this song. this song fits dean and cas so well. and im about to explain exactly why.
the entirety of the song about losing someone you once loved, and during season 15, thats exactly what happened. not just with castiel’s death and dean losing him, but during this specific scene during s15e03:
castiel, by this point, has been through hell when it comes to how dean has treated him (because, lets face it, dean is an asshole due to multiple trauma related reasons). he’s been kicked out of the bunker with no explanation, he’s been told that he’s basically useless without his powers (“baby in a trench coat”), he’s been blamed by dean for the leviathans, and he’s been blamed for everything that happened to mary. he knows dean tried to kill HIS SON, for fucks sake.
and yet, castiel still loves him. cas knows that he, himself, has flaws. so he keeps giving and giving, and expects nothing in return. he keeps letting dean vent and take his anger out, he keeps letting the man blame him, because, lets face it, cas thinks he’s right.
so he lets dean do whatever he pleases. castiel, angel of god, fallen for a man that constantly degrades him and agrees with him whenever he blames himself for something he did wrong.
“when castiel first laid a hand on you in hell, he was lost!”
yes, that statement is true. but, castiel also learned free will. he was on his own, he has been through plenty of dangerous situations. and, most importantly, he can handle himself.
so, castiel gets up and looks at dean, telling him that his power is failing, telling him that dean doesn’t care about him. and dean doesn’t object. he sits there, in silence, not stopping castiel as he walks out.
“I had all and then most of you
Some and now none of you
Take me back to the night we met”
dean once had all of castiel, was able to have the angel at his beck and call. during purgatory, dean’s raw instinct was to find castiel. he cupped his face whenever he thought his angel was going to die. and then, he kicked him out. without explanation, without a word.
the second that castiel walked out of that bunker’s door was the second that dean winchester realized he was becoming exactly like his father. pushing away those he cared about for the sake of one goal: keep his family alive. not the family he created, though. only blood. blood was what mattered. all because john winchester ingrained it in his head, beat it through his skull until it stuck.
as castiel walked out that door, dean winchester realized he had lost the one person who loved him and his flaws. in his eyes, he lost the one person who could put up with his bullshit, who could stand to be around him for longer than a few days. because, god forbid, the only one who would stay was sam.
castiel walked out that door with a heavy heart but a clear head.
dean winchester stayed in that bunker with nothing but his brother, his own guilt, and a glass of whiskey.
Many times in the past, I’d written about Steven’s needing to take up the roles of caregiver, authority figure, and generally being an adult throughout the series. However, I’d also written about how Steven Universe Future highlighted that Steven is in the process of growing up. Both are true. This meta explores how SUF is a dovetailing from the childlike worldview Steven had in the original series, eventually coming to celebrate his adolescence, in all its ups, downs, and uncertainties.
Very glaring in the SUF episodes is that upon first impression, Steven is grumpy for many of the episodes. He loses his temper more often than he did in the original series, which surprised many fans when SUF aired.
Biologically-speaking, this isn’t a big surprise. In Earth-years, Steven is at the age when his body is growing and changing. He’s 16 in SUF, the age when a lot of people go through puberty. But it’s not only that. Accompanying his growth spurt and deeper voice, he’s also still learning about and navigating the Gem aspects of his physiology. Physical and hormonal changes are enough to alter mood on their own.
More than that, though, Steven is in the age of adolescence. What adolescence means now varies depending on the source. Generally, though, it’s referred to as a period of rapid growth and development physically, cognitively, and socially. After all, between the ages of 10 and 24, it is generally expected that the youth pick up skills, find direction in life, and find ways to cope with and function in society.
And the age range for that development is wider than just the teenaged years. For someone with Steven’s background and maturity, SUF was his time to find out where he should begin forging a vocation for himself. It might be later, especially for those who have pursued formal higher education, since they’re students until their early 20s. For others, who take on work while studying, or who don’t attend formal schooling, it might be even earlier.
Steven is cranky, snappy, grumpy, because there’s a lot of pressure to figure things out. Though we are uncertain of Steven’s actual lifespan, he lives on Earth and was raised on Earth time. He feels the urgency of deciding the way a lot of young people feel pressured to choose a college program, or a particular line of work. The prevailing logic is that one gets started, and works their way up until they’re “successful,” whatever that may mean to them.
In our modern, capitalist society, this may mean earning a stable income. For more traditional communities, this may mean settling down and having a family. For some, it may mean having a fulfilling, productive vocation to pour your life into. For nearly all of us, it’s some mixture of the three. And Steven might be feeling this as well.
Stevenis emotionally mature and considerate for his age. But there are two important things to note about his behaviour in the main seasons.
First, his entire life revolved around the Crystal Gems and being a hero. He moved in with the Crystal Gems as a child. When discussing career aspirations in Frybo, he tells Peedee in one of the first episodes of his show that he wants to be a hero and put smiles on the faces of others.
For the next decade or so, that’s exactly what he did. He trained, he tagged along, and finally, he took the lead. But after the SU Movie and SUF, we see Steven consider something else. His conception of hero was evolving. More than that, the idea of a hero itself was context-specific.
Once upon a time, Steven thought being a Crystal Gem meant fighting bad guys like the corrupted Gems. Finding out that they still had a revivable consciousness in Bubble Buddies changed all of that.
The fault fell to the Great Diamond Authority, for imposing the caste system in the first place and conquering planets. But he found out his own mother was complicit in this, and in the wake of her own realisations left a trail of loose ends and grieving hearts that fell to him to deal with.
And then there was no one else to blame. There were no more threats that required his very specific set of skills, that he had cultivated for years, that he had attached his self-worth to. This is the second factor. All the maturity and “grown-up” qualities he had, he didn’t know how to apply to other places. And the dissonance between what he wants to be able to do as he learned how to channel his energies into post-war efforts, and how well he was able to execute them, caused him the emotional stress and distress that we see manifest in the show.
All the while, he came to concretise his own philosophy in life. Still to protect the smiles on everyone’s faces. But exactly how to do that was evolving in his mind. SUF was the first time he considered that “how” might not be related to the Gems at all.
