#bit of a rant oops

[devilcat5]

no bc i have tried my best to keep my hopes down and be logical about potential byler endgame but the delusion is really taking hold rn i’m starting to believe it really truly is gonna be canon and idk what to do with myself 💀

[trisscar368]

I am still just sitting and glaring at Mystery Spot.

Die and be resurrected.  Die again.  Come back again.  Keep coming back because the game isn’t over, the lesson hasn’t been learned, whatever the trickster wants from you hasn’t been achieved.

Win your way free by figuring out there’s a supernatural entity screwing with you and threatening to kill him.  But the game isn’t over, and Dean dies, and Sam is supposed to keep going.

(I got wordy oops - negative comparison to the finale, rambling about the pattern of making deals, and glaring at the author because I don’t have a knife sharp enough rn)

Back in s3 he can’t do that because he’s carrying the weight of Dean’s hell deal - giving up on Dean, letting go of this, means accepting that Dean is in hell and being tortured because Sam is alive and who could live with that?  But Gabriel was only getting involved because a) it’s fun and b) Sam being unable to let go of Dean is what was going to push him towards Ruby and eventually starting the apocalypse.  (It is of course debatable whether Gabriel intended to stop Sam or to push Sam into making that choice, but we don’t have enough of Gabriel to actually make a solid argument, alas)

There’s cosmic level consequences to these two not being able to let go, because they won’t abide by the rules and *everyone else can use that against them*.  It’s just not that “Death takes, a Winchester takes back and that disrupts the natural order” (though it does *waves hand at 2.01 and how that carries into the s2 narrative for Dean and pushing him into his choice in 2.22*) it’s “Death shows up for nachos, Death gets stabbed because Winchesters don’t like letting go and now we have to deal with God’s sister”.

*That’s* the issue on a narrative level back in Kripke’s era - there are *consequences* to the fact that these two can’t let go.  Domino number one, John dying in a parking lot in the 70s, eventually sets off the apocalypse because these characters look at the possibility of a life alone and they can’t handle it when there’s another option right there.  And every single supernatural entity on the board knows that, and takes advantage.  The dynamic shifts in Carver era to personal consequences, “I can’t let go” vs “you should have let me go” (s9 post Gadreel Sam contrasts nicely with demon!Dean) and how it’s causing the characters harm, but the plot expands in 11/12 because the *family* expands.  Cas starts making dumbass choices and sacrifices because Winchesters, and Jack learns it too.  Dean and Sam both work on *letting* each other and their other family (Cas, Mary, Jack eventually) make choices that do not sit well. 

Bad decisions still happen, but the characters are no longer dying as part of it.  They’re being forced to live with it.  Can you live with the choices you’ve made?  Can you live with the consequences?

Which is the second half of mystery spot.  We’ve done resurrection ad nauseum, time to live with the consequences of reality.  Tv show is over, welcome to the end.  Deal with it.

Except that six months of Sam not being able to let go happened because the game was rigged.  What Sam was pushing for and fighting for was a chance to do things without interference.  To beat the person who was writing that little darkfic.

And their entire *lives* were that.  The game was always rigged, from well before Mary made her deal to save John.  And those Original Sins of sacrificing themselves for a loved one were absolutely rigged.  John selling his soul for Dean in 2x01 and Dean in 2x22, Sam trying in between 3/4... those didn’t happen in a void.  Having the final breath of the narrative be Sam letting go of Dean... on top of all the other reasons why it doesn’t work for me, it’s punishing them for Chuck’s railroading.  They didn’t react correctly by *not* reacting to terrible circumstances, and finally they get to undo that by dying.

“They should never have let an abusive authority figure manipulate their lives from before they were born and push them into making those decisions, how dare.”  Like... what the fuck kind of message is this???  Yes, a lot of their decisions were things they shouldn’t have decided to do, but we have literally seen how many ways Chuck has tried to force them into his story.  Their lives are one big pile of gaslighting now, by canon in explicit detail, so this is not and cannot be what is required to resolve the emotional threads of the story.

Dean wanted to get out and have the apple pie life, and the narrative told him everyone would die if he made that “selfish” decision (go look at 2.20).  Even last season, it was “toes in the sand” if he knew people wouldn’t be hurt by that choice.  Sam wanted to get out and the narrative told him everyone he loved would die no matter what he did  (*gestures at the entire show*).

I keep waiting for the alarm clock to go off one more time.  Put me back on Wednesday, because yeah maybe they weren’t going to necessarily have a happy ending and fluff because their lives are not a tv show - except oh wait, that conclusion that the characters themselves came to?  That their lives were a horror and there wasn’t really any hope because happy endings don’t happen?  Good things don’t happen?  Was because the game was rigged.

For fuck’s sake give them a chance to try.

“I just had a really weird dream.” 

“Clowns or midgets?”

[fighterkimburgess]

When do you think the writing for Antonio started to go downhill? Are there any Antonio storylines and scenes that you didn't like or really liked? Would you want him to come back?

