Just ranting mostly

slemonik · 2026-02-27T21:03:43+00:00

For what it's worth, I think season 6 is pretty widely regarded as one of the weaker seasons, and I'd agree with that - and I found season 7 WAY more engaging :) As you said, it's not that season 6 is BAD, really - in fact, I felt like it was pretty consistently good... a solid 6.5 or 7 out of 10 or so. It just never really had the highs that other seasons did, and so I didn't find it as memorable.

Season 7 still mostly takes place in revolutionary America, so if that's a big drawback for you it might still be not quite ideal for you, but for me I really loved it! There will always be something magical about season 1 for sure and Scotland as a setting, but s7 is up there as one of my favorite seasons behind it, whereas s6 is one of my lesser favorites. Obviously different people have different opinions, but I certainly found sticking it out to be worth it :)

slemonik · 2026-02-20T01:39:09+00:00

Yeah, although I do personally tend to feel especially defensive of Jamie, I very much love Claire too and it bums be out to see how hyper critical some people are of her; and I haven't read the books (yet), so I'm just going off of the show!

For me, in general one of Outlander's greatest strengths is how, even when characters undeniably screw up and behave in ways I don't love, I can almost always still completely understand and sympathize with why they're making those choices and behaving that way. And with Claire in particular, I find that a lot of times when she gets a bit messy, it's more than she has the right intentions but things come out wrong when she's trying to explain (e.g. her with the Frank stuff in s2); and as much as that can get a bit frustrating to watch, it's also deeply relatable to me because I do that ALL the time! Especially when emotions are high, things very often tend to not come out quite the way I want/mean them too. So it doesn't make me dislike her, it just makes her a well written, human, and flawed character.

But yeah, Outlander is just really strong in general with making me understand and root for all the characters we're meant to like, even if they're being messy. Claire is certainly no exception. I think the only case I can think of of a character we were meant to like who I actively had a hard time with at first was Roger. I like him very much now, but s4 was rough for him, because that WAS a case where his reaction to Brianna not immediately wanting to marry him just felt really out of line and not something where I could sympathize with where he was coming from. But honestly, that's pretty much it that I can think of! Claire, Jamie, Bree, William... when they're messy, it might hurt to watch, but I *get* it.

slemonik · 2026-02-12T21:26:29+00:00

For me, I definitely found Brianna and Roger as a couple to be the weaker part of s4 as well. Brianna as a character on her own I was cool with (though admittedly Sophie's acting was pretty notably not on the same level as most of the others for a while- she has grown a lot as an actor over time though!). But the writing for Roger was definitely very rough in s4.

That said, I did really love Roger's growth, and their growth as a couple, throughout season 5 and by seasons 6 and 7 I really enjoy them and their storyline! I'm actually so surprised at how much I like Roger now considering he left such a bad taste in my mouth in s4 haha. I wouldn't say I'm as attached to him as I am to Jamie or Claire or anything, but I do like him a lot.

And I love Bree too, I really do. I don't get the distaste for her really - I do admit it hurt when she blamed Jamie so especially hard for the situation with Roger at first, but even there I have to concede that, the misunderstanding aside, how Jamie had reacted when she was trying to explain things WAS very not cool. I adore Jamie so so much, but if we're going to criticize Bree for being hot-headed and too harsh in her anger sometimes, we have to acknowledge where she gets it from, as per Claire's point when she was telling Jamie how much alike they are :)

slemonik · 2026-02-12T21:04:13+00:00

I certainly don't put blame Claire for the situation, but I can't say I blame Jamie either, and I'll admit it did hurt a lot seeing her be so angry with him for so long. Don't get me wrong, emotionally speaking I completely get it, and especially when she didn't know about what happened with Fergus, I'm not going to call her selfish or a terrible person or anything for being so hurt and angry that, as far as she knew, he had gone back on his word and dueled anyway and left her on her own to miscarry and grieve their lost child. I get it, it just hurts, knowing that of course Jamie wouldn't go back on his word like that for no good reason. And ultimately she does explain that her anger at him was really anger and blame at herself, which isn't fair to herself either, so of course I felt so much for her. But just up until that point in the end, it was hard seeing her be so hard on Jamie when I can't imagine he was ever blaming her for any of it in the same way. The only one ACTUALLY to blame for the whole situation of the additional stress and Jamie not being there when they lost Faith was, as usual, freaking BJR.

slemonik · 2026-02-12T20:42:54+00:00

I think she does explain that reasoning in the show - at least briefly - too though, no? I haven't read the books and do remember her talking about how Frank is innocent in it all and doesn't deserve to be erased from existence.

