuring that at least he can die with...if not grace then a little faster than of infection, and hey, Song Lan was kind of sort of his fierce corpse best friend for a while there

anyway, Song Lan (who has nothing better to do except be miserable right now) shows up, decides to leave Xue Yang alive because he's too pathetic to kill at this point and also because Song Lan doesn't have any other (living) friends and is incredibly lonely and at least here's the only other person who understands the grief he's feeling, even if that's the last thing that Song Lan wants to admit

eventually once Xue Yang is better (ish) they leave and go off journeying together in the weirdest most miserable duo road trip ever. Song Lan is continually like "good night, I may kill you tomorrow" to which Xue Yang is like "okay, that's chill" but it gets almost comfortable

shared grief bonding!!! Song Lan is just waiting for Xiao Xingchen to heal while trying to maintain the work that they (would have done) were doing together before everything fell apart. Xue Yang is like "saving people is boring but not like I have anything better to do at this point ¯\_(ツ)_/¯"

I have no idea where this goes. but I like the idea of it just kind of continuing until eventually Xue Yang does die and it's bittersweet in the end and it's kind of like. everyone's dead now. including Song Lan. he's just ambulatory about it.

anyway this whole thing would be really fucking angsty and all about grief and mourning and I'd probably cry writing 90% of it

#conversating #thatswhatsushesaid #song lan #xue yang #i had a tag for this meme at some point #lise memes #aggressively headcanons #five headcanons meme #that's what it was i think #the sad queer cultivators show

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hausofmamadas · 28 days

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MURDER HUSBANDS | Wind them up and watch them go (love letter to NBC’s Hannibal)

♫ To the tune of Climbing Up the Walls by Radiohead (with overture by Bruno Battisti D’Amario) ♫

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Wow

So I feel like I say this every time. But Mary mother of god, this was a behemoth. By a mile the hardest vid I’ve ever made joke’s on me bc I’m the fucking crackerjack who decided to tack on an whole ass other song as an overture bc why in the name of all cocks would I decide to make anything easy like it’s funny bc I always have an impression of how easy a vid is going to come together when I get the idea, right. And this duo with this song just pbj. So ngl I thought the shit was gonna edit itself. But guess what yall? Radiohead like … makes some intricate, complex-sounding shit stunning revelation, almost as if that’s what they’re fuckinfjsbs known for

HOWMEVER, the day has come, it’s arrived and I’ve looked at this thing for so long now, I sincerely, from the bottom of my heart, cannot tell if it’s good anymore. My last vid, I took a long break so by the end, I had enough time away from it to remember it was at least good. This? This could be visual gobbledygook, mush for your eyes, the equivalent of that shit brown shade you get when you mix too many water colors together.

But likehopefully it’s not and you can pls enjoy this love letter to one of the greatestqueer romances in modern media, which is a bold statement whatever fight me but I can’t think of a queer ship before this in tv/movies where the romance unfolds like any other hetero relationship and queer identity isn’t the focus, which even though I think is important, lbr there’s more to gays than being gay. Like it’s kinda visionary, despite the fact that neither character is explicitly queer, when it becomes clear that they’re in love with each other, no one, in-universe, is pearl-clutching all: EGAD! But Will’s never been with 😱a man😱 before?? How in THE DICKENS could he be in love with Hannibal when I don’t have definitive proof he’s even touched tips with another man let alone been balls deep!!!!!!!! How dare he not have this big, gay awakening for us all to gawk at applaud for!!!!” ?

No, literally every character: Jack, Alana, Bedelia, Margot, Mason, even Will’s wife god bless I cannot remember her name but she deserved better *shakes fist at Will* etc., all acknowledge the transcendent romantic bond btwn them and no one questions it. Well, no one questions it thru the lens of performed queerness. Tbf ppl had a lotta questions about the like probable impending multiple murders which validsisjwh

