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dragalialore · 3 years

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MMMM OKAY LET’S TALK ABOUT ALL THAT JUICY GOODNESS IN CHAPTER 16

(spoilers. obviously)

In no real order:

Elisanne resolving her insecurities. The poor girl has been an absolute MESS ever since Harle purposely showed her the exact kind of information that would throw her off her feet. Remember, Elisanne is a Paladyn to the CORE--her entire world revolves around serving church and having the utmost faith in their teachings. The church is closely related to the royal family--recall how the Sacred Shards are said to be fragments of a sword gifted to Alberius, the founder of the kingdom, by Ilia herself. (Or, well, Meene. lol) I’m unsure if we’ve ever heard about any past Auspexes (Auspexi?), but Zethia being both from the royal bloodline and the Auspex of the Ilian church is possibly related. (Maybe their mother was the previous Auspex; it would explain why Zethia took up the mantle at such a young age.) ALL THAT means that Harle revealing to her that the church has been lying about her liege’s origins was a sure-fire way to throw her for a loop. Her faith in Euden was not wavering; her faith in the CHURCH was. This is why, at the end of Chapter 16, she chooses to step down as Grand Paladyn and serve Euden whole-heartedly. She recognizes that the Church’s teaching are not infallible, and that there is no shame in questioning the truths that she knows. This poor girl has been tormented by this anxiety since... what, post-Chapter 11? And she FINALLY found her answer. She doesn’t need the church to be part of her identity, and she doesn’t have to answer to them to have faith. This much is proved when the sheer potency of her prayer, filtered through Zena, purifies Poseidon in one shot.

Leonidas AND Chelle coming to Euden’s aid. FINALLY, the siblings are working together! With the glue that bound them previously, Morsayati, slurped up by their Hot Topic sibling, Leo and Chelle are FINALLY able to move more freely. The cracks in Leo’s armor that Alex found have been widening since Chapter 12; she has a fucking point there. Agreeing to be UNDER someone is the antithesis of Valkaheim’s, and by extension Leonidas’s, ideals. He’s the first-born fucking heir. He shouldn’t have to answer to ANYBODY. So why is he agreeing to be so subservient under a clear evil? The answer is a little clearer when you look at Chelle: the core of Chelle’s character is that she is always planning ahead. I have zero doubt that the second Morsayati offered his deal she was going to take him up on it, because Chelle is always playing every side. There’s no better place to keep an eye on the enemy than at the enemy’s side, and the proof that she was never with Morsayati in the first place is in both Chapter 11 and 12, where she intentionally sabotages the battle in ways favorable to Euden--Chapter 11 where she gives Emile control over androids that he DEFINITELY can’t handle, and 12 where she lets Euden walk right through her camp. There’s also the fact that while Morsayati was in power, they had their own city-states to worry about. Chelle and Leonidas have a responsibility to Chanzelia and Valkaheim respectively; while 16 shows that they’ve been mostly ignoring the rest of the territory, to abandon their own kingdoms would be unthinkable.

Leonidas’s seemingly heel-face turn. I’m not saying he HASN’T gotten character development; we all remember when Leo was introduced as the crazy maniacal first-born who experimented on his pact dragon and blew up his hired assassin without hesitation. I AM saying that Euden’s screaming match with him in the climax of Chapter 12 definitely got to him. Ever since Euden challenged his ideals, rescued him from certain death, and treated him without asking for anything in return, Leonidas has been significantly more subdued. He’s always thought of himself as the strongest and the best, and instead he got his ass handed to him by his youngest sibling that was using a dragon elementally inferior to his own. AND he got chided by his own ex-subject, WHO HE LITERALLY TRIED TO BLOW UP. Talk about a reality check! From then on, interludes do touch on how Leo is keeping track of Euden; probably through Chelle’s network. Despite it being clear that he knows Euden’s movements, he doesn’t really... do that much to stop him, even when Euden launches an attack on Sol Alberia. His sudden character 180-flip isn’t quite so sudden--it’s the culmination of four chapters of reflecting why his kid brother handed his ass to him. It wasn’t the power of friendship, or even his raw strength. Euden’s conviction is what’s let him smash through obstacle after obstacle, and as soon as Leonidas realizes that conviction is shaken, he doesn’t hesitate to help. Leonidas is, and always has been, about valuing strength--and this time, he recognized a different kind of strength in his little brother.

The acknowledgement of the state of New Alberia. Whatever the kingdom’s name is right now, it’s super fucky. New Alberia and Dyrenell’s clashes, along with Euden’s tunnel vision for Zethia’s rescue, have left the whole of southern Grastaea in shambles. Faith in the royal family is at an all-time low because they’ve all been squabbling amongst each other without much thought for the common people. Yes, Euden and his folks make it a point to shepherd people to the safety of New Alberia’s borders, along with making regular rounds to take out fiends, but his quest to defeat Dyrenell (read: save Zethia) is all that’s really on his mind. Laxi and Mascula are most definitely parallels to Euden and Zethia; Euden is apt to run into situations without a second thought, not hesitating to fight if it’s clear talking won’t work. Zena, on the other hand, has basically been Euden’s braincell for the last two chapters: Euden is ready to do something dumb, and then Zena says “hey Euden maybe don’t do that actually” and Euden immediately settles down. I’m pretty sure the primary reason she was included in the main cast was so she could act as Euden’s conscience, and the last two chapters have not proven me wrong.

Euden’s potential origins. SO I’ve seen theories floating around about Euden being a changeling or fairy child since the Chapter 12 interludes, and it looks like they’re confirmed in this chapter. Euden’s true nature seems to be the son of an important faerie, Finlorda. However, knowing what we do about faerie lore, it’s got everyone wondering if Euden’s wings were removed to preserve the illusion of him being human. I’m not super sure what to think--I mean, fae lore dictates that faeries reach a period in their adolescence when they get big, but for this whole ruse to work, it would mean that Euden’s been human-sized since the beginning. Does taking a faerie’s wings completely absolve them of their magic? (Note I have yet to read Meene’s story; my perspective may change.) Euden coming from the faerie kingdom casts questions on Notte, too--we know that Zethia found her in the garden after she tried to convince dragons that they were kin. Who is she, really, and why doesn’t she remember anything about the faerie kingdom? Something hinky is going on, and hopefully it’ll be explored in Chapter 18 when they reach the kingdom.

The assurance of Euden’s place in his family. This. THIS is why Euden had such a major freakout. The absolute, gut-wrenching TERROR that he’s been ignoring his country’s plight, his friend’s pleas, all of that for a girl that might not even consider him her brother. That all the mistakes and sacrifices he’s made have been pointless. And let’s also point out that Leonidas REFUSES to recognize Euden as his own brother in his introduction chapter! He literally calls Euden a grain of dust. And yet this chapter. THIS CHAPTER has Leonidas EXPLICITLY telling Euden that regardless of his origins, he considers Euden to be his brother. Those are the words that Euden needed to hear. That is the reassurance Euden was desperate to have. This is the first time anyone OTHER THAN Zethia/Zena has properly acknowledged Euden as family; Phares uses it in passing, Emile hates his guts and insults him, and Beren mocks him with it. His oldest brother and sister heartfeltedly telling him that he is their brother was what Euden needed, and I am so very glad that he got it.

Chelle joining the main party. The first mainworld royal party member! FUCK YEAH!!! I know a lot of people thought it would be Leonidas, with all that emphasis on him in the preview, but like, c’mon. Of course his little sister would steal the spotlight. Plus she has an entire moving ship, so no more camping in the woods for the main party! Woo!!!! It also gives us an opportunity to see how she runs things, and more specifically, how it’ll work in the main cast’s favor now that she’s finally not explicitly against them. I’m super excited. (And hey, Leo might be the next Gala along with Poseidon. Who knows?)

All in all, this was, perhaps, THE most emotionally satisfying chapter Dragalia Lost has put out. Fears were assuaged, families were reunited, problems were solved... someone please put the Stefon meme here. This chapter has everything: family love, guns, sexy new outfits, the characters you love finally being happy...

#dragalia lost #main campaign #chapter 16 #euden #leonidas #chelle #elisanne #god i haven't felt this good post-chapter in a loooong time

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adwendoodles · 4 years

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some Silmarillion Tarot Card sketches (very messy, very unreferenced) ~

Pictured here are The Moon (Sauron), The Tower (Turin), The Sun (Tuor and Idril sail for Valinor), The Star (Earendil and Elwing looking down at their children), Wheel of Fortune (Maedhros and Fingon), The High Priestess (Melian teaching Galadrien) and last but not least, The Lovers (Luthien and Beren, old and happy)

Some (super long) rambling under the cut

I’ve wanted to do this for a while and nothing gets me wanting to start a new, complex, probably out of my skill range project like the imminent return of the school year amid covid :D you gotta seize the day, you know?

jokes aside I am happy to have started this... but it’s so hard to match everyone up. I’m trying to at least kinda follow the tarot meanings. i don’t know anything about tarot though, so so far my matches are based on what wikipedia tells me... (and even then it’s mostly what they quote from A. E. Waite's Pictorial Key To The Tarot, copy pasted below)

Anyway if anyone is curious what the deck so far is:

- The Magician: “Skill, diplomacy, address, subtlety, pain, loss, disaster, snares of enemies; self-confidence, will“

I NEARLY MADE MAEDHROS THIS but he’s already part of the wheel of fortune so i’m thinking Finrod

- The High Priestess: “Secrets, mystery, the future as yet unrevealed, silence, wisdom, science”

This was a toss up between Galadriel (who would be this if it was a LOTR spread) and Melian (who was my first and final pick). My card designs for this vary between symbolic bs and small smattering of scenes that I like, so I went ‘both characters’ and thus this card shows Melian teaching Galadriel how to use the water mirror thing

- The Empress: “Fruitfulness, action, initiative, length of days; the unknown, clandestine; also difficulty, doubt, ignorance. “

For obvious reasons I want this to be a female... I’m thinking Aredhel due to her taking action in leaving Gondolin but then ending up with Eol. If Idril hadn’t already been part of the Sun card I probably would have gone with her building the stairs....