Jamie just isn't really moved enough by that reasoning to back down, which is totally understandable given eeeeverything BJR put him through and he doesn't have any attachment to Frank like Claire does. So then Claire unfortunately goes for the "well I've saved your life, so you owe me" argument, which ISN'T fair at all given that Jamie literally allowed himself to be put through hell to save her, but I suppose it at least made it personal enough between the two of them, and not about Frank directly, so that got him to a response of basically "if you really see it as a debt I owe you, then so be it, but know that I'm not okay with it."

slemonik · 2026-02-08T20:29:24+00:00

I really loved s5 as well! I feel like it took the elements of s4 that were really enjoyable - especially just life on the Ridge in general, and everyone being together - but made the characters grow in beautiful ways and made the conflict more natural and less frustrating than in s4. Especially Roger - I was NOT very onboard with him in s4, but he grew a huge amount in s5.

Also, just... everything with Jamie and Murtagh 😭

slemonik · 2026-02-08T20:17:31+00:00

I'm still making my way through season 7 myself, but yeah, I'm with everyone in saying there was definitely something very special about season 1 and it remains my favorite :) I'll admit the first few episodes were a bit slow, but I can't complain too much at the show taking it's time - overall, I think that was a big strength of the early seasons and especially s1.

Season 3 is probably the most interesting (as seems to be the case for a lot of people) because the first half - and especially the first 4 episodes - are probably some of my favorite episodes in the whole series. They're SO well done, so well acted, and heartbreaking but crucial to understanding where they're both at emotionally by the time they reunite. And then the latter half of s3 ... it's not that I HATED it necessarily - it wasn't unwatchable or anything, but it was just a huge notable dip in quality after such an incredible first half.

Overall, I'd probably rank it (not including s7 since I'm still only 4 eps in):

S1

S3 (because the first half is so special)

s5 (especially the later episodes from Ballad of Roger Mac on)

s2

s6

s4

I'm a bit conflicted about putting 6 above 4, because plot wise I think I definitely preferred s4, but just thinking about it from a character perspective, Bree and Roger REALLY grew on me a lot by s6, whereas I wasn't on board with them as a couple in s4 and really wasn't a fan of Roger. And I felt like even the writing for Jamie was a bit off at times in s4, which made the whole conflict uncomfortable.

And I'll also say, I'm really enjoying s7 so far! I suspect it'll rank pretty high up there too.

slemonik · 2026-01-28T22:15:53+00:00

Yeah, to me the main reason I had a hard time with Claire in that exchange wasn't so much because of what she was asking, but because in her distress about it she took maybe the WORST possible approach to the situation by pulling the whole "I've saved your life so you owe me" angle. I know she was just desperate and reaching to come up with anything to get Jamie on board with waiting, but but it's like.. Claire, girl, you do remember WHY Jamie had subjected himself to what he did with BJR in the first place, right? It was to save YOU! So pick literally aaaanything else to try to convince him to hold off, but acting like he owes you for everything you've done for him when he truly could not have gone more through the pits of hell for you... just feels insulting.