These are just 2 ppl who’re in love with each other to the point of being uncontrollably homicidal Which like … goals? Like I’ve really wracked my brain and can’t think of another queership that unfolds like every other hetero ass love story. That is to say, where fluidity is more the default, at least to the extent that no one talks about the orientation of either players within the show’s universe. Regardless of whether Bryan Fuller intended that from the start which tbh I don’t think he did but I also don’t think it’s fair to call it queerbaiting. I think he let the story unfold and realized kinda with the rest of us that this was a magical!realism romance and not a crime procedural and by S3 leaned tf into it doesn’t really matter bc the universe in which these two exist to truss each other up like Christmas turkeys aka foreplay symbolizes so much more to me than whatever it was initially invented to be. And if it’s not art, folks, idk what is ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Ofc I mean the show is art, not the vid. Vid=potential gobbledygook

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youtube

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taglist: @tofuwildcard @narcolini @ashlingnarcos @drabbles-mc

#Hannibal #will graham x hannibal lecter #hannigram #nbc hannibal #fan edit #fan trailer #also I know it’s been said before #but these two walked so Louis and Lestat could fly #except Lestat could already fly but like ygwim #mine #tribute video #y’know what I realized Xena is another undercover gay experiment #but I would argue they’re more queer coded since their gay love wasn’t confirmed until well after the show was over #but they deserve honorable mention bc the writers didn’t shy away from the subtextual gay love #or spend a ton of time dangling it in our faces only to turn around and punk us …. Supernatural you know who you are

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yangsbandana · 3 years

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em yangsbandana’s top 10 bumbleby moments let’s fuckin’ goooooo

so yesterday i got an anon ask that didn’t actually ask me to do this, but it was about a little bees moment that i love. while i was answering i was like. where does that moment actually rank among my favorite moments? and then i was like. what actually ARE my favorite moments???

so i made a top-10 list! (i think i originally said i’d rate the moments, but they’d all be 10+ out of 10 so this is more interesting) this was just fun for me to do and not at all serious. honestly on any given day i would probably create a completely different list. if you care to see it, you can find it under the cut!

and also if you want to make your own lists i would fucking love that i want to know everyone’s favorite bee moments but don’t mind me

let’s gooooo!!!!

10. yang loses her arm attempting to save Blake / “everything you love... starting with her....”

look. i know it’s not cool or enlightened or anything,,,,, howmever,,,,, i’m a sucker for the ‘rescue the girl’ trope. but only when it is gay. and especially when it is tragic. this,,,,,,,,, just hits. the fact that this happened (and that blake ran after, engendering a fuckton of angst) is why i am here in the first place. but it is low on the list because i also HATE this,, fuck adam lives.

9. “what does she even see in you???!!?”

speaking of adam lives,,,,,, giving this one its own entry because it drives me fucking up the wall that this is an actual line of dialogue in the show and not,,, you know,,,, from a fic.

pour one out for homophobic ally @dam t@urus

8. burning the candle

gotta give this scene credit for really kickstarting the bees from ‘oh they’re cute as partners’ to ‘oh what the fuck,,, is this,,,, mutual understanding on a deep emotional level??????? what the fuck????’ also, yang’s ‘i’ll save you a dance,,,’ bitch,,,,,,,

7. THE GAY LITTLE V5 GLANCE

if you’re not a brand new follower, you’ll have expected this one. just. jesus christ. jesus fucking christ. this stupid little gay glance makes me absolutely lose my stupid fucking marbles what the HELL were they THINKING. this is crwby trying to telegraph blake’s attraction to yang in a pretty unsubtle way and you cannot convince me otherwise,,,,,

6. “what if I needed her here for me?”

i started watching rwby in a kind of roundabout way, but there’s definitely some parallel universe out there where someone just showed me this scene to successfully sell me on it. this gay shit? this gay nonsense right here? this platonic ideal of gay yearning??? i live for this. the way yang not only wants but needs blake??? the way she’s trying to deny how much she feels for blake? the way it spills over anyway? overwhelming and irrepressible??? gay! gay gay gay!!!!

5. “we’re protecting each other”

the first time i saw this scene i saw it out of context and was like,,, ‘this is some corny anime shit, isn’t it?’ but after watching the rest of their story up to this point,,,, i now cannot watch this moment without wanting to fuckin’ howl at the moon. fUCK. i’m going to drive to the nearest ocean. i’m going to drive my car directly into the ocean. THEY’RE PROTECTING EACH OTHER.

