#sam revisionism

[angelsdean]

*record scratch* freeze frame. Reality Check. "You're the one who came and got me at school. You're the one who dragged me back into this." let's re-evaluate that statement, Sam, because that is not, in fact, what happened.

The context in which Sam makes this statement is that he's arguing Dean used to care about the revenge quest and killing the demon because Dean is the one that came and got Sam and thus "dragged him back" into the quest to kill the demon. But, that is not why Dean went to get Sam at school, it was to find John, who was missing and possibly dead. Dean didn't even Know about the demon at this point (they don't find out that "the thing that killed mom" is a demon til 1x11) or that John was closing in on it. Dean goes to Stanford to ask Sam to help him look for John, that's it. Then, at the end of 1x01 Dean brings Sam back to school in time for his interview as promised, and drives away. He only turns around when, in the deleted scene, he notices his watch has stopped, cluing him in that something is wrong. And he gets there in time to save Sam from the burning building.

Sam then makes the choice to leave with Dean because now that he's lost someone, he is personally invested in finding John because John knows more about the thing that killed Mary (and now Jess) than anyone, and Sam is the one who is now consumed by the need for revenge and the first step in getting that revenge is finding John, something he had no vested interest in doing before, but is now heavily invested in, even more than Dean is, as we see throughout the first half of s1 where Sam is often the one calling around looking for John and is more interested in searching for John than taking on random cases.

Anyways, it's just so interesting to track this revisionism of events and how both Sam and Dean come to accept this as the truth when it's literally not what we saw happen throughout the season. And we see Dean start to absorb this belief after Meg plants the seed in their heads in 1x16, trying to drive a wedge between them, by falsely saying Dean "drags Sam around like luggage" when literally the whole reason Sam and Meg meet is because Sam wanted to part ways in 1x11 and Dean let him go. Sam then comes back and decides to stay all on his own, even after Dean offers to drop Sam off somewhere.

Dean expresses in 1x16, that yes, he wants Sam around, he wants his family together again, but at the end of that very episode Dean is also the one who says they need to split up from John, even though it's the last thing he wants. Dean consistently is willing to let people go, even if it's not what he personally wants. And especially Sam. Over and over throughout the season he expressed how he wants Sam to have a normal life, is willing to let Sam go, or stay in some random town and drop the search for John. So even IF Dean did secretly want Sam to stick around when he went to get Sam at Stanford, he never expected it. Never enforced it.

That Sam comes to think Dean "dragged him back" into hunting is a purely revisionism and a bit of projection, I think, because Sam might not want to face the truth of the matter which is that he consistently chose to stick with hunting, and actually enjoys it more than he'd like to admit. And, as both he and John express, this quest to kill Yellow Eyes becomes "their" obsession. Not Dean's. Dean is the one who says he'd rather they never find the demon if it means losing his family. Dean is the one that says getting revenge isn't worth dying for. And then, Sam takes this to heart, when at the end of 1x22 he refuses to kill John Possessed by Azazel at Dean's pleading, AND when he tells John that killing this demon does not come "before everything" while eyeing Dean bleeding out in the backseat.

Dean was never the one invested in revenge. He did not come get Sam from Stanford to aid in the family revenge quest, he came for help in finding their missing father, something Dean cared abt simply because that's family, and Dean cares deeply, despite everything John put them through. Dean is the one that cares, the heart of the narrative, etc etc. He comes to Sam because he is alone in the world, because their only other blood relative is missing, because it's a very human thing, to reach out, to want family around. And still, he was always going to let Sam go after the 1x01. He didn't like it. It's not what Dean wanted. But he was going to let him go back to his life. Sam chose to follow Dean and continue searching for John.