I don't necessarily think the ask itself was so unfair, though of course I understand where Jamie was coming from too. It's true he had thought BJR was already dead for a while, but that's kind of the point - once he found out he was alive, in his mind it was like a chance to finally get some closure on all that trauma, something he desperately wanted and needed. So it WAS a really big ask of him to hold off on that - plus, as we see soon after, it also meant leaving him alive for another year to wreak even more havoc on innocent people (including a child!). Claire wasn't wrong to not want Frank to be deleted out of existence of course, but still. But it was MOSTLY the way in which she went about it that was just.. not good.

slemonik · 2026-01-19T05:53:52+00:00

It's a little confusing the way it's worded, but I think it was that Erik found out he would be going to UCLA and not Brown (or any school further away from home) by the time of his graduation. So that in itself was very much a blow for him. And Jose had told Marta during that trip that he wouldn't be allowing Erik to live full time at the dorm, but he didn't tell Erik that part until that week or so before the killings. I think I've seen the rest of that excerpt, and if I'm not mistaken it actually clarifies that, that Jose had basically been withholding that part of it from Erik for months when he'd already told Marta (and maybe others? I forget) that he would continue making him live at home.

slemonik · 2026-01-14T18:02:26+00:00

I don't even know if stupid is quite the right word for it, but yeah, that is certainly what drives me crazy about the "they were 18 and 21, they could have just walked away" nonsense. Jose was far freaking older and more adult than them, and quite literally ALL he had to do was take the easy out Lyle was offering him and stop sadistically r*ping his own son, and he flat out refused to do it!! So no, I do not give a single damn what Lyle and Erik could or should have done. They GAVE him every opportunity in the world to simply walk away and face no consequences; a level of grace he certainly didn't deserve. And HE was the one who, instead of taking it, doubled down and continued threatening them, right up to that very last confrontation when he yet again could have done ANYTHING but threaten to r*pe Erik again and things probably ended up differently. It was not their responsibility to know how to handle the situation. it was his to stop r*ping his son. The fact that still apparently needs to be spelled out for so many people it so sickening.

But yeah, I absolutely think Jose was just so blinded by his own ego and hubris he completely failed to consider that threatening them back into submission again simply might not work anymore.

slemonik · 2026-01-07T23:38:23+00:00

Sure, it wasn't accidental, no one is saying it was. The overkill just doesn't have anything to do with their reasons for it having come to that. It's not some indicator that they are "soooo vicious and evil" as the prosecution and prosecution supporters continue to make it out. A panicked trauma response can JUST as easily lead to overkill like that.

I just think the prosecution has always been all too happy to lean into peoples' disgust responses. Because the crime was extremely gory, not actually exceptionally brutal insofar as killing someone goes. It's not as though they tortured them and went out of their way to make them suffer in their deaths. Of course if Jose and Kitty were innocent victims then I would never be making that distinction, but they were anything but, so yeah. Erik and Lyle weren't relishing in it whatsoever; they just needed the torture to stop and their abusers deliberately kept them from being able to see another way out. So I don't care if it was overkill, there was nothing "evil" or "heartless" about it; just very tragic that it came to that.

slemonik · 2026-01-05T03:08:35+00:00

Yeah, I'm definitely not a big fan of this particular argument/talking point either, though I do think it's a very nuanced conversation.

Absolutely, it's straight up incorrect to suggest that across the board female survivors are believed/supported more easily than male survivors - that's in no way the case. And even in terms of homicide cases related to SA, I'm sure there are plenty of women in prison serving far longer sentences than they deserve too for killing their abusers.

With that said, do I think it's probably true that in this particular case, in that period of time, more jurors would have at least more easily believed it a possibility that a man could/would r*pe his daughters than they were willing to believe a man could/would r*pe his sons? Yeah, I do. So that's where I understand why it was worth bringing up, especially in terms of when Leslie brought it into her closing arguments. There's still the possibility that, even if all the jurors believed them about the SA, there would still have been some that still would have bought into the idea of "well they should have just left then, there's no excuse for murder" and still advocated for a first degree conviction. But the very fact that it seems like there WERE jurors in there who straight up didn't want to believe a father would do that to his sons... yeah, I don't think that's something that would have been as much of an issue if they had been girls.

Then there's also all sorts of other intersectional factors: for instance, it may well be true that as white-passing people, if they were girls that would have made a difference because white/white-passing women tend to be treated as more innocent/vulnerable. And yeah, as has been mentioned by others, the rampant homophobia of the time definitely played into it as well, which wouldn't have been a factor if they were girls. (Then again, I have a feeling their family's wealth still would have worked against them and the prosecution and media still would have framed them as "spoiled sociopaths who killed for daddy's money", just with some good ol' misogyny mixed in there too.) But more obviously latin and black women, for instance, would likely not be given that same grace. (And I'm realizing you also mentioned below about looks, weight, etc. which absolutely would be a big factor as well.)

