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halogenwarrior · 3 months

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Ok I've promised this before... Chernobyl HBO retrospective

Well I mentioned before that I wanted to eventually delve into this, so here is my retrospective on the HBO Chernobyl show. Why it was my favorite work of art ever, why it is still irredeemable trash that the world would be better without due to inaccuracies and misleading claims, why most of the criticism of it completely misses why this was (or just says things that are downright unfair to it), and how it ruined my mental health.

If you ever see this show discussed on the internet, it’s usually a bunch of people praising it and calling it the best show ever, a person or two saying it’s just typical manipulative Hollywood tripe lying about history and science for propaganda/making things more dramatic, and the original people dogpiling said dissenter with downvotes. And… neither of these sides are really right, or at least the latter is very much misattributing the motives behind the problems with the show.

The thing is that, it’s clear from listening to the supplementary podcasts and discussions that Mazin was not trying to lie for clout, and was genuinely deeply thoughtful (unlike a lot of people making “based on a true story” works) about representing the truth, and about carefully considering before adding anything inaccurate into the story, and if he did he would always justify it with it being necessary to convey a greater truth within the limits of 5 hours of television, rather than for coolness or tropes or drama or making nuclear power look bad (the latter of which he is explicitly against). He made a clear attempt to read multiple sources rather than basing everything on one source and getting into trouble for that (Hamilton looking at you). The common criticism trope that gets leveled is that the show is hypocritical for being about the danger of lies and misinformation but peddling lies and misinformation itself, but he was fully aware for the potential for hypocrisy in the show’s premise and made the podcasts where he would give an honest breakdown of all of his decisions specifically to avoid such hypocrisy. And thus people who have listened to said podcasts are often the show’s loudest defenders, because of that uncommon thoughtfulness it shows making it seem very unfair to lump it in with Hollywood’s typical crass and mercenary manipulation of truth. He even explicitly went with the least dramatic story whenever there was a contradiction between sources.

Except the problem is that all of that care… wasn’t enough. Like wasn’t even nearly enough. Not only the things he admits to changing but half of the things he cites as being “ok this one is shocking but real” actually still turned out not to be true. In some ways it’s not a surprise why. He mentions reading 20 sources that said the three people who went into the reactor to drain the water died before reading one correct report that they survived, and it’s not hard to believe that these other cases were ones where he never found that one correct one. My read on it is that the problem is that, as sincere as he was, he is not a historian with the ability to not just read a huge number of sources but locate the most important and reliable ones and prioritize them over the less so.

But in the end, it doesn’t really matter, does it? From a death of the author perspective – if you are sincere and careful but the end result is completely indistinguishable for manipulative tripe and/or propaganda, who cares what your intentions are, it’s still trash! All that knowing the motivations behind it does is make you mad, because rather than being something you can dismiss, it’s something where the creator made an effort to know the truth they were based on the story on, played their hand brilliantly at, within the constraints of the format and fact, making a powerful and haunting story, a masterpiece, and none of it matters in the end anyway. Which brings me into why it was executed so brilliantly…

Besides being very well done, Chernobyl captivated me because it perfectly appealed to things I had always wanted to see but never really got to. I had always dreamed of a reinvention of the disaster movie genre that could touch at the heart of the tragedy and horror and awe of disaster for the ones living in it and dying from it; not merely a cheap excuse to have fun thrills at the death of nameless victims or (as seems to be the fashion everyone is begging for in disaster/apocalyptic types of things now) narratively bypass that people died, that something happened that cannot be reversed, altogether to focus on the hopeful fantasy of being a survivor. And this seemed exactly what I was looking for. And then there was the amazing way it incorporated complex scientific explanations in its finale, something that excited me so much as a Chemistry major in college at the time who really wanted to devote myself to science. At last, a work that didn’t treat its audience as dumb, that incorporated an intricate and fascinating explanation (with an actual nuclear physicist hired as a consultant) in a way that added to the story rather than ever dragging it! Nothing has ever really compared to that; any time I see a movie where science is an aspect of the plot I find myself disappointed in comparison with how there is no real science in it. Come on, I want to see the real fascinating complexities of the world explained with the excitement people devote to their fictional magic systems. This show had spoiled me forever on that to the point where I was just watching the Oppenheimer movie complaining that they never actually explain the science at all, let alone in an amazing and riveting way. The atmosphere was well-executed and uniquely executed, and it was like I was there in the long days, the deserted nature, the machinery and the dread of the radiation that permeated everything.

And then the characters… wow, they were well done, I had never been this invested in characters that had such a short time to be built up, and I have very rarely been this invested in characters period. Legasov was amazing, I will talk more about him later, and Shcherbina was, well… my ultimate blorbo from my shows who I thought of all the time and, if I was on Tumblr then, probably would have been posting analysis posts of nonstop. The way he was the harsh and practical bureaucrat and provider of materials but subtly, in a way I picked up before with his genuine excitement over things like the moon rovers but had big payoff in his final scene, a sort of lapsed idealist who sometimes betrayed a genuine excitement for making things work. Someone for with all his bluster of having power, was fundamentally helpless, a cog in the system who knew it and tried to shut and deny everything away like everyone in the show. And the beautiful irony of how only when he’s thrust away from normal life and into this twisted, haunting, as some reviewers had said cosmic-horror like/small scale apocalyptic realm where the life he had built and future he had hoped for is forfeit, where he is nothing more than a ghost and he’s walked into a trap from which there is no return, but within this realm has power that he can grab onto and fight for something with, then he’s able to live up the idea of the benevolent authority figure he had tried to in the past and gotten crushed for. That’s when he’s able to show all of his cleverness and drive and an honesty that the supposedly more “innocent” Legasov struggles with, a cold and frightening honesty that both sees the ridiculousness of Soviet ideals of sacrifice that got them into this situation in the first place and knows that is still exactly what is necessary in this time and place and is willing to follow it to the bitter end, enacting exactly the heroic ideal he had once thought he could be. One criticism I have seen of this show is that it romanticizes the ideals of sacrifice too much to be anything but a lukewarm criticism of the system it purports to criticize, but that part, particularly in relation to this character, was really impactful for me. Not an easy and unquestioned lauding of those values, not solely a detached cynicism either, but a knowledge it was cruel and ironic and partly the fault of these ideals in the first place that it had come to this, that there was (as Mazin said in the podcast) no beautiful realm to sacrifice oneself for and just more bitterness, but there was still something noble and meaningful in what now had to be done, and in a way that made it hit harder than a more straightforward story.

And that wasn’t the only case I noticed where a common criticism seemed to “miss the point”, there are two other big examples of that. One is the argument that the show distorts history by making Dyatlov and co. into the sole villains who were individually responsible for everything, ignoring the reality of the government and system as a whole being responsible. This seems to betray a lack of comprehension of a lot that was not only implied, but sometimes outright stated in the text. The starting framing device sets up the explicit expectation that Dyatlov did bad things and isn’t going to be a likable character, but he’s still fundamentally a scapegoat whose individual failings are used to obscure the greater problems within the whole system, and the finale follows up on that. Using the explicit framing device of Legasov starting off by telling the part of the story that is true but not the whole truth, only the part his audience wants to here because it focuses on the failings of a few individual people, only to go off-script at the end and reveal the problems go far deeper. The same goes for another big criticism I’ve seen, that the show lacks understanding of the psychology and experience of people living under an oppressive government for how Legasov somehow remains innocent and sheltered and just shocked that people would lie like that. To me it seemed pretty clear that said character was portrayed brilliantly as someone who, by nature of his high rank in such a system, has to know the politics and make cynical moves and lies all the time just by virtue of existing there, but keeps that part of him as an instinct rather than something he consciously makes part of his identity so his self-concept can be one of nobly truth-seeking innocence. He can’t do politics when he tries to to it “consciously”, and refers to himself as someone who must not understand how horrible people can be because he’s so sheltered, but when he needs to get people to die for his cause his first instinct is lies and bribes, and the more we know about him the more it becomes clear that he has done plenty of bad, cynical moves to keep his position of power and esteem and avoid the horrible consequences that would come with defying those with greater power, it’s just that he does it on autopilot and separates it from the part of his identity that he acknowledges and gives him internal moral justification for existing. His character arc is about being forced to confront this contradiction in himself in the most horrific of circumstances and actually, hesitantly, very humanly, become what he believed himself to be, even if it destroys him, and I think that’s really brilliant character writing!

Now, a lot of the sources of criticism are from people who are knowledgeable about history or lived in the Soviet Union themselves, and so, if they had acknowledged these subtleties but said the show was not realistic or honest in these ways in spite of them, I would concede they knew more than I do about these topics and the criticisms were justified. Such as if they had said “Yes, I know the show is trying to point out that someone who is genuinely unlikeable and did bad things can still be a cynically used scapegoat to hide systemic problems, but the real person wasn’t that unlikeable and bad in the first place” or “Yes, I know there is a very specific reason with regards to the framing device that the criticism of the government gets saved for the end of the last episode but giving it so little screen time still undersold how that was the main point”, or “Yes, I know Legasov’s character was significantly more nuanced than an innocent noble truth-teller but it still didn’t do enough to read as how a real person would act in the Soviet Union”, but it never seems to be that, it always seems to be the critics seeing the show as playing these tropes straight, unsubtly and unironically, which just seems to be bad comprehension to me.

So I’m just going to finish it off with why I care so much, which is the impact the show had on me. At the time it came out, I was going through a horrible time mentally, having constant obsessive thoughts devaluing anything I cared about or found meaning about in life, and I was just for the first time starting to get to a more stable point where I could actually find value in life. At the time I was in college doing an internship in a lab I really loved. And I know people will see me as a freak for finding any comfort in a show infamous for being a grueling an depressing exploration of a real-life disaster, but it made me feel real emotions for the first time in a while. Sadness and haunting awe and real suspense and fear that no supernatural horror thing could ever dream of striking in me (the roof scene was just wow…). But also a kind of bitter hope and sense of purpose that I alluded to earlier. What has always compelled me most in media, in terms of making me feel enthusiastic just to live, is not the things that get labeled as “optimistic tm”, but the things that throw you against a wall and twist everything and then there is still a hope and value in it that exists purely, beyond words or any pretensions.

And the more I looked into the show and the various criticisms of it, the more I began to suspect that none of the value, none of the thoughts and feelings I had, even mattered. It didn’t matter the creator’s honesty and scruples and good intentions, or how it was just about the perfect work of art that I loved more than anything. Because fundamentally this was a story about truth, one in which the horror and meaning of it relied on it being real, and if enough of the plot points and key emotional beats weren’t really real, then that’s an irreparably failed work, in fact one that can do harm in the real world, and nothing else it does right even matters. Sure the sequence where the danger to all of Europe of a second explosion is outlined is an immensely well-crafted scene in an immensely well-crafted episode, and it made me feel more strongly than anything had made me feel in perhaps two years, but it didn’t really happen so the whole thing is a farce and I’m wrong to feel that way. Mazin believed it was real, he clearly got it from real sources due to people believing at the time and some sources still perpetuating it rather than making it up for the sake of drama, but accidental manipulation is still manipulation. I’m still not an expert so I may be wrong on this, but one can easily read both the supposed drama and the supposed meaningful actions, actions that mattered, that appealed to me as someone who wanted to find a purpose as a scientist, as a farce rather than a tragedy; the drama was all from people at the time thinking the situation was worse than it was (i.e in real life, they overestimated the likely deaths by a factor of 10 at the time), and all the actions that seemed to be meaningful were done on so little knowledge that they didn’t really make a difference. Probably Legasov saying that Shcherbina’s actions mattered in the end despite everything would be laughable in light of what really happened (I don’t know this for sure and this is just the sense I get from limited information, but I wouldn’t be surprised…) And really at the time, I had had enough of farces. Sometimes it seems like that’s all life was, and drama and tragedy would at least have some kind of meaning. I had gone so long obsessively punishing myself for liking and valuing anything. The more passionately I cared the more greatly I would punish myself, arguing that the flaws in whatever I cared for not only demanded a more nuanced view but completely erased anything good or valuable in whatever it was, making it objectively wrong to care. I would do this for anything from my favorite books to life itself. And the more I realized that my obsessive thoughts on this show, which I felt more intensely about than anything, were actually objectively right, that it really was irredeemable and none of the things it did right even mattered, the easier it was to believe that the same was true about all those other thoughts. I feel like, more than anything, this show ruined what would have been my recovery from my years of depression and made me like that for more years to come. And the worst thing was that I didn’t want to tell anyone about this, I felt horribly embarrassed that my view of the world could so depend on something so frivolous as a TV show, rather than be determined solely by grand philosophical questions about life itself. Honestly being on Tumblr has helped me be more comfortable with the part of me that can get very focused on fiction in this way, for how everyone else is willing to be that passionate, but at the time I didn’t have that.