In a similar way, the question, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” is more easily answered in childhood than as an adolescent. It’s easy to say “teacher,” “firefighter,” “writer,” or “doctor.” As we grow up, though, we learn that there are so many more paths than we thought, and even more paths that have yet to be discovered. There are dozens of careers that exist now that just didn’t when I was a child. And even among those well-established jobs, there are specialisations, sub-specialisations– just so many specifics that you don’t even realise exist until you’re already walking along that path.
Because only when you dare to walk the path do you realise the amount of effort and technical speciality that goes on behind your favourite shows, a company, even a lifestyle.
The moment you realise, though, the world is thrown open wide and everything has changed. In the short period of SUF, Steven tries his hand at many things, including administrative work, continuing his original idea of hero work, teaching, and hobbyist work. It might have been the sampler he needed to spur his decision to move out and move on.
The reason many works of fiction write about adolescence, I feel, is that it’s such a nebulous and transitionary period in someone’s life (we can’t even get the exact age range defined). From everything being so clear-cut and the path being paved for you, the bricks and mortar are thrust into your hands, and then the path is all up to you. The series and the show ends with Steven literally in the driver’s seat of his own car.
As grown-up as he needed to act, Steven was still a child in the main series. He was doing what he thought he should do and what he felt was the right thing, within the context of being a Crystal Gem and a hero.
Post-war, even the concept of Crystal Gems had evolved. And he found the Gems were much better at handling Little Homeschool, at rehabilitating Gems, at helping Gems adjust to Earth society, than he was.
Steven wasn’t exactly jealous. In fact, for the first time, Steven’s attentions weren’t turned outward anymore. He finally focused on himself, and when you strip away the war, his mother’s baggage, and the constant threats on his friends and his way of life, he realised he never thought about what he wanted to do.
In meta, the fact that SUF is so short compared to the rest of the series is a mirroring of how memories in childhood feel so much longer. One hour felt like an eternity and the days passed slowly. There was always something new to look at, something else to learn.
In contrast, adolescence feels so fast precisely because we’re thrust into making decisions that feel like they’ll be life-changing and so much bigger than anything we’ve had to choose before. Later in life, as adults, we come to realise that no one has it all figured out and that life can take you to unexpected places. But there’s a seeming finality and grandiosity with the decisions you make as an adolescent, hence the overdramatic teen analogy.
SUF is also more fast-paced, with the stakes being raised quickly within the first 10 episodes, and then many attempts at resolution throughout. If there’s one thing Steven was bent on doing, it was to leave without loose ends in a way way Rose did not.
When we finally get to the end of SUF, it’s understated. It’s a quiet drive away from everything that was familiar and what you called home. It’s filled with hope and at the same time commitments. I’d like to think that’s what adulthood is about: not looking for those big explosions and dramatic moments because it’s just not practical and it’s exhausting amid all the responsibilities. Rather, it’s a commitment to keep hoping, keep choosing love, and keeping your raison d’être close to you despite the challenges. Bring smiles to people’s faces, in the small decisions day by day.
I have another meta-analysis before getting into the plot content of The Midnight Gospel episodes. This time, I’m exploring the recurring motif of Clancy’s taking a pair of shoes with him as souvenirs of his trips to the virtual multiverse, again, highlighting as I did in my previous post that the planets and people he visits are indeed virtual.
But before getting into the shoes at the end of each episode, it is relevant to discuss how each episode begins. Clancy orders Computer, his home A.I., to bring up worlds for him to visit. After which, Clancy gets to choose from a series of custom avatars what he wants to look like for his trip.
The act of shopping for universes and customising exactly how you appear to the world is the epitome of convenience. Clancy isn’t just realising he can buy a product on the Internet instead of going to a store, he’s acquiring a planet and all its natural and artificial riches.
This isn’t a stretch either. Later on in the series, we meet a family of Multiverse Simulator farmers, who mine each world for its expensive artefacts and sell them for money in the tangible reality where the show takes place.
On top of that, each episode has a familiar flow, with Clancy entering the world, conducting his interview, and the world coming to its apocalyptic end, with Clancy hilariously getting caught up in the middle of things. Despite this, Clancy is in no real danger, because at any time he can summon Computer to take him back outside the simulator. Moreover, his body is safely in his home the entire time.
Then Clancy simply proceeds with the rest of his life. He uploads the space-cast and lets the view (yes, singular) roll in.
“Computer, do it NOW”
What’s striking is how transactional Clancy’s relationships with those around him are for majority of the show. He listens to his interviewees and offers them a modicum of respect, but that’s also because for the most part he finds himself agreeing with what they’re saying. The times he doesn’t like what he’s hearing, such as with David, there’s so much resistance, so much tuning out. It’s only David’s patience and gentle prodding that Clancy opens up enough to listen to what he has to say and calm down.
Two things to note on that. First, David is under no obligation to teach Clancy anything. He doesn’t have to put up with an angry octopus who just ruined his painting, came into his place, and started screaming at him. It just so happens that his personal philosophy makes it less likely for occurrences like that to faze him. Second, Clancy wasn’t planning on doing an interview with David. There’s a chance he wasn’t planning to do an interview at all. He was trying to get into the simulator to escape a call he did not want to hear.
Computer calls him out on it as well, saying,
It’s become clear to me that you’ve been avoiding dealing with the real world by going into my many universes.
All the while Clancy is talking over him with the same dismissive attitude, tuning out what advice Computer is giving, just like the phone call or voice messages he’s been avoiding.
Though we don’t know what Clancy’s life was before the events of the first episode, we do know that since then, he’s been living in a way that suited him. Doing the things he more or less enjoyed. Despite this, he still had responsibilities and generally, just things he didn’t want to do. The most evident in the episode was his severe neglect of Computer, causing the malfunctions that threw him into a fit of rage in the first place.