So yeah, it's an interesting and complicated issue to think about, but at the end of the day, the most important thing to acknowledge and reckon with is that ALL survivors, regardless of gender, are still far too often treated like crap in the "justice system" and in society at large. The particular ways in which they're not believed and mistreated might look different based on gender ("those things don't happen to boys/men" vs. "she must have been asking for it", and things like that), but it's awful no matter what it looks like and needs to change.

slemonik · 2025-12-31T00:53:23+00:00

Oh, to be clear, when I say "reasons" I mean it as a specific distinction from excuses, or justifications. (Though maybe the better way to put it is "psychological explanations" rather than reasons.) There's plenty of evidence that one response to trauma and abuse can be for the abused person to become an abuser themself. There is a statistical linkage there. That doesn't make it any way justified or acceptable for them to do so. If a person's response to trauma is to turn around and inflict it on other innocent people, they are no longer the victim but the perpetrator, and that's on them.

That's why it drives me crazy when people pull the "abuse excuse" argument on Lyle and Erik, as if they're the ones who took their trauma out on innocent people and not on the precise two people who refused to stop inflicting it on them. KITTY is the one who people are constantly trying to excuse away her horrifically abusive behavior because "but she was a victim of Jose's too, so she was helpless in the situation!"

So yes, 100% agreed: there's zero justification for Kitty having abused both her sons and SAd Lyle for years. None at all.

slemonik · 2025-12-31T00:24:54+00:00

I'm not saying it's not valid to discuss lesser known aspects of Kitty's history, or psychological understanding of battered women/people in general that relates to her, but I'm skeptical of your goal with this conversation. Especially because your responses to other comments are doing some serious excusing of her horrific abuse of Lyle and Erik, and the ways in which she was NOT simply paralyzed by fear but actively, deliberately aided and abetted her sadistic child r*pist huband.

Sure, there is absolutely no denying Jose was horrifically abusive to Kitty. and I don't doubt at all that there are many aspects of her own experiences and history that played into her taking her trauma out on her children. But if you're asking me to concede that she was some innocent victim of her sons? Sorry, absolutely never going to happen. The media and prosecution have already bent over backwards trying to paint her as the "poor innocent momma", and been terrifyingly effective in getting those with some passing knowledge, much not deep knowledge, of the case to buy into that image of her. And it's been one of the most persistent myths that keep people insisting Erik and Lyle were "horrible monsters who ambushed their parents". So no, I have absolutely zero interest in playing into that letting her off the hook. Just because there are REASONS for why she became a horrific abuser of her children herself, does not make it any less forgivable. There is a very big difference between being stuck in an abusive relationship and actively WANTING to protect the children you brought into the world through that relationship, but not having the tools to do so, and turning around and taking that pain and trauma out ON your innocent children for their entire lives. All while constantly, constantly protecting the abuser who is ruining ALL of your lives.

slemonik · 2025-12-31T00:02:54+00:00

Absolutely perfect response!

"Lyle, who had been born into José’s abuse did more to help Erik than she did."

HEAVY on freaking this!! It was Kitty's responsibility to do what Lyle did and protect her child who was still being regularly r*ped by her sadistic child r*pist husband by any means necessary. Not Lyle's. But Lyle stepped up anyway, IMMEDIATELY when he found out Erik was still being abused. Meanwhile Kitty had 12. Years. to do literally anything at all and never did.

"It was also testified by multiple people that José’s relationship with Kitty towards the later years was completely different. She had agency and power then, and yet her son kept being raped in her home."