4. bees go on a not-date in v7

most of the moments on this list are pretty heavy on drama, angst, and Romance, but the fact that they get to be so light and flirty in v7 also means so much to me??? and this scene shows us so much about this stage in their relationship. the flirty looks? the casual touching? the implication that this is not-a-date-but-actually-absolutely-a-date? for once they get to take a breath and be teenagers falling head-over-heels for one another,,,, the thought of that just warms my stupid gay heart.

3. beeunion 2.0

might be a little bit of recency bias at play with how high this is on the rankings,,, but is there really??? LOOK AT THIS?!?!? i can’t stand it. the way yang just so tenderly cups blake’s cheek? the way that blake initiates the intimate forehead-touch? the way that all of their pre-relationship anxieties wash away once they’re safe and reunited, basking in one another’s warmth? fuck, man. there’s a fuckin’. treebranch in my eye or something idk.

2. BLAKE WAS GONNA J--

NO RECENCY BIAS HERE THO. i’m serious this is fucking everything to me. not literally blake almost jumping--i’m actually pretty glad weiss stopped her or else it would be a whole thing and it would be exhausting. HOWEVER. the drama of blake trying her hardest to save yang,,,, only to come up just short,,,,, seeing a beautiful, warm future she had found herself hoping for vanish before her eyes,,,,,, just the grief and fury that comes after,,,,, you can feel in that scream how much she thinks she’s lost,,,,,, and it hurts real good. just really, really delicious angst. i’m obsessed.

(i also think with this moment there’s also this sense that it’s a major reckoning for blake. she and yang have been dancing around their feelings for a while. in v7 leaving it unsaid was fine--they felt like had all the time in the world. in v8 there wasn’t a moment of quiet for them to address it. but now, after seeing yang fall, blake knows what it feels like to think she’s lost yang forever without telling her how she feels,,,,,, just,,,, the emotional implications of that,,,,, the sheer potential leading into v9,,,, goddddd)

Honorable Mentions

beeunion 1.0 - “yang???” was insane. soulmate behavior.

v7 truck talk - the mature disagreement and compromise! sublime!

emerald forest initiation - blake thirst extravaganza

yang getting flustered over blake’s haircut - yang thirst extravaganza

the v6 angst shed - have i mentioned i love angst

1. “i’m not going to break my promise. i swear.” / “i know you won’t”

not to be a basic bitch, but this one is IT. until the bees confess and kiss, no scene is gonna match the intimacy and emotional intensity in this one. just,,,,, the vulnerability and comfort and trust and love,,,,,,, and it’s just such a powerful way to conclude their v3-v6 arc,,, finally coming back together after being torn apart,,,, their bond reforged and stronger than ever and also just,,,, transformed? like after this, something just seems to shift for them--they just know at a deeper level how much they mean to one another.

like,,,, it’s just,,,,,,,

THEM!!!

#anyway smash those like and subscribe buttons!!!#lmao i have never in my life wanted to create a top 10 list of anything before #but when it came to bees i was like SIGN ME THE FUCK UP #bumbleby

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crosbytoews · 3 years

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april reading wrap up

i read 10 books this month! i feel like i did a mid month check in but i cannot find my post so i will just write new reviews :-)

Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh

i really liked my year of rest and relaxation so i was looking forward to reading this but sadly it was terrible. the main character was just a little too edgy. she worked in a boy’s prison and i just hated that setting too much to continue. DNF at 100 pages.

Notes on a Silencing by Lacy Crawford

a memoir on a woman’s experience being sexually assaulted at her elite new england boarding school and the lengths the administration went to cover it up for decades. i thought this book was so powerful. also the setting of a new england boarding school in the early 90s was very atmospheric. i highly recommend. 5/5

Winter Garden by Kristin Hannah

after the death of their father, 2 daughters learn about their emotionally distant mother’s past, including the extreme challenges she faced in russia during world war 2. the first half was only okay, but we get deep into the world war 2 setting in the second half. on par with the nightingale levels of traumatizing. i just finished this last night but i think it’s probably a 4.5/5 because the second half was so strong. it made me cry so much.

