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queermania · 1 year

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Ok so I have a real question not trying to start discourse or any thing. If Dean knew how he felt about Cas slash knew he liked men why was he always so weird about gay people. I can see a reading where Dean knew how he felt about Cas but not one where he knew he was bi

this is totally a fair question and i don't think there's any one True reading or interpretation of the show/characters so it really just depends on what version of events resonates the most with you. the way the picture makes the most sense to me is that dean is a guy who was raised in the 80s-90s in a hyper-masculine environment with zero stability. i think all of those puzzle pieces slotted into place in his brain in a way that said "sex with men is okay, feelings are not." a furtive hookup with a dude in a seedy bar bathroom is fine. going on a date with a guy is prohibited.

and the thing is that this is kind of true for dean when it comes to women as well. a one night stand is a-okay. falling in love and settling down is not. so, you take that sort of mentality and then apply all the homophobia of growing up in the eighties and the nineties and a life lived out of a car bouncing between truck stops and, well, you get a dean who is absolutely flabbergasted when confronted with the fact that not only are you allowed to want something romantic with a man, you're allowed to say it out loud to other people. you're allowed to have it.

dean wasn't weird about gay people, necessarily. he was weird about people who were able to just be themselves. he didn't know that was an option. also, i don't know about y'all but as a queer person who doesn't necessarily read as queer at a glance, i too get Very Awkward when confronted with another queer person in the wild and it's not because i'm homophobic. it's because oh! new friend! must send telepathic signals that me queer too! my behavior around other queer people in queer spaces does not match my behavior around other queer people in random public spaces. i'm embarrassing and i see that part of myself in dean lol.

and dean being weird about other people making comments about his perceived queerness, to me, is a very normal reaction for a closeted person (or even someone who is selectively and/or quietly out). you can be perfectly at peace with who you are and still not want to be clocked. like???? homophobia is not a thing of the past. dean grew up during the AIDS crisis. he was, what? nineteen years old when matthew sheppard was killed? his reactions to people insinuating he might be anything even close to queer make perfect sense for someone his age, living the life that he did.

also, like, here's the thing: i realized i was queer when i was about eleven and i freaked out about it for about a day and then promptly suppressed the whole thing because of a deeply traumatizing childhood. being queer was the least of my worries and there was never any time to unpack it and deal with it so i just didn't. and then when i was about nineteen i started to have queer sexual/romantic relationships but continued to suppress the fact that EYE was in fact queer because, again, i didn't really have the space to unpack it. it wasn't until i was about twenty-three and surrounded by other queer people (in a platonic way) that i finally felt safe to fully admit to myself and to other people that i was in fact queer. and then i never really did a whole coming out thing. i just... lived my life openly as a queer person and let other people figure it out.

my point in all this is that i feel like my general experience/trajectory lines up really well with how i view dean's. he had a very traumatic upbringing so while he knew he was attracted to men, he had no time or space to deal with it. that didn't stop him from having sex with men, but he never really unpacked what it actually meant. it wasn't until he was older and had openly queer friends that he felt safe enough to fully acknowledge that part of himself. and then.. that was it. he just lived his life as a queer man. like, i feel like we actually watched that happen over the course of the show???

most importantly, i cannot handle any reading where everyone else knows dean is queer but dean does not know himself. i especially loathe the idea that sam Knows and has to explain dean's own sexuality to himself. that is so ugly. dean is a very self-aware person. you could even argue he is perhaps too self-aware at times.

anyway, this is all obviously just a watsonian explanation of dean's relationship to his queerness. it doesn't even touch on the doylist stuff but that's a whole can of worms i'm not really interested in opening on tumblr dot edu right now.

so, yeah. that's my personal reading.

#replies #anonymous #dw #queer!dean #mp

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bougiebutchbinch · 7 months

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On Izzy Hands

Popping this on this blog too, just so it'll show up in the tags... My superior alternate suggestions for a S2 ending are under the cut. We all know I'm right.

Honesty Hour time. The reason we were all like 'I bet he's going to die' is because WHENEVER a character has a cool redemption arc OR a queer character comes out and experiences genuine queer joy for the first time in their life, their mortality rate goes up by 90%. But it was such a disappointment to be proven right.

I think we all expected better of the writing team. They've committed to doing genuinely new and interesting things with this story in the past, rather than just trotting out tired old tropes! But... not in this case.

People say they want more Zuko-esque redemption arcs, but we can't have that if every character who was A Bit Of A Dick at first gets killed off. And... c'mon. The whole arc of Izzy finding a family in the crew, and healing after being abused awfully for ages, and finding happiness, and openly embracing his queerness and disability.... then just randomly getting shot by a dude? Not even as a dramatic 'protecting someone' sacrifice? He just randomly got shot?? And we're all supposed to feel sad about that rather than just kinda let down?

Yeaaaaah, I do not think they achieved what they were going for.

I understand that a lot of that was because they had to shorten the series SO MUCH more than they wanted, but still.... it would have cost nothing to let Izzy just sail away with the rest of the crew as the Captain of the Revenge, while Ed and Stede retired!! It felt kinda like they were building towards that all season! Hell, that would've been a more meaningful progression for all of their characters.

We'd have Ed and Stede letting go of Blackbeard for good and building something new together on land - but we'd also have Izzy finally moving beyond the 'Blackbeard' persona he helped Ed create (and, arguably, did more for than Ed!). He'd be a captain who actually gives a shit about his crew, but who has learnt from Stede and Ed the importance of being a bit softer and gentler rather than brutally efficient 24/7. He evidently already admires Zheng (the face journey he goes on when she downs the big guy at Jackiez is ... it's sure something!) and I want a million more hours of them interacting. I bet they could be a super-funny duo. Plus, he could inevitably drag Stede and Ed back in next season! And get revenge on the prince who shot him!

It would've been perfect.But no, they had to kill him off because the OT3 potential was too strong, and bury a career pirate on land. Meh.

I'm tempted to watch the next season, if there is one, just for Olu/Jim/Archie/Zheng, but I can't say I care that much about the writing anymore. I won't be crying if the show does stop here, but I will be crying over everything that could have been!

#izzy hands #ofmd #our flag means death #ed teach #stede bonnet #ofmd meta #blackbonnet #steddyhands #ofmd s2 spoilers #ofmd spoilers #dizzy izzy #izcourse

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fruitwaterz · 8 months

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What's Up With Jack? - A JFK Clone High Character Analysis Written By a Mentally Unwell Highschool Student

I'm gonna start this essay off with 5 words: JFK is an iconic character. He's not as iconic as…Spongebob, sure, but he is the glue that holds together Clone High as a whole because of his character. I've written an essay on him once, and since then I've always loved him and he was so interesting to analyze. Though, I felt as if I had gotten a few things wrong in that one analysis. So, I'm remaking it. In addition, I'm adding some more stuff and correcting what I've gotten wrong.

We know who JFK is. Not the former US president, the cartoon character. The brute, dumb womanizing jock. The one that's used for comedic relief from time to time. The silly himbo that people have grown to love since 2020.

