Addendums: Cult Classic Tv Overlaps With Early Supernatural Seasons Somewhat, I Am Aware, Just Choose

addendums: cult classic tv overlaps with early supernatural seasons somewhat, i am aware, just choose based on the cultural context in which you read your first fic.

for weeaboo crew i was thinking of examples like hetalia, black butler, soul eater, etc--popular anime absolutely included but the distinction is that people who were into dragon ball weren't necessarily going to anime club every week and making deviantart stamps about yaoi, but people into ouran high school host club ABSOLUTELY were.

homestuck is in its own category because homestuck changed fandom forever at a critical time which just happened to be when i was growing up in fandom. harry potter, lotr, star wars, and twilight are in their own categories because they were such multimedia juggernauts they had entire archives dedicated solely and only to their fic that spanned multiple franchise reboots (books -> movies -> extended universes). (i acknowledge star trek technically would fit under this but at the time culturally it had more overlap with other cult classic tv fandoms.)

honorable mentions that didn't make it to the list because i had to pick-and-choose with the 12 answer limit: the final fantasy franchise (axed because i am not familiar enough with the fic scene to know if it was as iconic of a gateway drug as, like, naruto or twilight or star wars fic), a general YA lit category (YA lit outside of twilight only went mainstream slightly after this time period), the MCU (i have a hate boner for the MCU), a broader "american superhero comics" category (this would be valid as an option but i don't have the space)

Thinking about Van Zieks and his Racism-Via-Backstory because at first I thought it was a cop out like just make him racist as a product of society you don't need a specific reason but then I remembered that a fairly liberal person I know backtracked HARD into transphobia and self- righteousness due to a traumatic experience with a transperson trying to get her fired from work for mostly just being an imperfect cis white woman. Just.. GOD. It makes Van Zieks so messy and human. It just says.. "see? I went against society, I gave you a chance, and look where it got me. look how i was repaid."

just....

UGGGGGGHHHHHHH

It’s mentioned off hand by Mina when she’s looking for Lucy in the house and notices the front door is open. ‘The people of the house are good about locking up when they leave’ or something to that effect. ‘People of the house’ is a term that pops up in this era to describe servants a lot. So there are servants in witby, but they’re at home asleep when Lucy sleepwalks.

I don’t even think there’s any out of sight out of mind thing with mina feeling isolated and lonely but the servants are right there. I don’t think she knows these people AT ALL. They don’t stay at the house so the probably live in Witby and aren’t directly employed by Mrs. Westenra.

Can you imagine how awkward it would be if some random lady renting out the house you work at just started venting about how her fiancé was supposed to be back from a business trip almost a month ago but instead has gone completely radio silent and that both the people she’s staying at the house with have different health problems that they’re keeping secret from eachother and she’s caught in the middle of the two of them trying to pretend that everything’s fine while you’re just trying to dust a fireplace mantle or something like the Victorian equivalent of that guy in the drive through just trying to give someone their food

Genuine question - does anyone have any theories about where the servants are in Whitby?

I mean, is this just an "I'm so alone" (servant in the room tending the fire goes unmentioned) type ignoring the lower class and treating them as if they're invisible? That doesn't seem to fully jive with the events of today's entry, where Mina searched the house and would surely have asked a maid or someone if they were there (then again, it was 3am). They also are mentioned in other places in the novel so it's not like they are always invisible. I also feel like they might have gotten caught sneaking home at dawn if there were servants getting ready for the day, but it isn't mentioned. And maybe there's something with Mina being put in sole charge of keeping Lucy in at night as well...

But I can't believe Mrs. Westenra and Lucy are staying here for so long with no servants at all. So maybe only a few who don't live in the main apartment (?) or something and thus missed tonight's events?

The show Crazy Ex Girlfriend covers this really well. It gives the titular female lead an equally obsessed male counterpart in order to draw attention to the double standard in romance media. He’s creepy and weird and does the EXACT SAME THINGS the female lead does to her object of affliction. The show even straight up calls out the “she’s just a girl in love“ mentality.