People We Meet on Vacation by Emily Henry

ummm this book is perfection. it’s a travel romance and estranged best friends to lovers. two former best friends travel to palm springs together. beach read by emily henry was one of my favorite books from last year and this was even better. so so good. 5/5

The Lost Man by Jane Harper

this is the fourth book i’ve read by the author this year. this one follows a man and his family in the aftermath of one of their brother’s mysterious death in the australian outback. very atmospheric and some good discussions on the cycle of abuse. tw child abuse. 4/5

Crazy Stupid Bromance by Lyssa Kay Adams

the third book in the bromance book club series. this one is friends to lovers about a cat cafe owner and a former hacktivist. there are some unexpected discussions about the war in iraq? as with all the books in this series i really liked it and i cannot wait for the fourth one to come out this summer. 4/5

Necessary Lies by Diane Chamberlain

this KILLED me. it’s a historical fiction about forced sterilization in north carolina in the 1960s. we follow a brand new social worker and one of the families she’s assigned to. one of the girls in the family has already been sterilized without her consent and now the social worker is being pressured to sterilize the 15 year old sister. this book was pretty heavy and very informative. i listened to the audiobook which i would recommend because the narrator’s southern accent is great. 5/5

Britt-Marie Was Here by Fredrik Backman

this book gets the unfortunate honorific of the only backman book i didn’t love. we follow britt-marie, a recently divorced woman in her early 60s as she movies to a small town where she reluctantly befriends the residents and becomes the soccer coach of a youth team. this book was good but i didn’t love it. we get some good character growth and some funny parts, but it was nowhere near as good as his other books (all of which were 5/5 for me). this one is a 3/5

The Inheritance Games by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

i’m mad at this one lol. we follow the main character, a teenager who finds out she is in the will of an eccentric billionaire and he has left her billions while snubbing his relatives. she has never met this man and doesn’t know why this stranger left her his inheritance. she works with the four grandsons who were snubbed to solve riddles and discover why she was left the money. this was YA and read pretty young. for example there were discussions about losing your virginity and when the characters spoke they didn’t swear, they said things like “motherforker.” i was like i am 26 (turning 27 this month!) i am too old for this. howmever i stuck it out because i wanted to figure out why this girl inherited all that money. the gag is this is apparently the first book in the series and although i didn’t really like it i will definitely be reading the second book because it ended on a hang!!! 3/5 because of the intrigue

The Sound of Gravel by Ruth Wariner

this is a memoir about a woman’s experiences growing up on a mormon polygamist colony in mexico. her father, who was murdered when she was a baby, had over 40 children. her mother remarried and that man had four wives despite having no way to support them. everything this poor girl experienced was absolutely fucked up. i read this in a little over a day. i feel bad saying i loved it because these real experiences were extremely heavy but it was excellent. it made me cry a lot. 5/5

Klara and the Sun by Kazou Ishiguro

this book follows a robot (or artifical friend) Klara, as she is purchased by a sickly young girl. this book was pretty weird. it takes place in a dystopian setting but not a lot of details are given about what is going on in that world. it’s up to us as the reader to figure it out. this was an engaging and quick read, but i wish the author was a little more explicit about the commentary he was trying to make. 3/5

#becky's book club

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girlfridaytm-blog · 5 years

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Hello dear readers,

Since we last spoke, most of the flesh on my hand has grown back. We are out here on our triumphant second tour with our dear friend Paprika Pacman. Here we are trying to use a selfie stick that didn’t work, so I, The Martyr, used my human finger to press the virtual buttoña. Apparently I was very happy to do so, as you can catch me looking much more excited than literally anyone else to be here.

