Supernatural is not a good show. In fact, it is pretty objectively terrible. It has moments of brilliance and potential, but it squanders it most of the time.
But there will never be another show like this one.
Supernatural was a show where pretty much anything could happen, and it went on long enough that pretty much everything did. It went from a straightforward, procedural monster-hunting show to a weird, meta parody of itself where the main characters beg for freedom from a cruel and all-powerful writer controlling their fate.
Supernatural was a show made for cishet white men that gained an audience of anything but, and spent years struggling with that dissonance. It became multiple shows at once to appeal to its vastly varied fanbase and, when faced with the need to choose an ending and decide its identity once and for all, ended up angering everyone.
Supernatural was a show that the writers completely and utterly lost control of. I don't think the writers of 04x01 Lazarus Rising could have ever in a million years imagined the events of 15x18 Despair. It became a monster bigger than itself because of the energy of its fanbase. The show itself briefly became a mirror of this dissonance in its final season, before the show finally tried to regain control and ended the way that it did.
Supernatural has had an impossibly impactful mark on internet and fandom culture. It has changed this website in tangible ways that won't be forgotten anytime soon. It was the 12-year-long queerbait, the one that would serve as the scale against which to compare all queer ships before and after. It spawned the only ship to date with over 100,000 fanfics on ao3. It was the homosexual homophobic show. The world's longest, most drawn-out hate crime. And it ended it all with superhell, tetanus, and party city wigs.
Supernatural is not a good show. But it is undoubtedly fascinating and influential. I want to study this show endlessly. It is just so fully insane to me.
Anyways, I'll be posting about this show A LOT tomorrow as well so sorry to my non-supernatural mutuals. I'm jealous that you are not cursed with the burden of knowledge that is this show.
Drowning
Sketch with ref. I’ve been thinking about this one for a while. I really, really like this pose. It looks like a statue. It’s so expressive.
DO NOT ❌copy, trace, or otherwise steal credit for this work.
So based on the internet this is the consensus on the atla live action series:
Aceness
Um guys. Fellow aroaces.
How the fuck do you find people to date?
Seriously, what f secret am I missing here?
I want love so badly.
I HAD THE SAME THOUGHT AND REALIZATION
He’s wearing eyeliner, oh my god?
Pretty boi 🌺
Another experiment with the new watercolor paper. I think I’ve only tried to do skin with watercolor once before. At the beginning I thought it looked terrible. But it actually turned out quite okay :D.
I love this one.
As always, DO NOT trace, copy, or otherwise steal credit for this artwork.
so are we gonna talk about how enids parents literally wanted to send her to conversion camp.
her mother literally said, "don't you want to finally be normal?" im going to be sick
and enids, "i just hope one day you'll finally accept who i am" good grief.
and some of y'all wanna tell me shes not gay. mmmmmkay.
Mystical town. Urban sketches. #4, set of 10.
Playground.
Evolution
I have recently come to realize that I’m at a stage in life where I find myself attracted to a literary genre I never held any interest in: realism.
Or rather, realism with wondrous things sprinkled in.
Specially like that presented in Japanese literature.
What I’m really looking for I think, is connection. Being able to relate to the story to a deeper level than the fantasy stories I used to be so obsessed with (which no offense, but are usually not written to relate with anyone. YA Fantasy writing tends to be bleak when it comes to the relatable side of things).
I am touched by stories about people struggling through life’s bumps, pushing through as they find connections with others and hope in the little things; perhaps lessons they learned as children and forgot as they aged, or perhaps in magical wonders they encounter.
Slice of life stories are specially entertaining to me now. Broken as I am, there’s a part of me that lights up with stories I can empathize with. It stitches me up a bit inside. Helps hold me together.
There are so many books of this kind I wanna read. Stories that can warm me inside and hold my stitches together.
I never thought I’d become interested in realism (after, you know, literally living through it).
Guess a point a comes where you just wanna know you’re not the only one in pain.
WEDNESDAY
Don’t get me wrong. I love Wednesday, I love Jenna Ortega and her performance as Wednesday was brilliant.
#spoilers
However, ultimately the show felt bland in the end to me, because the whole plot ended up revolving around the romance drama: of course, one of the romantic interests was going to be the villain and break her black heart. It was so painfully cliche. To me, as someone who writes and reads a lot, it was obvious from the start where the plot was heading, since the first scene with Thornhill in the dorms and Tyler at the coffee shop. Thornhill was actually better written though.
It was the love interests that just ugh, fell so flat and soured the experience for me. Both Xavier and Tyler were both written in JUST to add romantic drama because Wednesday’s a teen and as such she “should experience typical teen problems and boy problems”.
Which is absolute fucking bullshit in my opinion, not every teenage girl protagonist has to experience love triangles and romantic drama just because she’s a teenager, that is just a cliche trope that has been perpetuated by movies and series, but doesn’t portray the real life of a teenage girl. Besides, why would Wednesday ever need romantic drama? She’s a great character by herself, being how she has always being, she never needed other characters to make her “evolve” or seem more relatable or teen-like.
The cool thing about Wednesday has always been how unapologetic she is, she will be herself without giving a fuck about what others think of her, she will speak her mind always, specially when something that she perceives as “not right” (like the bullying, misogyny, white-washing retelling of history, etc) is happening in front of her; she’s different of course, but that’s what makes her so special, she’s not willing to change herself or bow down to society.