While Clone High is a very satire show that makes fun of various teen tropes, we get ourselves some very interesting characters like Joan, the shadowy board, etc. So in a way, making this analysis is very silly of me but I'm a Clone High obsessed nerd who relates to some of the characters. Most of all, JFK. I want to highlight some elements that most of the fandom doesn't really dig into that much. Good news for JoanFK and Jfabe fans, I can't infodump without mentioning both of these ships.

This is a JFK Clone High essay, and why I care so fucking much. Contains season 2 spoilers.

LGBTQ: THE SEXUAL MINORITY

To state the obvious, JFK has gay foster dads. Something that you don't see in many other 2000s cartoons. Most people would expect the last thing is for a jock to have same sex foster parents. Jack seeks advice from them. He loves them. However, we do get moments where JFK gets confused about his own sexual orientation at times. For instance, he messes up his words and gets flustered around "John Dark", who is actually Joan. In the end, however, he becomes relieved at the thought of not being attracted to the same sex.

This could either mean that he was "intimidated" by his own sexual orientation, or the fact that he's bisexual in a country that many sexual minorities struggle through– even today. Even if this might be a stretch, this is the 2000s, I must remind you. It was a VERY different time for people who identified with their orientations. Since JFK is so popular in the school, he could've become afraid of ruining his own reputation because he was simply bisexual. So what does he do? He goes to his foster parents for advice.

A lot of people in the world aren't very accepting of people who are queer (hell, people shunned Abe for kissing his friend Gandhi. And while Abe isn't attracted to Gandhi in any way, I feel like this could be a good example).

Let's put ourselves in JFK's shoes for a moment. You'd happen to be a kid growing up in the 80s-90s. You have gay foster parents. You'd get made fun of for having gay parents. I think that at some point during Jack's childhood, he was probably ridiculed for having parents of the same sex. It's possible.

His Personality, His Reputation, And His Feelings

JFK loves receiving praise. He pulls constantly, he's the captain of the football team, and he likes making himself look nice. But it's very obvious that he hides his feelings, he wants to make himself look tough SO much that he's almost forgotten the one thing: It's okay to feel human emotions. JFK has mentioned before that the only girl who ever gave him feelings (before Joan came in) was Cleo– and even if she did, the two were in a toxic relationship. They argued with each other constantly, they put each other down.

This could suggest that he's only ever felt way too empty when he was around with other girls, so Cleo coming into his life brought a little color into his world. Just…not for long. He has a deep fear of breaking up with Joan and losing her, because he has abandonment issues. Yes, JFK, the asshole jock, has abandonment issues, and it's been right in front of our eyes. He himself demonstrates a genuine fear of losing someone close to us.

Now to talk about one of my favorite episodes where JFK gets some character development. Litter Kills: Litterally. If you don't know the premise of this episode, JFK loses his best friend, Ponce, due to him being killed by litter. And. That's pretty much it, everyone go home

Seriously though, while the episode itself is pretty stupid and hilarious, it also remains one of the emotional Clone High episodes. When Ponce dies, JFK is devastated, clearly. He lost one of his only best friends, and as the funeral for Ponce went on, JFK didn't care about his reputation, he didn't care how insane he looked to everyone, he only wanted to be with his friend. But even in the current situation he was in, JFK first refused to be comforted by Abe. This is also the moment of one of the first ever times he ever felt a warm embrace. And by his enemy, of all people.

Towards the end of the episode, we can see that JFK is at least starting to move on.

Now, on to season 2 JFK, I do believe that he had some sort of character growth ever since Joan came into his life, which brings me to number 3:

Loneliness And Insecurities

JFK is noticeably happier when he's with Joan, correct. She's the only person he's ever felt comfortable being with compared to Cleo, whereas the two were in a completely toxic relationship back in season 1.

I want to remind you all that Joan is genuinely the only woman JFK has ever loved, so the thought of breaking up with her makes him…anxious. He has an irrational fear of losing her, same as he lost Cleo (though, the two remained friends). In Anxious Times At Clone High, JFK avoids Joan so she wouldn't break up with him. He runs away from his problems in this episode, to be exact. When he's not with Joan, he is prone to overthinking.

Joan and JFK do share something in common, they both struggle in actually making friends. But in season 2 episode 2, Joan makes friends faster than JFK does. He's spent most of his highschool years being a womanizing stud, that he came to the realization that he actually doesn't have any friends. His only friend was his girlfriend.

So, he resorts to crying in the boys restroom. Which is where we see him become friends with Confucius, as he invites him over to his mansion for a boys night. A very convenient thing that caught my eye was: Confucius also struggles in making friends. So he and JFK also share a thing in common. This is one of the first friends he ever made, mind you.

JFK admits to the fact that he's a "loser with zero friends", after getting absolutely demolished in an internet argument against Topher Bus.

So, JFK is a very insecure person, got it. He insults himself over having no friends. He's afraid of losing someone close to him because he fears he's not good enough for her. He's so scared about the thought of her breaking up with him that it pushes him out of his comfort zone. Though, as the episodes progressed, we do see JFK gaining many other friendships, even becoming friends with his former rival, Abe.

JoanFK (And Why It Didn't Work Out)

I will start off with this section by saying that I do not dislike JoanFK, I personally think they are very cute. They have a great ship dynamic. Goth girl x dumb jock. But, and this is a very lukewarm take: I feel like their break up was fair.

Saved By The Knoll was the breaking point, where in one of the scenes, JFK…cheats on Joan by making out with Harriet. And while they both apologized and admitted it to her, it's still treated as cheating by Joan (however forgives them both in the end).

I believe that JFK letting Joan break up with him in Spring Broken was a very responsible thing to do of him, and he goes on about how Joan needs someone with her that's not just sexually. And JFK…makes a lot of sex jokes. He's not a perfect person. He has flaws in relationships, this includes Joan. Even though it was a pretty emotional scene, and Joan was saddened by JFK's suggestion, they are able to work things out in episode 8, Sexy Ed.

You get where I'm going with this. I personally think that JFK and Joan are better off as friends, they have an excellent platonic duo dynamic that could work out so well. The whole entire relationship thing was doomed to fail, and couldn't last long as a result. And while they both look out for each other and care for each other, I don't think I'm the only one who thought that the relationship was quickly gonna sink like the titanic.

Jfabe (And Why It Does Work Out)

I'm not saying JFK and Abe have to be a romantic couple, like JoanFK, they could also form a cool duo dynamic that we pretty much have little to see so far. I can only hope that in season 3, we could have more moments between them where they're just a powerful brotp.

I'd like to point out that these two are complete opposites; Abe is tall and lanky while JFK is short and buff. I like the thought of the tall loser boyfriend x short jock boyfriend ship dynamic. They both influenced each other's goals, Abe was determined to get Cleo to be with him because JFK was competing against him to also get the girl, and JFK wanted to win the presidential election because Abe was getting himself into danger (as said by Joan). In season 2 episode 10 however, they both agreed to the fact that, "Hey, we actually do great as a team!"

I believe that JFK and Abe could work out things if they were to be in a relationship together, such as JFK learning from his previous break up that he needs to improve. I figured that Abe could be his emotional support. The one who's always there for him, willing to help JFK out whenever he needs it. Just wanted to share my thoughts.