In conclusion I would just want to note that I know it seems to be the fashion nowadays to say “well who cares about historical fiction/things based on a true story being accurate, it’s actually better the more ridiculous and disconnected from the truth it is and accuracy is just laziness”. But I’ve never felt that way, I have always felt there is value in telling a story with solemnity and compassion about true events, with the fictionalization allowing one to endow it with a technique and most of all humanity that can still be preserved without deviating from the important details. This has always been my personal white whale, because most creators don’t seem to care a bit about being faithful to the truth, or as much as they can within the constraints of the format, or they think the truth is boring (when actually the made-up details are inevitably far more cliché, weaker, and well, boring than the fascinating truth is). And then, when you have a one-in-a-million case where the creator is actually disciplined and honest, people are still idiots and probably I should give up on hoping anyone who isn’t a trained historian (and scientist) themselves will be able to conduct their research so as to not make so many mistakes it completely ruins the whole project. But still, they had the resources of a TV show, they actually hired experts, it is still mind-boggling how something done with such good intentions and care could go so wrong? Probably I will never be satisfied. But I will still wish for something that as amazingly tackles real events as this show does with the events as its creator believed were real, as something that in a different world I would have easily named as my favorite work of art ever. In the end, though, that’s probably another false hope.

#chernobyl hbo #chernobyl 2019

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9w1ft · 4 months

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i think you’re being quite clear here which is an art that i lack… ive struggled writing something so direct because it feels like infighting territory and i’ve been sort of going back and forth a bit in my head and heart about all this. i have mixed feelings that are hard to articulate for me and it’s a string of events that effects many similar but different groups of people so it just feels like it’s hard to walk without unintentional stepping on toes.

and people have a right to say what they think based on what taylor is expressing. for sure. a right on the individual level, yes. and the way swifties jump on gaylors about this is and forever will be an issue. i don’t want to dismiss that on a base level. it really shouldn’t be an attack about what everyday people think. it’s more about how it is expressed by institutions.

and people can be hurt! even when we can and other people can separate these things (for example i think chely was clear enough about pointing out that she didn’t like that it was published), pushback can still hurt in any form because it’s representative of a generally negative climate that we find ourselves constantly in, and any perceived disapproval gets very easily weaponized, and scrolling through hostility hurts.

now here’s the part i struggle with articulating.

because i also feel like there’s a dichotomy or like an opposing tension between two things in the space right now, perhaps, there’s a little bit of… wanting-to-have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too about things that’s been growing in recent years among people popularizing gaylor, or gaylorism. because by and large gaylor people have been working to justify the discussion of queerness in taylor’s work as something divorced from taylor the individual and the people she knows (“museless”!), to “elevate” or “legitimize” the (their? the?) discussion of it at all, often posturing as you do in fandom so as to up your clout or credibility within the community, and, perhaps as a product of these things, more gaylors are bringing what they think, their thoughts and theories, into increasingly public facing platforms. video form content. using their own real faces and names. podcasts. guest interviews. personality-centric community building. you get these sort of… pseudo-platforms. not quite public but not quite fandom. and gaylor people have been pulling out what parts of gaylor that they deem ethical to talk about, brushing off the parts they decide aren’t, running with it, and from within that repackaging and polishing, things have become normalized to world at large and increasingly louder takes have made their way into institutions. news websites. internet publication social media presences. college curriculums. and it feels great to be seen and heard, yes, but from within that, at some point some of the public facing takes are going to start toeing some line. like, maybe at some point there’s a line of some sort? idk? it would seem that taylor pointed out that line, or decided not to course correct whoever pointed out the line.

what i think i mean to say is, i struggle with anyone saying there is nothing wrong with voicing your opinion on taylor’s queerness if they are also actively working to popularize and normalize talking about taylor’s queerness using or supporting platforms or venues that, while they might often be homemade, contribute to things ultimately being published across the line. you can’t have it both ways. otherwise, yes, a lot of sympathy for the hate going around this week for us all as a collective community.

and one thing i kept returning to this week was the word museless and how sure, on the surface, it seems like such an easy argument to say that people who focus on taylor’s muses are being invasive because people are being named and that talking about queer subtext is not because it’s academic and generalist. but i kind of wonder if the opposite isn’t actually true sometimes.

because what kaylors or other earnest muse groups are doing is trying to understand what inspired taylor to create most of her music in the first place; the what is so often a who because of the amount of love songs in her discography. and in the end, all we can really say at this point are rumors, look at the public facing reality we are stacked up against right now. all we can really be is weird. tinhatty. all we are doing is creating more folklore. if we are delusional, we are not credible. on the other hand, while talking about how gay her stuff is on tumblr or a bulletin board is all well and fine, if you go further afield than that and make a point of doing so “objectively” and spending so much time to build up ones legitimacy, working to become an authority, and taking money for it, it kinda means you’re ultimately building a stronger and stronger objective case for her being gay (umbrella term) at all. and that —at this point in time— is a threat.

i don’t think there’s a hard right or wrong, like sure, one could make some trolley problem argument that taylor the individual shouldn’t take precedent over her work being made an example of for the greater good or something to that effect, but at the same time maybe there’s something or there are some things in there to protect? maybe there are reasons she is not out? maybe she wants to proceed in her own way, because of the context of her life? maybe there’s a reason to want to maybe not make an endeavor of taylor? the other day i saw some stuff floating around on twitter about how oh i’ve never seen a full kaylor timeline kaylors never present a clear timeline post-2016 and then you get people commenting that’s because they don’t have one ha hah! take that kaylors! blah blah blah and it’s like, no, how about considering why the heck any one of us would want to collate that or even express our thoughts in full to people who belong to a group that refuses to keep things to themselves, given what we believe? like, my understanding or perception of taylor’s muse makes me want to be all hazy about it. focusing just on the queerness… i worry it might be making some amount of people lose perspective.

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patchesjam · 1 year

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Your anon about Spanish ccs and MCC and how creators suddenly feel like it’s the “in thing” to interact with or collab with Spanish creators and it’s funny bc it’s not a trend these are real people and these English ccs think it’s some trend bc dtk+ did squid game and have gotten a lot of positive overlap in communities (I don’t include Q bc I consider him to be a Spanish and English cc he’s in a category on his own) and how the ones who played in squid game did it just to have fun and meet new people or play with people they’ve already met or have mutual friends w. And now even like on Hasans new podcast he brought up Spanish ccs like 😭 damn y’all wanted to pretend no one but English streamers existed until a month ago I wonder why 😒 like don’t get me wrong I really like a lot of this overlap and interactions are fun but damn I feel bad bc it looks like the ones happening in the last week have purely been because of clout after squid game and they have no real interest on these ccs as people but their numbers and the ability to go oh look who I have collabed with which makes me cherish the dtkq+ circle more bc they have made genuine friends who they talk to and play with offline just for them without having to profit off of it. Anyway I have haterisms too anon anything dtkq+ does a very specific group of people have to follow and copy and then every other English cc joins in and it really shows who’s a trend setter sorry I’ll say it 🤷🏻‍♀️

you have put my thoughts into words exactly

#ask tag

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f0point5 · 8 months

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What the heck was that last chapter... 🫣

That friend or acquaintance of Elliot leaking information on social media about what's going on with y/n seems sus af. Lando seems vary, too. I'm curious if there's an explanation to this and whether Elliot will talk to her about it.

Then of course... her conversation with Elliot. Like what was even going on with them? 😅 Don't get me wrong, I still don't like the guy for various reasons, and it's a little weird how he's digging up all that stuff about her on the internet and now also by listening to f1 podcasts, using it in their convos, when she hasn't even told him herself. And the way he brought up the RB results and talking about Max obviously knowing nothing about f1, probs wasn't the best way to show some interest. But wow did she go off!!

The funny thing about it is that her first immediate answer sounds rather sweet with the 'arww' and the cute emoji and all of a sudden - bam! Writing a whole essay on how he should not talk about people she cares about. I'm sure he didn't even understand what it was he said that made her flip. 😅

I love how she's texting Max after that, blowing Elliot off and not even further explaining herself. 🤣

I think those multiple 'no's and the yes to a call is pretty spot on for Max after the day that he's had!

Does it only feel like this from the outside or do those race weekends and the results and headlines around it always play into your cards? 😅

CHAOS. That’s what that was lol

Look, people get a bit messy when there’s “fame” involved. Clout is a drug lol. Tbf as cute as it is that Lando is protective, I think he’s probably fallen prey to that. They will definitely need to talk about it though, because Y/N and definitely Max keep a small circle and wouldn’t want things leaking like that. Provided Elliot survives the weekend without getting blocked lol.

Tbf to Elliot it wasn’t a podcast, it was sports radio on his way home and he just paid attention to the f1 bit which he normally doesn’t. But yeah, he for sure has a bunch of information on her that she didn’t give him, some he searched for some he didn’t, and all of it is playing on his mind.

She was definitely mad from the start and lulling him into a false sense of security. I think she was giving him a second to see where he would go with it and then she was like nah can’t hold it in how dare he. Because what he said was so out of pocket. But then, it’s also typical of guys to do that - they think trashing something is how they sound informed. He stepped on a landmine though lol. Honestly if a man came at my best friend, who they’d never even met, and with the most ignorant and irrelevant opinion…I’d have picked up his call to give him an earful. Idk, was she too harsh on him? I think he was pretty rude tbh.

The real life results don’t play into my hands, I play into theirs haha. I watch/keep up with practices and then base the conversations around the results. Sometimes I get lucky like with that Helmut quote on Mick haha

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nickgerlich · 8 months

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Charged Up

One of the most frustrating things that happens to consumers, especially when it comes to tech products, is to find out that something you own is now obsolete. It happens all the time, but one company—Apple—has been notorious for doing it. Worse yet, the obsolescence affects one of the most mundane aspects of the product, yet also one of the most critical: the charger cord.

It was eleven years ago that Apple introduced the Lightning connector for its iPhones, leaving the much clunkier 30-pin connector to fade away. While it was a net improvement, it meant that all of our household and car chargers were done. They also did a similar move with charger cords for their MacBook line of laptops. And don’t get me started about when they eliminated the headphone jack back on iPhone 7 in 2016. It was clearly a move to bolster sales of their wireless AirPods.

Now they have done it again. At their big media announcement earlier this week, Apple announced iPhone 15 among other products, but also had to tell us that—here we go again—the phone’s charger cord would now be USB-C. It’s just that this time, Apple is not trying to pull another fast one, because they have been forced to change.

While it is convenient to think that the US rules the world and we set the standards, we are quickly waking up to the fact that the EU—European Union—has significant clout. The General Data Protection Regulation that was passed in 2018 ensures that European users have much higher expectations of data privacy online, and while they can opt-in to cookies, they are not the de facto setting. We can thank the GDPR for all those annoying questions we face on many websites today asking us if we would like some cookies.

The EU is at it again, with charger cords the next item to come in their cross hairs. Starting next year, all devices sold in Europe must have a common connector. USB-C was chosen as the standard. In both cases—the GDPR and charger cord—American firms have decided to go with the flow, and not fight it. Rather than have two websites, one for the EU and the one for everywhere else, they opted for one. As for Apple, it had no choice but to yield, if it wants to sell phones there.

Of course, this once again puts consumers in a bad place, because we still have legacy products that require the Lightning cord. At my office, both my keyboard and mouse are charged by—you guessed it—the Lightning cord. And my two Apple MagSafe external batteries also require that connector. Even when I upgrade my phone from 12 to 15, I will still have to keep some of these old cords around, while also changing out my home and vehicle charger cords.