Honestly now I’m half tempted to change the sun card and have this be Idril. Any thoughts?

- The Emperor: “ Stability, power, protection, realization; a great person; aid, reason, conviction also authority and will. “

I went with Fingolfin for this, though I haven’t gotten a design I like. Could also be Turgon? But again, no design. I was thinking Fingolfin holding his crown... idk. i’ll figure something else.

- The Hierophant - “Marriage, alliance, captivity, servitude; by another account, mercy, and goodness; inspiration”

I went with Gwindor (and Finduilas, who in my current design also shows up in the card) for this due to the marriage troubles and his capture by morgoth, as well as the fact that Finduilas was able to recognize him and still cared for him... . Though now that Aredhel’s place as the empress might be instead taken by Aredhel, she actually fits this...

- The Lovers: “-Attraction, love, beauty, trials overcome. “

THIS WAS ALWAYS GONNA BE BEREN AND LUTHIEN lets be real. i mean. attraction??? love???? beAUTY??? TRIALS OVERCOME??? i swear tolkien just checked off every thing

For their card I went with something I’ve never really seen in fanart---at least not often/that I can remember. I kinda wanted to draw them old and happy; I was very much inspired by Carl and Ellie from UP... they’re probably the only couple in all of the silmarillion that got to grow old together and die happy

- The Chariot - “ Succour, providence also war, triumph, presumption, vengeance, trouble. “

I went with Aegnor and Angrod for this one, because they held one part of the border against morgoth for 500 years. That’s a lot of time!!! then they died, of course, which is the ‘vengeance and trouble’ part of the card. dunno about the design for them yet tho

- Strength - “ Power, energy, action, courage, magnanimity; also complete success and honors. “

i was so torn on who to do this for. fingolfin??? one of the sons of feanor??? fingon??? finrod “i wrestled a werewolf to death” felagund????

but so far my favorite pic is Hurin. Dude was so strong, not just literally... but in everything he had to live through... all i think about when i read this card description is his final desperate charge in the Nirnaeth... brb gave my self feels

bc the ‘complete success’ part is very ironic

alternatively this card (or the chariot) could be glorfindel and ecthelion. if anyone reads this and has an opinoon, lemme know what you think~

- The Hermit - “ Prudence, circumspection; also and especially treason, dissimulation, roguery, corruption. “

I don’t know who to do this for... I considered Ulfang but tbh I wanted to draw more elves (what, im biased i admit it). so far i’m thinking curufin and celegorm in nargothrond because--

1. the reason they turned nargothrond against finrod was by encouraging them to be prudent and not go pick a fight with morgoth lmao

2. the whole ‘turning nargothrond against its king’ is definitely treason of some sort, to the cause if not to finrod himself

3. what action of theirs in the ley of leithian isn’t rogueish klajfdsd

- Wheel of Fortune: “ Destiny, fortune, success, elevation, luck, felicity. “

I went with Maedhros and Fingon for this one because I feel like they’re two characters that are constantly influencing each other’s destiny like

1. Fingon’s friendship with Maedhros causes him to jump into the fray at alqualonde and thus turn the tide of the battle but

2. Maedhros’ friendship with Fingon is not enough to sway Feanor, thus leaving the only other path to middle earth for fingon and co through the helcaraxe

3. due to the above, the noldor forces in beleriand are not enough for a decisive initial battle and feanor dies and maedhros is captured...

4. fingon rescues maedhros (thus saving him from a destiny of slavery)

5. this action prevents civil war and maedhros gives up the kingship, which fingon inherits

5. maedhros union and everything that leads up to fingon’s death

i dont need to go on do i

- Justice - “ Equity, rightness, probity, executive; triumph of the deserving side in law. “

this is another hard one, and if anyone has any ideas i’m all ears. so far i’m thinking eonwe or manwe

- The Hanged Man - “ Wisdom circumspection, discernment, trials, sacrifice, intuition, divination, prophecy. “

IT WAS SO HARD TO NOT GO WITH MAEDHROS FOR THE OBVIOUS REASONS but to me he doesn’t really fit the card??? he’s not very self-sacrificial (as wiki explains the ‘hanged man’ part is interpreted)--dutiful, sure. suicidal, obviously. self-sacrificial? not really.

so i talked with a friend and she pointed out that Huan actually fit this card really well. still trying to figure out the design but so far Huan is my pick for this one.

- Death - “ a change of thinking from an old way into a new way “ & “ unlikely that this card actually represents a physical death, rather it typically implies an end, possibly of a relationship or interest, and therefore an increased sense of self-awareness “

I dunno who this is but I was thinking Finwe. Because his death was the final catalyst for the flight fo the noldor and all that... and the end of the relationship of many noldor with the valar...

- Temperance - “ Economy, moderation, frugality, management, accommodation.“

i have NO IDEA who this could be. I’m thinking either Nerdanel or Arafinwe, leaning a bit more towards Arafinwe bc of actions during the flight of the noldor

- The Devil - “ Ravage, violence, vehemence, extraordinary efforts, force, fatality”

lmao this was always going to be Morgoth

- The Tower - “ Misery, distress, indigence, adversity, calamity, disgrace, deception, ruin.”

my knee-jerk reaction was to give this to Turgon bc of the name, but the meaning caused me instead to go for Turin. the card is actually one of the doodles added. i’m annoyed that glaurung looks like the cheshire cat but what can be done

- The Star - “ Loss, theft, privation, abandonment; another reading says--hope bright prospects, “

this is one of those serendipitous moments where the name association AND the meaning fit. this was totally Earendil and Elwing. my design for now has them looking down/watching over elrond and elros...

- The Moon - “Hidden enemies, danger, calumny, darkness, terror, deception, occult forces, error. “

This was totally Sauron. Specifically Annatar.

- The Sun - “ reflect happiness and contentment, vitality, self-confidence and success.“

I had no idea who to do this for. I mean. happy characters??? in the silmarillion???? ha. haha. hahahahaha.

i considered doing the men waking up... but idk... i went with Tuor (and Idril) at siphilemon’s suggestion. the doodle shows them seeing Valinor in the distance. but now i want idril to be the empress (and i dont want to repeat characters). so if anyone has a better idea, let me know.

(incidentally, I actually believe that idril and tuor never made it to valinor. i mean, sure i like it because i like everyone in the silm to be happy in the end, but if im serious serious i don’t think they did it. guess its a good thing that there are many silm versions :D)

- Judgement - “Judgement, Rebirth, Inner-calling, Absolution, Karma, Causality, Second chance”

dunno who this could be. if nothing else i’ll probably default to Mandos/Namo

- The World - “Assured success, recompense, voyage, route, emigration, flight, change of place.“

For this many characters could work... my first pick is Elros though. My idea has him sailing for Numenor.

- The Fool- “ Folly, mania, extravagance, intoxication, delirium, frenzy, bewrayment. “

who to do for this, i wondered? in the end i settled for Feanor. Specifically, the Fool(ish) Oath of Feanor. if anyone has any other idea though, im all ears

MAN THAT WAS LONG. did anyone read this far?? if so thank you~ ^-^ and if you have any ideas, let me know. (Specifically-- who should be the empress card, Aredhel or Idril? and if Idril, then what should the Sun card be? just tuor on his own, happy in Gondolin/Valinor?)

#silmarillion #The Silmarillion #silm tarot #silm #hhmmm #do i tag characters...#...#nah tumblr only tracks first five tags right #wip #silmarillion tarot

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naruhearts · 5 years

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Deep breaths...

Ok, I see that people (myself included — of course no one wants permanent trouble in paradise; no one wants lovers’ angst) are severely upset over the 14x18 promo of Dean yelling and being angry at Cas (plus this alternate version, which seems to make it more clear that Dean is actually addressing him).

I stood back and looked at this from various possible narrative/characteristic angles. This lovely fandom is in need of gentle reminders.

Firstly, most of us have speculated that Mary may be the one who dies, and now that 14x17′s aired alongside establishing the gloomy direction SPN’s narrative is heading towards re: TFW fracturing apart a final time, I definitely believe it’s her (I’ll watch 14x17 in full if I can sometime tomorrow). Calm before the storm, then the storm shall pass.

Secondly, we know that Dean Winchester has been conditioned since childhood to handle and confront grief in unhealthy ways — ineffectively compartmentalizing his emotions and bottling them up until they’re released in an explosive display of vitriolic upset words — and although he’s made fantastic progress in Season Who Am 14 (SO much good catharsis, positive growth and self-introspection on his part!!), this is another case of necessary regression.