Conclusion

For a satirical highschool comedy, JFK is an interesting antagonist to supporting character despite being the stereotypical highschool bully, and that's probably part of why people like him so much. While they have watered him down a bit in season 2 I couldn't be more grateful that we at least got some more JFK content to work with. He has been rotting my brain asides from the show itself i think i need help . Thanks for sticking around

#clone high #clone high season 2 #jfk clone high #clone high 2023 #character analysis

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impishtubist · 4 months

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bitchy inbox time (i’m not over thirty but i do love sirius black) !!

there are many (many) things that annoy me about the current mwpp fandom (and/or a specific part of it). it’s not just jamming all the DE’s and order members in the same year(s) at hogwarts, and making the DE characters secretly good (but not their parents) and also very boring, and the complete OC-ification of characters because the characterisations were like that in this one big fic, and the frequent attempts to make the 70s fit into the 2k20s ideas of progressiveness. it’s not just stuff like that.

i don’t like the whole ‘fandom agrees’ thing either, but that’s not very new nor fandom specific anyway so that’s not something i can complain about lol. what i hate the most is that it just takes the heart out of it, i guess? basically all these characters who get extra background, or additional background, or whatever are the same, just with a different look and different name. the terf lady didn’t give much of a flying fuck about any of the characters, but the fandom did. and each character was (usually) so vibrant!! distinguishable!! even in the fanart designs, you know?

and now it’s like. the same cookie-cutter guy or gal. queer and tattooed, with mental health issues fashionable clothing like it’s something you can just fucking put on—some sort of tiktok aesthetic played for being ‘relatable’. all the DE’s have shitty parents and a heart of gold and Not That Bad actually. remus gets turned into james and if a very specific sirius portrayal was afab, people would call her character one of the most misogynistic and sexist portrayals in the series.

‘we’re throwing away canon and making the series progressive and morally good’ but we’re not, because the queerness feels fetishised and the depiction of abuse is so unserious, and we’re apparently making bigots ‘misunderstood’. it’s just. HNHHHH. so annoying.

xoxo soopsie

Hiiiiiiiiii darling <3

Yes! All of this is so well-said! I spent a lot of time banging my head against a wall, trying to figure out WHY this was happening, and when I found out that a lot of people joining the fandom had never read the books, that's when things clicked. It's not GOOD, but at least I sort of have an explanation now for why these characterizations are happening and why they're so prevalent. If you only know these characters from fanfic and TikTok....well I'm still gonna bitch about all of this but at least I know why you're writing them a certain way.

And another thing! If you weren't here in the '90s/early '00s then what are you doing here in the first place lmao, we're only here because we have no choice.

#i'm sorry i don't mean to be a gatekeeper but i'm kind of being a gatekeeper #asking people to read the source material before doing anything in fandom is not elitist #like! pirate that shit!#imp speaks #chaos night

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tehnakki · 1 year

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I just wanted to thank you for posting that selfie. I’ve been nervous about my career prospects since I’m going into engineering and dress a lot more eccentric (for lack of a better term) than like 90% of the people in my classes. It’s nice to see that someone who dresses fun and colorful doesn’t have to tone it down to do a major presentation (and to NASA at that, holy fuck)

Awwww, don't be nervous! Wanna know a ridiculous thing that happened to me as a intern/new hire?

So I worked in a human testing lab at university, and usually would run tests whenever I could get human subjects, so sometimes that was the middle of the night because college students. So I got pretty comfortable wandering about campus in my pajamas.

So I was napping in the human centrifuge between tests (like you do), when the light suddenly turned on and there was a whole horde of people in suits and polo shirts gathered around me.

My professor had forgotten to tell me that NASA Johnson was visiting for the day to see our progress.

I ended up having to give a presentation on the lab and then demonstrate the test campaign (with no bra to hold my giant bazangas). Also, my hair was pink at the time.

Fast forward 8 months and I'm working in the NASA Johnson Exercise Lab on an extension of the project I was on and on my first day multiple people said hi and called me "pajama intern", people who I am SURE were not at the lab test. That ended up being my nickname until their was a classic Houston downpour and I got soaked on my way to building 6 to give a presentation to a different team (I truly am cursed when it comes to presentations). So I stopped in the locker room and tossed all my clothes in a dryer, and sat around in a towel for a bit, but the dryer was taking forever. So I grabbed a lab coat, put it on OVER the towel (to try to disguise that I was just wearing a towel??? I still don't know what I thought would happen). And headed to the conference room.

Where I pretended to be completely oblivious to the fact that everyone was dying of laughter as I got setup and gave a very good presentation on lunar regolith.

Then I was "Labcoat [First Name]" till I left to go to industry, where I immediately died my hair blue and started wearing a Lemur onesie to the office everyday.

Anyways, for as shallow as most people are, I've found that it takes very little time for me to establish my credibility regardless of what I'm wearing. And the people who don't treat my experience and skills with respect were never going to anyways, regardless of what I was wearing. I'm a nonbinary black queer person in an industry still dominated by cis white men. If they are going to hate me for things I can't change, I may as well ignore all social mores and conventions and just have a good time being the most "myself" I can be.

And by being "myself" and not trying to mask all the time, I free up so much of my brain from anxiety about meeting some arbitrary requirements and tend to make better connections with people. So I end up with really good friendships with people who never interact with queer weirdos like me but find me fascinating. Like my buddy, a high ranking officer in The Space Force (LOL) who sends me the stupidest emoji text messages every time I snicker in a call with them. And loves that I mock the military usage of "sir/ma'aming" every sentence by calling people 20years older than me "my bud".

I have no idea where I was going with this.... But fuck the haters, have fun with your life. YOLO!

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emblazons · 1 year

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what are your favorite byler headcanons?

—I never get asked this question, so thanks for being the first lmao. (I did write my “S5 hopes” before, but these are different I think?) Anyway. Hmmm.

While they both love Tolkien, Mike likes the Lord of the Rings trilogy books more, but Will enjoys the Hobbit best. Mike loves the depth of the lore and complexity of how Tolkien describes things in the original trilogy because they help him when he’s coming up with campaigns, but Will enjoys the straightforward (and a little sweeter) narrative of The Hobbit more—and also has a preference for it because the version he had as a kid was more image-heavy, and he’s an artist. :)

Speaking of Tolkien—Mike absolutely has a one-ring he keeps around his neck like Frodo. (It may even be what he chooses as an engagement ring way, way down the line, but Will is so outdone he decides to just buy it to wear it around his neck instead lol).

When it comes to getting work done, Mike is a think-out-loud type—as in, will talk to himself out loud and not even realize he’s doing it when alone, or with someone he’s comfortable getting into his head around. Will doesn’t say anything about it, because he thinks it’s hilarious—but Mike eventually learns about his own tendency when Will knows about a surprise he had planned before he can even do it…because he was thinking out loud. (He gets up in arms about how Will should have told him, but the more time passes, the funnier the tendency becomes to them).

Mike was hype as hell for the release of Jurassic Park in 1993. Will was also hype, but. Not nearly as excited about it as Mike was. When the Peter Jackson’s LOTR adaptation was announced, they were both over the moon (though Will was a bit scared. He is very picky about his movies, and adaptations even more so).