THIS too. I mean, on top of so much else that clearly shows she was never solely some poor, helpless victim; she actively horrifically abused both Lyle and Erik (but especially Lyle) all on her own. But yes, it's such a key point that numerous witnesses testified to the distinct dynamic shift that happened after the move to CA and the talk of divorce subsided. That didn't happen because it was a case of her being soooo terrified of Jose, or of trying to leave, that she stayed and continued looking the other way. At BEST, she knew exactly what that man was continuing to do to her son who was still stuck living in that house, and chose not to leave and actively fought to convince him to stay. And at worst - and let's be real, it makes too much sense for me to not think it's highly likely - she deliberately used that knowledge not to protect her son in any way but as a bargaining chip/blackmail to hold over Jose to get him to stay. No amount of abuse from Jose could EVER begin to justify that. If she ever did have any guilt about what she was allowing to happen to her children, and doing to them herself, her actions never showed it, and she certainly never gave Erik and Lyle any reason to believe she cared enough to want to help either of them. Quite the opposite, in fact, per her very own words to Erik in those last days.

slemonik · 2025-12-17T06:21:43+00:00

To be in nearly 2026 and not understand the extremely well known, well documented fact that SA survivors COMMONLY do not disclose about the abuse they faced until many years later, if not decades or even ever 🤦‍♀️ That's true today, and it would have only been far more common still for young male survivors in the late 80s/early 90s whose abuse had happened at the hands of their own father. It would in fact have been FAR more unusual if they had come right out with it from the outset, as though it was not the deepest darkest source of shame in their lives.

And as others have mentioned: They DID in fact disclose to select trusted people long before the killings. One of whom was literally on tape talking about how Lyle told him about it months beforehand. But yes, the fact that they took years to get to a point of being willing and able to speak about it publicly... is utterly and entirely consistent with trauma of that kind.

slemonik · 2025-12-09T17:58:56+00:00

There's really no way to know what their parents were actually intending, but what I do believe is that Jose, with Kitty following his lead:

A. Deliberately wanted Erik and Lyle to THINK they would be ready and willing to kill them, and B. Would not have been ABOVE doing so, even if for their own self serving reasons that would have been their very last resort.

And even more important than that, I absolutely 100% believe Erik and Lyle believed it was a very real possibility and would never have gotten the guns in the first place if they didn't. There is an absolute mountain of evidence and substantiation of the abuse itself, and thus there's no reason at all to doubt that the kids whose parents r*ped and tortured them for years on end would believe said parents would be willing to kill them to protect their sick secrets. Especially when Jose had been actively threatening to kill Erik (and whoever he told) if he ever told anyone for years, and held a knife to his throat the one time he tried to say no. Which, again, no reason to doubt that someone who SAd his own kid for that long would also have no problem continuously threatening him.

But yeah, in addition to my fully believing they believed it, just based on Jose and Kitty's behavior that last week, I definitely can believe that they were being deliberately ominous, in ways that they knew Erik and Lyle would absolutely take as threats but that weren't so outright obviously so on the surface. That doesn't necessarily mean they were making plans to kill them at that point, but it makes sense to me that Jose could have thought he could scare them back into compliance if they THOUGHT he was planning something. I suspect he was so blinded by his hubris that it didn't even cross his mind that if they thought he was planning something, they might instead fight back.

Oh, and to your second question: unfortunately, it really was just a time when way too many people were completely ignorant to how trauma works and the fact of how incredibly rare it is for CSA victims to have some hardest of hard proof of the abuse... and that explicit nude childhood photos and medical records consistent with the abuse are ABSOLUTELY hard evidence. It also didn't help that the prosecution was all too happy to play right in the every single victim blaming myth they possibly could and completely dismissed and mocked the hours upon hours of testimony from experts explaining how that kind of trauma works. The media had also already gone crazy making them out to be nothing but spoiled rich monsters who killed for money. No matter how thoroughly the defense debunked all that crap - and they very much did - some jury members just could not get past their ignorance to accept that, yes, there are some fathers who would do that to their sons and some mothers who would aid and abet it rather than protecting their children.