It’s in this episode that he finally interacts with people outside the simulator. We are introduced to his neighbours, the aforementioned simulator farmers, We meet Bryce, the fidgety Multiverse Simulator repairman. And his interactions with them are transactional. He calls on them because he needs something– a way to fix his simulator. He humours them because he thinks they can offer him what he wants, and when they didn’t, he left them immediately.
In my first post of The Midnight Gospel analysis playlist, I talked about how it was so easy to respond to your own need to be comfortable and satisfied because your needs are immediate and urgent to you. You feel them and when you don’t answer them they gnaw at you and caw at the back of your mind until you satiate them.
I want to emphasise that the harm is not that we are born self-centred. No, that’s a fact of life. We need to take care of ourselves as individuals before we can function in the world we live in. It’s a survival instinct. It becomes problematic when self-preservation and self-comfort are where we stop.
It’seasy to focus on yourself and only yourself, forever. It’s convenient. On top of that, it’s enabled by all our new technology. In the show, it’s having a semi-sentient home A.I. and a multiverse simulator to escape to and profit from.
There are a lot of parallels to this in our world. Digital spaces, personalised content, economic privilege. In these cases, you can just stay in your comfy warm bubble and never leave it.
The Extreme Comfort Zone
Some concrete examples involve the consumption of media. I don’t want to sound like a crotchety old person and I’m not disparaging anyone. Something I’ve noticed, though, is how my younger family members only watch video streaming sites. Exclusively they watch content that caters to their very niche interests. This stands in stark contrast to when cable television monopolised home entertainment, because you couldn’t decide which shows would air and you couldn’t decide when they would air. You’d have to make an effort to make time for the series you wanted to watch, and in the act of waiting around for a show you were interested in, you’d stumble upon other channels, movies, or series that were interesting.
This is not to say that the democratisation of entertainment is a bad thing. I’m glad that people now have a greater say in the content they consume, they way my younger self did not, and I’m glad people have more spaces to share their niche interests in a way my younger alienated self could only have dreamed. However, this setup brings to the forefront our very transactional relationship with not only mainstream media but individual and independent content creators.
Watching movies is another example. In a theatre, you either sit through an entire movie or you walk out if it’s too unbearable. If a scene is too tense or suspenseful, you have no way of knowing whether or not you’re close to the end or if there will even be a happy resolution.
A habit I’ve noticed with family and friends, especially the younger ones, easily lets me know when they’re bored or uncomfortable. When we’re watching a video or streaming a movie, they’ll tap on the screen to see how much time is left in the running.
And there’s an underlying message to that. If what we’re seeing or hearing isn’t something tailored to our specific interests, then it’s not worth consuming. If it’s too long, then I didn’t read it. If the art is kind of weird, then it’s not enough to keep watching, no matter the message. (This is real. I know people who tell me they refuse to watch a show like Adventure Time or BoJack Horseman or anyanime because they don’t like the art).
It’s perfectly within one’s rights to skip to end of a book or a film. Life is short. We’re always busy. The modern world has a lot of demands and sometimes you just want to turn off your brain and enjoy something.
But on the rare days you have free time and energy to spare, you can venture outside the realm of what is reassuring and self-affirming. Yes, you can stay in the extreme comfort zone because you don’t have to leave it. You don’t haveto face other people or be confronted by things that make you second-guess your entire way of thinking. But I think you should. Not every moment of every day, because that gets tiring. But once in a while, definitely.
Now how does this all tie back to The Midnight Gospel?
Walking in Virtual Shoes
When we get deeper into his backstory, we find out that Clancy has been running away. He’s been refusing to face the relationships confronting him. Like his sister. Talking to her on the phone, she tells him he can’t just keep starting over without facing himself, and it leads him to an angry meltdown in the David episode.
If our worldviews are never challenged, if we are always in our comfort zone, then we never have a reason to turn outward. Because the default setting is to focus on ourselves.
But Clancy does encounter people who regularly challenge his worldview. Even if they’re created by a computer program. And he listens to them. Some more easily than others, but in every episode, eventually, he listens. And they, in turn, affect his emotions and changes the decisions he makes in life.
Again, this is nothing against the younger generations or against current technology. Because I think every generation is guilty of this: Retreating into a comfortable worldview where we don’t realise what other people go through, or don’t think that other people are capable of understanding us. It’s incredibly isolating. In the end, it leads to so much frustration and dissatisfaction, that when our bubble is even slightly threatened, we’re sent into an angry meltdown much like Clancy was.
So, I think it’s very poignant that at the end of every episode, Clancy always manages to take a shoe or two back with him, and these are what he keeps as souvenirs of his trip. This recurring image is significant.
There’s that idiom about walking a mile in someone else’s shoes. Though I think it relates to The Midnight Gospel tangentially, I don’t think it’s exactly what the metaphor of the shoe in each episode means. Clancy doesn’t always take the shoes from the interviewee of the episode. Sometimes it’s just a random shoe he finds on the ground. Sometimes, he takes it from another character. In the last episode, the shoes were pretty much handed to him.
Therefore, I wouldn’t say that Clancy is walking a mile in someone else’s shoes. In fact, in every episode, Clancy remains distinctly Clancy. Each of his avatars have his same color scheme, his eyes, and even his signature hat. During the interviews, he interjects with his own opinions and experiences.
That’s the essence of active engagement with the world, including other people and the media we consume. We listen and then measure it against our own beliefs and values. We re-examine ourselves but that entails having a self to re-examine in the first place.
The shoes represent stepping, quite literally, outside your comfort zone. Even when we’re sitting at home or comfortably, we’ll probably be wearing clothes. But we don’t need to wear shoes if we don’t have to.
The meta is supported by Clancy’s character always presented as being barefoot. In his current lifestyle, he doesn’t need to interact with anyone else. He doesn’t need to do most things he doesn’t want to. He doesn’t need to challenge himself. But in the end, he chooses to, whether he realises or not. Just being open to what the world has to say, especially the people in it, is enough of a first step.