The two of them would settle in San Francisco, and would definitely be the ones who run a “teach DnD / campaign night” in conjunction with a comic book store in their neighborhood, in an attempt to keep the younger generations’ love for it alive—the same way as the bookstore owner who introduced them to the book. this is maybe based on an actual comicbook store with a dnd night in the SF Castro that I found a few years ago. The world may never know. They are thrilled in 2016 when a new Netflix show (😉) and Critical Role revives people’s love for it when they’re much, much older.

The first time the topic of “going to pride” comes up in the mid-90’s (long before it was the socially accepted event it is today), Will is mildly terrified—and so is Mike, but his “brave paladin” side absolutely talks himself up enough to get Will to join him solely out of a need to prove he can. They end up having a great time, and Mike, who has never really delved into queer history, ends up on a whole tangent of learning about it for an entire month afterward. Will finds it v endearing.

Mike sucks at poker because he cannot keep a single thing off his face. He is, however, really good at playing “the house” in card games, so that’s the role he takes on (comes from years of leading campaigns. He’s a bit of a showman that way).

Will cannot stand cold even after he’s disconnected from Vecna/the UD, and misses California—which is why they move back. When “global warming” talk starts becoming more common, his favorite dad joke to make is “if I think it’s getting hot, it must be,” but no one but the party & family know why it’s funny.

Earlier into their relationship, Will becomes a bit troubled by the fact that Mike is the only person he ever dated. It causes tension in their relationship for a little while, though Will eventually realizes he doesn't want to be with anyone else, so it doesn't matter. (Much later, Mike admits that he thought Will’s concerns were unfounded, considering the only person he ever dated outside of Will happened when he was 13 & probably shouldn’t have even been his girlfriend in the first place, given the fact that she was 3 seconds out of a lab…& he doesn’t even like women anyway).

Mike knows Will is healing more from “the events of the show” when Will starts making dark-humor jokes about being possessed and/or being lost in the upside down—though it takes him a lot to get used to it, given how scared he spent years being about losing Will. Eventually he gets on board and laughs—which Will appreciates, because it helps him to see Mike get less uncomfortable and feel safer about keeping Will safe after all that happened.

There are ten I could think of off top?? LMAO someone ask @magentamee what my other headcanons are I’m sure she’s heard them all by now 😂

Thanks so much for this ask!

#this was fun! thank you! genuinely haha #like. I do in fact have headcanons as an ‘analyst’ type? sometimes I forget haha #demonerds #byler #mike wheeler core #will byers core #the me tag #asks #st headcanons

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olderthannetfic · 1 year

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Completely putting aside the queer rep thing, I'm curious: Do people who are not book fans generally like the Good Omens TV show? In the book fandom we've been hoping for a live adaptation for decades but myself and a lot of other book fandom olds were very disappointed by the show. I was hopeful and optimistic about it until the trailer with the wall-slamming scene came out, which was the first clue that the characters were going to have a different dynamic in the show. (Book! Azi and Crowley would never. No, I mean it.) And then as soon as I got to the dove scene - which the show messed up completely - I had a really bad feeling that they weren't taking the book's themes very seriously.

(In the book, Aziraphale suffocates the dove through negligence and immediately forgets about it because he's too busy fretting about the Apocalypse and the hellhound not showing up; Crowley notices it and takes the time to resurrect the dove. The seeming role reversal there of the angel carelessly killing an innocent creature and the demon taking the time to care about the sanctity of life even while scared out of his mind that the Apocalypse is coming (which would mean all humans and doves everywhere were going to die) is a wonderful little early symbolism of the characters being more than their official Evil/Good labels, of their flaws and virtues, and of the overarching theme of the book. But in the show, Aziraphale kills the dove and is then the one to revive it, which makes the point of the scene ?????)

There's a lot of little things like that where I wonder if the creators missed the point of those scenes or just didn't care, and the end result is that the characters become a little flatter, a little less like the stereotype subversions they're supposed to be. (I've long been irritated with the show fandom because it felt like many of them just projected their longstanding bad boy/puttering intellectual favorite ship dynamic onto the two and didn't look too closely.) In addition, the angel and demon are very nearly B-list cast in the book. They're scene-stealers but in terms of plot they actually achieve very little, their arcs are about how they accept that they've grown as people, not about how they contribute to the Apocalypse. Because that's the point. The whole point of the book is that humans don't need angels and demons to be good or evil. Humans stop the Apocalypse and arguably start it. When the show puts human characters in the background and both elevates Azi and Crowley and spends additional screentime on new characters like Gabriel, the overall message is retained but makes for far weaker tea.

So like... it is very hard for me to like the show as an adaptation (some manage to enjoy both book and show as separate things, and I'm happy for them). At the same time it feels silly saying that it's a bad adaptation, because things like Eragon and Artemis Fowl and basically most book-to-screen things are out there. But I can't help but look at Neil Gaiman's background and the things he usually writes about and feel like TV GO has been made too much into his work, rather than his and Pterry's, and is ultimately weaker for it.

So for me it's really hard to judge its actual technical value as a standalone thing, but I'm curious what other people think of it. If the above elements of "huh, that scene seemed kinda random, why was it even here?" and general diluted sense of theme was something people picked up on.

I tried to read the book a few times in the 90s because it was ubiquitous. I loathed it and never finished.

I thought the show was well acted and had delightful chemistry between the leads. The cinematography and editing were nice. The costume design was excellent.

It isn't a particularly deep show or all that memorable to me, but it looks pretty, and Michael Sheen is hot.

Honestly, I'm not really the audience for the original themes. They've been done a million times by now (and even by the 90s), and they just remind me how much people think I should care about a Christian world view and how much I profoundly don't. It's like when people want me to care about Watchmen because something something deconstruction of 80s comics I didn't read.

The biggest change between the 90s and now is probably that this particular flavor of Cold War spies who are buddies when their bosses aren't watching has faded into obscurity instead of being absolutely everywhere.

Oh, and Queen is cool again.

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captain-hen · 25 days

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I can’t stop thinking about how they originally set up Buck/Eddie/Tommy as a triangle but it never really played out as the traditional love triangle we see with hetero couples on network T.V. There are a lot of ways it could be analyzed with one being Tommy in between/an obstacle to Buck and Eddie but that’s not how it’s coming across because after 7x04/7x05 there are no underlying issues as Buck/Tommy are exploring this new thing between them and Eddie is 💯 supportive of them. But I still can’t stop thinking about how the triangle is incomplete for the whole Eddie/Tommy of it all. Not positioning them as romantic rivals and having Tommy in the middle of this triangle shows how he’s here for Buck AND Eddie to learn about themselves and so far we have Tommy who has been Buck’s queer awakening but I can’t help but think that at the wedding to complete the purpose of the triangle Tommy and Eddie could have the tiniest of moments where Eddie is going to realize something based on something Tommy says that is going to fully kick off his unrepression arc. People have been hoping for something Buddie to go down at the wedding but I hold out hope it’s going to be an Eddie moment especially if we don’t actually see Marisol at the wedding. I think about how if Tommy says something that could trigger some kind of realization in Eddie then it would segue into 7x07 quite nicely because if this is potentially where a Marisol breakup occurs then whatever Tommy said at the wedding could be part of the catalyst that finally gets Eddie to breakup with Marisol and begin his own journey, especially in an episode called “ghost of a second chance” which I think is going to be a Bobby and Eddie heavy episode especially if we are starting to dive back into Bobby’s past…I think it would be neat to go into Eddie’s as well before the military and Shannon of it all. This is me reaching for the sun ☀️ and my enjoyment isn’t tied to this happening…it’s pure speculation but I think it’s what is Eddie!girls deserve.