Today we in Girl Friday woke up at a cheeky 10:30 to some very hungry tumpos. We left a nice hour and a half later with our dear baby Eden to get some Food, but then the kind friends at the restaurant told us the wait would be 40 minutes. Your very hungry protagonistic children gave a cool shake of our heads, wagged a finger or two (that means we wanted more click in our in-ear speakers because we are very rich and famous now), and headed down the road for more timely meal options. Howmever, we ended being Fully seated at 2 separate restaurants that had not a-one veganic option in sight... catch us leaving both in a tizzy before we could receive water. Nearly 2 hours later, there we were sitting at the original restaurant, being misgendered left right and center, crying 4+ times, having food denied us, becoming closer as comrades eating very round fake eggs. We knew it was time to leave after Eden looked us in the eye and boldly claimed, “I’d like to go back to the hotel now.” Right you are Eden, and it took a brave soul to say it.

I hopped promptly into bed and did a seccy meditation while Libby and Betuardo continued to work as usual. Vera and Eden earned some strong points by practicing their part in the hotel room next door.

Time to go to the venue, methinks. Here I was deciding the audience did not deserve to see me with makeup today. It was time for them to behold my handsome and ugly face.

We played a show with only minimal ^jazz music~, and that, my dear friends, is what we came here for.

GF of the day goes to our sweet baby angel Eden, who had very dashing eye makeup, praccy’d while I wept, said exactly what was on their mind in a cursed situation, sold some kind merch, and even listened to me beg to hear about emotional turmoil in the back of the tour van.

We are proud of you Eden. You are our own little Friday.

*The other attached photos are quite badly formatted, but I have chosen not to put any money into this blog because I am a sticky clam man who only holds knowledge of the tumblrverse. Please enjoy a Marika’d photo of Gina and Betti in the hotel hallway + a handsome shot of a pearlescent Bibby and a cursed but lovely man who has already been named.

Sweet dreams ducklings.

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emilywatchescursedshow · 3 years

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Spn Season 1 Review

Hoboy

First, the live blogs of the last 4 episodes were done in a haze of jetlag depression so were less specific to what was actually happening in the episodes than normal and contained no extraneous information. HOWMEVER. I will get into those episodes more in this recap because:

1. I do not feel like the season really Led Up to this finale. Part of that could be because I took a bit of a break halfway through, but I think also the groundwork for the Sam/John parallel they tell us about was not really set up in previous episodes. 2. I think that the characterization of the brothers and their relationship to John is really Interesting in these episodes and the drama of that is a big part of the show as a whole, so the last several episodes are pretty relevant here.

THEMING The theme of season 1 is more or less: family. How do you handle family trauma and loss? How do you as a parent protect your children vs let them have independent lives (or just suck major ass)? To what extent is your family holding you back? Etc. The two sort of relationship dynamics this plays in is the Sam/Dean dynamic and the John/sons dynamic.

DEAN Dean’s characterization through this theme remains pretty consistent: he wants to be with his family. He showed up to get Sam at the beginning of the season, and he wants to keep them all alive at the end of the season instead of sacrificing John to kill the demon. The irony is that the season ends with them all “dying” (I know they’re not dead, but right now that’s what the show wants us to believe) and Dean’s insistence on family unity is what ends up getting them all killed.

Dean’s story line throughout has been one of responsibility assumed too early. After their mom died, his dad basically made him co-parent. Dean had to give up his ambitions to bend to his dad’s wishes while also trying to protect Sam from John and various monsters. It makes sense for him, given that backstory, that keeping the family together is his highest priority: he has been forced to give up all sense of self to keep his family safe, so if they die then he literally has nothing. I think it’s interesting that Dean is the only one of him or Sam who actually knew their mother, and yet Sam is the one who gets a mother-relevant character arc.

That might be because of the next aspect of Dean’s character we see: he likes to have sex with women. I tend to be pretty sensitive to misogyny/mistreatment of women on screen, so either I’ve lost my mind or I’m already watching this show through a very queer lens because Dean’s treatment of women throughout the season Did Not Bother Me. The only thing that really rang sour was at the beginning of Provenance when Dean is lying to women about his job to get into bed with them, but even then, like, eh? The whole scene (and all the other such scenes) are depicted with a lightheartedness that is hard to read malice into, and Jackles plays that part with such a wide-eyed “Wow! I get to have sex now!” that it’s hard not to feel anything but happy for the guy. I do suspect that Dean is supposed to be characterized as “treating women like whores/expendable” and so does not have an attachment to his mother in this season because he’s not allowed to have a complex relationship with a woman.