So, to me, the shoes represent having to make that conscious effort of having to put on shoes and go outside. It’s a decision to engage instead of disengaging and curling up inside yourself. You can’t just be thrust into that, or accidentally end up with shoes on and find yourself outside.
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If you enjoyed this post, you might enjoy my other analyses in The Midnight Gospel playlist:
Going to kick off the revamping of this blog with a deeper look into one of the premises of The Midnight Gospel. A long time ago, I gave some thoughts on the trailer for the show in anticipation of its release. I must say that it did not disappoint and I’ve found myself thinking back on the show quite often since finishing it and rewatching a few episodes here and there.
However tempting it is to get into some of the show’s core messages about spirituality, faith, and generally how to live life, I want to start with an analysis of one premise of the show that’s easy to take for granted. I think that it’s a great way to frame how my analyses will be presented moving forward as well.
I’m talking about the Multiverse Simulator. More specifically, I’ll be discussing the relevance of introducing infinite worlds and their interesting inhabitants, but underscoring that they aren’t real in the literal sense of the word.
Overview of The Midnight Gospel
For those unfamiliar with The Midnight Gospel, it’s a show about a space-caster (imagine a video podcast broadcast to all of space) Clancy Gilroy, who interviews different people on life, death, and everything that comes in between. Here’s the catch, though, Clancy’s interviewees are all the product of a simulation. He visits different universes through his Multiverse Simulator, a device that randomly generates worlds and their inhabitants.
Every episode is a different interview, whose content is based on actual interviews by co-creator of the show, Duncan Trussell, for his own podcast. Taking place within the backdrop of a colourful and sometimes absurd world, courtesy of co-creator Pendleton Ward, creator of Adventure Time.
The show goes to some very profound places and at times explores heavy topics. But there are fart jokes at just the right times, and that balance is what makes the show so heartwarming and enjoyable.
With such an episodic premise, The Midnight Gospel may seem very much like a standard interview-type podcast but animated, but this isn’t the case. As the show progresses, we are introduced to more of Clancy’s life outside of his space-casting. His character develops and changes along the way. And that growth can, in large part, be attributed to the conversations he has with the inhabitants of other worlds.
But when circling back to the core of the show, one looming issue emerges. If these interviewees are just the product of some computer algorithms, which, at one point, were programmed by a person, what value do these conversations have? The show does not shy away from reminding us that the Multiverse Simulator is a machine. In fact, the plot of later episodes is driven by technical issues faced by owning a machine that can malfunction. So if none of these interviewees are real, what of their thoughts, words, and actions? Is Clancy, in fact, alone?
Fictional Worlds, Fictional People
The series does begin with Clancy living alone. Aside from his simulations, his pet dog, Charlotte, and his semi-autonomous home A.I., Computer, Clancy doesn’t interact with anyone else. It’s only towards the end of the series that we see other humans and even then, Clancy carries on a transactional relationship with them, calling on them or interacting with them because he needs something from them.
He also goes out of his way to shut out other people– and without spoiling too much of the upcoming analyses– even those close to him. This behavior stands in contrast to how he interacts with the simulations, where he actively listens to and engages with his interviewees.
On some level, he might just be doing what a good interviewer does to mine for content. However, the conversations he has with them directly affect his feelings, thoughts, and actions, granted some more easily than others. Nonetheless, they change his way of living and his worldview.
If we look at the Multiverse Simulator as an allegory for fiction, then the relationship Clancy has with his interviews makes a lot of sense. Fiction, like the code behind the simulated worlds, is created from human hands. An algorithm that learns how to talk like a human, even experience like a human, must be fed human experiences and realities in the first place.
Through fiction, we are exposed to other people’s feelings, thoughts, and experiences, and like any kind of media, we can choose whether or not we want to consume them, engage with them, or internalise them.
However, it might be easier hearing these lived truths coming from a fictional character than from someone we have biases against believing (case in point, how many people dismiss parental truths as paranoia?). In fiction, we’re communicated these truths in a vicarious and visceral way. Show, don’t tell. This makes it all the more impactful.
And what is a Multiverse Simulator but the latest form of cutting-edge entertainment? A new kind of consumable media?
The Multiverse Simulator is an excellent allegory for fiction as well, because sometimes, fiction exaggerates the reality being presented. It blows up and stretches truths in fantastical, terrifying, and sometimes unexpected ways. Nonetheless, we recognise the humanity (or lack thereof) in the characters and in the story.
Furthering the allegory, we see that the multiverses are not separate from one another. There’s a cat ship in one episode that Clancy sets off course and as a result, Clancy is derailed en route to his destination planet in the next episode by colliding with the ship. Similarly, works of fiction inspire each other. Media that creators have consumed influences their work.
And whether or not we create more media, fiction inspires the consumer. At the end of every episode, Clancy edits his space-cast for upload. In this way, all the fiction we consume, whether a book, a show, a movie, or anything else, affects us differently and different points in our lives. The “key takeaway,” “moral of the story,” or whatever you’d like to call it, differs for everyone. We’re editing the most salient point of the media we consume every time we consume them.
But the Multiverse Simulator as an allegory goes even further.
Living in The Matrix
In the everyday grind of lived experienced, it’s all too easy to dismiss the experiences and the very existences of other people. Call them “extras” or “fillers” or “background characters,” we have at one time or another gone through life acting as though only our lived experiences were the capital-R Reality.
Cognitively, we know this is probably not the case. Although philosophers like Descartes, famous for his conclusion cogito ergo sum (I think therefore I exist), have shown that through pure logic, we can doubt the existence of other beings exceptfor us, practically, we live as though our family, friends, and colleagues do exist.
Perhaps the way to put it is that their experiences are not as real as ours. The writer David Foster Wallace puts it really well in “This Is Water.” He says,
“There is no experience you’ve had that you were not at the absolute center of. The world as you experience it is right there in front of you, or behind you, to the left or right of you, on your TV, or your monitor, or whatever. Other people’s thoughts and feelings have to be communicated to you somehow, but your own are so immediate, urgent, real — you get the idea.”