Lovely. I will be using two systems at the same time. I see a tangled mess of cables in my future.

It can be argued that Apple should never have stuck with proprietary connectors in the first place, that it wasn’t being a good corporate citizen. But there is a monetary explanation. On Wednesday’s Morning Brew Daily podcast, they reported that Apple makes $5 billion a year either selling its own cords, or licensing their manufacture to third-party companies. That is a significant revenue stream that is now gone.

I am also perplexed that Apple had already adopted the USB-C standard on its own for MacBooks and iPads. It’s enough to make me pull out my hair. Well, if I had enough to pull.

Yes, I am an Apple fan boy. I made the switch in 2005, and have not looked back. While I do not own an Apple Watch or AirPods, I have phone, laptop, office iMac, and tablet, and I love the eco-system. Everything plays well together, which makes it a powerful bundle not replicated elsewhere. I’m good with paying the so-called “Apple tax” to own these products.

Sometimes, though, I admit to the frustration you get when you feel like someone is just yanking you around. This time Apple is getting yanked around. It lost the battle in Europe, and had to concede the world. I’m happy, because there really never was a good reason to have unique connectors other than extra revenue. In fact, this is something that has been going on for years in tech products, from cords to batteries. I can show you a bunch of incompatible camera batteries within both the Sony and Canon lines.

It’s just that Apple is the one getting the black eye for it now. It’s going to be a wobbly transition period for a while until we wear out all of our older products that still use Lightning, but we’ll get there one day.

And we can then add those old charger cords to that box everyone has in their home. Heck, mine still has Cat-4, RS-232, RCA, and land-line phone cables in it. Just in case, you know.

Dr “Of One A Cord” Gerlich

Audio Blog

#marketing #Apple #USB-C

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chaosandstardust · 2 years

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so what're your biggest problems with tv

You asked for it. This is very messy, LOL. Basically the gist of it is; CAPITALISM.

Disclaimer; there is a lot of good shows out there, however unfortunately they're not being pushed out as much as the bigger ones and most of them fall into the comedy/dramedy line rather than the fantasy/action/adventure that most people are looking for. If anyone has any recs, send me an ask and I'll post them! But if you're looking to diversify the stories you're consuming, your best bet is independent film, books, graphic novels, and podcasts.

ONWARD:

TV has always sucked on some level or another because of its business model. It's a thoroughly profit driven industry; it was created because people suddenly had TVs in their homes. It's almost impossible to have a TV series that's 100% passion driven because there's so much money needed to make it; it's, or the most part, just not sustainable. A Friends writer once said; with 8 seasons of Friends, I get a house with one bathroom. With 10 seasons, I get a house with two (or something like that, but that was the gist). How many times have you heard that the last season of a show sucked??? It's a 100% money driven industry, it always has been, and when a show becomes a hit, they'll drive it into the ground. Doesn't matter if the show reaches a natural conclusion or if the show has gotten bad, or even if the leads/showrunners want to leave the show; if a studio can swing getting one more season of a hit show that's still making money, they'll do it. Shows that don't make money or don't look like they're going to make money get cancelled. Capitalism has its teeth into almost every single creative industry now, but TV has always been about money. It's gotten slightly better about this in the last few years as content has become less expensive to produce, but not by much, because now there's a competition over just pushing out as much attention grabbing content as possible, not good content. If a producer is brought two shows, one of which is from a nobody in the industry that's entirely original and the other from a veteran that's based on a wildly popular IP, which one do you think will be chosen?

TV (or filmmaking) has never been a space that encourages quality because of how it's made. Being in fandom, I get into a lot of discussions about TV, and straight up, most people don't understand how insane TV production is. They do not know the first thing about it. If a showrunner has to deliver the traditional 24 episodes in a year and they're all 30 minutes - 1 hour, that's literally one or two movies every single month. By contrast, the average Hollywood feature film takes almost 2 1/2 years to make from conception to completion. Quite simply, when you're making an episode a week, there isn't time to stop and think about whether or not something is good/makes sense. It can be done, but sometimes it's legit just about having a deadline and meeting it. The studio needs something to be done on Friday, you'll get it to them by Friday. Does not matter if it makes sense. They do not care. As long as there's something for the audience to watch between ads.

You'd think with the new system of getting 8-12 episodes per year and streaming, the system would've gotten better but it's actually getting bad in other ways. Production times have been shortened, and writers are now making less money. Writers usually get paid per episode, and with a 24 episode show, they'd write 2. Now they're writing one, and they're working less, which creates more stress. They're also working on stuff they don't care about. Yes, there are plenty of writers who would love to just write Star Wars for the rest of time. But how many out there have brilliant, wonderful, beautiful, original, diverse ideas that just don't have the clout to get a show off the ground?

Studios are driven by brands, algorithms, and nostalgia now. That's it. Why would producers put in effort to make a good show when they can just put a famous character or person in the middle of something and go from there? Why would they try? Capitalism as a business model demands that the line just goes up, up, up, up and it'll continue to do that with shows that are guaranteed hits. This often results in writers working on shit they quite simply do not care about. I don't want to make more Star Wars. I want to make new stuff, my stuff, but I probably won't ever be able to because of how much algorithms drive the industry. All the channels have something now. HBO has GOT and SATC. The CW has Supernatural. Disney has Marvel and Star Wars. Nickelodeon has ATLA. Netflix has Stranger Things. All of these IPs have new projects coming out now or in the next few years, and that's just a dent in how many marketable IPs are out there. Why would any of these studios try when they've got these money makers in their pockets and it's been proven that fans just continually want more? They've figured it out that as long as you have a certain character or it takes place in a certain world, y'all will watch it, even if it's shit. I was having a conversation with some idiot about the new Jon Snow show, and I shit you not she said "I don't care about writers that don't get to express original ideas; I just want more Westeros" which imo is some of the most pathetic shit I've ever heard. I've mostly made my peace with this aspect of fandom, this constant need for more, more, more, even as it tarnishes the final product, but knowing how many wonderful ideas are out there, it's fucking depressing. It goes even farther than that; most of the new shows that are being made exist from another IP. Umbrella Academy, Heartstopper, Outlander, Jane The Virgin, Fleabag, Kim's Convenience, all of these shows are/were insanely popular and all are adaptations of other works. There aren't a lot of really successful shows out there that are currently airing and doing something really cool and unique that aren't based on something else. Especially something like fantasy. I find it so ironic that GRRM complained about how in his TV writing career, people didn't want his fantasy ideas, and now he's contributing to the problem by pushing out all of his prequel Westeros series, rather than uplifting other TV fantasy writers.

Eventually, inevitably, you will run out of story to tell. The purpose of a continuation is to draw out the ending as long as possible. Eventually, inevitably, filmmakers will run out of stuff to say, they'll get bored and leave the project in the hands of whoever owns it. The average TV writer have very little control over how long their shows will go; they're at the whim of the industry and investors. It can go away tomorrow, it can go on for another decade. It didn't matter that the creator of Supernatural intended for there to be 5 seasons. CW wanted 15.

Fandom has kind of ruined it. This isn't a crack on fandom, I'm in fandom, but I wonder what the TV and film landscape would look like if either fandom didn't exist or if there was a way for writers, directors, and producers to be completely cut off from it. Sometimes, it almost feels like there's some sort of bizarre competition between creators and fandom where they're struggling back and forth for control of the material (like JK Rowling; everything she's done the last 15 years points to that she keeps trying to yank back control). So many shows have been completely taken over by the fandom, whether by the fandom's own demands or the writers' ego, usually a combination of both. Fandom is a beautiful, beautiful thing, but it's almost always going to be disappointed by anything past the original canon material (if that's good). Because fan content is fueled by passion (and you should NOT be making any money off of fandom content, absolutely not, you're going to bring the entire system down that way, if you have a Patreon for your fanfic and fanart, quit it) while anything from official sources is about their bottom line first and foremost. Fan content can take risks that canon material quite simply cannot do thanks to advertisers and marketing. I think fan content is great, but the model around tv shows getting greenlit by how much fans are talking about it is very flawed. Because producers quite simply do not understand how fandom works (just like how fans don't understand tv production; seriously, do not listen to anyone who is bitching about something that was done unless you know they know what they're talking about). They just don't. Then there's just how vicious and nasty fans can get towards the people who work on these shows, which is extremely tiring, and I've seen it multiple times myself.

This isn't even getting into the toxicity, the low pay, the nepotism, the long hours, marketing, and everything else in this industry.

There is good, original, shows out there, imo, but they're mostly in the comedy-dramedy vein, not fantasy, which is usually the ones that draw attention. And to boil it down to "didn't you go to school for this" is weird because it's way more complicated than that because of how stressful and stupid this industry is and how it's primarily profit driven. But yeah. That's my 'TV is bad' rant.

#media analysis #film industry #film criticism #fandom critical #film #filmmaker #tv #tv writing #film and tv

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melancholycatastrophe · 3 years

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Why Dream Isn't Manatreed, A Semi-Serious Theory:

okay hear me out

Dream isn't Manatreed, but he knows who Manatreed is. This is because "Ollie" is an irl friend of Dream who wants to get into streaming. Dream is known for wanting to take his friends with him when it comes to success, as we can see from how often he involves his friends in video ideas and adding them to his popular streaming services. So when this irl friend, who we will call "Ollie" for the time being, although I am aware that this can be a fake name, mentioned his interest in streaming, Dream devised a plan to get him as much clout as possible before he can even make a twitch account.

This explains why "Ollie" follows not only Dream and Sapnap (who follows him back, which is strange because Sapnap isn't known for following random people who pose as his faceless best friend) but also their friends. He also follows Elon Musk but that's okay, nobody is perfect. And why Ollie knows about dteam inside jokes.

Additionally evidence to Ollie being a friend of Dream:

his first tweet was made on june 18th, the same day as the infamous best friend quiz discord podcast. Remember how Dream left almost immediately after finding out he was a little bit in love with George? What if this wasnt him hiding back in the closet but he instead needed to help Ollie set up his account and make an introductory tweet.

He has 7 tweets in total, and 4 of them aren't Dream-related. Furthermore, it seems that he only posts on days when Dream was noticeably active. I think this is because Dream helps him figure out what to tweet.

If you scroll through his likes, 99% of them involve Dream or Sapnap in some capacity, which is odd considering he follows over 100 people but only likes things about Dream.

this is his first interaction with George. If it really was Dream, he would've interacted with him earlier. This is why I think Ollie is someone who actually knows Dream and by extension Sapnap, and not just a fan.

He's from Florida, where Dream and Sapnap live now. On his Instagram, he only follows 22 people, most of whom are dream and his friends.

His twitch account is barren. If it really was some random guy, why hasn't he streamed yet? He has the clout, whats stopping him now- unless he has to wait until Dream tells him.

this is the first instance Dream denies that Ollie isn't him. Dream is usually quick to deny people who impersonate him, so why would he wait so long to do so? In a way that makes fun of something Dream would definitely do? Also bestie, where's the /srs?

And the most damning thing of all,

why would dream reply to a tweet from June 27th? How did he find it? There's no mention of Dream's name anywhere, unless he already knew about this tweet and decided to start his plan to get Ollie as much clout as possible.

in conclusion, Ollie isn't Dream, but he is an irl friend of Dream who wants to get into streaming and is doing so by participating in a batshit plan to get him as much clout as possible. Other ccs know about this plan, which is why they're joining in the jokes about Ollie possibly being Dream. George participating is also proof that this isn't a stranger because he never replies to random people on Twitter (or at least not as often). Of course, my theory is subject to change as more information is unearthed, but these are my preliminary thoughts.

#dreamwastaken #sapnap #georgenotfound #hear me out guys #ive been thinking about this like crazy #manatreed

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arcadialedger · 3 years

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Please note that I am most likely leaving this platform. I am done being abused. But first? We need to have a discussion. A discussion about hate and bullying in fandom.

All online-- I encourage you to read my story below. Reblog and spread awareness. The Dragon Prince fandom especially -- I implore you read my words, every single one of them. The short of it is that I am done.

