I'm blissfully naive and I'm gonna stay that way

Sorry for being so random about this but this close up gave me instant Robbie Williams '96 Freedom vibes.

They look so much alike here??

All you need is not to be in Germany thanks to Onleihe.

They have a nice app too.

All you need is a Goethe Institut account (direct link to account creation because I searched for it far too long last time), then on the Onleihe App or website, you choose Goethe-Institut as your library and voilà! You can borrow ebooks and audiobooks for free! And movies too (if you're on a computer).

I found it back from when I was studying German and I recommend, they have so many different books on so many different topics!

MAY YOU NEVER LOSE YOUR HYPERFIXATION

There's the given and obvious: the casting of all four characters and how the director (Eric Kripke) is making constant references back to Supernatural in The Boys. But aside from that, it would make sense. Balthazar tells Castiel that in their universe, it is the only one in which Castiel rebels for Dean, or for the sake of context and deeper meaning, love. Malchemical himself is unwilling to put himself or his image/wealth for virtually anything, and Soldier Boy, like Dean before trusting Castiel, is quick to attempt (or, in Soldier Boy's case, succeed) in killing the Cas variant for his own cause.

Yeah… this tracks.

The casting is the obvious hook, but the thematic parallel is almost too clean. Soldier Boy walks into that room ready to put Malchemical down the second it becomes inconvenient (pure Dean-before-trust energy) while Malchemical has spent decades protecting his own comfort and image above almost everything else. And yet the second the choice is real, something in both of them still pivots.

Balthazar’s line about Castiel only ever rebelling for Dean in one universe suddenly feels like a dare. Because if Malchemical (this deeply self-preserving, Hollywood-washed version of Cas) can still end up choosing Soldier Boy… then the love that made Castiel fall wasn’t just a universal constant. It was the exception that could rewrite the constant.

That’s the part that gets me. Not “they find each other in every universe,” but the version: they don’t have to. And they still do.

I'm probably stating the obvious but it's clear that Stevie Richards was originally supposed to be a previous version of Scott Levy to stand in contrast with his newly adopted Raven persona. A person he felt like he needed to be to get noticed and please other people. A facade he felt like he needed to adopt to survive the industry early in his career.

At a certain point, the facade becomes unsustainable and the inner turmoil and childhood trauma came back in full force. Suppressing it was no longer an option, so instead Scotty chose to wear the anger and sadness he felt on his sleeve. He's done trying to please other people. This becomes the Raven persona.

When Raven meets Stevie for the first time, he sees pieces of himself in the younger man. A young insecure kid desperate for attention and approval. He sees a distorted reflection of the person he used to be. It's no wonder when we first see him with Raven, he's wearing Raven's old Scotty Flamingo jacket.

He's the Scotty Flamingo/Johnny Polo character. The annoying heel, the guy who's willing to be the butt of the joke and sell himself short so as to not rock the boat.

Raven hates it. He hates it because he hates that part of himself. So he's hard on Stevie. He's cruel to Stevie. He's doing anything in his power to make him see the truth. In his own twisted way, he's trying to help Stevie. He's doing everything he can to kill the weakness inside of him so that the industry doesn't swallow him whole.

it lines up way too well with everything raven has said himself… and the fact that he was actually diagnosed with narcissistic personality disorder (and histrionic) after he got sober, it hits even harder. he called the npd “egomania” and said finding out was freeing because suddenly all his behavior made sense. it’s so messy and psychological and layered… no wonder these two still hit so hard.

Happy one month anniversary to this masterpiece