#vics spn rewatch #sam revisionism #family dynamics #long post #sorry i got lots to say #spn 1x01 #spn 1x11 #spn 1x16 #spn 1x21 #spn 1x22

[scoobydoodean]

And is "Dean looking at Sam like he's some kind of sideshow freak" in the room with us now? | 3.16, 1.06, 1.14, 2.05, 2.10, 2.11, 2.14

#pk rewatches spn number ? #good gifs with free tools challenge #projecting displaced aggression and scapegoating in spn #spn revisionisms #3.16 #1.06 #1.14 #2.05 #2.10 #2.11 #2.14 #compilation #season 1 #season 2 #season 3 #multiseason #the flannel business #ruby #that little fallen angel on your shoulder #sam and isolation

[finalgirlsamwinchester]

tbh mystery spot exists as an exception to me in the Unhinged Sam Discourse bc. what person wouldn't go a bit mad under those conditions. the conditions being having to watch your loved one die, over and over, ad infinitum. and being rendered powerless to stop it.

#why the later seasons sabriel revisionism really doesn't work for me akdslfa #however. deliciously wonderful prophecy for the many times sam would later be made powerless by the narrative #all of spn. 15 seasons of mystery spot to me. does this make sense to anyone. i haven't had my coffee yet #j.txt

[drfrankensteinvsthequeerborgs]

like okay, Sam forgiving John: powerful, compelling, seems cathartic, love that for him. but there's a difference between forgiving someone and making excuses, understanding why he made the choices he made doesn't justify them, and I get this version of John hasn't done those things yet so there's only so much Sam can say about it, it just frustrates me

#dfvq liveblog #dfvq spn #dfv queue #spn5x13 #parental revisionism #john winchester’s a+ parenting #cycle of violence #cursed by the narrative #sam winchester #cw abuse #forced to live bad writing

[murfpersonalblog]

Thanks for tagging me @little-desi-historian! ❤️

YES, all of this takes me back to something I wanted to touch a lot more on in my original post when it comes to the historical male image, Percy, Lestat, and Matadors; because it truly does link back to how AMC is playing with dandyism and society's expectations about effeminate men.

Dandyism is a form of resistance culture. As I've said before, Lestat flouts gender norms because HE CAN do whatever he wants & get away with it. His androgyny's on a different level: effeminate or masculine, he's still a vampire, a SUPERnatural creature elevated beyond the bounds of social mores that determine what men & women could or SHOULD act/dress like. MANY people across social media have pointed to Lestat's limp wrists, long blonde "Barbie" hair and ESPECIALLY him dressing in drag in Ep7 as proof that he's the "wife/mother/woman/femme fatale" in Lousta's relationship, and THEN claim its either gender essentialism or homophobic/racist to say Louis is CANONICALLY female-coded one in BOTH the books and show (as AR said so). But no, Lestat in drag was a power move, because he doesn't care what anyone thinks/says/does--he'll just eat them. Mockingly eating the baby in a dress was a deliberate bastardization of motherhood/womanhood. Louis is called every homophobic name in the book by those expecting the black man to just take being insulted, but MARQUIS de Lioncourt DEMANDS being crowned KING of Mardi Gras, Krewe of Raj, & he'll show you exactly what he thinks about your silly homophobic hypocritical human society: You're just "the MEAT," let them eat KING Cake--you're his FOOD. Eff y'all, I'm dressed to KILL you, & laugh doing it.

Lestat's behavior is not only derived from the time period he was born & raised in (the Rococo era of so-called "effeminate" high class dandies--a la Percy Blakeney, etc). Lestat is the embodiment of PRIVILEGE: a powerful rich white male vampire, who leans into being foreign/French White to excuse anything he does that people find strange/off/unnatural/dangerous--all the red flags. 🚩🚩🚩

And red flags brings me directly back to matadors/toreros.

@toscrollperchancetomeme

😂 TYSM! Sam Reid dropped so many juicy deets; I couldn't resist! There's so much depth to the Matador outfit, beyond the gendered aspect of bullfighting that I discussed before. Let's go back to what Sam said about Lestat, and delve deeper into matadors:

The most iconic apparel worn by toreros ("bullfighters") / matador de toros ("killer of bulls") in Spanish bullfighting is the Traje de Luces, the "Suit of Lights." The colors are usually bright & vivid, as part of the showmanship & pizzazz. Darker palettes are less common, as shiny sequins (the luces/lights) became part of the standard fit.