This all began with losing and being blocked by a friend because I shared something they disagreed with. I don’t care what you feel about my initial reaction to this (which I’ll explain below) -- I’ve apologized for not handling the situation correctly. But I will not be shamed for speaking my mind and standing up for myself.

Because no human being deserves to go through what I have endured since last summer.

Following the “callout” post made about me by one of, if not the largest blogs in this fandom, I received hundreds of threats, harassment messages, and death threats. Messages and posts telling me to kill myself were also prominent, on a multiple times a week basis for awhile.

Messages from people who were well aware I have struggled with being suicidal. Due to one of their favorite Dragon Prince blogs speaking out against me, they thought it was okay to suicide bait me.

And it worked. I already struggle with hating myself, am already insecure, and being flooded with these comments which, while I made mistakes, did nothing to deserve, drove me to try and take my own life after years of progress in my mental health.

Mind you, this is like a 200 follower to 4k follower power dynamic. Which yes, plays a role-- because when you have a large following and influence, you have power. Yet the person behind this had the gall to claim Tumblr clout isn’t real.

People blocking and condemning others instantly at your word? Is power. If people read your words and are influenced, or have their minds changed, or buy or don’t buy something, etc.-- you are an influencer. You have power. And when you’re one of the largest blogs in a fandom, you have a LOT of power.

So take responsibility.

I was hurt because I lost a friend who I had chatted with for months, did a podcast with, and was generally not only one of my favorite blogs but the center of my experience in the Dragon Prince. I may not have been perfect in my words, but when I was asked why I was quiet/ inactive, I explained how I was hurting, anonymously. I was understandably in pain and upset. I had been cut off for just having a different opinion on a matter, for thinking differently. Even though it was within their rights to block and do so, it felt wrong and it weighed on me.

Is that such a crime?

The callout post and previously described abuse followed, lasting for months until later in the year (this began in June, or around then). It also included screenshots of tweets, when this user does not have Tumblr, and they have stated to have screenshots stored up on their computer of my various posts and interactions. This is creepy behavior, and freaked me out. I felt like I was being stalked, “evidence” being filed away for the very purpose of being used against me.

I eventually talked things out with the blog per recommendation of my therapist, and thought all would be fine. For a little while, it was. I largely stayed off of Tumblr to heal. Once in awhile I would have a rough, tearful night because something reminded me of what I lost, but I would make it through. Overall, I was making progress.

Then? My Twitter got hacked by one of the people sending me hate. For what had turned out to be much. And after they tweeted some purposefully incriminating and bigoted things to make me look bad, I came home from a weekend in the mountains to a shitstorm.

Twitter has a love hate relationship for me and I barely opened the app unless actively chatting with a friend. So when I saw 700+ notifications, I was surprised. It had never happened before.

I began to scroll through, and when I saw what had happened, I ran to the bathroom and threw up.

I had lost over half of my followers and a solid 60% of previous Twitter mutuals had blocked me. But worst of all, I had hundreds of hate tweets directed at me replying to the hackers tweets. Messages had been sent in DMs and accounts blocked, followed, and unfollowed as well.

If you have never felt that loss of agency-- that sickening feeling of words you never said next to your profile-- be glad. Because it is traumatic. I value my words. I value what I have to say. And having that taken from me was worse than anything I had been through here on Tumblr, outside of the suicide baiting (the most direct attack to me and my emotions/ insecurities throughout this entire ordeal). Further, this hacker had clearly stalked my tweets based on some of their comments.

Hundreds of tweets bashing me, calling me aphobic slurs (knowing I am asexual mind you, as it was in my bio), making fun of my appearance and targeting all of the insecurities which lead to my first suicide attempt in high school, and taking/ editing images of my face and mocking them. This all culminated in a doxing threat-- a doxing threat which made me feel unsafe on a campus I had already been sexually assaulted on. I was once again, after starting the healing process, thrusted back into the darkest time of my life and spiraled into anxiety and depression. I cried a lot overwhelmed by it all, had difficulty sleeping, and felt sick. I started fall semester and couldn’t concentrate on school. I was a mess.

I had once again been condemned, this time for something I had no part in. I tried to example what happened but nobody listened. I had been hung without trial. People were understandably confused, and my entire reputation on the platform, and my page, became a mess of lies, misunderstandings, and more.

If you don’t know the feeling of already hating yourself and being insecure, and having these beliefs reinforced and spread by hundreds publicly across the internet? Of already feeling lonely and unwanted and having the one space you thought you had taken from you? Consider yourself lucky.

I had a lot of voice actors and creators following me-- accounts I interacted and greatly cherished my mutual with. A handful of them unfollowed, understandably. This online hate mob was sending messages to people demanding they unfollow me, including some of these creators. They had no idea what to make of this mess or what was real and true and just didn’t want to deal with it. Most of the others just stopped interacting with me. @aaronwaltke (tagging so those who don’t follow already click and do so, because he is absolutely fantastic-- he’s a writer for ToA) who had followed me on the platform, graciously wished me peace with the entire situation after I checked to make sure he had not been subjected to messages or hate, either from my hacker or other accounts. His was the greatest compassion I got on Twitter, before I ultimately ended up just having to delete.

I lost podcast deals because of this with Adrian Petriw, Aaron Ehasz, and Justin Richmond. I do not blame them one bit and would have done the same in the confusion not wanting to get dragged into anything.

Only to have one of the friends I lost who helped start this interview these very people on their own podcasts. A slap in the face. A zine I had bought to support them came to my door, with the front page proclaiming to “spread a narrative of love.”

I was never granted that chance. That compassion. I had the vultures sent after me with no mercy. And anyone who has been through online abuse and systemic harassment knows just how much it feels like they’re slowly but surely picking at your flesh ( a metaphor I used in one of my old, since deleted posts discussing the situation, and still find accurate), wearing you down until you have no strength left.

Make no mistake, my story is not a one off situation. Many share the same tale of abuse and being driven off of platforms that once gave them great joy. These attacks are coordinated, systemic, and common hobby for these people-- who largely claim to be loving and accepting of all. They are a cyberbullying phenomenon which has risen with the presence of fandom on the internet. And I want to make clear, with current discussions of “cancel culture”, I mean nothing political in that statement. Some might call my experience cancel culture, but I don’t.

It’s just bullying. It’s just hate. These people get off on ruining people’s lives.

And my life was greatly set back and ruined. I had a stain on my past in fandom I could never be rid of. I had to shut down my podcast, took time off of all social media, and most of what I had built, most of my growth, was taken from me while those who incited and/ or spread hate thrived and continued to grow and find success. That was the greatest sting of all.

I asked the one previous friend who hadn’t blocked me, but had just stopped interacting with me (which I understood and respected, and also greatly respected her perspective, help, and support though this situation in which she largely unfortunately ended up in the middle) for help after explaining everything, and got nothing. They didn’t seem to care, and just blocked me on all platforms. Once in awhile, I would find I was cut off from yet another old friend, or a blog that I had never interacted with before but clicked into, interested. It hurt being cut off, unable to fully interact with the fandom, but I could move on.

That pain would never go away, but I made clear I did not blame them for the actions of those who abused, harassed, and threatened me. I also made it clear they did not owe me anything, including unblocking.

I just wanted to move on peacefully, but those with the power to enable that did not wish to help. I slowly, when I felt ready, began to be more active on Tumblr again, and once again the hate started up.

Sometimes when I was hurting, I expressed my pain and loss to my followers just to reach out, because I was sad. I had no idea how to rebuild from all that had happened. This got me more hate an accusations of emotional manipulation and gaslighting. I had no idea what to do, and got trapped in a cycle of needing to talk about it, and getting hate and backlash, but not knowing where else I could turn.

My doxer came back into my asks, ultimately making me switch schools, and refueled the drama. Speaking up about this got me more backlash-- mostly accounts reblogging (one with tags saying “fuck you”, despite not knowing the full story, and commenting and then blocking me so I could do nothing to respond or get it off of my page. I deleted all posts of the matter, as requested by these people (who validly pointed out they were in the main fandom tags, which I hadn’t thought of and understood), and hoped to move on.

But it hasn’t stopped. I have been beaten down and emotionally bruised for months. I have had my life and safety threatened, my education and by extension life path altered, and lost work (podcast) opportunities due to this-- alongside the irreversible emotional damage from trauma and abuse. My mental health issues and insecurities-- which I have been very open about to destigmatize the subjects and encourage conversation-- were actively targeted to inflict the most pain possible.

And I can’t even talk about it, without enduring more hate and accusations of “playing the victim”.

Death threats, suicide baiting, doxing, months of bullying and harassment to the most vile degree, which a lot of these people don’t know about because they don’t even bother to read my words. Yet I’m playing the victim.

And the accusations of bigotry and being hateful hurt, because it couldn’t be further from what is in my heart. I believing in love and acceptance of all. I don’t know how many are religious here, but I found God after my first suicide attempt and that is what his word has taught me.

I’ve been through too much in life to tolerate this, for lack of a more eloquent term, bullshit. I know what abuse and victim blaming looks like when I see it. And in my 20 years of life, I have gone through too much: constant ridicule and bullying, suicide attempts, sexual assault, major spinal surgery, to just be stomped over and not stand up for my right to basis human decency.

I refuse to put up with this, so unless I get an apology and some semblance of justice for everything I have been through, I am leaving. I will not participate in a space run by hate and toxicity. I will never claim to be perfect, and I have apologized for my mistakes and wrongdoings. Now, hold those who did this accountable. If you’re reading this you know very well who it was, and I am not naming them for those who don’t. Because at the end of the day I still send nothing but love and wish no ill will towards them.

But I’ll be damned if I don’t expect accountability of one of the greatest influencers in the fandom for their complacency in abuse, threats, suicide baiting, and and absolute ruining of my life and online experience. They enabled this and were well aware they had the power to stop it-- to ask their followers to stop-- and did nothing. They didn’t care-- about a human’s life and well being.

@dragonprinceofficial, are you aware that this is what many of the fans of your show, which preaches love and an end to the cycle of vengeance, do to others? That this is happening in your space? If you stand at all by the values you preach, condemn it. @staffTumblr/ @supportTumblr-- shame on you for allowing this abuse to happen and ignoring my reports. Shame on you for permitting these people to operate in your platform and for being okay with hosting hate. People have been driven to suicide on your website-- I am one of the lucky ones.

If you care at all about humanity and stand against this behavior, reblog and spread awareness. Share my story so I may not happen to anyone else. Tag @dragonprinceofficial until they notice and speak out.

This is my story, and so many others. Make sure it doesn’t happen ever again. No human being deserves to be treated how I was. Everyone deserves compassion, decency, and respect. And everyone deserves a place in fandom. Do better. If you want to reach out to me DMs are open, as well as my email, which is attached to my account. Until this change happens and I am given the support/ help needed to safely function on this platform, this blog will not be active outside of that.

Thank you all of the many accounts who have supported me, and I am working on getting back to all who have reached out! Your love means the world. You know who you are, and I don’t want to tag in case people come after you for showing me kindness. I am sorry if this is goodbye, to all that have enjoyed my blog. I enjoyed it for a long time too. I loved sharing my passion for stories, culture, having a space where I could analyze and discuss my favorite things. I loved getting to share what I had to offer with the world, having fun and posting jokes with my unique sense of humor. I loved interacting with intelligent people/ fellow fans and discussing my favorite stories, offering each other new insights and growing together. I loved the many, many kind and wonderful people who reached out to me in a variety of ways and provided support and friendship.

In the end, it just isn’t worth all of this pain and trauma, and I know when to put my foot down. I don’t want pity, I don’t want apologizes, and I’m not a martyr. I just want my story to make a difference-- to spur positive change in fandom culture/ spaces. I will be tagging all fandoms in which I have seen this kind of abuse present as well, to reach as many as possible.

Be safe, and be kind.

- The Arcadia Ledger/ Ryn/ Katie, signing off.

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madamtrashbat · 3 years

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A couple of thoughts

We doin' okay, Cats family? We're good? Good. I have one last thing to add.

This is kinda about pro- and anti-shippers, but it's really more about fandom culture in general and just my experiences. You can read it, if you want, or not.

Up to you.

I've been doin' this for a while. A good fifteen years at least, closer probably to sixteen. I've been doing things in fandom for longer than some of my mutuals have been alive.