Thirdly, if we are correct and Mary does die — killed by unifying TFW mirror Jack (who is now undergoing his Winchester Dark arc and poised to navigate his own dualism as a Nephilim: angelic nature vs human nurture) — Dean’s reaction to Cas not telling him about Jack’s condition makes sense. This can absolutely call back to S5/6 (6x20 in particular -> Cas resurrected a soulless Sam, and the repercussions of that, mirroring dark Jack’s own soullessness in S14, were dire; in S14 Cas is once again seeking his father WOW the Samulet!!) with grief-stricken heartbreak and betrayal being the one primary emotion funnelling through Dean’s hurt. Also recall Dean’s understandable cruelty towards Jack re: Cas’ death in S13. It’s a pattern not far outside the realm of Dean’s canon personality.

Without reiterating 6x20 as a whole, point is, Dean’s subtextual spouse wasn’t transparent with him. In fact, they still aren’t wholly honest WITH EACH OTHER (again, final regression before final progression), and the remaining threads of miscommunication should finally come to a head/culminate into a lesson for both of them.

6x20:

Dean finding out about Cas’ deal with the Empty can truly apply, too. It’s a painfully similar characteristic premise — the Lover’s Betrayal trope.

14x18:

Now, the core difference? Dean and Cas’ relationship is no longer the rocky distrustful one they had in S5/6 (amongst the growing subtextual pool of sexual attraction, which soon graduated from comic homoeroticism to serious romance in S7/8). It’s an inverted S5/6 redux, contrasting the Old vs New.

We’ve observed their tangible character development together onscreen, especially during the recent seasons of Dabb’s New Beginnings Era, where they deviate from dishonesty and learn to engage in better communication, trust, and mutual interdependence as a domestic unit; the subtext/narrative continue to frame Dean/Cas as overall solid and stable romantic partners — one is independent from the other yet their romance-grounded respect for their counterpart, of equal footing, is all-encompassing.

Destiel “have been through much together, you and I,” and I believe they are fully capable of moving past it. Emotional maturation, my friends. True love’s strength.

They’ll be okay. Dean’s feelings for Cas have undergone a drastic evolution since 2008: deep love and deep pain (yes @dotthings) go hand-in-hand. Do not forget canon, which speaks to Destiel’s resilience time and time again.

I can only hope, with a cautiously optimistic heart, that 14x18 — leading up to the S14 finale — emphasizes this as a final lover’s quarrel. It’s in-character and expected!! Trouble in paradise is temporary. Today’s SPN thrives on angst so that hope can be achieved. Personally, I choose to have faith...faith that Berens and Co will formulate a proper resolution for them, in that the Dean and Cas of S4-6 have been left behind. After all, this show ALWAYS throws curveballs, and it narratively fits if textual Destiel is the endgame!!

#destiel #my stuff #spn s14 speculation #spn s14 #14x17 #14x18 #deancas #the greatest love story ever told #narrative #subtext vs text #6x20 #my meta #supernatural #spn spoilers #parallels #bobo berens #new beginnings #endgame destiel #textual destiel

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dotthings · 5 years

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SPN 14.09

*does the called it dance*

There’s a dance party going on, I know a lot of people called it. I am un-shocked, but filled with evil glee. Er...I mean this is very painful and going to be painful and it’s going to be a lot of suffering but this is also a mood

All right who wants actual character thoughts now that I’m done flailing around screaming.

Is Cas...eating the cookie cereal? He’s eating the cookies. He’s making contented crunching noises. Cas doesn’t need to eat, but he’s eating. I feel like I said something recently about Cas becoming more human, slowly, oh right, it was about him actually being drunk in 14.07 on a few bottles when back in S5, even at low power, he needed an entire liquor store. Now he’s eating cookie crisps cereal. That scene was cute af, btw and ties back to what I’ve been saying about Jack’s increasing emotional IQ. He talked about worrying about his mom because of the threats to Heaven, and then brought up Castiel’s deal, because it worries him.

Oh, yes Sam and Dean can know about the deal but Cas doesn’t want them to so it won’t “burden them.” CASTIEL WINCHESTER YOU ARE NOT A BURDEN. Only no wait, but it is a burden and Cas realizes it and why it is a burden, because THEY CARE ABOUT HIM A LOT AND CAS KNOWS IT AND THAT IS WHY HE DOESN’T *WANT* THEM TO KNOW. As I said in my sneak peek commentary, it’s not anger or being caught out Cas fears. He simply doesn’t want to make them worry, make them sad, or scared, for him. He doesn’t want to be a burden but it’s too late, they all love him.

We’re inching more and more here towards Cas realizing just how much or he wouldn’t very specifically and deliberately be hiding this secret because he knows how much it will worry them and Sam and Dean will scramble to find a way out for him and fix it and it’s almost like Cas hates being the center of attention and worried over. He has to be the strong one, not the one who needs help. This is how Cas keeps going.

Dean and Cas in an actual junk-yard scene (ok technically a recycling facility), I am still not over this and never will be and all the things I already yelled about after the sneak peek was released. Dean and Cas starting far apart with the Impala as negative space between them, but not negative space because that’s one of the show’s biggest symbols of home, then moving closer and closer like magnets until their shoulders are brushing. Screw you Dean and Cas and your acting married body language.

Cas talking to Dean about how happy Dean seems, Cas looking super uncomfortable about not!telling Dean about the deal. I already posted about this but let me recap now that I’ve seen the whole ep--the “win” thing went right over Cas’s head because he doesn’t know, but the audience does. But Cas is mainly all about not!telling Dean about the deal and wow all my pre-game meta on this about Cas not wanting them to worry and that’s why he’s secretive got vocalized in the cereal eating scene in the kitchen. So. There you go.

Dean talking to Cas about what Sam and Cas went through when they were possessed in relation to his own experience, thank you Robert Berens for openly vocalizing, finally, Sam and Dean and Cas’s shared trauma, I have been waiting 84 years.

(Pausing to scream about the January promo which shows Sam and Cas going together into Dean’s mind. I LOVE SEASON 14).

Which btw now that I’ve brought that ep, Cas’s worry about Sam touchstoned several times in this ep gives me feelings. Dean and Cas were both worried about him...and then Sam and Cas are going to team to save Dean.

TFW and TFW 2.0 are both running concurrently strong in this season. There’s the interplay Sam, Dean, and Cas have, with its long seasons of history, and there’s the Sam-Dean-Cas-Jack, which is newer territory but slowly getting its hooks into my heart. They’re all valid, with their various relationships therein.

Garth, awww. Admittedly I was not warm on this character when he first showed up upteen seasons ago but he’s turned out to be a really great part of the SPN world and a good friend and thank goodness SPN didn’t kill him.

Sam and Garth friendship *draws hearts*.

Garth saying he’s doing this for his little girl is interesting, it’s him talking as part of his cover, but has a double meaning because it’s also 100% true he’s just lying about which side he’s really on. He is going dangerously undercover to help stop Michael, thinking of his child’s future, to protect the world. While we had Cas just last week sacrificing himself to save his son. Which echoed back to Jimmy Novak sacrificing himself for his daughter.

I like Sam and Jack working together, with Jack having taught himself lock-picking on the internet. For a moment I thought Jack was going to say Dean taught him and I was a little sorry it wasn’t that, but interesting Jack said “I like to keep myself useful”--that’s the Cas part of him talking. He is still trying to prove himself without his powers. Skipping ahead here as relevant--back to Jack’s slowly increasing emotional IQ and his character development. Because I was wondering if things would get to that, with Jack on strong enough footing to start looking after his dads, and it’s starting. He talks to Cas about the deal. Then when hyper-charged Garth knocks down Sam, Jack tackles him to save Sam. Which was stupid and brave, nobody hurts moose dad when Jack is around. Having been saved, and sacrificed for, Jack’s now moving more into a position of being part of the team, looking after others.

And not, note, taking on a parent role, but he is looking after his dads as they look after him. I am really curious in fact how Jack is going to talk about possessed Dean now. The arc about Jack’s knee jerk comment about Michael Dean early in the season has been addressed and resolved before this ep, and they’ve bonded a lot closer since...so I’d really like to see how Jack is going to deal with it.

I’m completely distracted by Dean and Cas inside the recycling facility looking for Dark Kaia and the spear, all of it, the way Dean and Cas move together, work together out in the field, which we don’t get to see enough of, I am transfixed. They have this silent rapport we’ve seen all the way back to late S7 at least and the BAMF power couple vibe going on, what with Dean’s strength as a hunter and Cas’s powers and warrior attitude and I’m just going to sit here and scream quietly to myself about that whole sequence for a minute.

And then they’re BICKERING oh my god so married shut up, until oops Kaia sticks the spear against Dean’s back and Cas just says “Dean” as a warning and he goes so incredibly still holy shit--with the point of that spear threatening Dean. Cas wants to surge forward and Dean waves him down. *yells a lot about Dean and Cas and their thing* Cas is so very protective of Dean here it’s doing things to me.

Dark Kaia’s little face is tugging at my heart. Who is it she’s protecting? Yes, why is she there, I need answers, I need to know what’s the link with her and Kaia. I need more of this please. S14 being what it is I think I’ll get it, just not right now.