However, Lestat's all-black Matador outfit from what Sam called the "villain sequence" in Ep5 seems to be loosely following the style of a different but very closely related outfit, the Traje Campero "Rural/Countryside Suit" aka Traje Corto ("Short Suit").

(These costumes are typically worn during ceremonial parades and a very specific festival I'll get back to in a moment, cuz it's important.) Unlike the Suit of Light's sequins & silk, the Rural Suit is made of suede, leather, or velvet, in dark muted colors. The pants can be light or dark, striped & patterned, with or without chaps (also found in gentleman's uniforms of military officers and cowboys).

The trajes originated from "the flamboyant costumes of the 18th-century dandies and showmen involved in bullfighting, which later became exclusive to the bullfighting ritual." (Wikipedia)

The ancestor of both trajes (luces/campero) is traditional 17th-19th century Andalusian clothing (Andalusia being the home of Spanish bullfighting), closely associated with a very particular type of masculine dandyism. (The campero/corto is also the costume worn by Andalusian male flamenco dancers.)

"Before the 17th century the profession of bullfighting did not exist as such, and the fighters did not wear luxurious & shiny trajes de luces, but instead normal clothes of the time according to the social class to which the bullfighter belonged. The first bullfighter trajes de toreros appeared in the 17th century, when professional bullfighters from Navarre & Andalusia wore characteristic garments with their gangs to participate in performances and thus differentiate themselves from other bullfighter bands." (translated/truncated from Spanish website)

In the mid-1700s, Francisco Romero revolutionized professional bullfighting by establishing the first matadors who fought on foot, heroically fighting the bull face to face with swords & the muleta (iconic red flag) in a dance-like performance, dressed in a suede/velvet coleto (jacket), a precursor to the traje campero. Romero (from a carpenter family) wanted to show off & stand out from the nobility, and changed the game entirely, through a form of social resistance-turned-innovation.

"At that time, bullfighting on horseback was more important, which was considered a sport and not a show. Bullfighting on foot was not yet widely recognized." (translated from Spanish website)

Bull-killing on horseback was practiced by Spanish noblemen, attended by lower class assistants on foot. Romero was the first to make on-foot matadors the stars of what was increasingly becoming a dandified show/performance/dance. Matador Joaquin "Costillares" Rodríguez introduced even more showmanship, competing against Francisco Romero's grandson Pedro Romero (famously painted by Goya--bottom right).

For his matches, Costillares (middle) dressed in flashy silks, threaded in shiny silver braiding; the precursor to modern traje de luces. Like Francisco Romero (left), Costillares wanted to show off & stand out; and revolutionized the male image of the bullfighter through clothes.

In 18th-19th century Andalusian Spain there were 2 types of dandy: the French-imported upperclass petimetre (effeminate dandy), and the indigenous working class majo (masculine/macho dandy).

Noyes, Dorothy. “La Maja Vestida: Dress as Resistance to Enlightenment in Late-18th-Century Madrid.” The Journal of American Folklore 111, no. 440 (1998): 197–217. https://www.jstor.org/stable/541941

The majo, like many dandies, became the peak of Andalusian fashion, across all social classes; and torero/matador outfits weren't the only ones to take cues from them:

18th-19th century majos "distinguished themselves by their elaborate outfits and sense of style in dress and manners, as well as by their cheeky behavior. The majos outfits were exaggerations of traditional Spanish dress. The style stood in strong contrast to the French styles affected by many of the Spanish elite under the influence of the Enlightenment. Majos were known to pick fights with those they saw as afrancesados ("Frenchified" – fops)." (Wikipedia)

The majos' flamboyant/cheeky/saucy/exaggerated behavior was aggressively masculine; a lower/working class resistance to social mores imposed on them by (foreign) elites, whom they saw as more feminine, and FOUGHT against, to reaffirm their masculinity. These dandies were violent, brazen non-conformists; as beautiful & stylish as they were dangerous. And matadors/toreros knew that the bullfight was the perfect arena to exemplify the spirit of the majos through the dandified performance art/sport of killing bulls--a universal cultural symbol of masculine prowess & strength. Spanish bullfighting used to belong solely to the aristocratic equestrian sphere. Lowly pages/assistants like Francisco Romero (dressed in the precursor to the Rural/Countryside Suit), were the first to buck the system by killing bulls on foot--he likely didn't own a horse. The Romeros were from a carpenter family. Costillares was the son of a butcher. But through bullfighting they gained social status and became icons of masculinity--and dandies.