(Oh Jesus)

And there's something I gotta tell you guys, both as a person who has been doing fandom-y stuff for years and for someone who literally has college degrees in English Literature and Creative Writing.

Being an anti is not normal.

And I know that comes across as harsh and mean and it sounds unreasonable but I'd like to explain what I mean by that.

I can trace back being an anti to two main sources: Voltron and Star Wars. I was never into Voltron or really even around anyone who was but I remember the screaming and fighting over the ships, and I remember the hellish crusade that began when people dared to ship Rey and Kylo Ren together. It was nasty, guys. It was absolutely insane that suddenly people were doing this over fictional ships, that people were being sent actual abuse and hatred because someone wanted the broody shitlord man and the unwashed desert scrounger to smooch. Like... imagine that in real time.

I was not, nor have I ever been, a Reylo shipper, but you know what I did, when that ship began, and I didn't like it? I ignored it and went about my day. Because that's how I was taught. Nothing in the fiction world was worth fighting over. It was not worth getting into arguments over. What was the point?

Then the antis got bolder, started branching out, and when people like me started standing up and saying, "Hey, stop being a dick to people!" someone hired the world's best PR machine and suddenly people who were not antis were pedophiles and abusive and incestuous.

How's that for some whiplash.

This anti movement of berating, bullying, harming, and threatening has been their MO, and it's dangerous. And now, they all buy their own bullshit. They actually think people like me are all out here twisting our mustaches like Snidely Whiplash and diddling kids. Without a shred of irony, they believe this.

Proship only labeled itself that as a response to the antiship, and antiship, make no mistake, named itself first. It was not anti-pedophile. It was not anti-incest. It was not anti-abuse.

It was all about disliking fictional ships that other people enjoyed, and thus attacking people over it.

And it's pointless. It's driven a child to suicide. It has gotten people fired. It has ruined careers, livelihoods, friendships. For nothing. For a boogeyman that doesn't exist.

Sex experts across the board all agree that what gives us our jollies is not at all what we want in real life. There's some wild statistic like 70% of women have had a sexual fantasy about rape at least once in their lives. About rape! That act that most AFAB people have a deep ingrained fear of! And we've used it to get off! Because sexual fantasy isn't that deep. Our brains are idiots. And since time immemorial, we as humans have written just the most fucked up shit.

It's even in the Bible. Humans have been nasty forever. And it doesn't mean shit.

It's in the TV shows. It's in our movies. It's in our books. It's in our music, our podcasts, everything. Being an anti is not the way of humanity at all. Ever. Except for like... maybe the puritans but they sucked so who cares about them.

Antis believe a lie. They believe a lie and they hurt people for it. I am not in any way, shape, or form exaggerating when I say I am fearful for those who regularly interact with me, because I am worried that one day the art they make or the "clout" they carry isn't going to be enough to save them from their friendship with me and antis will tear them to shreds. Because that is how they behave. They may not think they're bullies, and they may think they're in the right, but I want you to look up the Youtube RPF kid who killed themselves over anti harassment. Look at that horrible ask I just got. This is how they behave.

And that is what proshippers stand against. It's a stance against bullying, harassment, threats. That is it. There are plenty of proshippers out in the world that would never, ever think of writing anything involving someone underage, or between relatives, or involving anything gruesome. Because that's not what it's about.

Antis are new in the world of fandom, and they are the absolute root of toxicity. I do not exaggerate. They waste the time of agencies actually trying to eradicate CSAM by sending them art someone drew of a teenage character that isn't real. They've driven people to suicide. They've outright admitted to not caring about actual humans as much as they care about fictional ships. They have shown time and time again that they are not above abuse, vitriol, and bullying. There are blogs that post stories from ex-antis who say they were afraid to say anything different than their anti friends for fear of righteous backlash.

I repeat: I am legitimately afraid that my friends are going to get dogpiled and harassed because they dare to be my friend. That fear is not baseless. And it's all because of the way antis act.

I am liberal with the block button. I try to maintain boundaries because I don't want to see any of that shit as much as they don't want to see any of mine (though only a very scant few actually block me back, which is a joke in and of itself). But it still slips through. And I hate it, every time I see it.

Because this is not the way we're supposed to be. We are not supposed to be at odds with each other. We are supposed to share and have fun and be joyful about some people in lycra.

But because some people wanted to put on the pilgrim hat and play Morality Council to someone who's been doing this for years, I gotta tiptoe around people that think I'm actually out in the world diddling children. Do you know how fucked up that is. Do you know how that feels? To not only have someone make that judgment without any evidence, but to tell it to other people who don't know me either?

When someone finally snaps and starts biting back, it's not out of nowhere. And antis never, ever see themselves as doing something wrong. But they are. They are wrong.

Can I let you in on a little secret?

Seriously, just between you and me, come here.

If you think it's wrong to bully someone because of fiction, then you're proship. That is the long and short of it. No more or less. I hate to break it to you, but that is the only definition, and anyone who says it's something else is lying to you for their own gain.

And sure, there are lots of people who try to hide behind the proship label as they do shitty things. But antis do the same. Humans being assholes and trying to blame it on something else is not new.

The fact that people have come to me and told me that the antis have made them feel uncomfortable, that they're afraid if they do something they might view as negative they might receive hate, that people are actually AFRAID of people in this fandom, is not okay.

There was a fandom I was involved in where one of the prominent people actively hated me and I was never afraid of what she would do. I am afraid of the antis in this fandom, though. Because they have teeth and they like to use them.

Fandom isn't supposed to be like this. Nobody should be screaming at teenagers for talking to adults in fandom, infantilizing them like they're not a whole autonomous human. Nobody should be telling someone to kill themselves because they ship Tuggerstrap. Nobody should be afraid of the other people in their fandom.

Antis, if any of them even read this (I doubt it, but just in case), I want you to look around. The people who are neutral are not afraid of what the proshippers will say to them. They are afraid of you. You and your ilk are the ones causing the damage, and you are the outliers in the entire world of fiction. You're a loud minority that thinks it knows better when it knows absolutely nothing.

Ruminate on that.

My blog is still a safe space from bullying, abuse, and nastiness. If someone is being mean to you, you will always find a friend here. And if you can't say the same, then what's wrong with you?

Be excellent to each other. Stop making people afraid.

And sit down and ask yourself what it is you really want when you make vague posts about people and tell people vicious, awful things. What are you hoping to gain.

#long post #important

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bogkeep · 3 years

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hmmmmmmmmmm maybe i’ll write an Introspective Musing Post about my relationship to religion and their depiction in stories because i’ve pondering about this topic lately

so for those who are reading this and DON’T know what’s been going on... there’s this webcomic i fell in love with some years ago, about six years actually, that depicts a post-apocalyptic fantasy/horror adventure set in the nordic countries. it had, and has still, some very uncomfortable flaws regarding racial representation, and the creator has historically not dealt very well with criticism towards it. it’s a whole Thing. my relationship with this comic has fluctuated a lot, since there are a lot of elements in it i DO love and i still feel very nostalgic about, and like idk i felt like i trust my skills in critical thinking enough to keep reading. aaand then the creator went a teensy bit off the deep end created a whole minicomic which is like... a lukewarm social media dystopia where christians are oppressed (and also everyone is a cute bunny, including our lord and saviour jesus christ). which is already tonedeaf enough considering there are religious people who DO get prosecuted for their faith, like, that’s an actual reality for a lot of people - but as far as i can tell, usually not christians. and then there’s an afterword that’s like, “anyway i got recently converted and realized i’m a disgusting human being full of sin who doesn’t deserve redemption but jesus loves me so i’ll be fine!! remember to repent for your sins xoxo” and a bunch of other stuff and IT’S KIND OF REALLY CONCERNING i have, uh, been habitually looking at the reactions to and discussions around this, maybe it’s not very self care of me but there’s a lot of overwhelming things rn and it’s fantastically distracting, yknow? like, overall this situation is fairly reminiscent of the whole jkr thing. creator of a series that is Fairly Beloved, does something hurtful, handles backlash in a weird way, a lot of people start taking distance from Beloved Series or find ways to enjoy it on their own terms, creator later reveals to have been fully radicalized and releases a whole manifesto, and any and all criticism gets framed as harassment and proving them right. of course, one of them is a super rich person with a LOT of media power and a topic that is a lot more destructive in our current zeitgeist, and the other is an independent webcomic creator, so it’s not the same situation. just similar vibez ya feel as a result of this, i have been Thinking. and just this feels like some sort of defeat like god dammit she got me i AM thinking about the topic she wrote about!!! i should dismiss the whole thing!!! but thinking about topics is probably a good thing so hey lets go. me, i’m agnostic. i understand that this is a ‘lazy’ position to take, but it’s what works for me. i simply do not vibe with organized religion, personally. (i had the wikipedia page for ‘chaos magic’ open in a tab for several weeks, if that helps.) i was raised by atheists in a majorly atheist culture. christian atheist, i should specify. norway has been mostly and historically lutheran, and religion has usually been a private and personal thing. it turns out the teacher i had in 7th grade was mormon, but i ONLY found out because he showed up in a tv series discussing religious groups in norway later, and he was honestly one of the best teachers i have ever had - he reignited the whole class’ interest in science, math, and dungeons and dragons. it was a real “wait WHAT” moment for my teenage self. i think i was briefly converted to christianity by my friend when i was like 7, who grew up in a christian family (i visited them a couple times and always forgot they do prayers before dinner. oops!), but like, she ALSO made me believe she was the guardian of a secret magic orb that controls the entire world and if i told anybody the world would burn down in 3 seconds. i only suspected something was off when one day the Orb ran on batteries, and another day the Orb had to be plugged in to charge. in my defense i really wanted to be part of a cool fantasy plot. i had no idea how to be a christian beyond “uuuuh believe in god i guess” so it just faded away on its own. when i met this friend several years later, she was no longer christian. i think every childhood friend of mine who grew up in a christian family, was no longer christian when they grew up. most notably my closest internet friend whose family was catholic - she had several siblings, and each of them took a wildly different path, from hippie treehugger to laveyan satanist or something in that area. (i joined them for a sermon in a church when they visited my town. my phone went off during it because i had forgotten to silence it. oops!) ((i also really liked their mother’s interpretation of purgatory. she explained it as a bath, not fire. i like that.)) i have never had any personal negative experiences with christianity, despite being openly queer/gay/trans. the only time someone has directly told me i’m going to hell was some guy who saw me wearing a hoodie on norway’s constitution day. yeah i still remember that you bastard i’ve sworn to be spiteful about it till the day i die!! i’ve actually had much more insufferable interactions with the obnoxious kind of atheists - like yes yes i agree with you on a lot but that doesn’t diminish your ability to be an absolute hypocrite, it turns out? i remember going to see the movie ‘noah’ with a friend who had recently discovered reddit atheism and it was just really exhausting to discuss it with her. one of these Obnoxious Atheists is my Own Mother. which is a little strange, honestly, because she LOVES visiting churches for the Aesthetic and Architecture. we cannot go anywhere without having to stop by a pretty church to Admire and Explore. I’VE BEEN IN SO MANY CHURCHES FOR AN ATHEIST RAISED NON-CHRISTIAN. i’ve been to the vatican TWICE (i genuinely don’t even know how much of my extended family is christian. up north in the tiny village i come from, i believe my uncle is the churchkeeper, and it’s the only building in the area that did not get burnt down by the the nazis during ww2 - mostly because soldiers needed a place to sleep. still don’t know whether or not said uncle believes or not, because hey, it’s Personal) i think my biggest personal relationship to religion, and christianity specifically, has been academic. yeah, we learned a brief synopsis of world religions at school (and i remember the class used to be called ‘christianity, religion, and ethics’ and got changed to ‘religion, beliefs, and ethics’ which is cool. it was probably a big discourse but i was a teen who didnt care), but also my bachelor degree is in art history, specifically western art history because it’s a vast sprawling topic and they had to distill it as best they could SIGHS. western art history is deeply entangled with the history of the church, and i think the most i’ve ever learnt about christianity is through these classes (one of my professors wrote an article about how jesus can be interpreted as queer which i Deeply Appreciate). i also specifically tried to diversify my academic input by picking classes such as ‘depiction of muslims and jewish people in western medieval art’ and ‘art and religion’ when i was an exchange student in canada, along with 101 classes in anthropology and archaeology. because i think human diversity and culture is very cool and i want to absorb that knowledge as best as i can. i think my exchange semester in canada was the most religiously diverse space have ever been in, to be honest. now as an adult i have more christian friends again, but friends who chose it for themselves, and who practice in ways that sound good and healthy, like a place of solace and community for them. the vast majority of my friends are queer too, yknow?? i’ve known too many people who have seen these identities as fated opposites, but they aren’t, they’re just parts of who people are. it’s like... i genuinely love people having their faiths and beliefs so much. i love people finding that space where they belong and feel safe in. i love people having communities and heritages and connections. i deeply respect and admire opening up that space for faith within any other communities, like... if i’m going to listen to a podcast about scepticism and cults, i am not going to listen to it if it’s just an excuse to bash religion. i think the search for truth needs to be compassionate, always. you can acknowledge that crystals are cool and make people happy AND that multi level marketing schemes are deeply harmful and prey on people in vulnerable situaitons. YOU KNOW???? so now’s when i bring up Apocalypse Comic again. one of the things i really did like about it was, ironically, how it handled religion. in its setting, people have returned to old gods, and their magic drew power from their religion. characters from different regions had different beliefs and sources. in the first arc, they meet the spirit of a lutheran pastor, who ends up helping them with her powers. it was treated as, in the creators own words, ‘just another mythology’. and honestly? i love that. it was one of the nicest depictions i’ve seen of christianity in fiction, and as something that could coexist with other faiths. I Vibe With That. and then, uh, then... bunny dystopia comic. it just... it just straight up tells you christianity is literally the only way to..?? be a good person??? i guess?? i’m still kind of struggling to parse what exactly it wanted to say. the evil social media overlord bird tells you the bible makes you a DANGEROUS FREETHINKER, but the comic also treats rewriting the bible or finding your own way to faith as something,, Bad. The Bible Must Remain Unsullied. Never Criticize The Bible. also, doing good things just for social media clout is bad and selfish. you should do good things so you don’t burn in hell instead. is that the message? it reads a lot like the comic creator already had the idea for the comic, but only got the urge to make it after she was converted and needed to spread the good word. you do you i guess!! i understand that she’s new to this and probably Going Through Something, and this is just a step on her journey. but the absolute self-loathing she described in her afterword... it does not sound good. i’m just some agnostic kid so what do i know, but i do not think that kind of self-flagellating is a kind faith to have for yourself. i might not ever have been properly religious, but you know what i AM familiar with? a brain wired for ocd and intrusive thoughts. for a lot of my life i’ve struggled with my own kind of purity complex. i’ve had this really strange sensitivity for things that felt ‘tainted’. i’ve experienced having to remove more and more words from my vocabulary because they were Bad and i did not want to sully my sentences. it stacked, too - if a word turned out to be an euphemism for something, i could never feel comfortable saying it again. i still struggle a bit with these things, but i have confronted these things within myself. i’ve had to make myself comfortable with imperfection and ‘tainted’ things and accept that these are just, arbitrary categories my mind made up. maybe that’s the reason i can’t do organized religion even if i found one that fit for me - just like diets can trigger disordered eating, i think it would carve some bad brainpaths for me. so yeah i’m worried i guess! i’m worried when people think it’s so good that she finally found the correct faith even if it’s causing all this self-hate. is there really not a better way? or are they just trusting she’ll find it? and yeah it’s none of my concern, it’s like, i worry for jkr too but i do not want her within miles of my trans self thANKS. so like, i DO enjoy media that explores faith and what it means for you. my favourite band is the oh hellos, which DOES draw on faith and the songwriter’s experience with it. because of my religious iliteracy most of it has flown over my head for years and i’m like “oh hey this is gay” and then only later realize it was about god all along Probably. i like what they’ve done with the place. also, stormlight archive - i had NO idea sanderson was mormon, the way he writes his characters, many of whom actively discuss religion and their relationship to it. i love that about the books, honestly. Media That Explores Religion In A Complex And Compassionate Way... we like that i’ve been thinking about my own stories too, and how i might want to explore faith in them. most of my settings are based on magic and it’s like, what role does religion have in a world where gods are real and makes u magic. in sparrow spellcaster’s story, xe creates? summons? an old god - brings them to life out of the idea of them. it’s a story about hubris, mostly. then there’s iphimery, the story where i am actively fleshing out a pantheon. there’s no doubt the gods are real in the fantasy version of iphimery, they are the source of magic and sustain themselves on slivers of humanity in exchange. but in the modern version, where they are mostly forgotten? that’s some room for me to explore, i think. especially the character of timian, who comes from a smaller town and moves to a large and diverse city. in the fantasy story, the guardian deity chooses his sister as a vessel. in the modern setting, that does not happen, and i don’t yet know what does, but i really want timian to be someone who struggles with his identity - his faith, his sexuality, the expectations cast upon him by his hometown... i’m sure it’s a cliché story retold through a million gay characters but i want to do it too okay. i want to see him carve out his own way of existing within the world because i care him and want to see him thrive!!! alrighty i THINK that’s all i wanted to write. thanks if you read all of this, and if you didn’t that’s super cool have a nice day !