The TFW 2.0 power walk set to Ode to Joy. I FEEL SO CALLED OUT RIGHT NOW.

Badass Dean having the moves with that spear, after being a goofball with it in the garage...I think there really isn’t a weapon Dean can’t use, pick up quickly how to use, plus he’s used similar weapons and adrenaline, he instinctively could use the spear. He’s not as good as Kaia, and guess what people, it is 150% okay he’s not as good as Kaia with that spear, he’s not supposed to be. Kaia has thousands of hours with that spear and Dean doesn’t, but look how good Dean is instinctually.

Ouch my Dean feelings. Well I’ve been saying and saying the Michael Dean story wasn’t over and here we are and like many people ran with the sleeper agent/back door hack theory and here we are. The snap. Good god damn Jensen is excellent. And TFW 2.0 looks as ragged and stunned as the last Avengers standing.

So Michael has access to all of Dean’s memories. And Dean just “wouldn’t stop squirming.” Because of his ties to his family.

To you...to all of you.

For me and Jack, and family.

You’re going to bring him back...you’re going to bring ‘em all back.

I love you...I love all of you.

And you really can’t dismiss Destiel here while saying w*ncest is valid, because then you’d have to say the Destiel is valid. But the fact of the matter is these are different kinds of relationships, in canon. It makes sense that Sam got a more singular shout-out but then Michael adds the “all of you.” Sam is the most constant figure in Dean’s life and he is closest to Sam on a lot of levels. There’s bound to be a lot of Sam in Dean’s brain. But it’s not just about Sam.

This is something SPN keeps underscoring in triple day-glo yellow highlighter. Nor does it fit to claim that because of this scene, therefor it proves Sam is the only most important one because in other storylines, Cas has also been demarcated out as different/unique in how Dean feels about him. BTW, seeing a romantic reading for Destiel doesn’t mean having to then say oh w*ncest is then therefore canon, because it’s just not, and those relationships are written completely differently. The canon undercurrents are completely different. Sam and Dean’s bond is what it is, and it’s strong, it is platonic and intended as platonic, while Destiel is...ambiguous in intent, in canon. For non-shippers, say the relationships are brothers, and like-brothers, and leave it there. It really is more complicated than that on the Destiel front, but I talk about that plenty in other posts, right now, I’m really thinking uppermost about Dean and his family. Sam isn’t the only one tethering Dean and keeping him fighting inside Michael. That was for all of them. So this was a bro bond shout-out that landed at TFW 2.0.

And look what’s in the promo...Sam and Cas going together into Dean’s mind to try to save him. Dean’s closest to Sam, Cas is close to Dean in other ways. They both have a bond with Dean that is unique and strong and I’m just going to have to go sob in the corner that SPN is really going to do that and have them go in together and poke around in Dean’s mind to pull him out of this. Using the same method Dean used to go into Mary’s mind. *small keening noise*

Also I refuse to accept Dean is really as down and out in there as Michael claims. But maybe he’s buried himself deep in some sort of happy mental spaces. Which is something I was thinking about before the season started, and then they didn’t show us and I let it go but maybe it’s going there after all.

#supernatural #team free will 2.0 #meta #supernatural spoilers #sam winchester #dean winchester #castiel #jack kline #garth fitzgerald iv #dark kaia #Sam and Dean: a work in progress #sam and cas #destiel #michael

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douxreviews · 5 years

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Five Potential Storylines for Amazon's Lord of the Rings Series

Ever since it was announced that Amazon was making a (very expensive) series based on J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, speculation has been rife about what the whole damn thing would actually be about.

For a long time the popular theory was that the series would chronicle the adventures of a young Aragorn. This left a lot of people depressed. The king ranger formerly known as Strider may be one of the franchise's most beloved characters, but no one was excited about seeing a show about his teenage years. Thankfully, all this Adventures of Young Aragorn nonsense was put to bed when the show's official Twitter account slowly revealed that it would in fact be set in the Second Age of Middle-Earth, thousands of years before Aragorn was even born.

The Second Age is not one that is covered extensively in Tolkien's witting. The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings depicted events from the end of the Third Age, while all the works edited and published posthumously by Christopher Tolkien, such as The Silmarillion, The Children of Húrin, Beren and Lúthien, and The Fall of Gondolin, mainly deal with events from before and during the First Age. Most of what we know about the Second Age comes from the Appendixes from The Lord of the Rings and the final two parts of The Silmarillion, which is mostly just a recap of the major events. So a lot of people are rather excited about this opportunity to delve deeper into a mostly untouched part of Middle-Earth lore. Assuming, that is, it remains respectful to Tolkien's work.

While Amazon has nicely told when this show will be set, we're still utterly clueless regarding what it will actually be about. The Second Age lasted for a rather long time, 3,441 years to be exact, and in that time many wars were fought and many kingdoms rose and fell. There's a (lonely) mountain's worth of potential stories for them to choose from. But, based on what limited material has been released so far, I have a very strong feeling that these are the ones that the show will likely cover over its proposed five seasons.

Warning: If you want to go into this show completely spoiler free, don't read any further, because I'm going to talk in detail about the major events of the Second Age including the fates of certain characters.

The Forging of the Rings of Power

The maps Amazon released in the build up to the reveal about the Second Age setting each came with a different verse from the Ring rhyme:

Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone Nine for Mortal Men doomed to die One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all, and in the darkness bind them In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie

The final map showed Middle-Earth at the beginning of the Second Age complete with the island of Númenor and, perhaps more importantly, the Elven kingdom of Eregion. Why is Eregion more important? I'll tell you. You see, it was in Eregion where the Rings of Power, save for the One Ring, were originally forged by the elf smith Celebrimbor with the help of a bloke named Annatar, who called himself the Lord of Gifts and claimed to be an emissary of the Valar, who were essentially the gods of Middle-Earth. This was all a lie. He was actually Sauron in disguise.

The use of the rhyme and the inclusion of Eregion on the map strongly suggests that the show will cover, in some part, the making of the rings as well as Sauron's rise to power. Which makes sense if they still want to call it The Lord of the Rings. This could also be our first chance to see Sauron as an actual character rather than a special effect. During this time he still had his original form, and often took on a "fair" appearance to trick people into doing his bidding. So, yeah, prepare yourselves for people being thirsty for hot Sauron.

The War of the Elves and Sauron

Once the other nineteen Rings of Power were made, Sauron returned to Mordor and forged the One Ring. When he put it on the Elves became aware of who he really was and hid the other Rings from him. This started a war between Sauron and the Elves, led by High King Gil-Galad, that resulted in the destruction of Eregion, the death of Celebrimbor and the almost complete defeat of the Elves of Middle-Earth. Only the last minute intervention of Númenor saved them from total destruction. If the show is going to cover the making of the Rings, it is only natural that it will then feature the war that followed. Amazon wants this series to be their Game of Thrones so they are going to want lots of action and epic battles. Hopefully they won't want lots of sex too, because that is sure to piss off the Tolkien purists.

The Origins of the Nazgûl

Since the show is almost certain to cover the forging of the Rings of Power, it stands to reason that we'll get to see who they are given to. This means we might get an answer to one of the great mysteries of Tolkien's mythology – just who the hell were the Nazgûl? Almost nothing is known about who the Nine Ringwraiths were before they all fell under Sauron's power. Three were possibly Númenóreans and one was an Easterling king named Khamûl, but apart from that nothing else is known about them. If Tolkien had any idea what their real identities were, he never mentioned it in any of his writing, at least nothing that has been released. This show could finally answer that question. Of course, that means we have to accept risk that the answer may disappoint.

The Decline and Fall of Númenor

As I said earlier, Amazon is setting this up as the potential successor to Game of Thrones, which means as well as action and battles they'll also wants tons of political scheming and backstabbing. Well, they'll certainly get all that from Númenor, Tolkien's take on the Atlantis myth.

The Second Age is sometimes called the Age of Númenor. The island nation was the dominant political and military power of that age. But as its power grew, Númenor became increasingly corrupt. Although blessed with lifespans three times that of normal humans, the people of Númenor grew resentful of the Elves and their immortality and turned against them and the Valar (the gods of Middle-Earth). The island became divided between the Faithful, a pro-Valar faction, and the King's Men, the anti-Valar faction. Sauron took advantage of this schism and allowed himself to be taken to Númenor as a prisoner, where he set to work destroying the nation from within. He convinced the people to worship Melkor (the first Dark Lord and Sauron's former master during the First Age) and to wage war against the Valar by invading their homeland in the west. The invasion was an utter catastrophe that resulted in the complete destruction of Númenor.

Now this is where adapting these stories gets tricky. Because the Second Age was so long many of the major events are centuries or even millennia apart. There's at least 1,500 years between the forging of the One Ring and the fall of Númenor. If the show is looking to cover all of these, it will either have to employ some pretty big time jumps or condense all the action so that all these events overlap. The latter seems the more sensible option as it would allow the show to hold on to the same human characters for its duration.

The War of the Last Alliance

If the show is going to start with Sauron making the One Ring, it's only natural that it should end with him losing it.