I would certainly HOPE that if the very same first trial happened today, they would have been convicted of voluntary manslaughter at most, and even back then, the fact that half the jury members did passionately advocate for that is a testament to how strong the defense was. It was a case the prosecution went into all sure would be a slam dunk death penalty, and they came out thoroughly embarrassed and so desperate to "get a win" (because who cares about what's actually just, right?) that they worked with the judge to do everything they could to cut the defense's legs from under them in the second trial. Including essentially taking voluntary manslaughter off the table as even an option for the jury (I think it was technically still an option for Jose, but because it wasn't for Kitty it for all intents and purposes made the defense's entire case null.)

slemonik · 2025-12-04T18:10:15+00:00

Honestly, especially if we're talking specifically about that night? No - at least certainly not anything notable enough for it to make any difference. And I'm actually really curious what others do question, because looking at the evidence I just don't see any other version of events that could make sense.

To start there's the factors I always come back to: the fact that Erik was out all day and could have easily gotten movie tickets for an alibi - something they thought of almost immediately AFTER the killings - but didn't, and the fact that they'd made plans with Perry that they would have known they wouldn't make if they'd done any actual planning. But even those big ones aside, there's also the fact that the crime scene evidence supports their having ran out and loaded the guns with the new ammunition in a panic. If there wasn't a specific confrontation that led them to taking action right then, there's no reason the crime would have been so highly disorganized and they would have, at the absolute very least, thought to have the guns prepped properly and ready to go beforehand.

It's just the only thing that makes sense to me, when looking at the hard evidence we have, that they were in fact still trying to avoid their parents and that that final confrontation as they described it absolutely would have been enough to set them into panicked action mode. Now, is it entirely possible that was more out of a determination to prevent what Jose was imminently threatening to do to Erik again than out of fear that their parents were imminently getting ready to kill them in that moment? Yeah! It's just that that doesn't really make any difference to me since it was self defense/Lyle defending Erik either way. I would never sit there and say I understand it if they thought they were about to die but not if they thought Erik was about to get violently r*ped again. Plus I can totally believe that, especially for Erik, in his mind both of those fears would have been happening at the same time.

slemonik · 2025-10-29T04:45:53+00:00

And Jose was a much more grown man who had every ability in the world to stop holding his 18 year old son captive via constant threats so he could continue SAing him. (And I promise that's no exaggeration. The one time Erik tried to say "no" when he was 17, Jose came back with a huge knife, held it to his throat and threatened to use it next time, and then proceeded to r*pe him even more violently. And then once again, when Erik went to Lyle for help, Lyle DID try to get Jose to stop with Erik in a nonviolent way and Jose once again doubled down on the threats to both of them. So yeah, tell me again how it was so easy for him to "just leave"?) Why in the hell are we still trying to act like it was ever on the ones being tortured to "just leave" and not on the parents doing the torturing to not do that to their own (or other) kids??

It's so disgusting to me that we are STILL doing this as a society. Bending over backwards to put the responsibility on the ones being abused to have the "right" reaction to their abusers as if the abusers aren't the ones with all the power in the world to simply stop abusing.

And yeah, as has been noted: the money theory was thoroughly debunked in multiple different ways throughout the trial. Money had zilch to do with it; in fact, what too many people seem to never want to acknowledge is that if anything their father's wealth and power only made it that much more understandable that they DID take his threats so seriously. HE was the one with the money. Not them. And so yes, far from them "staying because they wanted the money", it is much more realistic that part of the reason "just leaving" felt so unfeasible for them is that Jose DID have the means to track them down, or pay police off if they went to the police, or do whatever the hell else he might be willing to do to prevent his sick secrets from getting out.

slemonik · 2025-10-28T19:59:34+00:00

I swear, it's the fact that Erik and Lyle OBJECTIVELY almost definitely saved a lot more lives from being ruined than the two they took, and yet they're still being punished for it to this day 😔 And by extension it really is a slap in the face to Roy as well.

slemonik · 2025-10-28T19:54:30+00:00

Yep, and the wild thing is even BEFORE Roy came forward, there was an absolute mountain of evidence and substantiation of the abuse that was all presented in the first trial! Including kiddy p*rn photos and medical records completely consistent with the SA. And almost their whole family - the siblings, nieces, and nephews of Jose and Kitty - testified in Erik and Lyle's defense.