ehh, when it comes to the 'love triangle' of it all, i do think they've set it up, just not in the traditional sense. i think a 'love triangle' (using this phrase very loosely) is present in the sense that buck and tommy's entire relationship as it is now exists only because of eddie; 90% of their scenes have been linked to eddie in one way or another; and eddie has been the catalyst for whatever development they've had so far. idk how eddie's queer journey will go at this point; given the fact that they've clearly had to wildly change things around last minute. but, yeah, i do hope they delve into the stuff you mentioned, instead of him just having a realization™ after seeing buck and tommy together and calling it a day

#neethu answers #anon

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misty-caligula · 1 year

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Okay, so I’m not used to really getting... noticed... in the way that I have been recently. And I’ve been kind of just vibing quietly before I actually respond to anything. But I got some responses to my big thesis post which I think warrant extra attention, because I think perhaps I wasn’t as clear as I wanted to be.

It’s worth mentioning that I have almost 500 posts up at this point, and have been very much immersed in yj theory for a fair while, so it’s hard to necessarily know how clear I am in any given context, and if I’m making assumptions of a reader. So I’m going to respond to a couple of things and see if I can redo a bit of Jackie/Coach stuff. My intention isn’t to say “Ah you’re wrong!” but to reframe my own position. If you don’t like what I’ve got to say that’s fine, I’m just a random on the internet. I’m not Right, I’m just thinking thoughts.

(Long post ahead about meta analysis of jackie and coach and society)

@inthegloomglow

Really good post but… coach and Jackie didn’t deserve to die for not being calm about all of this. They murdered his brother. I’m not sure that’s the point I’m supposed to get? But it’s weird to condemn them for that.

@areyoushuri

!!!! Criticizing Jackie and Coach for not being well adapted to the willingness and struggling to accept the rituals and cannibalism created is odd considering that the vast majority of viewers probably wouldn't survive/accept something like that. Yes, they're stubborn, not built for the wilderness, etc. but so many of the traits we criticize now served them well before the crash.

Okay! So first thing’s first. I do not hate Jackie or Coach. I think they’re both really interesting characters, with interesting through-lines. I think that they’re well acted, well written, and bring a lot of value to the plot. I’ve completely fallen in love with Jackie and Shauna’s really messy ... mess, and will absolutely go on giant tangents about it if you don’t stop me. I find Coach to be a really intricate and tragic portrayal of being queer in the 90s, one that speaks to me as someone who was struggling with being queer in the 90s, and whose dad was queer in the decades prior. I love these disasters, as I love all the disasters on this show.

I’m not critiquing them as people, I’m digging into the metatext of their actions as thematic devices. I also don’t know if this actually needs to be said but I’ll be very clear: If these were actual human beings then I wouldn’t want any of them to die, the point is that they are not humans, they are commentaries on society and culture and trauma and the way that people adapt or fail to adapt to changing situations. I don’t think people deserve to die for being wrong, or making mistakes... I just accept the theme of characters either surviving or dying based on their values within the show. I hope that’s clear, but just in case... there you go.

So my big concept of the show is that there’s this one giant question that the yellowjackets keep getting asked: “What really happened out there?” And that what DID really happen out there, fundamentally, is that there was a fracturing of social realities. Think of it like... the ‘jackets used to be part of “Society,” a huge world-wide group of all connected human cultures as a whole. And then they went off to the wilderness and they lost contact with Society, and they had to build a whole new culture all of their own from the ground up. We’ll call that the Team. Then they were suddenly rescued, after they’d fully given up on ever seeing Society again, and were forcibly thrown back in, and now are expected to just... reassimilate. And they’re struggling to do so.

So if you think about the show as a collection of big chunks, you can think of it like this:

> The ‘jackets are normal kids, living in and learning from, and protected by Society

> Their connection to Society is severed, but they expect rescue, and so they build a micro outpost of Society in the wilderness

> They slowly realise they’re never going to be saved

> They begin to recognise that the values and lessons that Society gave them are not all helpful in the wilderness and will get them killed. They start to develop the Team to replace what’s not working

> The Team grows in power, and the individual survivors have to make a decision about whether they’re going to remain loyal to Society or join the Team. Those who don’t join the Team die, not because they’re bad but because Society cannot protect them in the wilderness. To be very clear, neither Society, nor the Team, are inherently good or bad, they’re simply cultures that exist and offer each individual a place within them to provide and be provided for. But Society is NOT here, it’s a memory of a culture that’s been severed, and cannot provide anything anymore, only the Team is capable of doing so. THAT’S why only Team members can survive.

> The only survivors left are Team members, the Team stabilizes into a functioning self-perpetuating system

> They’re rescued and forcibly reintegrated into Society

> The remaining Team members now find themselves in the opposite situation, the Team is now toxic and can’t help them anymore, just like Society couldn’t help them in the wilderness, and they need to shed it to adapt back to Society just like they shed Society the first time. Those who can do so will eventually live long and happy lives. Those who can’t will die.

Coach and Jackie’s big thing in common isn’t that they suck, or that they’re unpleasant to be around. It’s that they’re Society loyalists. They just can’t let go. And what I think is most interesting about that is that both of them are being MISTREATED by Society. They’ve both been assigned roles that they cannot fill, and have held onto those roles SO tightly that it’s getting them killed.

Jackie’s absolutely plastered with unearned privilege. She’s constantly being told how perfect and brilliant and incredible she is. But she knows it’s a lie. And in order to defend her place, to justify her situation, and protect herself from anyone finding out, she holds Shauna SO close to her, so that she can have someone to feel constantly superior to. To make her look good by comparison. Except that Shauna is so many of the things that she secretly knows she isn’t and feels she NEEDS to be. So she spends a lot of effort beating Shauna down and focusing on convincing her that she has all these flaws and things so that she doesn’t realise that Jackie’s not actually this perfect person that people tell her she has to be.

Once she’s in the wilderness and Shauna starts to shine on her own - because the Team simply needs a different set of skills than Society did and Shauna’s willing to engage with it - Jackie’s control slips and she resents it, she fears it so much. And she can’t accept losing that level of authority that she got given by Society, to take a lower role with the Team. And so she stays loyal to Society even when it’s nonsensical. She sits in the snow and simply waits to be rescued, because that’s what Society has taught her to do.

But the Team doesn’t work like that. It requires Team members to be self-sufficient, and to work together. Jackie won’t go inside because Society has taught her to wait for Shauna to submit to her authority and apologise and invite her in, to give her the position that she Deserves. Shauna won’t do that because the Team has taught her that each Team member needs to be a part of the whole, that Jackie must eventually request permission to join the Team as a regular member. It’s a conflict that doesn’t get resolved, because neither will budge, but in the wilderness the Team can protect you and Society cannot, so Jackie’s faith in Society is punished with death.

