#dave goodkind

[arctic-shadowco]

[zorvidloves-tomatoes]

This shit is so funny for no reason, I’m customising him like a movie star planet character lmao

[brit-moss-frog]

I still laugh to myself at Warren Kole going from the homiphobic ultra Christian dad of a lesbian who's plane "crashes" and gets stranded in the wilderness to the ultra supportive husband of a women who's plane crashed and got stranded in the wilderness and had a homoerotic relationship with her best friend.

Love that the last few years he just saw wilderness in the synopsis of a show and went okay.

[lesbian-jpeg]

ok it’s possible I am reading too much into this but ok the off chance that I’m not, the writers made a genius detailing move with Shelby’s crucifix necklaces

(fair warning, I had to steal these images off of tiktok edits so they’re very low quality, don’t @ me)

ok so this was consistent since before this scene, but I noticed upon rewatching that Shelby (at one point) wears TWO cross necklaces? idk man, I’m not religious but that seems excessive to me. I figured this was just a fashion choice on Shelby’s part but then I noticed that it doesn’t always stay that way

so in this scene, Shelby is DEEP into her Christianity. I mean, she’s basically exiling her closest friend due to her dad’s religious influence. And of course, you can clearly see her with not one but two crucifixes. it seems almost like a caricature of a Christian, or better yet a costume.

Again, here is Christian Shelby displaying her perfect image, once again with two necklaces. She also sings a religious song, further pushing an almost comically Christian persona.

Now there’s some Shelby clips post-pageant that must show her neck but I unfortunately can’t find any.

Finally, we get to island Shelby. She’s possibly forever destroyed her relationship with her father and thus her religion, as even two crosses can no longer effectively paint Shelby as the perfect Christian girl. Now, on the island and away from her community, she wears just one cross. Not only that, but the cross is sideways; not very typical of crucifix jewelry.

To me, the sideways crucifix is a clear symbol of Shelby’s questioning of her religious fervor and beliefs. There is no longer any point in wearing two crosses, as the girls around her do not value her based off of her ability to uphold a good Christian image. In fact it is the opposite, which leads her to give up her necklace altogether to Rachel, which I also think is very important but that’s another post.

Anyways, maybe I’m reaching due to some denial-of-the-show-being-cancelled fever, but I thought this was a cool detail.

[dinobot900]

jason giving dave goodkind

[jojo-sain]

Ya know as much as I love character development shown through a change of behavior and as much as i charish the character arc toni is on and how great it would be for herself and those around her if she stopped all violent urges and learned to process her emotions without a throwdown…

✨ I want Toni to punch Dave Goodkind in the face ✨

[hadtochangemyurlquick]

Okay, okay. I’m dragging myself out of hiding because I just want to talk about this Dave Goodkind stuff.

I think you are right.

We want a redemption arc because we fundamentally recognize the importance of familial relationships. We also want to categorize people not as “bad” but as “wrong” and believe that if they do the the work they can realize they were wrong and actually grow. I agree with the points around conditional love— Dave definitely gives his love conditionally. We want him to grow, learn, evolve because it reinforces that can happen in irl too. But I think on some level we want a reconciliation (at least partially) for Shelby. Shelby has demonstrated over and over again how incredibly important family is to her, and while she will build a found family she shouldn’t lose her parents/siblings because of who she is. We don’t want her to lose something that is so important to her.

So setting aside Dave’s abuse, it’s totally rational to want Shelby to lose nothing and in essence “have it all”. I shall tell a story (albeit a very scaffold story because yikes details):

So I think I’ve mentioned before that Shelby’s story mirrors mine in a lot (like 90 ways). One of those is that I grew up extremely close to my Dad. He and I did everything together. My family in general was quite tight. When I was about 13 I kind of got pushed into coming out and let’s just say it didn’t go great (once again, I’ll be sparse on details). It actually really messed me up for a long time, stuff was bad at home and all of this lead to me running away when I was 16. That period was followed by several very strained and tense years. BUT fast forward with me until today. I have an okay relationship with both of my parents. It took a lot of work on their part to get us there though, and a huge amount of recognition of the harm they caused. But they did the work. And because my roots with them run deep, we grew back together. They had a redemption arc. I’ll never say that it was the same as it was before— because it’s not. You can’t repair something that was shattered that badly. But you can make something new. And remedying it helped me heal in a lot of ways too. And similar to what you said, that’s not the case for everyone. Some people will never change (and I know those people too)— but that doesn’t mean we can’t hope they do.

So the problem here is we can’t think about redemption arcs as being for the villain. They are also for the people who were harmed. And I for one think that Shelby would get a lot of healing from any steps her Dad took. SO YES we hate him, but we also can want him to do better for Shelby’s sake. - A

(Also— I hope you are okay)

oh man oh man

Ally said i was right fuck yeah i'm gonna frame this ask and put it on my wall i love this my god you all can see this right, i'm not imagining it, she literally said "i think you're right"? ally please confirm.

anyway, thank you for articulating this better than i ever could.

the story of this experiment that gretchen is pushing is: our girls are weak. they need to toughen up, discover their power, and come back at the world with the strength of amazon warriors. and the only way to turn them into wonder women is to isolate them on an island of only women.

but whether or not they get better shouldn't be the point like. why does leah have to overcome her trauma of being raped. why couldn’t she have just. not been raped. why does rachel need to find her own inner beauty and ignore society’s expectations, instead of society changing its expectations. why does shelby need to be strong enough to leave her abusive parents instead of her parents no longer being abusive?

so much of therapy encourages us to be stronger, to learn ways of coping with the world around us. climate change is wrecking havoc on the ecosystem giving you panic attacks so bad you can’t breathe for whole minutes? let’s try some breathing techniques.

this isn’t to say therapy isn’t helpful, it is, but with so many people in our society needing it, it begs to question as to if the problem is not with the individual. so many people say everyone should go to therapy, but therapy is a specialized doctor. not everyone is saying “everyone needs to go to the optometrist and get their eyes checked!” that costs money and would be wasteful. if you have a problem with your eyes you go to the optometrist. if you have panic attacks so bad you can’t breathe for several minutes you go to therapy (ideally before it gets to that point though).

but more and more people need therapy. like, to the point those people saying everyone needs it have a point. if everyone suddenly needed glasses we’d think there was something in the water or something, right? we wouldn’t think that everyone just happened to need glasses what a weird coincidence, better make the optometrist cheaper and more acceptable that also brings me to my sponsor for this weeks video. bettervision. bettervision is an online platform with hundreds of lisenced optometrists that provide--

the point is, you don’t, and our girls don’t, need to become stronger to tough out the world. the world needs to become less tough.

“Sure gus,” you say, “but in the meantime--”

I wonder how many people have died in the meantime. the meantime is never ending. it will never get better unless you demand it.

if the show rehabilited dave, gave him a redemption arc while shelby was away at the island, it would send that message. it would tell the audience that teenage girls do not need to become stronger to survive the world, but that the world needs to become better for teenage girls.

the meantime, in other words, would end.

[craftyghostartisanplaid]

shelby goodkind’s phone background is a white womans instagram inspirational quote that says “Lord I can’t, but you can”

and i don’t know how to analyse it yet but it makes me weirdly sad