Developmental psychologists also point out that young children believe the world revolves around them, because they still are unable to put themselves in the place of others, and so their own existence becomes the primary reality.
In other words, you have to make an active choice to consider the people around you as real. It’s a mental effort to remember that the people you’re talking to are just as real and living lives just as concrete and tangible as yours. Otherwise, it’s easy to go back to a comfortable place in which your own experience supersedes anyone else’s; therefore, it is your comfort that is the priority and everyone else is just in the way of that.
This thinking hearkens back to the concept of the Matrix. What if everything around were just fabricated and you, specifically you the individual, were the only “real” thing? Or maybe you and a few friends and loved ones were the only real things, what then? There have been many arguments going around about how if nothing matters, then just live in a way that pleases you, other people be damned. Or that only those in your closest circles really matter anyway and only look out for your own.
The Midnight Gospel presents us another option. Whether or not we can be certain everyone around us is going through something the way we are, whether or not we can say discount a negative encounter as the other person just having a bad day, whether or not we want to hear what the world throws at us, we make the choice to listen. We make the choice to take them as real. Just as Clancy does in his interviews.
Because Clancy does encounter people who regularly challenge his worldview. Even if they’re made up. Even if they’re created by a computer. Clancy chooses to open his mind to what the characters are saying and treats them with respect.
And this is not to moralise or to speak of my own morality. This is presenting a way of living as espoused in the show and having it happen to intersect a lot with my worldview.
There are times when you definitely feel like just turning off your brain and enjoying some fiction, or just going through life on autopilot because there are too many things to worry about as it is. But for me, analysing and reading into the fiction I consume has always helped me garner a deeper appreciation for the deliberate choices and the story that the creator is trying to tell.
Giving faces to the stories of the faceless “everybody else” I’m all too eager to shut out has greatly improved the quality of my life, and hopefully, the lives of the people around me, because it’s made me just a little more patient, just a little kinder, just a little more understanding. And at the end of the series, Clancy is all those things and just a little more open to what comes next.
Something I want to start this analysis off with is the context with which Spinel enters the SU movie. Spinel’s resentment and movement towards earth began only the day the Diamonds broadcast Steven to all of their colonies. That was the scene at the very beginning of the movie. So the time it took Steven to shake off the Diamonds, return home, chat with Connie, and sing Happily Ever After with the gems, was the same time it took Spinel to formulate a plan, grab hold of the Injector, and travel to Earth, and begin her Other Friends monologue.
In the larger scheme of Spinel’s life, this is a blink of an eye, in fact, it is no time at all. That tells us that Spinel’s actions were somewhat a knee-jerk reaction to finding out she was abandoned for good. And that’s where I want to begin with this analysis. With that, let’s get to it.
When we first see Spinel, her appearance is accompanied by an almost exaggerated plot to destroy all of Earth because of one Gem’s betrayal. Granted, she was always in the presence of Diamonds, who always talked on the scale of colonies and entire planets, but she herself was never in a position to act on that scale, which would have conditioned her thinking to a large extent.
Her arrival, her dramatic entrance, and the very dramatic rendition of Other Friends all speak of acting based on gut feel. The entire song, as musically complex as it is, has lyrics that are quite simple in contrast. In a way, it’s as if it’s saying the feelings she had were complex (confusion, hatred, sadness, regret, resentment, anger, a little relief from something ending– more on that later), but she didn’t exactly know where to direct them.
The abruptness of her arrival and how quickly she acted tells us (about how she got the injector and found out exactly where Steven lived let’s chalk it up to she knew where the Diamonds kept everything for the moment), that she hadn’t processed her emotions yet. So she instead fixated on one that could power her through all these things she’s never done before: Anger.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I’ve heard! I’ve had your little message to the universe… ON LOOP!
Without a clear direction, Spinel was fixating, holding onto anything that could help her vent out this anger. And without Rose to direct that anger towards, without anyone to blame, she pinned her anger on Steven and the Crystal Gems.
What we also see is something very different from any other Homeworld antagonist Steven has encountered before. Spinel doesn’t conflate or equate Steven with Rose Quartz. She knows very well that Steven is a completely different life form, and his own individual. When she tries to poof him with her scythe, she isn’t that surprised when his physical form stays together.
You don’t poof, do you? Hmm, figured as much. Just wait! *her pupils jiggle like googly eyes Your human half won’t stand a chance against my Injector. Not after what I just did to your gem!
It implies she knows something about organic life. We also get a hint that she’s aware of how Gems start out with their abilities. “You weren’t always a powerful hero, were you?” She teased him as her physical form poofed. Spinel spent a lot of time with Pink Diamond, who at this point we know is relatively younger. She couldn’t control her powers when her emotions flared, as we saw in SU Future, but this also means Gems must, to some extent practice and train to perfect their abilities. There’s always room for learning, as the Lapises demonstrated in Why So Blue? Even Peridot had to learn and master her metalokinesis because she didn’t know she had it.
Moments later, when he poofs her in turn, she doesn’t seem scared that the Earth will end with her still on it. Spinel, at this point, isn’t acting based on some grand scheme for vengeance. She’s angry, hopeless, and very lost. She doesn’t see a future for herself, but it would be satisfying for her to take down everything PD left her for in the process.
Spinel’s life even before Rose abandoned her in the garden seemed less than ideal. As I covered in my previous post, she was given the purpose of being a “perfect friend.” In this case, that meant being agreeable and palatable so that she would be accepted in the company of anyone. That meant putting aside her own feelings and identity in lieu of her “friends’.”
When we consider what Rose was like in her Pink Diamond days, it seems a difficult juggling act. Pink Diamond was moody, had issues controlling her anger, was demanding, and she herself directed her resentment towards the other Diamonds’ condescension at others.
Volleyball is the perfect example of this. In her titular episode, she talked about how PD had a temper and was prone to violent outbursts. Now imagine having to be the emotional cushion for that as a “best friend.” This is different from being Volleyball. Volleyball was perceived by PD as a Pearl, no more than another piece of furniture. With Spinel, we expect she would voice her thoughts out loud and expect a response. How would one respond to someone vastly outranking them, with a temper, and immense power that could shatter or at least poof you at a moment’s notice?
