I Adore Here. I’m In So Much Pain

you guys don’t understand what netflix has stolen from us. when i say i would do ANYTHING to see cameron and lucy act out the scene where lockwood and lucy are fighting marissa fittes in TEG and where lucy wont leave.

HEAVY on the line: “lockwoods eyes are dark with desperation” YOU DONT UNDERSTAND HOW MUCH I WOULD PAY TO SEE CAMERON TAKE THAT DIRECTION

don’t think this rap talk means i’ve taken my eyes off of rafah.

So I think Gabe's portrayal was really intelligently done in the show and I'm pretty dismayed at the negative reactions. I'd argue that TV needs more portrayals of abusers that seem harmless and victims that make efforts to advocate for their own agency because that is what abuse often looks like in the real world. Yes, sometimes abuse is as in your face as with Gabe's introduction in the book version (which the show was still pretty true to, I'll discuss that below) and the other portrayals we've seen on TV, abusers being explicitly threatening or violent, victims cowering and showing visible distress, all that usual, tropey stuff. However, I think more education is needed on all the ways abuse is subtle, because this misunderstanding and this view of abuse as this black and white thing is often the reason so few victims get help, so many abusers get away with it and so many of the people around the victim and abuser, at best, are surprised when the find out what's really been happening, and at worst, defend the abuser because they're so harmless, nice, upstanding, pick your adjective and there's no way they're capable of that.

Source: https://www.domesticshelters.org/articles/identifying-abuse/the-silent-ways-abusers-control

I feel like a lot of the fandom has already fallen into this trap somewhat. Gabe from the TV show is too nonthreatening, bumbling, pathetic, silly, idiotic, nowhere near scary enough to warrant getting petrified by Medusa's head. He doesn't look like an ABUSER. And yet we're confronted with so many markers of abuse in that scene.

Gabe is harmless…

And yet he's verbally abusive to outsiders. The guy that leaves as Percy is arriving has experienced an interaction with Gabe that warrants Percy apologizing for Gabe's actions only for him to apologize back because he gets to leave, Percy doesn't. He's concerned. Sure, Gabe is fat shaming and yelling about eating fruit at the moment. The absurdity of the topic doesn't make it any less inappropriate or abusive btw, because its about the abuser having any excuse to display their dominance and power over you even if the subject matter is batshit. Ever see cases where one person in the relationship (usually a man) will police the other's clothing (usually a woman) because it's too revealing, too tacky, too whatever. That's abuse.

Gabe is harmless…

And yet he's verbally abusive towards Percy. He sarcastically greets him with the cruel nickname "genius" and immediately picks a fight with him. Percy refuses to engage because he knows, from experience, what being goaded looks like. Wrap your head around that. Kids older than him are out there having catfights and making stupid "your mom" jokes, but this infant has so much experience facing conflict, he already knows what steps to take to steer away from that kind of drama and stay in safe territory. He only engages a bit when he hears about Gabe answering Sally's phone. Anyone who's answered a friend or partner's phone before will probably consider Percy's anger and indignation a little bratty and unwarranted. The issue here is that Gabe is someone who ignores boundaries. The issue isn't that he answered Sally's phone, the issue is that he very likely did it without permission. Based on Percy and Sally's reactions (Percy is angry, Sally is resigned), he's someone who's regularly done stuff like look through Sally's phone or purse without her permission. Percy makes it clear that this is not okay, and he gets dismissed. Gabe just answers "whatever's ringin'" and Percy is made to look like the one overreacting. This is what abusers do. They're never in the wrong. And then, the cherry on top of the blue icing, he blames the victim. "What're we doing Percy, every time." Gabe's the one who picked the fight, but by the end of it, Percy's the one being blamed. This is so commonplace and anyone who's been through this knows how maddening it can be. This is such a short interaction but they pack so much into it.

Gabe is harmless…

And yet we find Sally sitting outside in the rain on the balcony, as if she's trying to ground herself after a traumatic experience. As if she's trying to bring herself into the present and not dissociate because when Percy arrives she needs to be there for him. She can deal with the Gabe stuff AFTER Percy is safe. I'll get more into Sally's interaction with Gabe in Part 2 because a lot of people were confused by the fact that she was so firm with him. There's an explanation, I promise.

A lot of people also expressed concern that we wouldn't see Gabe's truly monstrous side before he gets petrified but from what I can see, the shows been making great use of flashbacks and exposition, so I'm pretty sure this will be addressed. Percy and Sally are the heroes. It would be counterintuitive for the show to establish that and then not give them a blatant cause for turning Gabe into stone.

it's almost like... if you play a movie in 10 cinemas worldwide, it doesn't do as well as it could 🤯🤯