#rambles #i wrote this for me and theres no obligation to read it

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pbandjesse · 2 years

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I have finally. Finally. Made it to the end of work. I have tomorrow off. It will be over entirely to quickly. But it will be okay.

Today was an excellent day though. I slept okay. And when I woke up at 7, James said I could sleep a couple more minutes. But I got up and got ready. I had to change my top because the pants I wore were lower the. I thought and I didn't want skin out. So I was slightly frustrated but it was fine.

James took me to get breakfast. And then we were at the museum.

It was a lot of fun. It wasn't horribly busy, and I only gave one real tour but I would give a lot of single rooms and half tours. It was pretty constant actually. And I had a blast.

We had volunteers there today cleaning and repairing machines. I love talking to old men and making them my best friends so I would end up doing just that. They always love that I know about metal working and building. And having navy and union facts always helps. I had so many laughs today. My favorite guy was named Dale. And then there was another who told me when he was a teenager he would deliver logs to a copper refinery that they would burn to get the oxygen out of the casting process. Amazing.

I also just had excellent guests. One guy who looked like an actor I like. I got to brag about my mom, because she knew about dark shadows and I got to be like. Oh yeah that's my mom she's the coolest. And talk about my dad and construction. I always feel like that kind of thing gives me a little bit of clout? Makes people know I know.

I had some fun conversations with people for the farmers market too. I am trying to do a bit of outreach and finding new venders to apply and I was able to give info to two different people today! One who makes stained glass and one who makes perfumes and textiles. Super cool. And I just had lovely conversations with them and got to share all my fun facts and knowledge.

I also got to walk around showing the new security guard the musuem. He was a sweetheart and was really excited about the museum and I wanted him to feel super welcome. So I showed him all around and told him lots of things. He would buy himself a t-shirt later and I just thought that was so sweet.

I watched the desk for a bit so James could go get lunch. I am not super comfortable with the register but I sold one set of tickets. And James came back before I was off talking to people again.

I forgot to take a break. But I held myself together. For the last half hour of the day we had a dad and adult son come in who had been here yesterday but wanted to see some machines. So I quickly ran them around turning things on and telling my stories. They really seemed to love it and that was awesome. I think I did a great job today and that was just a really awesome feeling after yesterday not being my most ideal and successful program.

I did get next week's schedule and I'm doing 3 canneries at least, with me leading one. Which is the first one. I wish it wasn't the first because I think I could benifit from seeing another. But it's okay. I will be alright.

We finished up the day. I finally ate my sandwich. And soon we headed home.

James ordered us pizza and we would pick that up on the way home. I was very tired all of a sudden, not shocking. Stanley had asked me earlier if I was okay because I was sort of zoning out.

I was very glad to be going home. When we got back the Pokemon plush James got me came. It's of my Squishie!! I love them very much. Both James and Squishie.

I would lay on the couch and play pokemon for a bit. I caught five new Pokemon. And then had pizza. James would edit their podcast and I went to lay in the hammock. James headed to the theater to do an hour of work. I took a bath. And was comfy in bed by the time they got home.

I am ready to brush my teeth and get ready to sleep. I hope you all have a great night. And that tomorrow is restful and soft. Love you all. Goodnight!

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jeffchats · 2 years

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if cody has a mental illness that is that bad which makes him want to threaten/stalk people over a little joke, cody should’ve never been introduced to the internet, clout or fame, end of.

it’s not an excuse for his behaviour and it shouldn’t of been where jeff told ethan ‘ethan shouldn’t have made jokes’ how was ethan to know?? literally the whole internet makes jokes about one another. what about jeff’s bald eagle jokes towards david, david may be battling something ? if you can’t take it, don’t give it out simple. and keep your friends who can’t handle the internet, off the internet.

I understand why Jeff had him on the podcast because they’re good friends and they go way back. But I also think that podcast might have been better if Jeff did it alone at least on camera, Cody should have been in the back with no mic and no camera on him. It was a pretty emotional one for him and I understand needing the support but again because Cody deals with these things and how it can trigger him, it probably wasn’t a good idea. This video was going to get tons of attention and heat due to the context. Jeff mentioned that he wasn’t going to have him on during emotional things and I’m glad. I think that’s him trying to take some kind of measure for what happened this time around but I’m still disappointed in the response. I agree that it isn’t an excuse for the behavior and what he did, it shouldn’t give him a free pass from the consequences of his actions. Ethan doesn’t know Cody or what Cody deals with and I’m sure Cody doesn’t know what Ethan deals with but regardless doesn’t justify what Cody did to him and his family. I watched the reaction and the jokes did not seem bad enough to stalk, threaten, trespass, and intimidate his family…more than once.

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holyhellpod · 3 years

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4. Fambily

In this episode, we skim the surface of the fambily dynamics in Supernatural, which are--ah. Dicey at best.

Apple | Spotify | Google

Transcript under the cut!

Content warnings: domestic violence and family abuse

[Growl]

Ah, the Winchesters. Where do we even start. Unhinged, deranged, and continually traumatised in every way, Sam and Dean complete each other. At least, that’s what the show wants us to think. Despite the ways they betray each other, lie to each other, and piss each other off, they are fambily. And fambily is the most important thing. The concept of Fambily in the show Supernatural (2005-2020) takes many twists and turns throughout its run. In the first five minutes of episode one, the heteronormative, nuclear family of John, Mary, Sam and Dean is ripped apart by an unknown, antagonistic force that represents all the evil in the world. It creeps into a nursery and eviscerates a white, blonde mother while preying upon a 👶, I mean, how much more evil can you get? It’s fantastic that, in the later seasons especially, Supernatural embraces this idea that fambily doesn’t end in blood, but blood doesn’t always mean fambily. By the end of the series, the fambily concept has expanded to include two dads, an aunt and uncle, and a thirty-year old infant. I’m going to talk about the finale in its own episode, so that my ire will have its proper outlet.

When the show starts, Sam, Dean and John have each other, and only each other. By the time season 2 really kicks off, Sam and Dean don’t have John anymore, but they do have Bobby Singer. The concept of the triumvirate follows them throughout the series as though they’re in a less sexy Italo Calvino novel—first Sam, Dean and John, then Sam, Dean and Bobby, then Sam, Dean and Ruby, then Sam, Dean and Cas, then Sam, Dean and Mary, then Sam, Dean and Jack. It’s broken in seasons 13-15 when Cas comes back and they have a family of four, and then five when Mary can stand to see her boys.

But the Winchesters are not the only fambily in Supernatural who matter. In season two, we’re introduced to the Harvelles, mother Ellen and daughter Jo, who are a hunting fambily who run a hunter pub in the middle of whoop whoop. A pub that Eric Kripke famously hated, and rejoiced when he burnt it down at the end of season 2, because the Winchesters and by extension everyone they know aren’t allowed to have anything good ever. It’s revealed in season two episode “No Exit” that John got Jo’s father killed on a hunt, which obviously affects Jo more than it does Sam and Dean.