I loved Antonio at first, and I thought he was a perfect balance to Voight. I also loved his family relationships -his relationships with his kids and Gabby. I mean, the storyline where Diego is kidnapped is so good.

But I started to go off him with how he acted towards Matt and how he behaved during the Louie situation (I didn't like anyone apart from Matt and Louie during this storyline).

Then, in the same way, I find Jay quite hypocritical when it comes to Voight; that's how I started to see Antonio. It felt like although he's done some wrong or immoral things for the greater good, he still managed to get on his high horse.

Then I just hated everything about Brettonio. It felt like he wanted to keep her as his little secret, and he never seemed to stick up for her with his ex.

Like the writers just destroyed a really great character for me.

Ooooooh. Tbh, I think a lot of what happened around Brettonio and Antonio and the Louie situation was actually pretty in character, it just showed the parts of Antonio that hadn’t really been shown.

We meet him and the first thing we know is he works in narcotics and is overprotective of his sister. He has a failing marriage because he’s constantly working. He gets shot, should have died, and instead of re-evaluating his life he jumps at the chance to work in Intelligence (and what is it with people choosing that unit after they’ve been shot? Jay, Antonio, Kim turning it down).

So we know he’s singleminded and career focused, and it helped bring down his marriage. I’m not saying it’s the sole reason, there’s two in a relationship and the way Laura left him was awful. But after your sons been abducted I don’t know how much more a woman could take.

But I will agree on you about Brettonio, and I think that’s the thing I hate the most about it. She nearly had his kid. She thought she was pregnant. But he kept her a secret from most people, and didn’t defend her to his ex wife who was badmouthing Sylvie to their children. That’s so incredibly over the line, but it still seemed in character for him. He’s an incredibly private man, and he’s seen what happened to Voight’s daughter in law. I think he thought it was keeping Sylvie safe.

But for me it was s6 of PD when they failed his character. The drugs storyline was badly written, badly portrayed, and just not how he was. The man who worked narcotics for so many years not facing that he had a problem? It wasn’t him and it sucked.

I’ll agree with you on the parallels between Jay and Antonio for sure! They’re both characters who have done awful things, but get on a high horse to judge Voight. I’d be more inclined to listen to either opinion if they admitted when they’ve been wrong and worked to do better. But instead it’s brushed under the rug.

[studteaing]

I’d like to address a double standard I have occasionally struggled with in the academic blogging community. We all know that thoughtful and effective time management is key to academic success and a healthy lifestyle. And, though I understand that everyone has different struggles, hobbies, pulls on their time, and ways to make themselves happy, a simple truth is this: if you have two or three extra hours in your day to make your planner a museum-quality collage, and queue thousands of tumblr posts, or do any number of highly curated lifestyle activities, you most likely have the privilege of extra time in your life.

I believe that all individuals have the right to use their time as they choose. I also know that to each of us, internally, our work load and time constraints are the most pressing. But I’d like to acknowledge students with hardly any of that most valuable of commodities - time. I want to bring some visibility to the long-distance commuters, the parents, and the full-time employee students out there. When every moment is allocated towards a specific goal, and getting that degree seems more like a financial/familial/time drain than a whimsical journey of knowledge. Academia is difficult for us all at some points, but to those of you who have a bit more piled on: you are strong for managing the way you do.

I travel 1.5 hours each way to my university. I work as much as I can around my time spent on the road and in classrooms, to reduce the size of the loans I need to live and learn. I know there are so many with situations much, much more complicated. Students with families, students who work more than they should have to, students with illnesses or disabilities, students with extenuating circumstances of all types - you are amazing and strong! You bring so much to the table. You give 100% to being in school, yet there are other, equally important claims on the hours in your day. Here’s to supporting all of you.

[thatfluffyjeanjacket]

First Love cont. - M

awww it's so cute trust M to have the cutest secret track reminds me of Love Love Love? man you know, I'm justso fucking happy and proud of Yixing, he sounds soooo good in this album! so I was assigning the voices I couldn't recognise to Xiumin (since I'm so bad at hearing his voice T-T) but apparently Kyungsoo was singing? and apparently he got more lines than Xiu????? Like???? SM what are you doing? I love Kyungsoo and everything but. No. Stop. he has lines in his own fucking language and I know Xiumin isn't Chinese but he's freaking Exo-M oh my god this is not the reality I wanted

[8lue8loodandred8oots]

damn reblog karma posts going around again

sigh

its funny because ive seen people reblogging that stuff that i know for a fact have reblogged stuff from me and not sent anything

which is fine!! because sometimes people dont want to send anything or it makes them uncomfortable and basically we should stop trying to guilt people into doing things that might make their rping experience less fun for them!! yes its nice getting messages but youre not going to die without them, if someone feels uncomfortable doing it plese dont try to pressure or shame them, thankyou. uvu