After the destruction of Númenor, the Faithful, led by Elendi and his sons Isildur and Anárion, fled to Middle-Earth, where they founded the kingdoms of Arnor in the north and Gondor in the south. Although his body was destroyed, Sauron's spirit also survived the fall and soon returned to Mordor and the One Ring. Once he'd fully regained his strength he attacked Gondor forcing King Gil-galad to form the Last Alliance of Men and Elves, which also included dwarves and other creatures so really should've been called the Last Alliance of Men and Elves and Dwarves and Other Creatures, but that isn't as catchy. The War of the Last Alliance is the ideal ending point for this series. It marks the end of the Second Age, the defeat of the main villain (if temporary), the death of most of the major characters, and sets the stage nicely for what eventually happens in The Lord of the Rings.

Mark Greig has been writing for Doux Reviews since 2011

#The Lord of the Rings #LOTR #J.R.R. Tolkien #Sauron #Middle-Earth #Amazon #LOTRonPrime #Doux Reviews #Doux Five

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elizabethrobertajones · 6 years

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I was wondering if you could pls describe (or show me some tags if its easier) the traits of some writers of spn..? I usually hear "X writer usually writes more sam" or "this strucutre is usual in X's episodes" but I've never been able to pick on those; the only ones I've been able to pick up are bucklmming and its beacuse they are somehow instantly bad :/ ps. u dont have to like explain EVERY single writer or anything, just general things that you know or notice in their respective episodes

Hiya :D

Yeah, it’s a thing that’s really, like, aside from Buckleming being bad and coming with a warning notice that we’re all helpless, please don’t burn the fandom down after their episodes, it’s not really more than nerdy interest that means anything about knowing who the writers are, so in that sense you have the toolkit you need to function :P

Buuut from my very very deeply nerdy and writery observations through what is now more than a decade (eep) of watching this bloody thing…

The show starts with a Generic Tone, and most of the original writers have this tone. This is in NO WAY a bad thing, but of all the writers, you have to really delve to connect common themes in their episodes, and for many of the writers who didn’t endure out of seasons 1-5, we don’t really have a clear profile on their habits, for reasons I’ll get to.

We can see Sera Gamble’s fingerprints a bit more because we get 2 seasons of her as a showrunner, but by and large as one of the original writers, she really sets the tone so her writing IS Supernatural, as much as Kripke or John Shiban or Raelle Tucker or Cathryn Humphries and whoever else wrote multiple episodes seasons 1-5. They have things they might like but dropping into a random early episode doesn’t give much away because they had a much tighter playbook.

1x13 shows this because despite serious, painful hindsight of all the things they do wrong that we recognise NOW from seasons of their nonsense, Buckleming wrote far more to the brief than they ever do these days; the difference in style has to be almost entirely attributed to being a first season and close creative control and enforced use of a playbook that disguised a ton of their worst habits which go unchecked these days, and @justanotheridijiton has dug up evidence of them cheerfully commenting on writing in such a way into deep history >.> Despite it being technically their best episode, they were fired and given a 6 year writing ban until Kripke left. So I’m guessing it was fairly obvious they had these problems regardless.

Of all these writers in the early seasons, Edlund pops up in season 2, and he is a wild card with a personality, and he does not write ~generic SPN~ and never did: it’s always Edlund SPN and it gels perfectly with the slightly less technicolour SPN, frequently breaking the format and creating the modern version of SPN… If he does comic it’s Bad Day at Black Rock and if he does deep it’s On The Head Of A Pin, and if you look at what he wrote, very very few of his episodes are duds, because he has a brain swirling deep with interesting and bizarre nonsense. He’s also the biggest Cas stan ever.

Jeremy Carver pre-Carver era helped, which I think is why he gets to be part of Carver Edlund - we have 3 and a half years of his showrunning to know what fascinated him, so I’ll just say, in his very first episode in season 3, he alludes to Cain and Abel for the first time. He’s very big on narrative structure being used in fascinating ways, and his episodes are all very technically accomplished, but the downfall was that by the end he was writing narrative symbolism as a sort of withered husk of his former self with no emotion whatsoever, just hitting storytelling marks. 11x01 is the single most depressing episode to me in terms of “this is the man who wrote Mystery Spot and Changing Channels”

Fortunately, and I’m skipping over a ton of writers to tell this story, but could go back and talk about more of the interesting ones in between, if you watch 11x01 and 11x02 back to back, they work perfectly as a single episode and it’s like after the break all the life and emotion and intrigue is breathed back into the show in a rush of colour and character. Now, Dabb is one of the OG writers in my standards, in the sense that he and Loflin showed up in season 4, and to this day Dabb’s writing to me still shows a touch of writing within the original SPN playbook as a writer who CAN write alongside Kripke, Gamble, etc, and chameleon into the background as not writing Dabbnatural, but writing Supernatural. To me this is a part of his strength when it comes to story and why he and originally Loflin shot up the ranks in Gamble era to the point where they wrote 7x23, and from there Dabb always wrote the second, middle and last episode in a second-in-command writer role, which, now we hit season 14, means that’s half the length of the show he’s been clearly estimated as one of the powerhouses.

Because he had a co-writer for 4 years, originally you might think that it’s hard to tell what he is and isn’t writing, but he and Loflin split up, I hope just to ease empty seats in the writer room, and we get 2 Loflin episodes which betray a few of his weaknesses when it comes to story/structure/pace, but reveal he was the quippier, funnier, more manic one of the two. Like, I’d say Plucky’s (my no joke favourite episode) is probably something where he would have steered it more than Dabb :P But Dabb meanwhile, writing alone, writes 8x08 which is also funny but in a very sublime way based on situation and framing etc which makes us laugh without breaking up the story for quips so much as coming from character, such as “it’s a shortened version of my name”, “stop smelling the dead guy, Cas,” and ALL the uses of cartoon effects as part of the embedded storytelling. It’s like his resume for considering what he can do as a solo writer and he blows it out of the water.

Dabb is very good at characters who might have brief one off appearances, like, even within a scene, but still have a bunch of unique personality, as well as excellent handling of the main characters, and he can write some killer speeches and emotional pleas and stuff. He’s also absolutely filled with callbacks and repeats and narrative loops, and he started this on a smaller level, either to his own episodes, or dutifully doing his job to foreshadow and build the mytharc, but in Dabb era, this has turned into absolutely exploding the show’s callbacks into a weird fractal of meanings, which I think works wonderfully for supporting a 14 year old show on its own legs, because each callback and loop goes in a different, often wild direction, but still at the same time has an emotional continuity and truth to the story based on the story predecessors. The fact he writes like this is of no surprise to meta writers who’ve been keeping tabs on him far longer than I have. In fact, a combination of all Dabb’s strengths put to work versus his One Weakness, his kryptonite, is a terrible story of Lizzy’s hubris of not paying attention to the show and a hard learned lesson :P

After 10x21 I was utterly bereft and hated the show for what it had done, but I was gonna keep watching, as sarcastically and eye-rollingly as I could, and 10x22 started to deliver in spades. Dean drove ALL THE WAY down south and back, somehow missing Cas tailing him (without a car, we later learned) and all while Sam was on an urgent timeline to get things done before Dean got back… driving an hour back and forth in the immediate vicinity of the Bunker. The last times we see Sam are Urgent Driving Montages to get there in time while he’s basically coming from up the street, and meanwhile, Dean and Cas have logged like 20 hours of driving plus farting around murdering people, and I was GLEEFULLY tearing this episode to SHREDS for its car continuity, like, HOWLING with laughter.

Anyway I took a break to get some tea and came back ready to eye-roll through the end of the episode, hit play, and walked smack into the DeanCas confrontation and dramatic speeches about everyone you love could be dead, except me, and accidentally got so tense and enraptured that I spilled an entire mug of scalding tea down my front when Dean attacked Cas and I jumped out of my skin and screamed and then yelled again because OH YEAH I WAS HOLDING TEA, and from that day on I have A: loathed Dabb for his car continuity and B: always kept my eye on that fucker and when it’s his episode and what he’s up to… Once burned etc…

Dabb’s squad are awesome though. Obviously excluding buckleming, and I think with all the bingos and complaining you know what to look for in their episodes :D

Berens has been around since season 9, which makes him a veteran in remaining writers terms, just because Carver era had an en masse leaving when contracts were up (no hard feelings, just bad timing and Berens had been newer than all of them at one point :P) Berens is another writer I think can occasionally dip into pretending to be generic SPN on some mytharc episodes but he’s just obviously not been around in ye olde days, and joined in the time when, through Gamble era and then Carver in spades, the MotW writers in particular really fell into a new style of writing the show that I absolutely adore, which is where the individual episodes rather than mytharc stuff were increasingly left to the writers to do whatever they wanted with, and become more and more writing style and structure etc as standalone canvasses for your own skills, personality, etc. Because you CAN’T keep writing the same SPN episode over and over and over, and if one of the season 1 writers came back and wrote a season of season 1 style episodes, they’d be stiflingly boring, in tone and range, compared to what we have now. To keep people interested after so long, quirkiness and the ideas that an individual writer brings to the table as THEMSELVES, becomes increasingly the only way forward to keep the show fresh. Season 4 onwards began to have more of this, and Edlund had been doing it since his first episode anyway, but to me season 6 has very specific feeling tones for the episodes, while season 7 and Robbie Thompson’s arrival in particular start to set the tone for allowing the writers to be adventurous, and to me season 7 is the shift to the style of season we had from then onwards.