[Editing note:] Okay I’m editing this episode, and I’m not happy with it. I’m not going to scrap it completely because I think I do have good points to say, but the general analysis of this episode is so surface level. It is basically contributing nothing to the conversation. And I started this podcast in order to actually contribute something to the culture. I could make a bunch of text posts on tumblr or I could spend hours and hours and hours and hours of my life to something that — I don’t know. Is it bringing me joy? Not at the moment. But, yeah. So I’m not going to scrap this episode completely but this is my way of saying from now on the episodes are going to take as much as they will take and I will commit myself to having deeper and more thoughtful analysis. And if I have to spend an entire episode on one aspect of one thing, I will. I could be at university right now studying a masters or a PhD in fucking literary analysis but instead I’m sitting on my bed making a Supernatural podcast because it brings me joy. It does. It really makes me happy and I don’t want to abandon this project, because people are listening to it. I don’t know why, I don’t know what you like it about it, but you’re listening. And I just think I owe it to myself to make things that I support 100%. So I’ll continue this episode and hopefully this rambling hasn’t put you off it completely. But from now on, I’m going to really, really talk about things that matter in regards to Supernatural… Kind of an oxymoron. Kind of a contradiction. But things that contribute to the cultural consciousness instead of just rehashing the road so far. That’s all I want to do. I want to contribute. I want to say good…ful things. Okay this is making me happy. It’s already working, it’s already making me happy. I’m just going to keep rambling and laughing. Okay so, more thoughtful analysis, deeper analysis. Things that make you think. Things that make me think. Instead of just a bunch of words that mean nothing. Okay, continuing on.

Okay to figure out which episode this was I had to watch a little bit of season two, and I’m still on my season 13 rewatch. The difference between the two seasons. I don’t know if I can even put into words the growth this show has gone through, and the characters have gone through, over the last 15 years. It would be like summarising my own growth by combing through my extensive diary collection and the years of societally- and governmentally-enforced heterosexuality that has plagued my entire life. Those boys are babies in season two. The bootcut jeans alone. Sam is literally 23 years old. I don’t even talk to 23 year olds. I block them on social media.

The Harvelles are a blip in the Winchester map. While the actors Samantha Ferris and Chad Lindberg did attempt to resuscitate their cultural currency months after the show ended by participating in an event — okay I can’t. I can’t even go into it. Like, clearly Samantha Ferris heard back from her representation as soon as she started posting those tweets and realised she wouldn’t continue to get money if she endorsed, well, the gays. And Chad Lindberg was just using the clout to push his Etsy wares like a 14th century merchant, so I gotta respect the hustle. But Jo and Ellen die in season 5 episode “Abandon All Hope” and are barely mentioned again except the episode Ash appears in, season 5 “Dark side of the moon,” Jo in season 7, “Defending Your Life,” and Ellen in the season 6 episode “My heart will go on.” They didn’t exactly leave what you would call a lasting impact for the next, you know, ten seasons.

To be honest, I’m not sure when it’s revealed that Bobby’s wife died after being possessed by a demon. It’s made clear in season 5 “Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid,” and I did not have to look that up, because season four and five are burned into my retinas like a particularly nasty sun flare. Bobby outlines the horrific way he killed his wife, because why not throw some spousal violence into the mix, and later in season 7 “Death’s Door,” it elaborates on their life together. I saw this sentiment expressed on TikTok, which we all know as the foundation of cultural knowledge, which was that fambilies don’t need to be two parents and children. Fambilies can be spouses or partners. You don’t need to have children in order to be a fambily. I think that’s a very nice sentiment and I’ve chosen to adopt it for these purposes. Bobby and his wife Karen are a fambily. While Karen wants kids, Bobby chooses not to have them for fear of becoming like his father and repeating the trauma he inflicted on Bobby. Bobby and Karen’s fambily dynamic is ruptured in the same way that John and Mary’s is—by an intrusive, demonic force that brings Bobby into the hunting world and ends Karen’s life. But by the time we see him at the end of season 1, Bobby is already ingratiated into Sam and Dean’s lives as their surrogate father, and this bond only deepens as the show progresses. Bobby expresses the sentiment to Dean to not be like John, that Dean is already a better man that his father ever was. Isn’t that what we all want to hear? That we have superseded our parents and outgrown them in ways they could never comprehend? Don’t we just want to be better than the generations that came before us, in order to mould a better world for the generations that come after us? Don’t we want to make things easier for our children, and our friends’ children, and our siblings’ children? Dean is a better man than John, and Bobby is better man than his father ever was. It’s about breaking the cycles of intergenerational trauma. I have to believe that Sam, Dean and Bobby did this, because then it’s possible for me to do the same thing. Include here that speech about representation in media that I didn’t bother writing for the last episode. Bobby is the surrogate father to Sam and Dean, a better father than John was, a better hunter even. He crafts an entire network of hunters who report to him, as seen in the season 6 episode “Weekend at Bobby’s,” and he continues to act as Sam and Dean’s mentor until his death in season 7 “How to win friends and influence monsters”. An alternate universe version of Bobby is introduced in season 13, which I have my reservations about, and he and Mary get together, which again, why. Season 13 is so hard to sit through.

A fambily that is introduced late into the series and is simply NOT given enough screen time is the Banes fambily. In season 12, “Celebrating the life of Asa Fox,” we are introduced to the Banes twins, Max and Alicia, who are by far the most gorgeous hunters we’ve seen in the series. They are hunters raised by a witch, Tasha Banes, who doesn’t appear yet, and they manage to survive the trial by fire that is overcoming the demon Jael. Later in this season, in the episode “Twigs and Twane and Tasha Banes,” both of which are written by the late great Steve Yockey, we are introduced to Tasha in a way that seems awfully familiar: Alicia calls Sam to say their mother has gone missing on a hunt, and hasn’t checked in in a few days. By the end of the episode, Alicia and Tasha are dead, and Max has ostensibly sold his soul for the power to bring Alicia back. The Banes twins’ storyline directly parallels Sam and Dean’s from the pilot, but it’s a tragedy from the outset. We already know Tasha is dead and they can’t save her, however, like Dean does for Sam at the end of season 2, Max chooses to save Alicia at the expense of his own soul. Spin off when. Banes twins series when. I’m waiting. They were in two episodes and I’m still thinking about them. The Harvelles are dust.

In season 7, “Reading is Fundamental,” a waifish 17 year old honour’s student Kevin Tran breaks into a rehabilitation facility to steal a tablet. This starts a chain of events that ingratiates Kevin Tran in the apocalyptic, death-succumbing world of the Winchesters, starting with Dick Roman, head leviathan, and continuing, but not culminating, with his death at the hands of Gadreel, who was possessing Sam, it’s a whole thing. Any time you attempt to summarise anything on Supernatural, you sound like a lunatic. And I say that as someone who has a supernatural podcast, with an audience of only supernatural fans. We are lunatics, but we’re lunatics together. Kevin’s arc was cut way too short, but we at least got to see him with his momma Linda in the beginnings of season 8 with the unfortunately named episode “What’s up, Tiger Mommy?” It introduces Linda Tran as a capable and worldly woman, hell bent on protecting her son. She offers up her soul among other things in exchange for Kevin and the tablet with him. During the episode, she is possessed by Crowley, and Dean attempts to kill him, which would mean killing Linda as well. Kevin considers this the ultimate betrayal and leaves with his mum. Later in season 9 episode “Captives,” Linda is reintroduced as a captive of Crowley, who escapes with Sam’s help. Back at the bunker, she reunites with Kevin, who is now, thanks to the Winchesters’ incompetence, a ghost 👻. My macbook keeps suggesting little emojis in the smart bar so I just gotta put ‘em in. That’s the last we see of Linda, so I’m drawing my own conclusions about whether she gets to live a long and happy life. Kevin is a fan favourite and despite my reservations about Osric Chau which I will not get into like ever I really like Kevin too. He outsmarts Crowley many times and shows remarkable tenacity to get an impossible job done. His desire to see his mum again, the driving force behind his actions, mirrors Dean’s desperation to have his fambily together again like they used to be. I would call this a parallel but I don’t believe they purposefully did this, I just think they accidentally rehashed the same tired storyline they’ve been peddling since 2005. But yeah, if I was Kevin and all I had was my mum, seeing her again would be the driving force for my actions as well. Kevin’s father is never mentioned, and it honestly isn’t a big deal, which is great. Sometimes fathers are just absent, and you don’t need throw a hissy fit about it or make it your entire personality, Dean.

Missouri Moseley, played by the inimitable Loretta Devine, is introduced in the first season, episode “Home,” in which she helps out on a case involving Sam and Dean’s childhood house. We find out that Missouri is a long-time friend of John’s and helped him to understand that supernatural forces were behind Mary’s death. She is Sam and Dean’s first point of entry into the world of the Supernatural, and they didn’t know it until they meet her in “Home”. In season 13 episode “Patience,” another layer to Missouri’s character is added with the advent of her family: estranged son James and granddaughter Patience Turner, who is also a psychic. We get a lot of backstory for Missouri in this episode, even if it is sloppily written and contradictory to the way they initially set her up. If Missouri and James had been travelling when he was a child, why was she stationed in Lawrence in both 1983 and 2005? What did he mean that Missouri was hunting? I can’t be bothered unpacking the confusing bits of information presented in this episode. It’s not a good episode and I really don’t see why everyone goes apeshit for Bobo Berens. He kills Missouri in this episode, in a really horrible way. Like the history of Supernatural’s racism and misogyny should not be dumped on one man, but nor should it be perpetuated and it is continually throughout the entire show. Confusing, contradictory and badly written backstory aside, she is an interesting character, and her willingness to sacrifice herself to save her family echoes that of Mary in “Home”. I’m actually really mad that Patience never gets to have a relationship with Missouri, and later in season 13 episode “The Bad Place,” Patience’s father tells her that if she leaves to help The Winchesters and uses her psychic abilities, she’s not welcome back in his house. To me that’s just unnecessary. We have a family that has already been ruptured by the death of Patience’s mother, further ruptured by Patience’s father cutting off contact with Missouri, and then to go a step further he disintegrates their family unit by kicking Patience out. Like how much loss do the Moseley-Turners have to endure? It’s really just cruel at this point. But Patience does find family with Jodie, Donna, Claire, Alex and eventually Kaia, and while I love the concept of found family and this found family in particular, it comes at the expense of biological family, which is something that the show has pushed from the very first episode. So that’s evolution in itself. Going from “fambily is the most important thing to these characters” to “found fambily is where we find love” is great, but ripping apart a biological fambily like the Moseley-Turners, and indeed starting the episode by saying Missouri has been shunted out of her son and granddaughter’s lives for trying to bring her son comfort, is just fucked. Like, I couldn’t name a single Bobo episode that I actually like without having to comb through them. I’m trying really hard not to shit all over him because as a writer I know how much that sucks and I know how hard is it for any marginalised writers to get a start, but I’m allowed to have my vendettas.

If you’ve watched the “Runs In The Family” angels MV from 2010, and only if you’ve watched the “Runs In The Family” angels MV from 2010, you will understand just how jacked up the angel family really is. The angelic counterpoint to Sam and Dean are the archangels Lucifer and Michael. We are introduced to two different versions of Michael—one in season 5, who possesses their dad in 1979 and their brother Adam in 2010—my god that was literally over a decade ago—and Apocalypse World Michael, played by four different actors: Felisha Terrell, Christian Keyes, Jensen Ackles, and Ruth Connell, who plays Rowena. I don’t know what in the hell Jensen Ackles was doing performance-wise when playing Michael, but I consider it a federal crime akin to drug trafficking or money laundering. As for Christian Keyes playing Michael, Andrew Dabb, you know what you did and you’re going to have to live with that.

In season 5, during the apocalypse, Michael and Lucifer only interact in the last episode, “Swan Song,” but the entire season is built around their conflict. Lucifer disobeyed their father, and Michael as God’s most powerful weapon must defeat him. It’s meant to mirror Sam’s descent into, uhhhh, badness or something, disobeying John to run away to Stanford, or, like, drinking demon blood? It’s unclear. Lucifer and Apocalypse World Michael interact in season 13, and Michael kills Lucifer only to take over Dean’s body and start a season-long arc of, like, bad acting and barely thought-out plots. I would say to Jensen Ackles “don’t quit your day job,” but this is literally his day job.