Lestat--the nouveau riche son of a poor country marquis--insists on being all the beautiful things he is without apology: masculine & effeminate alike. But like I said, it was no coincidence that Carol likened Lestat's Ep5 villain outfit with matadors--he's fighting Louis for dominance in their household, and reaffirming his place at the top of their very gendered social hierarchy, as a warning to BOTH "the housewife" AND "the prodigal daughter" he feels are threatening his authority as their Maker, so he defeats them BOTH.

Carol Cutshall initially designed Lestat's matador pants as pajamas--loungewear. (Lestat's CASUAL & comfortable in his ability to KILL--matador means "Killer" in Spanish--and remember what I said about Louis & Claudia being put on the same parallel level in Ep5, when Claudia's attacked by "Killer" aka Bruce.) Sam said Carol made several versions of the pants; and yup, they're foreshadowed in Ep5 when Lestat first starts arguing about Louis' depression, then they pop up again in Ep7 during the Murder Plot--two instances @dwreader brilliantly linked Lestat (& Stanley Kowalski) wearing wifebeaters. (Listen, Carol, I just wanna talk.... 😅🔫)

And here's my last points about Lestat's matador outfit. First there's the irony of Lestat (who grew up poor in rural France) wearing the something very similar to the matador/torero's Rural Suit, traje campero (aka Short Suit (traje corto)). But what's more interesting is that that type of Short/Rural Suit is usually only worn during special festivals called the Tienta ("trials"), not the regular corrida ("bullfights").

These Tienta are trials for young and immature bulls to be tested in the ring, to see if they're fit for breeding/fighting. 🤯 FLEDGLINGS. And who's Lestat's young bull? "Built-like-a-bird" Claudia. Who's the immature bull? The "biggest rat eater of them all," the under-developed "botched" vampire Louis. During these trials, veteran matadors can show off their skills; and novice bullfighters are shown the ropes and prove themselves. Like I said: the matador wins again.

God, even the way Lestat dragged Louis' bloody body out of the courtyard by the jaw/neck resembles the way the defeated bull--bled out & stabbed in the neck--is dragged by the neck out of the ring.

And remember what I said about Lestat and FOOD. Cuz what happens to the bulls after the matadors kill them? They're sent to the slaughterhouse to be butchered for FOOD. People EAT the bulls.

So yeah, my whole point in this post and my first one is not to sleep on guys like Lestat, Percy--or even other famous dandies like Valmont from Dangerous Liasions/Cruel Intentions (mentioned by both @little-desi-historian and @dwreader)--just because they're effeminate--especially when they're emulating mannerisms from a time period where the model of what made a fashionable gentlemen/good breeding/elite society did NOT match modern expectations about gender. People are getting distracted by Lestat's yaasified manner, not what the show itself is signalling through the relationships he has with others.

This show is deliberately painting Lestat as a villain through Louis' & Claudia's perspectives, as they were the ones who suffered under his Reign of Terror. The symbolism behind the matador-inspired costume used in Ep5 reflected gendered social hierarchies embedded within bullfighting culture (in Spain, women only started being allowed to fight in the 19th-20th centuries). Dressed in clothes resembling that of a matador, Lestat beating & defeating Louis mirrored the defeat of the emasculated bull, and the reification of the victor's masculine prowess at the top of the foodchain.