Basically, if you’re fed up with these tropes I highly recommend the show. It’s finished, it’s a musical, and it’s really funny if you can stand second hand embarrassment.

One of the things I hate most about fandoms is the hypocrisy of their fans. And this is about ships again, yes (it's about characters too ngl).

Every anti-Bakudeku/Catradora fan says things like "How can you ship couples like these? It's so abusive! It's disgusting! Catra/Bakugo were so mean towards Adora/Izuku! Catradora/Bakudeku is so toxic and you shouldn't like it!" and then, when talking about Hiccstrid people always love them together. Even if Astrid was also a bully to Hiccup. Even if her development was null (don't say she had development, her "redemption" arc was shit and she needed more time in screen and more scenes between her and Hiccup to change from "I hate all the dragons" to "I was wrong about them". And one scene with an OST called "Romantic Flight" is not enough to make her redemption believable). Talking about development, do I really have to say that you hate Catradora/Bakudeku, but at least Catra and Bakugo apologized to Adora and Izuku? Astrid didn't say sorry to Hiccup for bullying him/hurting him. And you should be aware of that.

Bakugo and Catra didn't redeem in one day, they didn't get up one day and decided to be nicer. No, they had to work in their redemption and they also had to work in their relationship with the people they hurt (Izuku and Adora). Astrid didn't do that. All she needed to change was flying in a dragon with the person she used to hate.

Having all of that in mind, tell me, which relationship would be more healthy, logical and believable? The ones where the bully had to work hard to make amends for their mistakes, to heal their scars to make it better for the MC? The ones where the bully apologized to their victim, to the people they hurt? Or the one where all it took to change from "I hate you so much" to "I like you" was one scene, and they didn't even apologize for being a bully/being a bad person? Think about that.

And think about another thing too. A girl hurting a boy is bad. "But she-" No. "But she's not being cruel and she-" Enough. Don't fucking justify female-on-male violence. Violence is violence. If you hate Bakugo/Catra so much for hurting Izuku/Adora, then treat Astrid the same way, because she was not an angel before changing. She's not innocent. She was a bully too. And if you despise Bakugo/Catra's past actions, despise Astrid's past actions too.

Where I also saw Double Standard in media is in shows where there's a female character stalking a male character. Two examples that come to my mind right now are Hinata Hyuga from Naruto and Marinette Dupain-Cheng from Miraculous Ladybug.

The thing about them is that a lot of people love them. A lot of people love a female character stalking a male character. Dear God, Marinette learned the daily schedule of Adrien, and she even traveled to another country for him. Because she couldn't bear thinking he was in another country where she couldn't see what was he doing. That's not freaking normal, you guys. "She was a girl" "She didn't know what was she doing" "She's just in love". Excuse me- What. the. hell. Okay. So you're saying you're okay with a girl being so jealous that everytime her "crush" talks to a girl she needs to be around. You're okay with a girl entering her crush's house without permission (Do you know that's a crime, right?). You're okay with a girl having her bedroom full of photos of her crush (and I'm not talking about a fictional character from a show she likes. I'm talking about a real person. Because in Miraculous Ladybug's world, Adrien is Marinette's classmate, not a character from a show). I'm sorry, but if you think that's okay, there's something wrong with you. People can like someone and have a crush, sure, but what she has is an obsession. What she's doing is not normal. (And she can do that in the show, after all she's a character, but don't act like she's a nice person and an innocent person because she isn't. And definitely don't see her actions as a normal thing).

People, please, don't think what she's doing is "iconic" or something like that. If you're watching this show, please, don't do the same as her with your crush because is awful and disgusting. She's not "cute" for doing this. She has a problem, I'm being serious.

If she had a better love story with Adrien, like she did in the movie, I would understand the Adrinette ship because in the new movie it's just beautiful and wholesome and it's actually healthy. But when it comes to the show, the Adrinette ship can't be nothing more than toxic. So stop acting like Marinette's actions towards Adrien are okay (Yes, Adrien's actions towards Ladybug weren't okay neither, but this post is about female characters).

