Do you know, I never saw that. Probably for the best.

Yup.

(And god, society really hates teenaged girls. Even though they have nigh infallible cultural awareness.)

Yes? And I feel that comes through in the strange, over-real life of the innies? What do we look at, when there is nothing?

I’ve always suspected a lot of the Dawn hate is people hating their younger selves…

Fascinating thoughts, though. And I agree, it’s a masterful bit of tv.

And a testament to what can happen if someone’s allowed to make something *gasp* original.

Yeah, I fully agree. *Most* of the time, when it comes to the crunch, Xander does the right thing. And when he doesn’t, there is usually a reason for it - it’s just never quite given the space it needs.

He is flawed, and the writing of him is flawed, but fandom got *way* too carried away with it.

“So, if your dad is tall, why are you so short?”
“I had hormonal stuff.”
“Fred, you can’t refer to being trans as ‘having hormonal stuff’.”
“Why not? My body started producing oestrogen when I’d rather it had started producing testosterone. *That’s* hormonal stuff!”

You know, I own a lot of shaving paraphernalia, much of it very sharp. I use a two bladed safety razor with zero fear, but the risk of injury is always present.

The one bit I have *never* expected to make me bleed, however, is my moustache comb.

I shall have a look!

Good luck. I’m still searching for something that doesn’t smell very feminine, like a boy’s locker room, or JUST OUD - but costs less than £200 a bottle…

There should be a Fragrantica sample exchange scheme, for stuff that didn’t work for people.

I think that’s very fair.

(And I’d send you mine, but it’s basically empty.)

I found Beaufort Rake and Ruin hella smoky, although it was more tar coal and ashtray (nice for The Bit, not enjoyable long term.)

However, if you want church stone and moulder I’ve really enjoyed Lalique Encre Noir.

In the past month, I’ve had three people ask assume my paint-block-red hair was natural, and one person (who knows me) not noticed I was wearing eyeliner. It was thick, smudgy kohl.

I feel like people who think makeup is catfishing need to learn what a human person looks like?

It's a very fine line between "distracted enough to survive the Horrors" and "too immersed in escapism to band together & defeat the horrors"

And may we all walk that line with the poise and grace of a Looney Tunes character who has not yet noticed that they're walking over open air

(Even if every ND woman my age over identifies with Anya.)

There are flaws with Xander’s character (although I always
resist mainstream fan consensus about this stuff) *and* there are definitely flaws with the writing of his character, besides which I’ve never really *liked* his character…

But I feel like he doesn’t deserve pillorying on this one.

But he is so afraid he will turn in to his father, that he will abuse his children and hurt his wife - as we see his father, and all his male relatives doing in the episode.

It just needed a slightly longer lead in.

But he isn’t the main character (and thank god for that.)

And does it excuse him? Idgaf. He’s not real. He’s a fictional construct.

Does it *explain* him? Well… mostly.

His character is a bit inconsistent- as is everyone’s, over the series.

But in Season Two you get him sleeping outside, in the winter, to avoid his family at Christmas. You get lots of little hints and suggestions that his home is not a safe place. You have the whole dream sequence in S4.

It’s just the S6 is the first time you get it in depth, in all its toxicity.

And I think the big flaw is not what he is shown, nor how he behaves, but that he never really gets enough character depth to explain just how devastating those visions are.

I mean, it’s there. If you’re paying attention.

But he’s the comic relief! The funny guy! The token cis het American boy!

Re-watching Hell’s Bells and I know it’s fandom popular to shit on Xander - and I certainly don’t condone his actions in this episode - but what really struck me is how *targeted* those visions were to destroy him.

We see his family. Their pettiness, their cruelty. And we see him replicate it.

Yeppp.

Ah well.

The struggle is real.

Yep. And what annoys me most is that there’s really useful info buried in there! I just can’t get at it!

Like, off the top of my head, I believe the general pre-modern mortality rate for under 5s was between 30 and 40%. If extending it to under 15s (ie, tripling the range) only raises it to 45-48%…

That says more about early years risk than late childhood/early adolescent.

And yes, I am aware this makes me sound like a monster, but if I want (or for academic reasons, need) specific information, this is a needless muddying of the data.

RIGHT? Not only that, but 15 was legally adult (if not seen as fully mature) in plenty of historical cultures…

Oh, I am so cross?

Hell, I know the whole “married at 12 and giving birth by 13” were not historically widespread BUT IT HAPPENED, and the mortality rate for very young mothers is astronomical and you DO NOT get to count maternal death rate in with infant mortality. That’s absurd.

What’s more, in pre modern societies, children over 8 or so* began to develop more adult patterns of mortality because they were *working* and not only had work-related risks, but were more vulnerable to them on account of being children.

*context dependent