It was a tenuous position. I’m not saying Spinel’s feelings of affection towards PD were fake, or that she was harbouring a secret hatred. What I am saying is that it must have been very stressful, and similar to the experience of someone living in a home where they feel they must always walk on eggshells, because PD’s mood could change at the drop of a hat, and she definitely did not want to be on the receiving end of that.
Another thing to note is that Pearl knew her. At the beginning of the movie, Pearl sees Spinel and immediately recognises her, and she recognises Pearl in turn. That means in the lead-up to being left behind, Spinel must have been around when PD’s views and values were changing. Again, Spinel is supposed to be the “perfect friend,” and it implies she’s finely attuned to the feelings and needs of whoever she’s assigned to be best friends with. There is no doubt she saw Rose starting to shift goals and trajectories in life.
What I’m trying to say is, Spinel was not ignorant or insistent on the old dynamic she and PD had. We see in the montage of Drift Away that PD was getting more impatient and less willing to play along with Spinel. On the other hand, Spinel stayed loyal in spite of that. I say this because with someone with a personality as volatile as the PD she knew, she felt safer sticking to a tried and true formula: The jokes, the games, the fun.
Second, her whole self worth, purpose, and standing on Homeworld, up to this point was predicated on her being PD’s best friend, and the best best friend anyone could ever hope for. This mindset, would push her to keep trying to be that ideal best friend and remain persistent even if she herself might have been having doubts about it. And this may be why at the beginning of the movie, her reverted personality came off as annoying to some. Persistence got her where she was before, her rationale was thinking, why not now too?
What’s missing though, is context. She was largely shielded away from what we now know were dozens of life-changing experiences that Rose had with Pearl. Since Pearl recognised her and called her PD’s “playmate,” it implies that Pearl had already had a very different relationship with Rose, from just Diamond and Pearl, at the time of Rose’s leaving her. But even if Rose had left Spinel only at the start of her awakening, after realising she wanted more for Earth and herself, we see that Spinel was purposely shut out of this new chapter of Rose’s life, which was very much in character for Rose at the time– but I digress, and will discuss Rose’s end of this relationship in a future post.
When it hits Spinel after 6,000 years that Rose did leave her for good, I feel it was not so much a meteor out of nowhere so much as it was a reorienting of context. All her suspicions about the way PD saw her, all her doubts about their relationship, all of her unanswered “why's” just came crashing down.
And at the core of it, Spinel felt betrayed. Because she continued to try until the very end, and be the friend Rose could always turn to. She followed Rose to the letter. In her mind, she did everything right. And this was what she got for it. The word she used in Drift Away was “cruel,”and that’s exactly what it was that she went through.
As I mentioned, Spinel was never playing the trope of the oblivious and dumb sidekick. To have survived in the environment where she lived, she must have had incredibly high interpersonal skills, and a high emotional quotient. Practicing those skills cost her her interpersonal knowledge and peace of mind, though.
And what we see from her, right before the final act of the movie, is a pattern of behaviour manifested in someone who had to give away in an emotionally abusive environment for a very long time. She wants to believe Steven is good; she wants to trust him. Because at the heart of it, she was never mean or cruel or villainous. It’s exhausting for her to keep up that anger. She wanted actual love and friendship, the kind she tried so hard to convince herself that she had with PD. The kind that Rose established on Earth that she envied.
But that trust was always going to be fragile. There are different ways abuse trauma manifests, and sometimes they manifest together in complex mixtures. In the early days of “freedom,” it can be almost too easy to see the good in other people, and start overly-adjusting for them because you’re worried you’ll lose them too, even if they’re doing you harm. That’s also why some people fall into patterns of abuse.
How Spinel responded when she saw the scythe affected me deeply, because that’s exactly how I initially reacted to any red flag I saw in anybody. It shows that the trauma made her afraid of being hurt in the same away again. She immediately wanted to cut it all off, never form these new relationships, because she didn’t know if she could really trust them. Added to this is a layer where she’s afraid Steven and the Crystal Gems perceive her as villainous for her initial actions.
(It’s not an exact parallel, but I just wanted to add that some abuse survivors are demonised by their old friends for leaving relationships these friends didn’t know the full story of, and they look like they’re “breaking someone’s heart” by leaving.)
All this comes to a boil and she lashes out, and returns to her self-destructive tendencies. Spinel wasn’t okay yet. She didn’t get over her trauma the moment she agreed to take Steven’s hand after Drift Away. She was testing the waters. Even at the end, when she leaves for Homeworld with the Diamonds, there’s strong evidence to believe she’s still smarting.
She wears her scars the way many survivors of abuse and neglect do. Like Volleyball, some emotional scars persist so long that they distort a Gem’s gemstone, and no amount of physical healing compensates for that. When the movie first came out, I took the new placement of her gem to mean that her experience with Pink Diamond left an indelible mark on her. And it was only confirmed after SU Future’s Volleyball. However, she has the rest of her life ahead of her.
Her expression at the end of the movie shows she’s hesitant, but hopeful. In SU Future, we see how her character develops and heals, tentatively too, but she’s making progress, undoing millennia of learned helplessness and self-neglect.
That’s something I want to tackle in the third and final post for this series.
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If you liked this analysis, you might also enjoy the other posts in the series:
Many people love art for the freedom it provides through expression — it is often said that “a picture can paint a thousand words.” With many mediums at an artist’s fingertips, the creative possibilities are endless. Art can be produced around any subject matter, but it is debatable whether some topics shouldn’t be permitted. With such liberty, should there also be moral responsibility?
“Myra” by Marcus Harvey is an interesting example of blurred lines within ethics. This large painting was created in 1995, resembling a greatly magnified version of a photographic image. The woman displayed on the canvas is Myra Hindley (the person held accountable, as well as her husband, for The Moors murders). The victims consisted of five children, which the painting boldly comments on through thousands of tiny handprints, layered to portray one big visual. These small handprints are reminiscent of an “innocent child”, which the artwork consciously juxtaposes through the large canvas portrayal of the “depraved world of adults”.