That’s why Jackie can’t make a basic campfire to literally save her life. Because the Team would’ve taught her how, would’ve required her to learn. Society would provide her with someone to do it for her. So she just never bothered to learn. It’s why she’s unable to recognise just how dangerously cold it’s getting and be REASONABLE and knock on the door. Because Society has taught her that she’s protected from danger, that if it ever got Dangerous someone would come and help her. She doesn’t know the difference between damn cold and dying cold. Society works because of hundreds, thousands, millions, billions of people working together in intricate systems of mutual support and deep heirarchy. You don’t need to know how to put out a fire because when your house catches fire you call 911. You don’t need to know how to escape the wilderness because when you get lost they send a rescue helicopter. But without the connection to Society its lessons are literally destructive - Sit and wait until you die. Rescue isn’t coming.

Sidenote: If you want to go REALLY deep into the meta of it, the Team then gets rewarded with food by predating on Jackie as a vestige of Society, much the same way as they get little bits of technology by picking apart the wreckage of the plane. The plane is useful to Society as a transport, it’s useful to the Team as a source of supplies. Jackie is useful to Society as a member, is useful to the Team as a source of food. But I digress.

Now Society isn’t always a nice place to be, and Jackie’s not treated all that well within it either. People find her frustrating and comment on how undeserving she is of her position. They actively go behind her back when they can, Jeff cheats on her with her supposedly lesser best friend, Coach Martinez tells her to her face that she’s kinda mid, and people are generally mildly annoyed at her most of the time. But Society has her back, and as long as she plays by the rules, and follows the lessons, her life is pretty much made. It won’t necessarily be everything she ever dreamed of, but she’s solid, pragmatically. But the stress it puts on her, to conform and try to fit the role she’s arbitrarily placed into by Society is going to slowly ruin her and she’ll end up a bitter and unhappy person if she remains completely committed to it (assuming they never crashed, obviously). And what she doesn’t seem to realise is that the Team offers her community, and acceptance, and respect on the terms of her actual reality, on what she’s able to genuinely provide, whatever that is. But she’s so caught up in holding onto Society that it literally gets her killed.

That’s not to say that she doesn’t have a potential place in Society where she could be genuinely happy. Just that the one that she’s assigned isn’t right for her. If she was able to be let go of her fear, if she was able to be honest and stop trying to conform to the expectations put on her by those around her, and take a position in Society that more suited her she COULD have a perfectly comfortable life, happy and healthy. But the fact that she’s been assigned this life path that she knows doesn’t fit, that she’s so insecure about, is what MAKES her such an unwavering loyalist for Society, because she has so much to lose.

And that’s what makes her and Coach so similar. Coach is born in the ‘60s, is brought up in the ‘70s and ‘80s. We don’t know when he realised he’s gay, but it has to have been a very scary thing for him. He has been living in a world of deep and abiding homophobia his whole life (I remember the 90s, I can only imagine the 70s...) and then came AIDS. For his whole life Society has convinced him that living in the closet is a life-preserving choice. That he can get all kinds of value from Society, all sorts of good things, as long as he plays by the rules, fits his assigned role. And being gay simply doesn’t fit his role.

So he hides it. He hides it despite the fear it causes, the pain it causes, the fact that it keeps him away from Paul whom he loves. He takes on a job that he hates, surrounding himself with a bunch of girls who he despises. Because, as Natalie said, if he actually threw in his lot with Paul, if he went against Society, then he’d be reliant on Paul (and by extension the Gay microculture) in a really intense way and if he lost him then he’d have nothing left. He’d have blown his entire life up, and been stuck. Coach, like Jackie, is ruled by his fear that without Society’s handouts of privilege and gifts and authority that he’d simply have nothing left on his own. It’s a painfully real portrayal of the fear and self-hatred that perpetuates the ongoing trauma of the closet in the real world.

He’s spent his entire life giving up real parts of himself for the sake of Society, he’s all-in. And he, like Jackie, is just too invested to let go. He can’t appreciate that Society has nothing to offer him in the wilderness, that the Team can and will protect him if he lets it. A lot of people make jokes about the idea that Coach might be eaten if he sticks around too long, because he only has one leg. But that kind of ablest absolutism is Society thinking. Because the Team still hasn’t turned on him. When they decided they needed to sacrifice someone for Lottie they didn’t say “Okay, where’s Coach gone? Let’s go hunt him.”

The Team just doesn’t have the room to see him that way. NOBODY is expendable in the wilderness, every sacrifice is an agony they struggle to cope with. And... I guess if you wanted to get very dark with it, Coach’s missing leg means that his food value ratio to his potential value as a Team member is lower.

And Coach has shown plenty of value to the team in the wilderness. He’s actually capable of providing real advice as an adult with life experience. He taught them to shoot and hunt, he made sure that Nat wouldn’t get pregnant (thank GOD after the nightmare that Shauna went through), he’s perfectly capable of holding down the fort, and once he’s adapted he’s remarkably capable of getting around. To the Team he’s a pair of hands, a thinking mind, company, experience, and just... a human being. To Society he’s lost a lot of value, but the Team simply doesn’t conceptualise him like that.

And when he WANTS to, he proves how capable he really is. He got to the cliff on his own without too much struggle. He got into and out of the cave all on his own. Not saying it’s easy to be an amputee, but it’s not AS disabling as a lot of people would assume. And he’s still got a perfectly functioning mind, hands, etc. What he doesn’t have is a will to join the Team. To genuinely engage with the reality they’re in.

Again, this is reiterated with a second camp fire disaster, making the point that he’s been in the wilderness for most of a year now and he still can’t do something as simple, as fundamental to Team survival (but not Society survival) as lighting a tiny fire. Because in Society he’d never have to, Society simply provides. And in the wilderness he’s been relying on the Team to provide and not recognised that he’s been doing that. Not recognised the fact that he’s not been pitching in. That every fire he didn’t light someone else did. Every scrap of warmth he’s enjoyed all winter has been provided by the Team, not Society.

In S1E10 when Shauna gives up on Society and finally commits to the Team she does so with a fight with Jackie. And the only person on Jackie’s side is Coach, the other Society loyalist, who - like Jackie - assumes a position of authority based on his status within Society. And Lottie - the Team authority - says “Stay out of it, Coach.” She asserts that this is Team business, that Society has no say here. And, without Society providing the backup behind his words, and without actually contributing anything to the Team (not because he Can’t but because he Won’t) Coach has absolutely no power and no say, and he disengages from this point. And because he simply won’t join the Team his fate is sealed.

Coach also provides a viewpoint on the Team from Society’s perspective. Because the audience perspective is so deeply rooted in the Team, Coach’s viewpoint is the alternative. He’s the last tiny vestige of what they left behind. Like a tourist, watching a culture he doesn’t understand, assuming that he’s better than them, that they’re evil, that he knows what’s Really Going On. That his loyalty to Society will someday gain him some sort of advantage or reward, even as he stands on the edge of the cliff. Because his attachment to Society is so strong that he’d rather die than join the Team, an unthinkable option.