I think Berens episodes feel quite muted and cleverly restrained, but really really intelligent behind that. He’s written some incredible episodes that turn the season on the head while being standalones, and his run of 14th episode being where things were knocked out of the park but on a small stage, like, conflicts in a storage unit, barn, submarine, the BMoL hq and an abandoned hotel, all have devastating and dramatic emotional consequences while still somehow seeming understated and natural, quiet, almost, in the sense of what they turn on - looks and small agreements and emotional revelations etc. He doesn’t do fun and loud and flashy very often, and he delves very serious themes of suicide and depression, so I read his episodes and quiet, powerful, and very very pointed and driven and well-constructed to get to that point. His back and forth between scenes for dramatic irony is one of the biggest features I enjoy and identify, and that was an overall theme in season 13, on a much bigger level. 13x21 and Sam’s death, and, well, the whole thing really, was a wonderful example of the tension he can hold you in this way. Also: proof he CAN have fun but only when it’s super gay :P

I think Meredith Glynn gels really well with his writing, to the point where they co-wrote an episode within her first year on the show and then she took over the 14th episode slot for the first time since Berens got to the show and wrote an excellent episode that you could have told me was one of his and I’d have believed you, since it was structurally very very similar to any of his episode 14s which I have legit started seeing as a subgenre of the show in my own weird brain sorting way :P She has a great deal more fun though. She accidentally made the Worst Timed Episode Ever In The History Of Anything with 12x05 and I think got off on the wrong foot with fandom, but since then every episode has been an improvement on the last, and she’s had some absolutely wild rides, with 13x08 being I think her masterpiece overall, though Gog and Magog are funnier as an individual set piece :P

Her writing is playful and fun and shows a deep care for the character histories and how they affect them - 12x11 is hard to believe is someone’s 2nd episode if you don’t think the new writers did their homework, because she absolutely guts Dean, and throws in a Rowena backstory freebie along with, AND handles Sam handling Dean with perfect ups and downs and brotherly affection and horror etc. I also think her Gabriel episode is the best Gabriel episode ever, for him as a character, and in terms of fun, the unholy combination of her writing and Speight directing and acting and also acting was utterly unbelievable. 10/10 would use as the episode to drag friends back to the show if they only saw seasons 1-5... It’s not even comparable with her other episodes, because she seriously levelled up as a writer while doing it. I can’t wait to see what she is up to next season :D

Davy Perez is like the dark side of the coin of Glynn, where he is fun but dark as fuck, and 13x11 has the best example of that with his cheery music-playing serial killers, but it’s an attitude he’s had all along. He does his best with Buckleming characters they do their worst with, so he singlehandedly made me think things for Crowley weren’t going to be as bad as they were in season 12 with 12x12/15 and he absolutely was the only person to give Ketch and Asmodeus anything resembling an interesting dynamic in 13x17. 12x12 was an absolute masterpiece of non-linear writing, which requires a good brain to do and then he made it funny AND all while ripping off tarantino but in SPN and not making it corny and writing Cas and Crowley’s most dramatic love confessions… 12x04 was my personal reassurance that Dabb era was going to care about Sam again after Carver neglected to deal with his shit for 4 years while dumping on him in the narrative, and Davy betrays the old Gamble sam girl traits of doing stuff like tying him up and telling us in the same breath his heart is worth 100x its weight in gold :P

His episodes are wacky and fun in a way that draws blood and makes you seriously fear for the characters, even ones you think are fine and can’t possibly die in that episode, and his darkness frequently takes what looks like it could have been a Buckleming brief and makes you care about the characters they’ve been mauling all season in their own mis-applied love of writing the villains. You NEED someone who loves writing the villains, and Davy has a real relish to it that doesn’t woobify or jerk off to their evilness, it just makes them raw and scary to the point where you might actually believe Asmodeus is threatening for half a second, or that Crowley could win season 12, or to sell us on Ketch having a glimmer of a soul.

As for Yockey… I don’t know where Dabb found him but thank GOODNESS he did because sometimes you just need to take a random gay playwright with minimal TV experience, throw them into your writers room, and say, here, go nuts. Yockey has written like half a SPN episode and multiple literal excellent stage plays that are somehow on screen with our characters, which got to the point where in 13x19 I wrote like 40k episode notes while openly weeping because my Literature degree was being yanked so hard :P His nonsense often has multiple amazing side characters, like, sometimes a LOT of amazing side characters, and he knows how to make them all work. He literally has rude mechanicals like in 13x19 and the poor drunk angel. Shakespearean tropes. If you’re ever watching a SPN episode and it’s like why is this person writing for us and not a world famous literary darling? then it’s probably a Yockey episode. I am still struggling with how to handle it, and describe what’s going on, and all I can think is of 12x10 where an article about it literally was like, here is every single episode Cas has ever been in, and how this episode pulled on it and turned it into magic gold. Like, now 4x16 and 6x20 are the straw that Yockey turns to gold. I am too emotionally compromised to write something coherent and non-fangirlish about Yockey because he’s like, #writergoals in a totally bananas set the bar as high as the moon kind of way. He’s got that rare once in a generation talent and dammit I think he counts as my generation, so there goes my chance to be that person :P

And he’s writing for fucking Supernatural.

#Asks

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postmodernmulticoloredcloak · 6 years

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What’s in a title

*arrives 15 hours late with Starbucks*

Interestingly, the titles of 14x01 and 14x02 (in case you’ve missed it - Stranger In A Strange Land and Gods And Monsters) have similar routes: they’re quotes used as titles for other pieces of media and also titles of unrelated songs. Supernatural has a history of using song titles as episode titles, so it would be quick to pick the songs as the inspiration for these episode titles, but... not so fast. I am not saying that the “correct” source of the titles is the source that has something to do with queerness, but I do believe that Supernatural makes a strength out of polysemy (as irritating as it can get sometimes), so let me just drop these few pieces of information here. You draw your own conclusions.

“Stranger in a strange land” is a song by Iron Maiden and its lyrics seem to be obviously relevant to Dean’s situation as we’ve left him at the end of 13x23. Just check out the lyrics (under the cut at the end of this post, for your convenience) and you’ll see it.

But originally, the expression is a Biblical quote: it’s from Exodus 2:22, spoken by Moses during his time away from Egypt.

The quote has been used as the title of Robert A. Heinlein’s 1961 science fiction novel Stranger In A Strange Land. It’s a book about sexuality and spirituality/religion (the author called it “a Cabellesque satire on religion and sex”), and apparently there is Heaven and angels/archangels. Coincidentally, the main character of the book is called Michael/Mike.

This article by Cathy Lowne offers a quick summary and a brush of the themes. Also: as you can expect, the book is problematic, but it is also very interesting to read this article about the “queerness” (not really as in LGBT+ but as in the idea of the social construction of sexuality) of the book. It was written during the 50s (coincidentally, it seems that it took 13 years for the author to complete the book, a fit choice for the title of the first episode of the show’s 14th season...). I’ve also gathered that in the book Martians do not have a sex binary (male/female), and there’s the culture the main character grows in before learning about the culture on Earth.

More about themes (sexuality but also Mike as a Christ figure and the corruption of institutions) here, and an article about the book as a Messiah story and the theme of faith in it here.

“Gods And Monsters” is a song by Lana Del Rey, whose lyrics are also relevant from our point of view. It literally starts with “In the land of gods and monsters I was an angel living in the garden of evil” and ends with “innocence lost” so you can see a bit of relevance if you squint. (Lyrics also under the cut.)

But of course there’s more to the expression, and it’s where it gets queer. (Is Bobo Berens writing the episode, btw?) The expression (“To a new world of gods and monsters!”) is used in the 1935 movie The Bride Of Frankenstein, directed by James Whale. Apparently one of Guillermo Del Toro’s favorite movies, it is, unsurprisingly, a movie rich in religious imagery, sexual undertones, homosexual subtext - you can read a review here. The review also mentions the movie titled Gods And Monsters, a fictionalized biographical movie about the director of The Bride Of Frankenstein, James Whale.

Gods And Monsters is a 1998 movie starring Ian McKellen, one of the first movies (the first Hollywood movie?) to star an openly gay actor in the role of a gay character, in fact, a gay man in Hollywood in an age where pretty much no one was out in Hollywood. The movie features the last days of the life of Whale, now retired, old and suicidal as he faces depression and illness. Let me offer you these few articles that I made the great effort of finding on the first page of results on google (I’m sorry but my reserve of spoons is limited). The movie is the story of a man at the end of his life, and deals with loneliness, connections, memories, retirement, death. See for yourself if these themes ring any bell.

Now, the lyrics of the songs under the cut.

Stranger in a Strange Land - Iron Maiden

Was many years ago that I left home and came this way I was a young man, full of hope and dreams But now it seems to me that all is lost and nothing gained Sometimes things ain't what they seem No brave new world, no brave new world No brave new world, no brave new world

Night and day I scan horizon, sea and sky My spirit wanders endlessly Until the day will dawn and friends from home discover why Hear me calling, rescue me Set me free, set me free Lost in this place, and leave no trace

Stranger in a strange land Land of ice and snow Trapped inside this prison Lost and far from home

One hundred years have gone and men again they came that way To find the answer to the mystery They found his body lying where it fell all that day Preserved in time for all to see No brave new world, no brave new world Lost in this place, and leave no trace

What became of the man that started All are gone and their souls departed Left me here in this place So all alone

Gods & Monsters - Lana Del Rey

In the land of gods and monsters, I was an angel. Living in the garden of evil, Screwed up, scared, doing anything that I needed. Shining like a fiery beacon, You got that medicine I need Fame, liquor, love, give it to me slowly. Put your hands on my waist, do it softly. Me and God we don’t get along, so now I sing.