Understandably, this is a very controversial piece with much to be said about it. Some people support it, describing it as the single most important painting in the show: “a very, very cathartic picture… It is an incredibly serious and sober work of art that needs to be seen.” Others saw it as glorification and were angrily provoked, causing the press and public to comment before the opening of the exhibition: “Myra Hindley is to be hung in the Royal Academy. Sadly it is only a painting of her”.
This is of course only one example, but clearly demonstrates the diversity of thought. Morally dubious artworks have always been, and will always continue to be produced. Due to differing opinions, people will always have dissimilar views regarding what is and isn’t acceptable to be published. Personally, I do believe that it is appropriate for the artist to consider their audience and what they are publishing in the world. There is a fine line between art that handles a sensitive subject matter to spread awareness, or to just glorify and promote disturbing matters. Ultimately, an artist is still a human being and a part of the social, moral world. This would therefore suggest that actions as either an artist or ordinary human is not to be exempt from following the same guidelines or moral scrutiny.
I’ve seen a lot of excellent takes about Ed seeing soft touch as an expression of love vs. Stede seeing kind words the same way, and it’s interesting to me that it’s the opposite that hurts them.
Ed is relatively resilient to violent touch, but words can hurt him very easily. Stede, on the other hand, is very vulnerable to violence, but seems pretty resilient to harsh words, probably because he heard so many, just like Ed endured a lot of violence.
This is probably why they need what they need: Ed never got soft touches, and Stede never got kind words.
I’m coming out of hibernation to tell you not to believe the news when it says Raya & The Last Dragon is failing at the box office.
A lot of news outlets are saying that because Rayadidn’t crack $10M in its opening weekend like WW84 (andTom & Jerry but mostly WW84)that it’s a “disappointment”. That’s crap and here’s why.
Wonder Woman 1984 made $16.7M in its opening weekend in theaters.
Raya & The Last Dragon made $8.5M in its opening weekend in theaters.
This means Raya made 51% of the money WW84did in their respective opening weekends over three days.
There are a few things to consider here.
We are in a PLAGUE & not everyone is going to be seeing movies in theaters.
WW84was always going to make more money than Raya.
WW84came out at Christmas which has ALWAYS been more profitable than March for movies.
Most importantly: Disney is charging an extra $30 for viewers to watch it on Disney+ / in the safety of their own homes. Those numbers have NOT been shared with the public & since we’re in a plague that is likely the primary way this movie is going to make money, so the media sayingRayais a failure WITHOUT acknowledging that it’s also making money on Disney+ is bad reporting.
Even if we put all this aside, even if Raya only had its box office money to go off of, we need to consider something else. Namely: how much money the last original Disney Animated Feature (Moana) made against Wonder Woman (2017).
Wonder Woman (2017) had an opening weekend of $103.6M
Moanahad an opening weekend of $56.6M
This means Moanamade 55% of the money Wonder Woman did in their respective opening weekends over FIVE DAYS (because Moanareleased the Wednesday before Thanksgiving in 2016).
Comparatively speaking, Rayais doing as well in theaters compared to WW84asMoanadid when compared to Wonder Woman.Moanawas considered hugely successful but Rayaisn’t and that is crap. I personally think the reason the media is saying it isn’t is racism, but that’s more a gut feeling than anything I can actually prove. It is interesting though that (to my knowledge) the only Disney animated film to feature South Asian representation on this scale is being labelled a, “disappointment,” when all evidence points to the contrary.
TL; DR - Raya and the Last Dragon is actually doing really well considering we’re in a plague when most theaters are either closed or operating at limited capacity & the narrative that it isn’t is a lie.
No spoilers here, but there is something VERY distinct about the episodes of The Mandalorian directed by Bryce Dallas Howard and after thinking about it all morning I think it boils down to pacing. Her episodes in both Season 1 and Season 2 have had some of the greatest “Star Wars hell yeah” action sequences but there are also these little atmospheric moments that remind me the most of the OT.
All those little in-between scenes with puppet-monsters and droids and cantina bands are no one’s favorite moments but they matter because they let the audience breathe in the atmosphere for a few seconds and then everything else feels more real.
She’s just present in the universe and because of that she gets great character moments AND great action. Please let her direct more episodes!
The motif of the pig (stuffed piggy keychain, Jobu Tupaki’s pig on a leash, the pig tattoo that her parents hate) is because the pig is Joy’s animal in the Eastern Zodiac. She’s fond of the little critters and uses them for her own symbol. The piggy keychain on Waymond’s belt pack is specifically there to remind him of his little girl.
Stoker wrote Dracula as a direct reactionto the Wilde trials
Many of Dracula’s characteristics actually echo Wilde as described to the trials, and Dracula’s lifestyle resembles an exaggerated version of precautions to hide homosexuality
Stoker is basically the pro-closeted 1890s alternative to Wilde’s flamboyancy, and that comes out in how he portrays Dracula and Jonathan Harker
Like if you look deeper into Stoker’s letters to Whitman, he’s practically obsessed with feeling “naturally secretive” and “reticent”
(Also he and Wilde had some weird personal rivalry going on, since Stoker married Wilde’s definitely-not-straight ex-fiancee, though later they were friendly…there’s a lot to unpack here)
So, arguably, Dracula was Stoker’s way of apologizing for his silence during Wilde’s trials.
Some highlights:
Wilde’s trial had such a profound effect on Stoker precisely because it fed Stoker’s pre-existing obsession with secrecy, making Stoker retrospectively exaggerate the secrecy in his own writings on male love.
It is difficult, Stoker admits, to speak openly about “so private a matter” as desire. In carefully calibrated language, Stoker asks forgiveness from those who might see that his silence is a sin-to those few nameless souls who know his secret affinity with Wilde.