So when Coach sees the ‘jackets eating Jackie, his response of horror is not just that of Coach Ben Scott reacting to cannibalism in his face. It’s also the response of Society to the unforgivable breach of social laws by the Team. The fact that they’re able to do it, that they seem to be enjoying it, completely giving into the deepest taboo... he can’t handle it and neither, by extension, can Society. And as he’s powerless to stop it he simply closes the door, trying to separate himself from them. When he finds Shauna carving up Javi he tries to rescue Nat, the only Team member he sees as somehow redeemable, as a potential Society ally. And when she rejects him, when she shows him that she, who was on the fence, has now willingly and knowingly joined the Team he sees in her his faith in Society collapsing. Because here’s the girl who he put up on a pedestal, as “the good one” and she’s rejected Society. So either a) he’s wrong about Society, and Nat’s right. Or b) he’s wrong about Nat and right about Society.

Or a secret, third option, he could lose himself in a tantrum of repressed rage, burn down the cabin and also throw himself off the cliff, giving up on EVERYTHING in the process. (That’s my personal theory, but we’ll have to wait to find out)

Now he COULD respond at this point by going “Fuck it, fine, I can be a Team member too, if it saves my life.” And he might find in it the kind of value the rest have found. But doing that would require him to accept that they’re never ever going to be rescued. That Society truly is gone. That it was all for nothing. That he gave up his life, gave up Paul, gave up happiness and love and everything ... and never got his reward. No, he HAS to keep holding on, has to keep believing that there is a point, is a purpose to it. For his own sanity.

Again, we can read really deep into the meta of this and say... that’s what coming out of the closet really is. It’s saying “I’m SICK of giving up so much for Society, and I don’t believe that the reward is there, or if it is that it’s worth it. If the alternative is to be a monster, as Society tells me I am if I’m queer, then fuck it I’ll be the monster you say I am. Because that’s what’s going to keep me happy, to give me love, to feed me, and give me a life I want to live.” I’m not saying that it’s a completely 1 to 1 exact match, but you get the idea.

And so Coach tries to destroy the Team, tries to reassert the dominance of Society, because the Team is a bunch of inhuman monsters as far as Society is concerned. They’re deviant, corrupted, feral. But they’re not. They’re just trying to create a new culture that will get them from monday to sunday without dying on tuesday. They’re just trying to face a harsh reality with a perspective that makes sense, to them. They’re neither bad, nor good, neither moral or immoral. They’re surviving, or dying, and that’s what matters in the wilderness.

*Intermission, go grab some snacks*

Okay so this is already really really long, but you can flip the script and watch the exact same story happening in reverse in the adult timeline too. In Season 1 the whole big question is why is Travis dead? Who killed him?

And the answer is... the Team did. Like, in a LITERAL sense, he put the noose on his own neck. And Lottie pressed the button, at his command. He literally did kill himself. But he never intended to die, and what got him there was the Team. He genuinely believed that he needed to do the ritual in order to connect with It for all their sakes. And he - like Coach and Jackie in the wilderness - was wrong. The rituals they’d developed, the beliefs they’d formed to cope in the Team simply were of no use now they were back in Society.

But he couldn’t let go. He couldn’t accept that they were truly out of the danger, that the trauma was really over. That Society could protect them, when he’d had it proven so powerfully to him that it couldn’t help them in the wilderness. And his unending and irrational faith in the Team is literally what killed him. And Lottie, who MIGHT’VE been able to somehow rescue him from the situation - she was standing RIGHT THERE - was herself so absorbed in Team thinking that she instead just stood by as he died.

(Again, I really really need to be clear, I do not hate any of these characters, I love them all dearly and I’m reading into the meta rather than their literal actions, I don’t blame Lott for her actions as I don’t blame Travis for his, this is just how the story is written and WHY)

I could make a similar argument about Nat, and almost did, but she’s SO complex (she and Shauna have such intricate relationships to the Team and Society) it would honestly take up as much space as I’ve already written now and my brain’s getting tired. But I will end with a little thing I thought of as I was writing this.

There’s a third Society loyalist I forgot to mention: Laura Lee.

Laura’s faith in God is mirrored with her faith in Society. Neither are based on anything solid in the wilderness, she never gets any form of external validation of any of her beliefs. She just interprets what happens through her own lens and assumes she’s right. She’s been provided with a role of spiritual authority by Society, in an acceptable religion, and she assumes that she’s competent to hold it. When Lottie comes to her for advice, she provides it and assumes she’s correct. When Lottie sees things she interprets them as though her opinions were fact. When she sees the plane she decides that she should use it to save everyone, and because she decided that, she assumes that it’s God’s will, and so she assumes she cannot fail. That God has her back. Just as she, and Jackie, and Coach, assume that Society has their backs.

In the plane, Laura Lee sees her opportunity to reconnect with Society. And her unwavering faith in the capacity of God to provide protection from harm and Society to provide functional and reliable transportation without needing to work for it ... gets her killed. The lack of connection to Society, and the incapability of Society, and its’ God, to provide for the Team is displayed as a giant fireball in the sky for all to see, proof that they are truly, deeply alone. That Society cannot help them here. But it still takes a while for the lesson to really sink in. And for some of them, it just never does.

#yellowjackets #long post #spoilers #theory #meta

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yourstreetserenade · 8 months

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i'm a nerd who was raised by television. one of my ultimate comfort shows growing up was Frasier.

don't ask me how, don't ask me why but i was a young brown woman living in the south and yet, this show about two stuffy, pompous elitist intellectuals and their cranky policeman of a father and his home caregiver was one of my favorite shows. i watched it every night because reruns played on a local station.

if i could boil my humor down to two things its i love lucy and frasier. like, i'm sorry friends, i'm sorry seinfeld, in my opinion, frasier was the greatest sitcom of the 90's. all of that of course boils down to the caliber of writing and performance. it's a timeless kind of humor. to this day, when i need that extra something to end a hard day, i put on 'daphne does dinner' or any the maris murder episodes (''i was punched in the face by a man now dead!") and during the holidays i usually take a day to marathon all of the Christmas episodes.

i have a lot of feelings about the revival. most of which can be summed up with, i don't want this. frasier was lightening in a bottle in terms of getting the perfect writing team and the perfect cast and i don't know if it can be replicated, especially because only kelsey grammar and a few original cast members will be reprising their role. of course i know the whole argument that frasier the show itself was a spin off of cheers and that worked so by that reasoning, this could work as well. i just don't feel like it will because it's an entirely different tv landscape now.

the revival trailer doesn't give me a lot of hope though. everything about it feels so stock. canned. i think there is a way to revive it, i just don't know if the route they're going is the way.

personally, if i was writing it this is how i would build it. break frasier down as a character. one of the easiest ways to endear a character to an audience is to make them struggle before reaching their goals. my idea: have frasier in a career slump. radio is dying and he's lost his show and due to this he's decided to bunker down with his son, the now adult freddy and wah-la, you get your odd couple dynamic right there.

that of course mirrors the original series and how frasier and his regular joe father martin had to navigate a relationship being two opposites.

frasier has always had a particular, sophisticated taste for things, make adult freddy like his grandpa martin. freddy is your every man, who loves a good beer and a good football game. due to financial reasons on both ends, father and son have to live under the same roof as they both figure out new paths.

also: make freddy gay. the original frasier series had numerous jokes about heterosexual niles and frasier being a little gay, just because they liked the finer things. you can sort of play with that in the revival by making freddy, the beer loving, football playing average joe gay.

by making the character of the now grown up freddy gay, it adds another layer to the story. but beyond that i think it would be a way to honor the actors who worked on the original series. because eighty-five percent of frasier's original cast was gay. it's not speculation or rumors, there is a very rich queer history to the behind the scenes of frasier the series. gay creatives brought frasier to life for 11 seasons. i think making a grown up freddy gay would be a way to honor them.

another thing i have issues with. why is frasier a college professor? it feels tired.

a better idea: with his radio show dead and buried, frasier bumbles around the apartment until freddy introduces him to this new, spiffy thing called podcasting! radio may be dying but every millennial and younger listens to about three podcasts a day. freddy shows his dad that he can still reach and help people and do it on a much more personal level.

frasier starts a tiny podcast that blooms into something bigger where he reaches a new generation of callers asking for help. this kickstarts something and it in turn opens a door for a new career that still feels organic. it's different from the radio show but, for original audiences, it scratches that nostalgic itch of listening to frasier talk to ridiculous callers.

if i were writing it those would be my two key points. make freddy gay, make a struggling frasier a podcaster. also find a way to have that cam winston guy make a cameo.