Wednesday has never needed love interests to seem more teen-like, or be more relatable. She’s great just like she is. The weak attempts at writing romance with Wednesday… holy gods they were so bland. Xavier and Tyler were added in with only that purpose, barely have any personality, not to mention having absolutely zero chemistry with Wednesday, at least romantically.
Tyler, if you ignore him being one of the antagonists, reads as a puppy-eyed white male who finds her intriguing because she’s so different from all the other girls he has met before, and since she pays a modicum of attention to him because she needs his help, he thinks she’s interested. Xavier reads as the boy who literally just broke up with a girl he liked, but could never trust, and his mind immediately grabs onto Wednesday as a new love interest because she’s someone who he has met before, and he knows how she is; she’d never lie to him or manipulate his feelings knowingly, he knows she doesn’t have the power to do that, so of course, in his mind she’s trustworthy and because she’s so different from Bianca, she’s perfect as a new crush.
Wednesday never gave them signals of being interested. And yet of course, typical, just because she seems to tolerate them, they automatically assume she likes them. Even though it’s clear from the start she’s just using them for her own means and ends, not actually bonding with them. Tyler is the normie who’d help her with the investigation and help her escape Nevermore because he has a car, and is conveniently the sheriff’s son, so she can keep an eye on his father through him. They had no conversations outside the ones related to the investigation, yet somehow they kissed…..
She barely talked to Xavier outside of the scenes where she snuck into his studio, those scenes being; the infirmary, the classroom, the burnt yard, the jail.
In none of those does Wednesday show any signs of being interested in him in any way, she tolerates him because they’re sort of childhood acquaintances, and he’s her suspect. And in those scenes, the lines they exchange-with the exception of the infirmary (because it’s the moment Xavier’s character is introduced)-are painfully brief and to the point. In fact, I don’t even think they talked in the classroom; Wednesday just looked at him and smashed the spider. She didn’t even say anything. The yard scene was after their fight in the studio and it’s only like 4 lines because they’re not on good terms, which again, were they ever really? And the jail scene is just full of tension and friendship heartbreak because Xavier perceived her differently than she is, and Wednesday is hurt by his words, even though she doesn’t seem to (but Ortega really is brilliant at expressing what Wednesday is feeling just with little face muscle movements. If you pay attention to her face, it is really easy to read how Wednesday is feeling in every scene).
In their efforts to add romantic interests for Wednesday, they ended up coming up with two extremely bland characters. Not to mention Ajax, who is not as bland, but still feels like kind of an unncessary addition. Honestly, the way they’re written, it’s painfully obvious that the purpose of the 3 boys is just to merely act as romantic interests and a stopper to the shipping between Wednesday and Enid, being like “oh but see? They both have boyfriends! Male interests! They’re not queer! They’re just really good friends and roommates!”
….. god that’s just terrible writing. Both read as heavily queer coded, and Enid is the only character Wednesday actually cares about and bonds with out of her free will, unconsciously (with the exception of Eugene, but he’s like a sibling to her). By the second episode, Wednesday is already showing signs that she’s starting to care for Enid, without being prompted to by anything else, circumstancial or otherwise. When they argue, Wednesday is hurt by it, saddened because she’s now alone; she keeps looking back at Enid’s side of the room and hopes to solve everything asap so it can all go back to normal. She’s again, hurt and disappointed when Thornhill shows up to tell her that Enid has requested to room with Yoko for the rest of the year, but tries to play it off. Wednesday is a character who perceives emotion as weakness, because it’s how people commit mistakes and get hurt, it’s what people use to manipulate each other, so she convinces herself that she doesn’t need emotion, including affection and caring about people.
Yet by episode 5, not only does she clearly care about Eugene, completely willingly and with no ulterior motive, she also cares about Enid’s feelings and talks with her easily, standing close to one another. She tries to tell Dr. Kinbott that she’s still as cold hearted as she was the first day, but it’s clear she’s trying to convince herself of it too, because although she has tried, she cannot help but care about them. She could have thrown away the snood when Enid was not looking, but she kept it, tried to avoid hurting her feelings by telling her she didn’t like it, and even wore it when they were investigating.
Enid literally turned into a werewolf in her hurry to get to Wednesday and help her. She fought for her and got scarred, and the first thing she says when she’s in her human form again is “where is wednesday?” And she’s worried, scared for her. She could have hugged Ajax when she saw him, but she just leaned into him for comfort, because she literally just turned into a huge beast, fought for her life, and is really shaken by it. In contrast, when she sees Wednesday she literally runs to her and hugs her tightly. And Wednesday actually reciprocates, hugging her tightly and hiding her face in her neck while Enid clutches her uniform in her hands. Wednesday didn’t hug Tyler even when they were kissing, she only let herself be held, but made no move with her own arms.
I could continue, but this is getting really fucking long. Point is: there is no fucking way Wednesday and Enid are not queer in some way, regardless what netflix may say (when one writes a story, the characters always evolve and develop beyond one’s imagination and thoughts, because they are characters, and ultimately, they are people). And Xavier and Tyler made no goddamn sense as love interests, yet sadly it’s already obvious that Xavier is gonna be endgame, unless they decide to actually make Wednesday x Enid canon. The show just felt like compulsive heteronormativity to me.
I wuv this
If I had a nickel for every time an ethereal being realized they're in love with the person they've been dating for centuries but still refuse to acknowledge as their friend, I'd have two nickels. Which isn't a lot, but it's weird that Neil Gaiman did it twice.