SAM Uh boy. So Sam’s arc begins with his girlfriend getting immolated - we learn later that Sam wanted to propose to her and so she was getting in the way of the demon’s plans for “kids like him.” Whatever that means - the show does not communicate its stakes to us AT ALL, more on that later. Sam gets some episodes of characterization throughout. The only two I can remember are the one with the abused psychic and the one where a woman decides she’s in love with him within seconds of meeting him. In neither episode to I really feel like I understand Sam as a character. We are told at various points that he really loved Jessica and her death has affected him greatly. At the beginning of the season, he dreams about it often, but these dreams end up being psychic in nature (I think?) and fall off by mid season. He doesn’t have a keepsake of hers to gaze at longingly or any other way of showing he’s having trouble letting go. Dean basically lets him off the leash to go kiss Sarah in Provenance, which he seems pretty happy to do and has no real guilt over after. Sam’s characterization is carried out very directly - we are told what he is feeling or had felt, instead of some combination of saying it via dialogue and reading it from his actions. I’ve mentioned that I don’t think Jarp is especially strong as an actor, but I have to chalk this up to both weaknesses in writing and acting because scenes that communicate Sam’s internal world are largely nonexistent IMO.

We are told that the connection between their mother’s death and Jess’s death has had a great impact on Sam. He believes that he is cursed so that the “people he loves” (read, women) will die. While in a broad sense this might be true as the demon does admit to have targeted Sam, the supposed “curse” is not really dealt with by Sam except as a barrier in his journey to move on from lost love. Jess’s death served as Sam’s call to adventure at the beginning of the season and should give some emotional connection to Sam’s continued commitment to hunting, but until the final episodes Sam’s involvement in the monster world is continually explained as “wants to find dad” and not “wants to break curse.” In these episodes, Sam’s Jess backstory comes back and we are told that his desire to kill the demon makes him “like John.” Which. Is. Stupid. Let me explain.

In terms of the theming, Sam’s wanting to kill the demon even though it might cost the lives of any number of the Winchesters makes sense because of his established relationship with his family. He wanted to have a normal life which alienated him from Dean and John. Sam has very negative memories of John, and has little brother blindness to the stuff Dean did for him growing up and is largely unhappy with Dean as well. Thus it is not surprising that to Sam, a Winchester dying is not as large a price to pay if it means that Sam gets to have a normal life.

HOWEVER. I am giving the show a LOT of credit here because they DO NOT make that connection, instead going for the stupid “Sam is like John” parallel which is treated almost like a surprise reveal. John’s reasons for killing the demon are NOT Sam’s reasons for killing the demon. John is motivated by revenge to an insane degree: it has consumed his life and the lives of both of his sons. Sam is not revenge motivated. He moves on from Jess’s death in literally THE EPISODE before the finale run starts. Sam is motivated by what he has always been motivated by: his desire for a normal life, including a wife who wont burst into flames. So on a thematic level, short-handing these character conflicts as “Sam is like John” (which is explicitly stated multiple times throughout these episodes) does not work because these characters are approaching family from a very different place even if they end up with the same goal.

I do want to mention that I think Sam’s backstory of wanting a normal life could have been set up better; the show does a good job with Dean’s “too much responsibility too young” child stand-in, but Sam does not get a “I just wanted to go to prom” child stand-in. Which I miss because that would be HILARIOUS. I think the issue the show has here with Sam is, in short, that Sam wanting to be normal is Very Boring, whereas the world of monsters and how Tortured and Jaded everyone is is much Sexier.

JOHN The text of the show is pretty unabashed about telling us things that John did that a reasonable audience member could interpret as being Very Bad. In the brief moments he has on the show, the dynamic between him and his sons is mixed. There are plenty of heartfelt family moments, and there are plenty of fights. I think the show is definitely weakest when it is following John by himself. I do not care about John except as he relates to Sam and Dean, and really if he is in any sort of danger I just want him to die based on how awful he is as a person, so the suspense does not swing the way the writers maybe wanted it to.