#frasier #i might still check it out only to see is they find a way to pay tribute to john mahoney and by extension martin #martin is my favorite

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bougiebutchbitch · 7 months

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I am genuinely so sorry for the Izzy betrayal

This feels like a betrayal between writers and audience on the level of supernatural tbh

(Even the naruto ending feels better if the posts I'm seeing are to be believed)

yeah it's really.... not great

Like the reason we were all like 'I bet he's going to die' is because WHENEVER a character has a cool redemption arc OR a queer character comes out and experiences genuine queer joy for the first time in their life, their chances of dying go up by 90+%. But it was such a disappointment to be proven right. I think we all expected better of the writing team, as they've committed to doing genuinely new and interesting things with this story in the past, rather than just trotting out tired old tropes!

People say they want more Zuko-esque redemption arcs, but we can't have that if every character who was A Bit Of A Dick at first just gets killed off. And just the whole arc of Izzy finding a family in the crew, and healing after being abused awfully for ages, and finding happiness, and openly embracing his queerness and disability.... then just randomly getting shot by a dude? Not even as a dramatic 'protecting someone' sacrifice? He just randomly got shot?? And we're all supposed to feel sad about that rather than just kinda let down?

Yeaaaaah, I do not think they achieved what they were going for. I understand that a lot of that was because they had to shorten the series SO MUCH more than they wanted, but still.... it would have cost nothing to let Izzy just sail away with the rest of the crew as the Captain of the Revenge, which is what it felt like they might be building towards all season, while Ed and Stede retired!! Hell, that would've been a more meaningful progression for all of their characters.

We could still have had the scene where Izzy tells Ed he has family and that he's loved! We could've had a fake-out death where we had all the drama and expectation that he would die! Then in the last scene he comes out as the new captain to officiate Lucius and Pete's wedding! We'd have Ed and Stede letting go of Blackbeard for good and building something new together on land - but we'd also have Izzy finally moving beyond the 'Blackbeard' persona he helped Ed create (and, arguably, did more for than Ed!). He'd be a captain who actually gives a shit about his crew, and who has learnt from Stede and Ed the importance of being a bit softer and gentler rather than brutally efficient 24/7. And he could inevitably drag Stede and Ed back in next season! It would've been perfect.

But no, they had to kill him off because the OT3 potential was too strong, and bury a career pirate on land. Meh.

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turquoiseorchid · 5 months

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what is roswell about? i've never seen anyone else post about it but you've got me intrigued

Ooh, join us! Roswell New Mexico has 4 seasons (2019-2022) with 13ish eps each; it was on the CW and is available on Netflix. (It’s a remake of a 90s or early 00s show just called Roswell. That one’s on Hulu and I’ve only seen a few episodes.) Overall, it’s about aliens living in Roswell and their human friends/love interests, plus a few alien-related mysteries. Most of my summary will be about season one and I’ll leave the rest for you to see for yourself.

Liz (human) comes back to Roswell ten years after high school, discovers her high school crush is an alien, and then finds out her sister had been killed by aliens. This and other developments lead to their whole social circle getting in on the secret and there’s a bunch of love triangles.

If I knew who you were, dear anon, I’d tailor this to what fandoms we’ve already got in common but to cover some of the likely options and their high level comparisons: If you like Leverage, this has found family and the love triangles can easily be shipped as throuples/polycules. If you like The Magicians then same as leverage plus canon queer characters and magic(technically science) powers. If you like Supernatural, there can be a lot of overlap between malex and destiel (for better and worse). If you’re still here from my Torchwood days, again queer characters with messy relationships and a lot of snark.

Let’s introduce some of the characters!

In the Pod Squad (the three main aliens), we’ve got Isobel, Max, and Michael (left to right in gif). Max and Isobel were adopted together and grew up as the Evans twins while Michael was a foster kid but all three are inseparable. Isobel starts off the series as someone whose identity is mainly focused on wife/sister/volunteer but breaks down her walls and grows into a total badass. Often portrayed in fanon as “the woman with the brain cell” for better or worse. Max is a writer-turned-cop and total romantic who has been pining for his high school crush (Liz) for over a decade and risks his family secret in order to save her and struggles with choosing between her safety and his family’s. Michael is an angsty bisexual mechanic with a troubled past and became many people’s blorbo on sight. He too has a high school sweetheart (Alex) who he’s never gotten over but grows enough to find healthy relationships and let people in. They all have various powers including telekinesis, healing, and mind control/influencing.

And now for Team Human! Liz is a scientist who left town after graduation because her sister died from (apparently) drunk driving and gets shot an hour after she returns. The lack of being dead causes her to investigate/confront her crush (Max) and learns about aliens, leading to the realization that her sister was killed by an alien and the crash was a coverup. The first person who she brings in is her ex-boyfriend, Kyle, a jock-turned-surgeon with a strong moral compass who tries to rein in the mad scientist tendencies of his ex-girlfriend (who he still has feelings for).

Next in on the whole alien thing is Alex, a gay emo who had a secret thing with Michael in high school before leaving to join the Air Force. He’s back in town (minus a leg) and has his plate full with finding out that his abusive homophobic dad runs a secret military team hunting aliens and oh hey, his high school boyfriend turns out to be an alien! He’s best friends with Maria, a psychic who runs the local bar. Besides bartending, she splits her time between fortune telling as a side hustle, encouraging Alex about his old flame (secretly Michael), and nursing a crush on the local barfly/mechanic (also Michael).

(Fun fact: I have no idea how to use tumblr’s gif search so both of the human gifs were found through their respective throuple ship tags.)

There are plenty of ships around depending on your preference but the most prevalent is malex (Michael/Alex), it’s nearly inescapable. Echo is Max/Liz and generally well liked. Isobel starts off with a husband (Noah) but also gets other love interests. The two main throuples are malexa (malex plus Maria) and kaliz (echo plus Kyle).

Anyone else please feel free to add why Anon should watch RNM!

#asks #not putting this in any tags since I might have come off as harsh about malex and or some fandom #I swear this is a great place it just has the same pitfalls as many fandoms #anyways yes anon you should watch RNM #this is longer than I intended can you tell I didn’t want to work today?

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