Yup

I adore them

(really in my feels about the ot3 because of the @powerpolyculeshowdown so here's some propaganda)

parker and hardison allow eliot to be sillier. more ridiculous. outragous, even. eliot sings the stupid ditties hardison writes special for him, and he rolls his eyes at parkers pokes and prods and the occasional "accidental" face slap, and eliot can express himself for what actually bothers him no matter how nitpicky, versus having to calculate what he should say. (he still argues with hardison that throwing in on a brewpub was a stupid plan given its risk, no matter how many times hardison claims it was always a gift for him.) eliot laughs more. real laughs; you can tell because his smiles look more and more like grimaces: the way his ma perked her mouth which his dad always teased her about (though it was his favorite thing about her), rather than the wide toothy grins eliot learned because he knows, tactically, they are best for charming. parker and hardison let him not feel like he's a monster. or... parker tells him she always thought the big bad wolf had a bad rap, and hardison says some stupid shit about monsterfucking being the hip thing the kids are into these days, anyway.

hardison and eliot allow parker to feel deep. it's food that tastes like a hug and it's gadgets made just for her and it's loving and being loved and it's being one another's real families. she doessn't want to run away, anymore. or... she wants to run but with her friends beside her. or... running cons is all she's ever wanted to do, and all she did, for so long. parker is good at it. she loves it. she loves that hardison and eliot love it too. but... feeling deep is also being deep. she's no longer just her piles of money because she is no longer afraid of herself. her past. the memories that hurt. the habits she thought she needed to grow out of but always missed. these habits, like bleeping sounds that arent words and hands move move moving. hands that were once made to stay now can fly because hardison buys her fidgets and designs some just for her and keeps locks in lucille for when parker feels like infinity and needs the vibrations of ticktickticks to bring her back to herself. and eliot lets her braid and unbraid his hair; he won't let her blow dry it, not yet, but... he lets her pet his hair while it's still hot, now. it frizzes his hair a little, and parker feels her pulse rush throughout the day knowing she did that to him. eliot and hardison kiss her knuckles when they burn.

parker and eliot allow hardison to be mean. vindictive. he is nicer than he needs to be. wants to be... what he needs to be is nonthreatening, for the most part, in many places. he knows what it means to be him: tall and black and queer and gaining muscle and too smart for his own damn good and so very, very tenderhearted. hardison loves so damn deep, and he cares so damn much, but part of caring (the other side of a coin) is not giving a fuck. it's the boiling point of rage and betrayal. the i need to walk away from this fight because you are dead wrong and imma about to say something imma regret, so go fix yourself. the im not gonna forget, im not going to forgive, and im going to get my revenge. parker and eliot would not have questioned hardison's joy at securing the capture of the men that put him in that damn coffin; they hold space for him to be fully himself with all his ugly parts and his petty parts and the parts that do bring hardison shame if he thinks about it for too long. they know he's not perfect, and that? that feels like safety and love and forever to hardison.

i am on my knees asking, BEGGING, for the PJO (tv series) fandom to not ship walker and leah.

first off, they’re both minors. second, they are actual people, they are not actually percy and annabeth.

i’ve been in far too many fandoms where the line between shipping two characters and shipping the actors that play them gets blurred, and it (more often than not) ruins their friendship irl. so PLEASE let these two CHILDREN be separate from their characters.

Well that hurts

the lady at the grab-n-go actually missed having Vance there to play pinball. she missed how she would have to call the police every other day because Vance had fought someone. she missed hearing the swearing shed hear when he wouldn't beat his high score. once Vance went missing she put a 'out of order' sign on the pinball machine so no one would play it or beat the high score cus the machine was reserved for Vance and Vance only. she never got the machine changed as she would feel like it was disrespectful to Vance and wanted to keep some sort of memorabilia for everyone.

#Something something about Annabeth expecting help from her mother because she was always the perfect kid but getting sent to her own death and Percy expecting nothing because he doesn't believe in his dad and despite everything being saved from death by him

The part I appreciate the most in the Lockwood and Co show is how it handles depression and suicidal thoughts in teenagers. As a theme, it’s not often (ever) done well. Lockwood and Co is the only story I can think of that depicts it in a nuanced, realistic, non-romanticized way

but first, before I get into it: [if you’re in crisis or need someone to talk to and don’t want to/can’t use your national hotline, highly recommend Samaritans, genuinely saved my life] okay, let’s go

Lockwood is the most obvious, with his general disregard for his own life and admitted suicidal ideation. Lucy struggles with her self-worth and the intensity of the emotions she’s subjected to. George worries that he doesn’t belong, that there’s something useless or wrong about him. The show depicts these thoughts and feelings in a way that isn’t overblown or dramatized, it’s all but casual. Which is how it happens. Depression or suicidal thoughts don’t crash into you all at once, they creep into your life without you noticing

But more importantly (and again, something I’ve never seen anywhere else), the show also offers counterpoints to those thoughts and feelings. It shows that there is a way out, even though you may feel trapped and hopeless. This is crucial for the show’s target demographic. Bad media depictions of depression or suicide get internalized, contribute to the stigma, and make it harder for people to ask for help. This show doesn’t do that. This show tells its audience that, yes, things are scary and painful and it fucking sucks, but it’s not hopeless. And it says it so well

In the second episode, when Lucy wants to quit, she admits something that I’m almost certain she’s never told anyone

“sometimes I just think I’d be better off dead”

And when I watched this the first time, I expected Lockwood to react the way I’ve seen people react in my own life; with silence or panic or downright dismissal. But he didn’t. He stays calm and he says something that is so so important to hear when you’re struggling under the weight of feelings like this

“I understand that”

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