I think the twist at the end, where Dean realizes the demon has possessed their dad because he’s acting nicer, just b a r e l y works based on what they’ve set up. Honestly, I think the real problem is that John Winchester’s actor does not, to me, read as having any onscreen charisma. In the altercations that he has with Sam, I don’t really feel a threat from him. There isn’t any explosive or destructive energy, just sort of “your mom is mad you ate the last of her ice cream” energy. I’ve literally BEEN a more intimidating fake drill sergeant than John Winchester and I’m 5 feet tall and 110 lbs. John has big sad wet dog energy. He can get mad, but not in a way that’s actually intimidating. Thus, him telling Dean that he’s proud is sort of like “yeah, I bet this milksop is proud or whatever” and not “wow I would have expected that character to be a lot more upset right now.” I get that family dynamics can be complicated and a parent can cause you Bone Pain with just a look that to anyone else would seem harmless, but this is a television show where things have to read on screen. One Look Bone Pain is a lot more nuanced to construct. I think John being Big Mean Drill Sergeant is what they’re trying for, but in my opinion he's mostly just annoying.

Anyway John sucks.

WHAT’S NOT THERE The above talks a lot about what *is* in the show vis. the family theme. But Emily, this is a monster show. What about the monsters? Well. What about them indeed.

This first season of Supernatural is very clearly referencing the tradition of The X-Files and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. A lot of former X-Files people are credited on the season and they mention BTVS by name in an episode that is clearly themed around season 6 Buffy villains. Howmever. Both TXF and BTVS have a very important thing that Supernatural does not. STAKES. And not just ones meant for vamps that then get ignored by SPNs stupid vamp lore voice over.

Both BTVS and TXF handle their monsters very differently. BTVS is a universe where the main character has been fully initiated into the world of monsters so that, throughout the course of the episode, it is reasonable for her to detail pretty specifically what the monster is and what it is capable of. On the other hand, the characters in TXF must always be kept on the edge of the monster world, getting faint glimpses here and there. Usually, Mulder has an expository scene giving information on “what is known” at the beginning of the episode and then further monstrosity is communicated to the audience via interstitial scenes that tell the audience what the monster is and where it’s going, introducing dramatic tension: AA NO SCULLY DON’T TOUCH THAT IT’S SUPER GROSS. Both avenues successfully communicate to the audience what the monsters are (approximately), what they can do, and what their motivations are. This means that in the climactic scene, the audience knows what the STAKES are. They know what might be lost of the main characters fail, they know what the characters need to overcome to succeed, and they know what the monster is trying to accomplish.

Now. Some of the MOTW episodes in Supernatural do communicate what the monster is and what it wants. Scarecrow and Bugs are two that come to mind that both do this. Tellingly, both of these episodes also seem very modeled on TXF (compare/contrast Bugs with the trash golem episode of TXF where Mulder hip thrusts after sticking a flamingo in the yard, essay for another time).

Home is the first Supernatural episode that I identified as being extremely plot-oriented after the pilot. It’s also the first episode after the pilot to give sole writing credit to Kripke. There are interstitial scenes wherein the audience sees spooky stuff happening. However, these scenes do not further the audience’s understanding of the monster - we already know the house is evil and trying to kill people, and that’s pretty much all those scenes show. Moreover, Sam and Dean do not learn more about the monster in the house during this episode; their arc is basically just “Wow, isn’t it strange that the house is spooky now? Our mom died here!” The resolution at the end is borderline incomprehensible and their mother just sort of. Appears. Out of nowhere and then vanishes again with very little emotional weight given to this occurrence later in the episode or in the next episode. My summary of Home was pretty much “I did not like this and don’t want to be mean.” I talked about how I like monsters in monster shows, whereas Supernatural is more of a soap opera.

And yeah, the finale of Supernatural (written by Kripke) basically follows that track as well. I don’t know what these demons are or what they want. I don’t know what they can do besides possess people. When Meg confronts people and talks all big it’s hard for me to take seriously because I don’t know what she wants or what she is capable of, except in that one scene where she wanted to fuck Sam which. gross!