#the vampire lestat #lestat de lioncourt #male fashion #fashion history #gender inequality #read a dang history book #operation matador #iwtv tvc metas

[cassierobinsons]

truly it's insane just how much revisionism there is surrounding s4 and s4 sam in particular. it's like people need for nothing to be his fault but recognise that blaming everything on ruby would make them look misogynistic so instead it becomes dean's responsibility to meet all of sam's emotional needs and prevent him from making bad decisions even though he's fresh off of 30yrs of torture and another 10 of extreme moral injury. BRAINWORMS.

#spn blogging

[shallowseeker]

Dean + rumination

I was saying this on another’s user’s post, and I don’t have all of it set in my head, but I wanted to share it here, too, in case someone can put it into words better than me.

I think Dean's guilt and rumination specifically call it to narrative attention. The consequence? It gets cemented into the minds of viewers, even when that guilt is misplaced. I think that’s why rewatching can be so surprising! Sam’s revisionism…tends to stick.

///

Dean + rumination

When Dean beats Cas in season 10, he ruminates on it. He sees a bloody Cas in the mirror. But when Cas beats Dean in season 5 & 8, we don't see Cas ruminate and agonize over it as much. I know Cas has a flashback about his attack dog spell in season 11, but I can’t recall its specifics. In any case, it doesn’t happen on the first two.

///

Sam + abstract guilt

Sam, on the other hand, ruminates on impurity and imperfection—inherent things—so he doesn’t seem to examine his actions as much on screen. If memory serves, after he sacrifices Oskar and unleashes the Darkness, he’s back to lecturing Dean in the very next episode.

///

It’s like how politicians say, “never apologize,” because that “psychologically associates you to guilty in the minds of the people.”

///

Sam seems willing to shoulder more action-oriented guilt as he gets older, and it seems to improve a lot after Mary returns.

Like with Cas, re: unleashing Lucifer, I think Sam is far more culpable for that than his quippy, feisty I’m-not-your-bitch speech would lead you to believe (he moved them to a strategical weak spot, and he acknowledges it). But sometimes he carries this too far, making things a group sin when he’s far more culpable than he’d like.

///

Like with Dean and the MoC, Sam starts to realize that putting yourself in danger, affects your loved ones, like it or not.

///

Sam, Dean & Cas + benefit of the doubt

Still, we tend to assume Sam and Cas feel guilt and sadness, even when we don’t see it onscreen. We give them the benefit of the doubt, even when they could be assumed to be cold.

On the flipside, when we don’t see Dean’s grief and reaction on screen, we sometimes jump to assume uncharitably that he must not be doing the emotions. It’s an odd dynamic in the fandom, because we’ve seen Dean’s emotions with respect to specific actions most often.

I think it has something to do with the expectation for him to do emotional caretaking, both in holding the onscreen family together and for the cathartic benefit of the audience.

#shal meta #unpopular opinion maybe #tfw + emotions #dean #tfw + navigating guilt #tfw + teamwork #tfw + battle decisions #tfw + consequences #i was struck talking to a friend that she thought dean and cas beat each other up an equal amount #but cas beat him more often actually!

[lilnasxvevo]

Can’t stand all the Tolkien revisionism happening on this here site where suddenly people are claiming that actually it would be awesome to live in the Shire. Those people are nasty, closed-minded, gossipy, hostile to unfamiliar ideas, and entirely opposed to reading. Sam and Frodo don’t even like living in the Shire! Bilbo doesn’t like living in the Shire! That’s the whole point!

[monstermoviedean]

oh big sam revisionism in him blaming dean for sam not completing the trials. that's. wow.

#spn #spn rewatch #09x12 sharp teeth

[figureofdismay]

It's been soooo long and idk if you're in the loop (I'm not particularly ahdhgh) but choose violence asks for Endeavour: 1, 8, 12, 21. Or another fandom if you'd prefer :D

I'm also only partly in the loop on Endeavour but it's still near and dear to me, and often on my mind so I'll go for it 😅

1. the character everyone gets wrong

not nearly as much of an issue now as in the Old Days before the audience shifted a bit and the shows portrayal of Morse got comparatively darker, i think, but I mean. It is still Morse himself lol. Morse definitely gets the woobie baby treatment, and I do it and love it too in whumpee situation fics tbh! but especially in the earlier seasons there was a lot of fic where I kept feeling like Morse's temper and his tendency to fight back/nit-pick/keep hounding you with your opinion until you were sick of him were kind of half dropped for this dreamy passivity. And again, I do and did it too, tbh, and there's a contemplative dreaminess to the tone/aesthetic of Endeavour that invites it! (plus the wishfulfillment of him letting people look after him lmao) but uhhh. He's still very much the stubbornest man in the whole of Oxfordshire so it's never quite that easy.