Since Dracula is a dreamlike projection of Wilde’s traumatic trial, Stoker elaborated and distorted the evidence that the prosecutor used to convict Wilde. In particular, the conditions of secrecy necessary for nineteenth-century homosexual life–nocturnal visits, shrouded windows, no servants–become ominous emblems of Count Dracula’s evil.
Dracula…represents not so much Oscar Wilde as the complex of fears, desires, secrecies, repressions, and punishments that Wilde’s name evoked in 1895. Dracula is Wilde-as-threat, a complex cultural construction not to be confused with the historical individual Oscar Wilde.
tl;dr:
Stoker is actually too repressed to function
Oscar Wilde (especially his trials) absolutely influenced Stoker
I think we’re definitely getting to the point with Dracula daily where some (most) people need to be reminded it is a historical novel, and is going to have prejudices in it. that doesn’t meant dont read it, its important to read these classic stories that have been so warped by time and pop culture! it just means you should be keeping an eye out for the biases that are present, be critical of what you’re reading, make note of what stereotypes the text is applying to minority groups and how that might affect them
my exact thought, just worded better ^^
Literally was talking to my mother about this. Dracula is a very good book but it is also a product of its time. I hope we can have critical discussion that don’t shame people who can’t keep reading or shame those of us who will. This is an important book and it should be discussed
I think one of the most important parts about film and tv analysis is never forgetting that no matter the genre or setting, the story is probably being filtered through the perspective of a person who lives in California
Like if you’re watching a tv show and you’re starting to feel alienated by some of the motivations and worldviews the characters all seem to share, consider that you aren’t the weirdo, they are, because they’re being written by people who are at any given moment no more than five minutes removed from a kale smoothie
Kamen Rider Black edged further to Ishinomori’s true vision for the franchise of a human turned into a creepy monster by malevolent forces and boy, does the cinematography does it’s job here!
First, we start off at nighttime, a first I believe for the franchise, and we get our establishing shots of our villains. When Kotaro is introduced we get a lot of first person point of view shots and quick cuts between showing his face, his feet, and that POV shot. This heightens the tension and puts us straight in Kotaro’s shoes of being confused and frightened. Even when he transforms to Black, his form is fairly shadowed and when illuminated we only see part of his outfit. When we finally get a good look at the suit in the light, it’s towards the end where the confusion has abated somewhat for Kotaro and he has a a clear path for what he wants to do.
I also want to point out that we get a few bird’s eye views and wide shots that makes Kotaro appear smaller than he actually is. This is done to show how small the character is in the grand scheme and how out of control they feel in their situation. It’s only towards the end of episode one that we start getting close ups of Kotaro and his fists to show that Kotaro is taking back his autonomy.
As for the editing, there is quite a few cuts, in particular jump cuts of Kotaro that speed up his reaction and causing a disjointed experience for the viewer. And to go along with Kotaro gaining a new resolve and purpose, the cuts become more static and sequential.
Overall, the first episode relied less on narration compared to Kamen Rider and wanted to put us in a place on fear and confusion.
I know a lot of people love high waist styles, the vintage look the pin up evoking the support and suck it in properties but I think that designers done make them like they should.
Quite frankly, they are not made… high enough!
I love this pair from La Perla though, the Zig-Zag Soutache style is a signature collection from the brand that employs a very contemporary textile design and method.
These high waist lovelies are part of it and are so high I think they really mail it when it comes to the high waist style.
I find the very frequently seen high waist knickers far too…. Blocky and as a result extremely unflattering, I imagine they are in some cases very uncomfortable moving up and down as the wearing day progresses.
I believe a decent high waist pair like this sit in the narrow of the waist and wear so much better, anchoring themselves to the lower half of the torso and moving with the body rather than around it.
Come on let’s get it right
And the key to the success that I nearly forgot to mention… the button fastening at the back, it won’t work otherwise!
has anyone ever talked about the very cool parallels between goneandprophecy girl? first, there’s the repetition of “it sounds adorable” re: buffy’s haircut, which parallels the repetition of “i like your dress” in prophecy girl. in both cases, the first two repetitions happen before you know whether buffy is going to live or die, and the last repetition happens after she survives. second is the use of the line “i don’t wanna die.” in prophecy girl, buffy is terrified of death, and the fact that she is being forced to die is an awful tragedy. but in season six, and especially gone,buffy isn’t terrified of death. she yearns for it, identifies with it. at the very least, she craves an ambiguous escape from life. so buffy repeating one of the most powerful lines from prophecy girl at the end of gone(“i don’t wanna die”) isn’t just about her not wanting to die as a general part of her depression arc, it’s about her trying to find a piece of that righteous desire to live that she had five years ago.
the fact that both episodes are concerned with buffy’s mortality and desire to live also ties into that repetition of the compliments about buffy’s appearance. caring about appearance is something people think of as superficial, but having a physical existence and getting to care about it in a superficial way is a basic part of being alive. it’s the little things that make you feel like you exist. that make you feel like you’re in control of your life and identity. and in both prophecy girl andgone, buffy doesn’t feel in control of those things. the dress is a last hurrah at getting to be a teenage girl, andthe haircut is an attempt to escape her current identity (“just make me…different”), and the compliments about them become absurd by contrast. what’s the point of buffy looking nice if she’s invisible or isn’t going to the dance? if she’s going to die? but by the end of both episodes, once buffy has refound some part of her aliveness (literally, figuratively, or both), the final repetition of the compliment signals that that’s what’s taken place.
re:gravei also think it’s cool that every character in that episode is wearing black except for xander (blue) and dawn (green). black is obviously associated with death, and the grave. whereas blue and green are associated with life. water and flora and such. which fits because it’s xander who calls willow back from the brink to life. given the season’s fire motif, you might also think of xander as water that is calming willow’s destructiveness (“proserpexa…let the cleansing fires from the depths burn away the suffering souls and bring sweet death.”). and dawn has represented “life” all season long, so as buffy accepts dawn’s help and involvement, she is metaphorically accepting life–and growth, and newness, and those other things one might associate with green.