This is what I mean by saying that Supernatural does not have stakes. When the choice between losing a family member verses not defeating the monster is posited, the only reason I as an audience member feel engaged is the family conflict that has been established. There is no tension about the monster because I just have to assume that it will do whatever the writers decide it should do. I’m not weighing the odds of the Winchesters winning, I’m just watching them point guns at each other and hoping for the best.

CONCLUSION Jensen Ackles does a good job of playing Dean and he should get an award especially for his performances in the last two episodes of the show. IMO, he basically carried the emotional weight of the conflict and really made us root for Sam to not shoot his dad which is HARD because of how badly John sucks. I’m going to keep watching this show because of Jensen Ackles playing Dean Winchester. Fight me about it.

I think season 1 of Supernatural felt like watching two different shows with the same main characters. On the one hand, you have the MOTW episodes which invariably begin with “Here’s why we’re not tracking down our dad, even though that’s our stated motivation” and then tell a nice monster mystery with some good character beats. On the other hand, you have the series arc episodes, which are soap operas with demonic elements. I’m fine with it - because of Jensen Ackles as Dean Winchester. I’m interested to see what season 2 is like.

#supernatural #season 1 review #spn

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veliseraptor · 3 years

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Sometimes I like to think about that period of time when everyone had to politely pretend Xue Yang was your regular run of the mill Jin disciple. I bet he thought that was hilarious.

the thing is that I think to most people he was a regular run of the mill Jin disciple! especially in novelverse. poorly behaved, for sure, and weird, but the thing is that at least my read on Xue Yang is that he is, on the whole, a pretty friendly and charming person. he's not necessarily someone you'd look at and right off the bat go 'that man is dangerous' so much as you might go 'that man is trouble' but in the way a poorly disciplined young man is trouble, not a murder kind of way.

and I don't think most of Jinlintai is aware of his extracurricular activities, at least prior to the massacre of the Chang Clan, so there's no reason to connect him with anything sketchy! he is just a charming, feckless young man.

that probably changes when the massacre does happen - I doubt that everyone completely buys the recantation and oh he didn't actually do it there's no proof and I imagine there's a lot more people steering clear or at least eyeing him more warily (which Xue Yang is both going to very much enjoy and also be irritated by, simultaneously).

and even in CQL...I think it's important to remember that people don't have the same access to knowledge and especially detailed, accurate knowledge over long distances (as we see! repeatedly!). Xue Yang's massacre of the Chang occurs probably years before he turns up in Jinlintai (timeline what timeline) and right before a war breaks out. even those people who remember it probably have a garbled version, don't make the connection with Xue Yang the disciple, or don't have a name to attach at all. for the most part, they don't even know what that person looked like. or, even if they put the two together, it just doesn't seem probable. him? that young man? sure, he's badly behaved, but like that?

even those who were there and were key players (like Jiang Cheng and Nie Huaisang) probably have at least somewhat blurred memories of that particular event, such that out of context and years later, with a whole bunch of trauma in between that's much worse than seeing a courtyard full of dead bodies, the connection might not click.

now, obviously it does for Nie Mingjue, but he has reasons to have a much better memory of Xue Yang specifically. (and also like. no idea how that timeline works out. CQL whadder you doing. I should poke at that so at least in my head I can figure out how it makes sense; all I can figure is that in CQL Xue Yang was less publicly a disciple and was also going by his courtesy name such that it takes some time for that connection to be made that oh, yeah, same guy.)

I think Xue Yang probably does think the rest of it is hilarious (the way other peoples' cluelessness always is, to him), but especially that part of it.

howmever, would give solid money for the time Jiang Cheng specifically catches sight of Xue Yang like, across a courtyard, and then goes "hang on a minute" and Xue Yang just beams at him and then is gone, and Jiang Cheng is left trying to figure out if he saw what he thinks he saw or...no, that's just ridiculous.

#i'm not sure this thing is even coherent #xue yang #aggressively headcanons #the sad queer cultivators show #like most things it makes more sense in novelverse but o well #i find it funnier in cqlverse in some ways #i do think it's important the fact that like...there aren't any photos of people #nobody knows what peoples' faces look like #(for the most part. even when there are drawings we see how accurate those can be)#anyway!

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