#sappholily posts

[fanpholily]

i keep seeing posts about this, so periodic reminder that parker is canonically autistic. she's not autistic-coded, she's not "maybe autistic", she is canonically autistic, she was written as an autistic woman, the creators wrote her to be autistic.

[fanpholily]

i feel like you could say awful things about all the psych characters, which is why henry haters don't make sense to me. and i mean exclusively henry haters.

you could say shawn is a horrible person for the things he does to gus.

you could say gus is a pushover for allowing shawn to do the things he does.

you could say lassiter is an awful person because of his political beliefs and how he jokes about hurting prisoners.

you could say juliet is a hypocrite for how she broke up with shawn but decided to still go on a date with declan while stringing shawn along.

idk the point is that you can say a ton of things about the characters that would be true but the whole point of the show is to be funny and lighthearted. yeah, henry isn't the best dad, but he was working with the resources he had in the 70s and 80s. as many have pointed out, shawn was probably a hard child to raise in those times because of his likely undiagnosed adhd.

and the thing i get stuck on the most when it comes to henry haters is that they'll say "he treats shawn so badly", but they never recognize the love shawn has for his dad. shawn has, on many occasions, shown that he truly loves his dad, and henry, on many occasions, has shown that he truly loves shawn. they both understand that they love each other and would die for each other.

people with truly awful dads cannot confidently say "my dad would die for me" or "i would die for my dad", which is something both henry and shawn would say about each other.

the yang episodes and santabarbaratown are both very clear examples of this. they might never outright say "i love you", but their actions speak louder than their words and it's up to us as viewers of the show to recognize that and have enough media literacy to say, "yeah it's not the best child/dad relationship but the love they have for each other is still there".

i think it's detrimental to the show to think of all the relationships as black and white. every character is complex and if you can excuse lassiter's comments on choking prisoners, you should also be able to excuse henry's comments about shawn in the early seasons. otherwise you're being a hypocrite and you need to stop posting on tumblr.

i think it's also important to stop watching the show if you're having panic attacks while watching it. seriously, if the relationship between shawn and henry triggers you, STOP WATCHING THE SHOW. what are you doing still watching it?

[fanpholily]

i'm not done with fandom discourse.

there's something so fascinating to me about how soap, keegan, roach, and könig *cannot* be portrayed without ghost.

in a similar fashion, there's something so fascinating to me about how ghoap *needs* a female third.

y'all wanna be gay allies but you can't picture your blorbos without a woman. you can't write about ghoap without a woman. you can't write about ghostkönig without a woman. you can't write about ghostkeegan without a woman.

i'm not saying that ghoapxreader and etc., can't be a thing, but why does reader always have to be a woman? or afab?

and then you have the audacity to complain about fluff being "samey" and "boring". go to the tags RIGHT NOW. look up ghostkeegan, or ghoap, or ghostkönig. how many fics *don't* have an afab reader?

there are no roach standalone fics, there are no keegan standalone fics, there are no könig standalone fics, there are no soap standalone fics. those that do exist are ignored by *you*. yes, *you*, complaining about "all fluff is the same". and you're ignoring them because you hate consuming fic that doesn't follow the same formula.

[fanpholily]

one thing that really struck me when listening to "the psychologists are in" is just how many people had their lives changed thanks to psych. so many people that worked on psych keep telling stories about how they were on the verge of giving up, but they gave psych a chance and psych changed their lives.

james roday rodriguez was a street musician in los angeles that occasionally went to auditions for shows. he was about to move to new york and work on broadway. he talked about how he told his agent "look for things on broadway because i'm moving", and how he was looking for apartments in new york. then, when his agent told him about psych and convinced him to audition, james was so set on moving to new york that he told himself, "i'm not even going to try because i don't want this job, but i'll do it just to see what happens." he didn't purposefully fail and do a bad job, but he also did not try as hard as he could've because he didn't want to be in la anymore, and yet, he got the job.

corbin bernsen talked about how he had just finished working on a movie and how he didn't want to do shows anymore, but then his agent told him about psych. he also shared that he didn't try as hard as he could've because he didn't think of himself as a "dad" character. he also did not want to do hour-long shows. but he got the job and it changed his life.

andy berman (one of the writers) had a very similar experience to james. he was telling his agent "i don't even want to be a writer anymore", but steve franks wanted him on psych, so he went to the audition thinking "fuck it, i guess it won't hurt", and he ended up writing the "9 lives" episode. it was the first idea he pitched to steve and steve loved it so much that he made andy berman the producer of that episode and flew him out to vancouver, which is not something that usually happens on shows.

listening to the podcast is so eye-opening!

[fanpholily]

i just got out of therapy and while in it, i used the episode in psych where gus's parents go to jail as an example for how i feel in my own home.

and lowkey, gus's parents are also abusive, though in a different way than henry, AND it's also a good example of points i've made previously about the writers.

i previously have said that the writers will sometimes write some tragic parent/child dynamic as a joke/in a funny way/because they think it's funny. this episode is a great example of that.

having parents almost babify you or not take you seriously and having them constantly belittle your achievements is abusive (speaking from personal experience). it's emotionally/mentally abusive and lowers your self-esteem, as well as isolates you from what should be your closest support system. you tend to keep things to yourself because you know that going to your parents will only make you feel worse about/doubt your achievements.

however, in the episode where the gusters are arrested and in the episode about the school murder, that parent dynamic is played off as very funny and like something that only happens to gus. gus is in emotional distress but dulé hill uses physical comedy to make the scenes "funny". (regardless of whether you found it funny or not, dulé hill's acting choices give an idea as to how he wanted the scene to come across).