No one’s gonna take my soul away, Living like Jim Morrison. Headed towards a fucked up holiday. Motel, sprees, sprees, and I’m singing, Fuck yeah give it to me, this is heaven, what I truly want It's innocence lost. Innocence lost.

In the land of gods and monsters, I was an angel, lookin' to get fucked hard. Like a groupie incognito posing as a real singer, Life imitates art You got that medicine I need Dope, shoot it up straight to the heart please I don't really wanna know what's good for me God's dead, I said 'baby that's alright with me'.

When you talk it's like a movie and you're making me crazy, 'Cause life imitates art. If I get a little prettier, can I be your baby? You tell me life isn't that hard.

No one’s gonna take my soul away, I'm living like Jim Morrison. Headed towards a fucked up holiday. Motel, sprees, sprees, and I’m singing, Fuck yeah, give it to me, this is heaven, what I truly want. It's innocence lost. Innocence lost.

#paratext #spn spoilers #spn 14x01 #spn 14x02 #spn

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nerdylittleshit · 7 years

Text

Thoughts about Spn 12x10

SPOILERS! SPOILERS! SPOILERS!

I have a lot of feelings about this. Also Steve Yockey might be my new favourite writer next to the Dabb and Bobo Berens. So, let’s take a closer look at this.

Lily Sunders

First of all, I really like the way this character was portrayed. And that they didn’t made her into a monster, but instead told us her story, her real story, and through that made us understand why she wanted revenge. And it’s a very legitime reason. Which creates a moral dilemma for Sam and Dean here. Because they get it, and if it wasn’t for Cas they might have didn’t intervene and let Lily get her revenge. So their approach is yet again a non-violent one. They try to talk to her, reason with her. After deciding not to kill the soldiers in 12x09 because they were just doing their jobs and Dean solving the Amara-Chuck-conflict in 11x23 through talking, this becomes a theme.

But Cas is their family. And when they met the other angels from Cas’s old flight and he tells them the reason why Lily wants to kill those angels they are painfully reminded of the way Cas used to be. Still, I think the way Sam and Dean cared so obvious about Cas and tried to help him and reason with Lily might be one of the reasons Lily didn’t kill him. She knows through Akobel that not all angels are bad. And speaking of Akobel: he was such a strong Cas parallel. An angel whose mission it was to observe humanity but instead he fell in love with a human. So Lily recognizes the same kind of devoution Akobel had for her with Sam and Dean and knows that Cas must have changed.

I also think that Lily worked as a parallel for Sam. Both believed in angels all their life, but when they finally got in contact with them they soon realized how evil and conflicted they can be. Both are associated with magic - Lily used it to give her strength and youth, Sam is usually the one who comes up with spells. And just when we think, hey Enochian magic sounds cool, we lern it comes with a prize: losing your soul piece after piece. And well, Sam knows a thing or two about losing your soul (and of course Lily lost an eye in the process - they are the windows to the soul after all).

The angels

I’m always so excited when we meet new angels, because we kind of never know what we get (good guy or bad guy?) and we still learn something new from them.

So, let’s talk about Benjamin here. We first see him playing “Rampage”. According to Wikipedia its a play about monsters (who were formerly human) trying to survive against military forces. Sounds familar? Angels are described as monsters in this episode, taking a formerly human vessel, trying to survive on earth. And speaking of vessels: I think this the first time we heard of an angel thinking of its vessel as a friend. (And the way Cas said friend it kind sounded like more than just a friend???) Normaly angels don’t seem to care a lot about their vessel. In seson 9 we saw countless angels taking whatever vessel they could get, even it kille some of the humans. The only other angel who cared about her vessel was Hannah. (And Cas in a way, but since Jimmy was already dead, he tried to redeem himself towards Claire.) Cas also reminds Dean that Benjamin was no woman, but his vessel was, and I think it is fair to assume angels are indeed genderless. But this tells us a lot about Dean, who humanized Cas since the beginning, and always applied a gender to him. (*shippergoogleson* Which makes his attraction to Cas so complicated because he sees Cas as a man, when in fact he isn’t, and not a woman as well, or even human *shippergooglesoff*) Also kudos to the show for showing us Cas in a female vessel.

Back to the game Benjamin was playing: I wondered a bit about this, why an angel would do this/find enterainment in it. But it kinda reminded me of Cas bingewatching Netflix. Maybe it was a way for Benjamin to distract him as well, a mundane game to fill the void an angel without a mission felt.

The other angels (well, mostly Ishim) were there to remind us what Cas has done, his standing among other angels, and to question his loyality and identity. I think Cas wants to seperate his (former) angel family and his new family that he found in the Winchesters. Previously whenever he had to deal with angel business he did it on his own. This time though Sam and Dean come along. And despite what Dean said not because they are worried Cas does something stupid again, but because they are worried. They’ve met enough angels and know how they think of Cas to be suspicious. And after all, whatever Cas’s problem is is theirs as well; they are family.

This of course creates the great conflict of this episode: the question where Cas belongs. Both sides question Cas why he cares about the other. To Ishim humans are beneath him, they are apes. He thinks Cas doesn’t owe Sam and Dean an explanation of what happened or that they should get involved at all. And that whatever bond formed between them weakended Cas (the way Lily weakened him).

Sam and Dean though don’t get why Cas allows Ishim to talk to him like that, calling him weak and fallen. Cas doesn’t care as long as he is able to might save the remaining angels (because of course in true Cas fashion he blames himself for it and in the end is the only one who shows remorse and apologizes). Though I wished Dean would have told Ishim that Cas has indeed a family and home with them, thank you very much.

And then we had some great plot-twist with the nephilim that wasn’t a nephilim after all. It was a good way to bring thi topic back, though it never really left. We start the episode with Dean trying to find new leads on Kelly (and could it be that the powers of her unborn child help her to disappear?), and end with the brothers talking about it. But what the episode did was to bring back the moral dilemma of it. We hear Lily’s story and even in the first fake version we feel pity for her and that her child didn’t deserve to die. And is Kelly’s situation any different? Even though an archangels child is more powerfull, at the end it is like Sam said: a mother and her child. So we either go the route of non violent conflict solving again (though the British MoL will disagree) or the nephilim does something bad enough the Winchesters have no other choice than to kill it. They also talk about the mix of grace and a human soul, and that that is what makes the nephilim so powerfull. We know that both things alone - angelic grace, a human soul - contain a lot of power. Combining both is like a nuclear bomb. But we know that angels leave some of their grace in a human vessel when they leave it (Gadreel did so with Sam) and some fans headcanon Cas left some of his grace in Dean when he rescued him from hell. So does the grace mix with the soul in those instances as well?

But back to Ishim and his obsession for Lily. Though from his side it was love. And that is yet another ongoing theme: false love. We had it in season 11 with Amara confusing her feelings for Chuck with love for Dean, and this season with Rosaleen’s and Lucifer’s false love in 12x07, or the false love of Magda’s mother in 12x04 (and at some point I might write a proper meta about this, because it leads us to the question how real love looks like). If Akobel worked as a mirror for Cas then Ishim does as well, but as a dark mirror. Like I said Ishim thinks his love/obsession for Lily made him weak and thinks the same happens to Cas, when instead Cas tells him his relationship to Sam and Dean made him stronger. Ishim thought of Lily as his human weakness and killed the one person she loved most in the world: her daughter. And he considers Dean to be Cas human weakness and in order to punish Cas he wants to kill Dean. If we see Ishim’s love for Lily as romantic (and I think it was intended as this) it means Ishim thought of Cas’s love for Dean as romantic as well. Also this line:

You know why we're meant to stay away from them humans? Hmm? It's not because we're a danger to them. They're a danger to us.

Because humans corrupt. They make angels start to question their orders, their existence. They make angels feel. Not just love, but also pain. Lily broke Ishim’s heart, so he broke hers.

Also, Ishim calls Cas a spanner in the works. Which of course are the exact words Naomi used, so I don’t think this was a coincidence. Did he work for/with Naomi? Lily said he is a big name up in heaven after all.

And at last that abandoned church was one of the most beautiful sets that had lately. And I think it is intersting that Ishim used a church as a safe house. I feel like there might be some connection between churches and angels: the first episode that mentioned angels (2x13) takes place in a church. They first encounter Anna in a church (I think her human father was a deacon). And human!Cas seeked chelter in a church in 9x03. Someone write some meta about this.

The Winchesters

So Mary is hunting again. This gives the show a good excuse why is not around. And the reason she didn’t ask her sons for help is because she might already work for the British MoL and knows they won’t be happy about it.