What Hinata Hyuga did -in comparison with Marinette- is not that bad, but even then, following her crush (Naruto Uzumaki) everytime he's with his friends/classmates is not nice. It's not cute. It's not something people should do. And the Naruhina ship honestly makes no sense. Okay, I get it. It's the type of romance we all want to have. We all want our crush to fall in love with us. We all want to have a relationship with the person we used to have a crush on. But if you want to include that trope if your story, if you want them to end up together in a show/book/movie, give them development. The ship has to feel natural.

We have to feel/see the chemitry. And I saw (and still see) no chemistry between Naruto and Hinata. Sasunaru, on the other hand, has a lot of emotional moments together and moments when they bond (their chemistry is right there). And it's not for my own preference, but they would have made a better couple. Mostly because they shared more screen time with each other. Even though Shikanaru and Gaanaru are also good options for a canon ship. Because they also had chemistry. But Naruto's love for Hinata in my opinion didn't feel natural. It was forced.

After all of this, let me say something more. You probably don't care about a girl stalking a boy in fiction. You're probably like "She's not doing anything wrong" "She's a teenager" "Stop being judgmental, she's a good character" "She's a nice person". If what they do it's okay for you, let me ask you a question. What if their gender was reversed? Yeah. Imagine if Marinette and Hinata weren't girls. Imagine if they were boys. Imagine if a boy went to another country to control the actions of another girl. Imagine if a boy entered his crush's house without permission. Imagine if a boy stalked the girl she likes to see if she's talking to another boys. Imagine if a boy had pictures of the girl she likes in his bedroom. What would you think then? Oh- You would think it's disgusting? It would be disgusting for you, right? Why? Because it's a boy?

People, have this in mind:

👏👏👏 If a boy does something bad and a girl does the same thing they both need to be treated the same way 👏👏👏

A girl hitting a boy isn't funny. It shouldn't be played for fun. As well as a boy hitting a girl. Neither of them is funny. And neither of them can be justified.

A girl stalking a boy isn't funny. As well as a boy stalking a girl. Neither of them is funny. And neither of them can be justified.

That's why I ask you to stop being two-faced. If you despise someone's actions, you despise someone's actions, whether it is a boy or a girl. You want equality? Then fucking stop with the double standard.

A bad action is a bad action, no matter who makes it. Period.

This really funny thing happened at my church where the pastor just casually called out this homophobic couple in the middle of his sermon. 

For context: A Gay man who'd been attending for years wanted to become a church elder, and this couple was of the opinion that Gay people should only be allowed into churches to be 'fixed'. They’d been cordial to him and his boyfriend for years, but him wanting to run for the position while still “choosing” to be gay crossed a line for them. 

These two started to try and rally people to their side in the congregation, and didn’t seem to be getting the hint that it was literally only them who cared about this. Eventually the pastor just had enough and gave this whole sermon on the section of the bible that the couple kept citing as being proof that “being gay wasn’t christian”. He pointed out that it also listed “re-marrying when your spouse was still alive” as something christians weren’t supposed to do, and said something to the effect of “if go around telling people to abide by this section you should be following ALL of it.”  

Both of the homophobes had divorced their previous spouses and married each-other. 

They got up, left, and never came back. 

Best fucking sermon ever. 

I full understand that it is not appropriate as response to talking about the various roles of christianity in colonialism and Christofascism,

However as its own thing, I think its an interesting subject how the Bible is supposed to be the fundamental source of Christian doctrine, BUT most of the "traditional values" of christian conservatives and ideas that are powerfully associated with christianity...just Are Not In There, or are only mentioned as brief, isolated side notes amidst much longer and more detailed passages discussing something different

Whereas many ideas that are emphasized HUGELY in the Bible are just totally and completely ignored by these rightwing political folks 

Much of Christianity is not actually based on the Bible, but instead on a bunch of traditions and later writers, but protestants have problems with admitting that.

And as someone who was raised very "sola scriptura" i don't even get why church tradition matters for anyone. Who cares what Augustine thought about abortion. He was literally just a guy