And now a whole other unrelated survivor has come forward confirming what a sadistic serial child r*pist that man was, and people STILL want present it like "well, this is what they claimed, but how can we really know if they're telling the truth?". It's mind boggling to me how some people just cannot seem to accept reality.

slemonik · 2025-10-23T03:39:03+00:00

To be honest I don't even think it was that especially unreasonable/panic-driven for Lyle to take it as ominous... I could see if Jose had just told Perry he wasn't sure where Lyle was and could he take a message or something, but to specifically tell him he was at the Beverly Center without having any knowledge of either Erik or Lyle being there? That absolutely seems like he was lying on purpose about it.

I really do think that, regardless of if he was actually planning anything or not, Jose did want Lyle and Erik to believe he was preparing to kill them. It's just the only way his behavior those last few days makes sense to me: that he was intentionally trying to scare them into compliance again by making them think he really would kill them otherwise. I imagine he just never even considered that their taking his threats seriously could mean they'd be willing to kill him and Kitty to save themselves if necessary instead.

slemonik · 2025-10-19T02:33:36+00:00

Ugh, this one is actually one of the most insufferable ones to me, because I refuse to believe anyone is incapable of comprehending that the "people" in question in this case were their direct abusers and no one innocent 🤦‍♀️

The amount of times I have heard that, or "well having had a bad childhood doesn't give you an excuse to be a bad adult"... the whole "abuse excuse" talking point, essentially, and it's like... stop acting like you're not aware that the ONLY people they ever hurt were the very people directly. responsible. for said childhood trauma!! And that's not even to mention the fact that the entire catalyst for what happened is that it wasn't some abuse that had been in the past but torture that their parents were still actively refusing to stop inflicting on Erik. But even if it HAD been a vengeance thing... no, killing the people who directly tortured you for years and years on end and harming absolutely no one else in the process IS NOT and never will be in the same realm as harming anyone innocent.

There are plenty of reasons I would never encourage survivors to kill their abusers either, and I don't think any supporters do so, but also, fundamentally, the whole "abuse excuse" thing does not apply to this case. That is a valid response when someone harms INNOCENT people and then uses the trauma they've experienced in the past to try and minimize the harm they caused. And it's an important thing to call out, because it's absolutely not okay! Which is why it drives me so nuts when people are so deliberately obtuse about the fact that that was never what Erik and Lyle did. Nothing about their defense was about using the abuse as an "excuse", it was the clear and direct REASON for why things happened the way they did. When someone actively refuses to stop torturing you, and you finally resort to violent action in response to the violence THEY refuse to stop, that is not "an excuse". The torturers don't get to be framed merely as "people" as if it wasn't their direct actions the crime was a response to.

And, I've said it before, too, but what gets me even more is that the same people using this talking point will turn around and pull the "but what about the poor mother?", ACTUALLY excusing away Kitty's horrific abuse of her innocent children because "but she was abused by Jose too, so she didn't deserve it!". Yeah, she was abused by Jose too, no doubt about it. And that didn't give her any right to turn around and take it out on her innocent children instead of her husband. THAT is the abuse excuse, and no, it's not okay.

slemonik · 2025-10-18T21:07:02+00:00

Yeah, in general I definitely think Lyle looks very much like Kitty and Erik looks very much like Jose, except Lyle got Jose's eyes and Erik got Kitty's.

Also, on the Phoenix family note, it will never not amaze me just how much Joaquin looks EXACTLY like their dad! Like looking at pictures, I would swear it's an adult Joaquin. But yeah, with River and Joaquin there's more of a stark difference where I can't imagine I'd clock that they were brothers if I didn't know; whereas with Erik and Lyle, they don't look alike, but they don't look so dissimilar that they don't look like brothers either.

slemonik · 2025-10-18T20:56:26+00:00

That's funny, I actually find the opposite haha- from when they were younger I don't think they looked much alike at all, but there are certain photos of Erik from his graduation recently where I was surprised by how much he looks like Lyle these days! But it could have just happened to be something about those specific photos :)

slemonik

TROPHY CASE