this isn't me getting on some soap box. i'm not going to tell you that the writers are racist for not taking a black character's suffering seriously. i'm not going to tell you that the writers suck for incorrectly portraying abusive parent/child dynamics.

but i WILL tell you that the focus of the writers and actors is to make a comedy. that's not to say that they can't write/haven't purposefully written high-tense, highly emotional episodes (because that would be a lie), but psych (especially in later seasons) is majorly a comedy show meant to make people laugh.

so sometimes, henry's abuse is portrayed as comedic. him not paying for shawn's morphine drip after his appendix burst is another such example. it's awful if we think about it in real-life, but in the show it's meant to be funny (again, regardless of whether you laughed or not).

a good in-between scene of both written as a high-tense situation but executed in a comedic way is when henry puts shawn in the trunk of his car. the actors and the script use a mix of physical comedy and dialogue to relieve the overall tension of the episode/scene (as well as to add background). however, in hindsight, we as viewers can recognize that that's kinda fucked up for a parent to do to a child. young shawn summarizes my feelings of that scene when he says "when? don't you mean if?"

it's weird that henry is preparing shawn to escape a kidnapping and it's even weirder that he's so certain it will happen to shawn. but it's purposeful to the show and was only written to explain why shawn knows how to get out of the situation he finds himself in. if adult shawn hadn't been thrown in a trunk, henry would've never taught young shawn how to escape the trunk of a car. such is the case of the flashbacks. the only reason henry does things to young shawn is to explain why adult shawn knows the things he does.

this is also not me saying that henry is not abusive because there's definitely scenes that were not written for comedic purposes, yet still showcase henry as an abusive father (especially with andy berman or steve franks as the writer since they use personal experiences with their dads).

also there are times when the writers write scenes to be tragic and to be portrayed as tragic but the actors choose to portray the scenes as comedic.

my main point is and always has been that psych is highly nuanced and also that sometimes it's okay to laugh at some of the ridiculous things henry makes shawn do. it doesn't mean you're not an empathetic person, it just means you're enjoying the show. i laughed at henry throwing shawn in the trunk because it was meant to be a scene to relieve tension. i laughed at gus yelling at his parents over the phone when he learned they denied him entry because of the physical comedy that dulé hill did was funny to me.

it doesn't mean i can't relate to his pain (because i SO can, i was crying about it in therapy today, quite literally). but it just means that the show is very nuanced and can make me laugh at things i wouldn't normally laugh at and cry at things i wouldn't normally cry at.

[fanpholily]

one of my favorite things about both leverage and psych is that when they realized they couldn't do the leverage x psych crossover, they started paying homage to each other through their shows.

psych with their pierre despereaux (which for the longest time i thought his name was devereaux)

and leverage with the nate flashbacks when he was a kid and his dad was teaching him

[fanpholily]

i like how in the korean version of leverage, they give us time to get to know seon kyu before he dies. when he did that little gesture to tae joon, i was SOBBING! it honestly made his death more painful. i also like how the korean leverage doesn't harp too much around the idea that "nate" (tae joon) is supposed to be the good guy. that's one thing i don't like about the pilot episode of american leverage--everyone was saying "nate you're a good guy", but we never got shown how he was a good guy. we only got shown that he followed the law, which does not a good guy make.

anyway, i also like that although the characters are very much based off of american leverage, they each have their distinct personalities that differ from american leverage.

for example, korean parker (na byeol) is much more aggressive and assertive. there's no (so far) moments where you think "man she's got some screws loose", but you can tell life shaped her. there's a line where she says "you're either duping or getting duped" and that is the center of her outward personality. she also reminds me of haneul from kiss of life (kpop group). they have the same aura and they look very similar. she's also a ninja. if you thought american parker's gymnastics were impressive, wait til you see na byeol!

korean eliot (roy ryu) is very, very quiet. he also is not afraid to use guns. he's more of an observer than a talker, which is very different from american eliot. he also hasn't had any banter with na byeol and eui sung, which is probably because he joined the group last.

korean hardison (eui sung) is very much so annoying. he reminds me more of chaos than hardison. na byeol and eui sung have a much more sibling relationship than parker and hardison, which is a major difference.

korean nate (tae joon) is SOOO much nicer than american nate. i actually believed that he was a good guy off of first impressions, which again, is something that i struggled with when i first watched american leverage.

korean sophie (soo kyung) i find is the most similar to american sophie. they both have that expensive aura to them, though i think sophie's was a more "rags to riches" aura, whereas soo kyung feels like a true expensive aura. but they're both able to capture that "i want to be an actress but i can't act unless i'm breaking the law" essence.

anyway, it's turning out to be a great show, and i can't wait to watch more. my only issue is that the pacing is too fast where it matters, and too slow where it doesn't, but otherwise, it's good.

[fanpholily]

one time i asked on reddit "where can i watch leverage for free" because i wasn't about to pay any amount of money to watch it. i love the show, but i was broke at the time, and i wasn't that desperate to watch it (desperate as in going-into-debt desperate).

many people are suggesting freevee, some suggest the youtube channel (which i recommend because it's in the actual viewing order), others suggested a pirate site (which i use to watch psych).

but someone in the comments was all up in arms about "how dare you pirate shows" (mind you, i was asking about it, not actually doing it). so i replied with "you're concerned about one person pirating a show, when the show itself talks about how unfair corporations are to both customer AND employee. the show is about ART THIEVES". and they blocked me.

well fast forward to me reading john rogers' blog, only to be met with JOHN ROGERS HIMSELF saying "well, i can't officially condone pirating a show, but if you must, i also can't tell you off for it."