8. common fandom opinion that everyone is wrong about

hmm. I'm not sure it's prevalent anymore but it did drive me crazy when the popular opinion was that the whole of Morseverse was literally contiguous, when IMO, each of the segments are their own thing with their own characterization and are therefore slightly AU from one another. I would say Classic Inspector Morse and Inspector Lewis canons are the most directly related and the original Novels and Endeavour are the least directly related.

12. the unpopular character that you actually like and why more people should like them

I suppose it would be Sam Thursday, because even though he ended up as such a destructive force in the relationship between Morse and Thursday, I find his character fascinating and I've always wanted to know more about his perspective on both his father and on Morse. And on Joan and her wanderings for that matter. He's a key player who's mainly only 'seen' from the outside in the narrative and that makes me want to dig in.

Also Dorothea! Not that people don't all adore here, she's just not often the focus that I've seen. I really want to do Dorothea fic at some point!

21. part of canon you think is overhyped

I do think the sort of 'downfall of morse' and the framing of Morse's drinking in the last few seasons is simultaneously deftly drawn, over-praised and somewhat misguided. It's another case of revisionism, at least from the perspective of someone who hasn't ever gotten into the books but watched all of original Morse multiple times. It's a very modern framing of Morse's addiction issues and melancholy and for me it ended up feeling too literal compared with the slow creep of it in IM Morse. And also like Russ Lewis ended up going too hard in trying to 'explain' Morse by the end of s9, because between Joan and Fred and the Drinking you'd end up thinking he'd be a lot worse off than he actually appears to be in 1986 when Robbie appears on the screen and the original show begins

[angelsdean]

MAX When my Dad used to look at me, there was hate in his eyes. Do you know what that feels like? SAM No.

mmm i just think it's so so very interesting that sam sincerely says no here. that he cannot relate to this experience. which could be interpreted two ways. either, despite everything, despite all the arguments with john and constant clashing sam still felt loved by john (azazel does taunt dean in 1x22 by saying sam was clearly john's favorite, which yes, demon manipulation tactic, but it is interesting that he specifically cites when john and sam would fight to dean, "it’s more concern than he’s ever shown you" etc etc). OR the other interpretation of sam's response to max is that sam is already engaging in some samcoded revisionism. in 1x08 Bugs sam already expressed desire to make amends with john. he gained some new info he didn't know before, which changed his POV on his relationship with john. john DID care, john WAS proud of sam for getting into stanford. sam is the first one to say the phrase john "did the best he could." he says he wants to find john and apologize for everything. sam also understands john's POV better now too, being in his shoes. he can understand john's grief over mary, losing jess in the same way and becoming consumed by the need to find the thing that did this and get revenge. so it's easier for him now to see john in a more forgiving light.

and by the end of 1x14 he's also expressing how "lucky" they were that john wasn't more like max's dad. and then there's dean's quiet reaction, the way his face tells a different story. the subtle expression that sam completely misses. and either sam just didn't know (likely, because there's so much dean sheltered sam from) and / or sam is revising history. and if we take future episodes into account then we Know he IS doing at least some revisionism bc young sam said "you don't want to see my dad when he's drunk" implying john could be a mean drunk just like max's dad. he might not have seen john ever "discipline" dean (like after flagstaff) or experience that himself either but he knows john wasn't someone you want to be around when he's been drinking. sam might not know the extent of john's "drunken rages" to quote toni bevell, but he's at least aware that john could be a mean drunk too. so it's just all very interesting to me that sam chooses to not identify with max in this way, despite over-identifying with him in many other ways.