Also Dean and Cas give each other the silent treatment and Sam is awkwardly stuck in the middle of it. And let me tell you, I loved every single minute of it (especially the moment Dean stormed into the diner like a jealous boyfriend) . This was such a classic example of Anger Born of Worry. For Dean Cas action at the end of 12x09 and his speech are a painfull reminder just how much Cas loves him. And Dean can’t deal with it. Because who is he to deserves such love? To let Cas put himself in such danger just to save him? And what Cas said at the end, that he doesn’t regret his decision even if it costs him his life, made me worried. Because right now Cas really doesn’t care if he lives or not. He cares about the Winchesters and making up for his mistakes. But not about himself.

And Cas reminded us yet again how special he is. He remembered Lily, unlike Benjamin. He killed Ishim after he realized Lily told the truth. And he was the only one to apologize to her, to show remorse, and to leave his fate to her, given her the decision to kill him or not.

And that is the reason she didn’t. Because she realized how much he changed. How special he is among angels. If only he could see himself like this as well.

#supernatural #spn 12x10 #lily sunder has some regrets #spoilers #my meta

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naruhearts · 5 years

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OKAY SO I've just spent the best part of an hour scrolling through your blog and reading a bunch of your destiel meta and I HAD to message you... I was one of the many people who STRONGLY believed destiel had a chance of being canon after season 8 (more like season gr8 am i right), but throughout the years I slowly lost all hope. However, S14 has made me 110% invested in the show again and YOUR META IS GIVING ME HOPE FOR DESTIEL, which is TERRIFYING. Your writing is wonderful and I'm STRESSED.

Got back from Washington late last night!

Oh my gosh @alovelikecas, your message really made my day and I’m SO glad you enjoy my meta xox (even when most of my meta looks like, to me, sloppy-ass writing, haha! I’ll probably make an end-season meta post after 14x20 — if I have the time — that touches upon SPN’s current and repeating themes since Season New Beginnings S12/Dabb Era, not to mention I have, like, some more unfinished meta in my drafts >.>)

Yeah I mean, I didn’t join Destiel land until Summer 2016, and before that, I was late to the Season 11 party, so I basically had no narrative context for anything, and I’ll copy-paste what I said here:

Looking back, one significant thing I recall? S11 gave me a sense of Destiel’s true narrative validity (as not a ‘fanon’ ship but organically developed in the canon) when I perceived it as a season that was ‘missing something’. Keep in mind I had no idea about Destiel yet while watching S11 at the time.

I was literally asking myself — repeatedly — why Dean/Amara seemed to contain odd narrative holes, considering A. Dean explicitly said that the non-consensual attraction he felt for Amara was NOT love and “it scares him”, B. Amara told Dean that ‘something stops you - keeps you from having it all’, C. Djinn!Amara stated that she can: ‘feel the love [Dean] feels, except it’s cloaked in shame,’ and D. Mildred’s iconic ‘You’re pining for someone’ —> which did not logically correlate with A and C, meaning: since Dean doesn’t freely love Amara and thus isn’t possibly pining for her — with female love interests as currently non-existent (I remember crossing off the dead/gone girls on a piece of paper lol) — who the hell was he pining for, then?

Originally posted by elizabethrobertajones

Obviously, without writing long-ass paragraphs of meta about it again in this post, S11 made sense as soon as I watched it within the Destiel context (especially after I read up on some grandiose pieces of Destiel meta (@charlie-minion was the very first person who inspired me to write meta; I followed her once I joined the fandom Oh my god, here we go, holy crap this subtext – I’m invested in this godforsaken ship because they’re in love with each other and I’m not getting off any time soon. The rest is history.

I’m aware that I do come off as positive (and I’m still Destiel-positive; whatever happens in 14x20 this week may or may not change that), but I hope you don’t mind if I use your lovely ask as an additional opportunity to clarify my meta standpoint: no one’s saying Destiel WILL become text.

The general Destiel meta community (all subfactions: Destiel-positive, -negative, -neutral, and in-between) is not the Most Holy Canon Word, and we aren’t SPN writers, and again, we can’t actually speak to the veracity of Destiel as guaranteed-gonna-go-textual, but we — a diverse pool of critical thinkers from all walks of life: particularly those who have some degree of experience in literary academia/English literature studies (fun fact: I was actually pursuing a Minor’s in English until I changed my mind - my first love’s Health Science/Biology, which I stuck with, but here I am doing lit-crit analysis on the side *wink*) — can speak to the veracity of Destiel as a real, palpable, and ever-substantial long-running romance narrative aka the love story between Dean and Cas IS THERE. I see it. We all see it. We didn’t pluck it out of the random ether one day. It naturally evolved across the show’s overarching narrative like some vast spiderweb, linked together by numerous character arc amalgamations of Dean Winchester and Castiel as separate individuals who were then brought together — who brought themselves together, by the sheer force of free will and choice — and are now inherent parts of the other’s story (and respective character progression).

I say this too many times to count: the entire point of writing meta? Personally, it enables me to appreciate the literary gorgeousness of Dean and Cas’ relationship as, first and foremost, a tentative alliance offset by the very moment Cas raised Dean from perdition (it’s a poetic beginning). Their alliance then inevitably proliferated into a rocky — at times, necessarily turbulent — friendship, then a deep profound bond…one that crossed platonic boundaries since S7/8 and is, ultimately, indelibly rooted in romance. Together, Dean and Cas build up each other’s strengths, complement each other’s flaws, and narratively motivate the other to self-introspect — to become the best version of themselves that they were always meant to be: self-actualized entities who let go of their painful, horrifying, psychologically/emotionally destitute pasts.

These above reasons and more are why I think Destiel belongs right up there on the shelf of Ye Olde Classics, similar to epics by John Milton, Shakespearian tragic dramas, Homeric characteristic cruxes, and the great Odyssey journey: a legendary journey, fraught with circumstance, that finally ended with Odysseus (now an enlightened man) returning to Penelope, the love of his life.

Channeling the scope of Homer’s Odyssey, Destiel is an incredible storytelling feat of obstacles, both internal and external, romance tropes, mirroring, foreshadowing, and visual cadence/emotion, enhancing SPN’s already character-driven main plot in that Dean and Cas try to make it back to one another; like Penelope, their love holds true despite everything. If Destiel were an M/F couple, we all know their love story would be absolutely undeniable to the GA.

I do understand the bitterness S14’s fostered in some viewers, though. I do understand that Dean and Cas seem distant (and yeah, it’s a noticeable difference compared to S12/S13), but I believe the Destiel subtext is still heavy and holds steady.

Right now, at this point, there remains multiple personal issues for the characters to solve, you know? Dean and Cas aren’t talking properly; their love languages stay mistranslated, although we’re persistently shown that they still understand each other on a certain level that no one else can, and the visual narrative keeps framing them as on-the-nose solid counterparts: a domestic-spousal romantic unit independent of Sam.

Originally posted by incatastrophicmind

They want to be there for the other. They need to quash the final remnants of their respective internal loathing (Dean’s self-worthiness, Cas’ self-expendability) before they’re able to give the other 100% of their time, efforts, attention, and love (as flawed and complicated but compellingly beautiful as it can possibly be). During the times Dean and Cas do try to talk shit out, extraneous issues continue to get between them.

As other friends/meta pals discussed with me, S14 is like S10 in that it’s confusing the cast/audiences. And exactly: S8, besides S11/S12/early S13, also belongs in the close-to-canon serious Destiel narrative transition! I can discuss the showrunning/writer problem of SBL (Singer + Bucklemming; @occamshipper hits the nail on the head) that tugs subtext – especially subtext linked to Destiel – back and forth, sometimes in the weirdest nonsensical ways, but I won’t go too far into it here. I agree, however, with the recent idea that Jensen does seem a bit confused as to where he should bring Dean emotionally this season (don’t get me wrong, I do NOT believe Dean is OOC; OOC is a completely different concept vs expected character behaviour). And if Dean’s consistently romance-coded past interactions with Cas are any indication, Jensen would also — in the same vein as all of us — want Dean and Cas to start getting their shit together. Long-running fictional characters like Dean and Cas, conceived over 10 years, are so well-written to the point where you, the author, can predict what they’ll do even if you just plop both of them inside a room and give them no direction, and I personally feel that nowadays Jensen is prevented from achieving Dean’s further internal growth/unsure how to act in the moment because of some dumb SBL scripts saying one thing while his character’s heart says another. Wank aside—

Season 15 should hopefully convey a much more logical subtextual perspective e.g. unbelievably amazingly cohesive Season Destiel 11 that aired after choppy S10. Not all hope is lost!! I also want to clarify that I personally LOVED Season 14 in general. It’s been mostly Emotion-centric constant, with Yockey, Berens, Perez, and Dabb usually making my top-rank SPN writer list.

Currently the narrative’s still allowing pretty significant (imho) wiggle room for the lovers to fracture apart and get back together, where their miscommunication comes to a dramatic head. We just saw Dean and Cas argue over Jack’s well-being in 14x18 and 19. Dean — besides putting Cas at the top of his You’re-Dead-to-Me-Because-You-Lied-but-I-Still-Love-You-Goddammit hitlist (for clear spousal-coded reasons) and taking Cas’ actions to heart (he’s the person he trusted the most who lied to him) — no doubt blamed himself for what happened, and Sam was, like I said, the mouthpiece of truth. TFW were all culpable. They all failed Jack in some way, shape, or form.

I’m not expecting anything for 14x20, but I’m nervous either way! Thanks for sticking with my long answer

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