The angels as they’re introduced in season 4 are warriors of god, and all they know is obedience and killing. Even Cas can’t break out of the cycle of killing his angel siblings, and often justifies it by saying that it’s for the greater good, that he needs to do it to take down a stronger force like Raphael or Metatron. Anna manages to break free of her family by falling and becoming human, but when Cas betrays her and the angels capture her, she is lobotomised, tortured and sent back out to kill Sam. Then she’s burned to a crisp by Michael possessing John, not the last time a woman would burn to death on this show. The angels are dysfunctional at best, and actively hostile to each other, especially Castiel, the infamous spanner in the works. I could write an entire academic paper about how the angels think of Castiel as this rebel slut who murdered his way to the top and is going to be the downfall of angel kind, but Dean thinks of him as this little nerdy guy with a harp he carries around in his back pocket. Which honestly Cas would love because he’s obsessed with Dean and wants to touch his butt. I don’t know what else I can say about the angels without turning this into a dissertation, so I’ll continue on.

While all seasons of the show are about family, season six is especially about matrilineal family. It introduces the concept of the mother of monsters—Eve—and focuses on Mary as a solution to the loneliness the characters feel after her death. Samuel Campbell, Mary’s father, is brought back to life and manipulated by the promise of seeing his daughter again. He asks Sam and Dean what they wouldn’t do to see Mary again, which is kind of the general thesis of the show. What wouldn’t John, Dean and Sam do for each other? Dean sells his soul. John makes a deal with the demon who killed Mary. Sam teams up with Ruby to kill Lilith in revenge, which begins as a suicide mission because he doesn’t know how to handle his grief for Dean. The difference is that Samuel betrays Sam and Dean, his own grandchildren, for the promise of seeing Mary again. This cardinal sin alienates him from being a good guy, because good guys never betray Sam and Dean. Sam and Dean are our protagonists! Our heroes! The bringers of the light! The knights in shining armour! The white on rice. The cherry in cherry pie. They are the ones we’re meant to align ourselves with, because it’s their story the narrative is telling. And anyone who doesn’t align themselves with the Winchesters is an enemy who needs to be defeated.

We’re introduced to the character of Gwen in the first episode of season 6, “Exile on Main Street”, and she says in the episode “Family Matters” that Samuel, the patriarch, doesn’t like her very much because she reminds him of Mary. While Samuel, Christian, Gwen and co are technically family, Dean has no connection to them past bloodlines. And as I said before, while family doesn’t end in blood, we learn throughout this season that blood doesn’t always mean family. Gwen dies in the episode “And Then There Were None,” because of course she does, and Mary doesn’t come back, at least not in this season.

In “Family Matters,” the alpha vampire, played by the irreplaceable Rick Worthy, mentions that “we all have our mothers,” referring to Eve, the mother of monsters, the one who spawned every other monster and who has been trapped in purgatory ever since. Eve is pulled from Purgatory to wage war against the hunters and Crowley because they have been preying on her first borns, the alphas. I love Eve. I love her. She’s my favourite villain after Metatron. Mainly because I think she is like… sexy as hell. Like wow I am just so attracted to Julia Maxwell and this, like, bored smokey affect thing she does where she barely moves her mouth when she speaks and her strong brow makes her seem so intimidating. I don’t know anything about her personally, but I feel like she would’ve bullied me in high school, and I’m into it. It’s really hard to judge just from this one role whether she’s a good actor because Eve has such limited range and few things to do, but I really wish she’d gotten more screen time. Yeah, she’s doing the bare minimum and I’m completely obsessed. But Eve isn’t just a monster, she’s literally THEE milf. The original milf. And I really think she should’ve stayed around, but since they kept Lisa alive they had to kill at least one high profile woman.

Continuing with the family storylines in season 6, Dean tries to establish a family with Lisa and Ben, and for the most part succeeds. He gets a job, plays the role of the doting boyfriend and stepfather, and protects them as best he can. I’m going to spare you the rant perched at the tip of my tongue about how this is at best a lavender marriage or staying together for the kid, and that Lisa only exists to be an ideal for Dean, not an actual partner he can grow with throughout the rest of the show. It’s his first attempt at a fambily outside of Sam, Bobby and John, and it fails miserably because Lisa isn’t a good match. The fact is, she will never be able to fit into the hunting world because of the way the writers wrote her—as mother and girlfriend archetype, and we’ve seen how well they do with those—in fact they actively paralleled it in “Exile on Main Street” where they had Dean hallucinate Azazel coming back and pinning Lisa to the ceiling. It couldn’t be more obvious that they don’t respect her. At least they didn’t fridge her for Dean’s man pain. It’s honestly horrible because Dean put so much effort into believing this was his one chance at happiness, and when it crumbles like a tim tam in hot tea he beats himself up for it and uses it as an excuse to never be happy.

He does seem to be happy for the most part with Lisa, but because Sera Gamble doesn’t know how to write interesting or complex female characters, when Sam reenters the picture it once again becomes about the original premise: two brothers on the road, fighting the forces of evil. There’s no room for any women in that sphere. Up until this point I think—correct me if I’m wrong—there has been one female hunter who survived, and she was in one episode. The hunter Tamara in season 3 “The Magnificent Seven,” whose husband died in maybe the most sadistic way anyone has died on this show. Don’t rewatch it, just google it. All women die, including Mary, their mother, who is brought back in season 12 and killed in season 14. AND FOR WHAT? For WHAT Andrew Dabb.

Often, the loss of a parent, child or significant other is used to excuse bad behaviour and terrible choices. The hunting life causes Mary’s whole family to die before she can escape it, and because she makes a deal with Azazel for John’s life, the same demon John makes a deal with, Azazel kills her anyway. John abused his kids and brought them into the hunting life, because he was obsessed with getting revenge for Mary’s death. Sam does the same thing when Jess dies in the first season, and it starts a 15-season long arc of pain and misery. He sets Lucifer free in the season four because he is obsessed with getting revenge for Dean’s death and obsessed with the power drinking demon blood gives him. Then again, Sam is actually right for saving people by exorcising demons, which is literally the first part of the family business motto, instead of just gutting them with the demon knife, but because Dean doesn’t agree with it, it’s bad. Sam always wants to do the right thing, he just gets a little caught up in the details. But you know what? Bloodfreak rights.

When Cas dies in season 13, Dean is so overcome with grief, a grief that echoes John and Sam’s, that he mistreats Jack and threatens to kill him. In season 14, Nick, Lucifer’s vessel, boo snore hiss, kills everyone involved with the murder of his wife and child before he finds out that it’s actually Lucifer’s doing, and then he tries to raise Lucifer from the empty because he’s addicted to killing? Whatever, stop employing Mark Pellegrino. Stop writing men as obsessed with getting revenge

The biological fambilies in Supernatural suck shit. Honestly every time I watch an episode about fambily I’m even more glad I don’t talk to mine. Dean and Sam need to spend some time away from each other, while they’re both still alive. Their fambily dynamic gets better as the show progresses, and I was pleased to see in season 12 that they do away with the codependency, constantly sacrificing themselves for each other, isolating themselves, betraying everyone they know for each other—they started to act like, you know, normal people. And that’s good. Sure, the show would not be anywhere without John sacrificing himself for Dean, and Dean sacrificing himself for Sam, and honestly that’s what made those first few seasons amazing. But after a while it becomes lazy writing, not parallels. A parallel that Supernatural pulled off is Sam comforting Magda in season 12 episode “The Survivor” in the way he needed to be comforted in season 1 and 2 as a psychic child. A parallel is Dean preparing Cas’s body for cremation in season 13 in counterpoint to the way Cas remade Dean’s body in season 4. This show can absolutely do parallels, some of the most beautiful parallels ever put on screen, but the last season was such lazy writing that I cannot forgive it.

This has been an overall negative episode of Holy Hell, and that sucks. I don’t want to be so negative. I want to talk about the good things that Supernatural did, and share in joy with you all, so now I’m going to talk about the only positive I see with fambily in the entire show.

For Dean, everyone older than him is a parent to disappoint, and everyone younger than him is a little sibling to protect. Cas is the exception, as there’s no way to define Dean and Cas’s relationship without acknowledging the reciprocal romantic ways they care about each other. Dean says on multiple occasions that Cas is like a brother to him, and that he’s Sam and Dean’s best friend. He actually drops the line, “After Sam and Bobby, you are the closest thing I have to family,” on Cas in season 6, and he acts like it’s nothing, but you can see in the expression on Cas’s face that Dean just recontextualised the entirety of Cas’s being in one sentence. Cas falls for Dean, gives up his family for Dean, and decides to follow him in the first act of free will we see on screen. And Dean, who has never known love without pain, says to Cas, you are fambily to me, I actively choose you, you belong in my life. But to belong in Dean’s life is to follow his plan, and when Cas doesn’t, he is punished for his hubris. Dean loves him, and he never even admits it.

Charlie becomes like a little sister to Dean, as does Jo. Jack is unequivocally Cas’s son, but becomes something of Dean’s son as well and some would argue Sam’s son. Claire becomes Cas’s daughter, but imprints so much on Dean that many, myself included, have come to consider Dean her father as well. If you subscribe to the idea that Dean and Cas are old marrieds, Dean would be Claire and Jack’s stepfather, and they would be a nuclear fambily all on their own. In season 14 “Lebanon,” when John says to Dean that he thought Dean would have settled down with a fambily, Dean says, “I have a fambily.” Just thinking about it gives me goosebumps.

Cas chooses to be a part of Claire’s life in season 10 “The Things We Left Behind” because he feels guilty about what happened to her after he possessed Jimmy, but after getting to know Claire he cares for her. The crime that is Claire and Cas not interacting after season 10, my god. That’s his daughter, you ghouls. But Claire and Dean do get more moments together. Dean, Sam and some British guy save Claire from turning into a werewolf, and Claire and the rest of the Wayward Sisters save Sam and Dean from the Bad Place. The Wayward Sisters are a found fambily all on their own, and since I could devote an entire episode to Jody’s little brood, I have chosen not to talk about them much, because this episode is at least half an hour, 34 minutes, and it would take up too much of my time. Claire is one of my favourite characters and I’ll be talking about her in the next ep, so stay tuned for that.

Even before Jack is born, Cas becomes his protector. He goes from trying to convince Kelly to end her and Jack’s life, to being her pseudo-husband and the surrogate father to her child. To me personally, it’s the best thing this show has ever done. Cas, Kelly and Jack love each other in a way that is so wholly uncomplicated, that is so pure and so good. Once Cas becomes Jack’s protector, there’s never any question of whether they would hurt or betray each other. He is Cas’s son, his baby boy, and he loves Cas so much that he resurrects Cas from the empty. When they meet for the first time in season 13 “Tombstone” after Cas comes back, they fit into each other’s lives so easily. This is the part in writing this where I was absolutely sobbing my dick off. There are so many moments between them that show the kind of love that each of these characters deserved. Sam and Dean deserve to have that love from their father, and so does Cas. And together they build a family unit around caring for Jack that does indeed end the intergenerational trauma that plagues the Winchester fambily.

And that’s why season 16 is so important to me. I can make things better. Dean sorts his shit out, all of his shit: his alcoholism, depression, ADHD, borderline personality disorder, suicidal ideation, sexuality, gender, the fact that Cas is literally the love of his life and he gets to save him from the Empty the way Cas saved him from Hell. They plant flowers in the field where Dean spread Cas’s ashes in season 13, and they get married at Jody’s cabin with all their loved ones left alive. Claire walks Cas down the aisle and Jack is the flower girl, because he’s literally a three year old baby. Sam and Eileen raise a bunch of rugrats and the Wayward fambily continue the hunting legacy and have a Sunday afternoon roast every week. Dean and Cas raise Jack right, they cut up oranges for soccer practice and watch all his school plays. He and his cousins grow up knowing what it’s like not only to be loved, but to be looked after, to have all their needs met. They grow up normal, and the trauma that plagued their family is a thing of the past. It’s good, you know? It’s just fucking good.

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