#vics spn rewatch #spn 1x14 #family dynamics

[scoobydoodean]

In season 1 alone, at least three times Sam and Dean imply that Dean is the reason Sam is hunting again when that is quite literally not what happened. Like that revisionism is already starting.

Dean took Sam home at the end of the Pilot and then Jess burned on the goddamned ceiling. And you're telling me the difference between Sam going and not going hunting is Dean? Sam doesn't go on the hunting trail after that without Dean telling him he's lonely without so many words, and Sam out of concern for him and even a little for John, agreeing to help Dean look for two days? Dean takes him back to Stanford at the end of those two days, and then he watches his girlfriend be murdered exactly the same way that his mom was, and we're saying without Dean showing up two days before that happens, and Sam going on a short trip with him then coming back, Sam would never have ever gone on the revenge trail? He would have just known that the M.O.'s matched and done nothing? Yeah I don't think so.

#spn revisionisms #sams motivations

[someoneoffthestreet]

ok but no the blatant revisionism in the fandom over s6 drives me bonkers because the angst in it is SO DELICIOUS like people really looked at that scene when Sam Dean and Bobby lure Cas into the trap, looked at Dean's resignation and how he said nothing to Cas- barely LOOKED at him- until he was in the ring, watched him linger with so much sadness while Sam and Bobby booked it out of there and said that Dean ~didn't care about Cas~ like are you KIDDING ME are you KIDDING ME you people have NO TASTE AT ALL Dean's heart is breaking right in front of you and you have the gall to say that he didn't care

#s6 meta was honest to goodness the beginning of the end and I didn't know it

[drfrankensteinvsthequeerborgs]

Sam: “Dean, those weren’t exactly Hallmark memories for me, y’know.”

Dean: “What are you talking about, we had some great Christmases.”

Sam: “Whose childhood are you talking about??”

Sam only sees what they didn’t have (and rightly so), Dean only sees how much good he managed to eke out of their situation, weirdly Dean’s the glass-half-full one when it comes to their childhood, mostly because he knows how expensive half a glass of water really can be

#dfvq liveblog #dfvq spn #dfv queue #spn3x8 #quotes #sam is dean’s son who’s john #i’m not projecting YOU’RE projecting #parental revisionism #cw gaslighting #john winchester’s a+ parenting #cw codependency

[panatmansam]

Y'all want to hear something funny? Woke. Now this word has beenused for lots of different things but this one takes the cake. I have an interest in the American Civil War. I am not an admirer of Robert E. Lee. I consider him a traitor to his nation and with a few notable exceptions Chancelersville for example not a particularly good general but one who was deified in the south after the war in the "Lost Cause" narrative which was popularized in the 1890s.

I got into an online argument in a Civil War group based in Virginia and posed some actual statistics comparing Lee with Grant. One guy called the verified statistics as "woke revisionism". I literally got my first real belly laugh in months from that. Sam.

[antigonewinchester]

Still early on-ish in season 12, but two big reactions so far:

One: On a technical level, I’m enjoying this season more than I did the past few. It’s watchable in a way that Carver era episodes... sometimes weren’t. I can see why the fandom picked up again & why there’s a portion of the fanbase that really likes this run of the show.

Two: I can so clearly see why the part of the fandom that likes later seasons has such different views about the show/story/characters, because holy hell the narrative revisionism. Seeing it happen in real time is quite something. Retcons can be annoying, depending, but I understand them. The British Men of Letters are pretty silly, but for a show in its 12th season and needing something new, it make sense why they got retconned in. But the narrative revisionism, that’s unique.

One take would be that the showrunners/writers knew they were dealing w/ a different audience than 10+ years ago, so they felt fine in minimizing, arguably even erasing, Sam & Dean’s character development from the earlier seasons. If the audience wouldn’t know or care, why not? But the way they attempt to reframe Sam & Dean through the entire show just feels so... odd. I get how something could go from green to red back to green again, but why pretend it was never red at all?

#spn rewatch #season 12 #i guess there are some more optimistic and some more cynical answers to that question huh