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autisticandroids · 2 years

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Hi. Since you seem to be a Cas-understander with a good grasp of canon, do you mind helping me figure something out? I have a SPN theory that hinges on just how much Castiel's actions are motivated by guilt. I mean, I know they are MASSIVELY motivated by a desire to fix the stuff he thinks he broke (and often did break), but my question is: How many instances can you think of where Castiel helped spontaneously, without being asked or there being some perceived kind of debt or exchange? I can only think of the example of him healing that baby's mystery illness, and tbh I've forgotten the context of that. Oh and there was that case he took while Sam and Dean were imprisoned by the feds... bc of angel business... nevermind. Everything else is either requested (including his rebellion, though that was a Big Ask and is what my theory is about), a bribe (Soulless Sam), self-inflicted punishment, or a debt that's owed (Claire). Just... in a show about two brothers who do the shittiest volunteer work possible but which they actively seek out bc they want to help people - and sometimes kill things, but mostly it's about helping - Cas seems kind of passive until something forces his hand.

well there are a couple situations where he works cases - golden time and gimme shelter, for example. and arguably heaven can't wait - he calls dean for help in that episode but he does take initiative there. and he frequently helps people who ask him to, often other angels (see: season nine and early season ten angel plots; rachel's approach to him in the man who would be king). and of course dean, as you said. and i'll throw in kelly as well.

but you've hit on something interesting about cas because he is in fact extremely passive. he tends to just sort of stand there and wait for someone to give him an order, which, you know, kind of makes sense. he spent billions of years doing just that, it's what he's used to. so in the first few seasons, he mostly does that. then a bunch of bad things happen at least nominally because of choices he made, and that natural passivity turns into trauma-induced learned helplessness. he essentially learns that he can't do anything right, and reacts by trying to yoke himself to the nearest authority figure. i've written or reblogged a lot of posts about cas and choice and post-godstiel trauma generally, here's a selection that i might suggest:

on honey cas specifically: one / two / three

on his reactions to godstiel arc: one / two / three

on cas and free will generally: one / two / three / four

also, interestingly, the vast majority of his conflict is based in this tendency to do what other people tell him: most of his conflict is about divided loyalties, where he's trying to obey two different sets of people who hate each other, and eventually has to choose between them (usually but not always heaven vs. the winchesters).

also, interestingly, when he does help people proactively, it's him acting as a hunter (as noted before, in golden time, gimme shelter, and heaven can't wait, as well as a bunch of times offscreen in the dabb era when he goes hunting with jack bc they didn't feel like paying misha and alcal that episode). so that's something he learns from salmondean and from being around them, it's not something he would have thought of before, being an angel, essentially expected for most of his existence to be a machine that follows orders. but it also doesn't make a ton of sense - in stairway to heaven, we see cas ordering a contingent of his army to go help people with their angel powers at the local hospital, which, if later, after that falls apart, he wanted to help people, is something he could do instead of hunting, so it's interesting to see him functioning essentially according to expectations rather than thinking logically about what would help, but cas have never been the most logical guy in the universe.

and the thing is that this has a doylist explanation: cas is a side character. salmondean, as protagonists, have to Do The Plot, and cas has to just sort of sit there waiting for them to tell him what to do. this is why, for example, cas is the only one who is allowed to show his trauma and issues by collapsing and being unable to do stuff (as opposed to hitting things and yelling and drinking and flinching but still accomplishing tasks at the same rate as normal). and it's also why he only does things when other people ask: because his motivations don't really matter to the narrative, so they don't really exist.

but also re: your ask: i also think it's... kind of strange? to conceptualize such an intense moral distinction between types of motivation, and between active and passive. but let me play in the space for a few paragraphs and see where it takes me.

so like... the winchesters seem to also be significantly motivated by other things? like, revenge (notably sam in the pilot, because he wanted out of the hunting life and didn't change his mind until jessica, but also a lot of moments in the later seasons like dean killing the stynes or moriah), or family obligation (i feel like this is obvious), or, yes, guilt (at the end of season seven, once dean isn't keeping him in the life, sam dips immediately, and then when dean comes back he guilt trips him aggressively with the potential people he could have saved until sam is broken down, and this is when sam seems to give up his dream of leaving hunting; in what is and what should never be, it seems like dean's main motivation for leaving the dream instead of just dying in there, happy, is the guilt of all the people he's not saving.

plus, as the show goes on, they seem less and less interested in saving people. for example, in season eleven, sam has a few episodes of like "hey maybe we should try prioritizing saving people instead of just killing things" and dean is like you pussy idiot. and then sam is taught a lesson in 11x06 (someone literally says "pacifism doesn't pay" in it) and reverts back to the old ways of not...... really caring about victims all that much. but even in the beginning saving people was kind of a tenuous goal at best. in season four, sam and dean have this big argument over sam's powers, and sam's argument is that the powers save people instead of just killing them, and dean's argument is that... using inhuman abilities makes sam a monster and monsters are bad. and in the end, dean's side is endorsed by the narrative. so like the "saving people" in "saving people, hunting things" is frequently just sort of a bonus.

i mean, look at stairway to heaven, the episode where cas has angels (including one called flagstaff) helping people at the local hospital:

FLAGSTAFF: No. Can I go? I have lives to save. DEAN: Welcome to the club. [FLAGSTAFF smirks] Something funny? FLAGSTAFF: Not funny "ha ha." But you thinking you help people -- it's amusing. I help people. A clogged artery here, a tumor there. I do good in this world. You -- you believe every problem can be solved with a gun. You play the hero, but underneath the hype, you're a killer with oceans of blood on his hands. I hate men like you.

dean has no answer for this, and ends up just physically assaulting her. and in the end, dean ends up semi-purposefully wrecking cas' whole organization, a group whose purpose was to help angels and organize them into a nonabusive form of government, because cas can't be allowed to make choices outside of following dean's orders (echoes of godstiel arc here). like cas is actually punished for any attempts at agency he takes, including attempts to help people. so it kinda makes sense that he's like... not big on initiative.

and re: the distinction you make between active and passive altruism, how is going out and actively trying to help people so different from giving help when asked? especially if you compare him to the winchesters, who frequently refuse requests for help (especially from cas, actually). which smacks of their desire to help people maybe having more to do with control than help.

#spn #asks #katoska

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musgrave322 · 6 years

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My SVTFOE Top Ten predictions (Part 2)

After two to three months of waiting, the final seven episodes of Star vs. The Forces of Evil are ready to be displayed to the public starting on Saturday March 3rd. I have to admit, there were a few episodes that have been uneventful and underwhelming (not mentioning any shipping drama), but with Meteora on the rise and Eclipsa ready for her trial, I can see things starting to pick up for this season. For those who decide to take time out of their day to watch this show, I wanted to share what I believe is going to happen from March 3rd over to the official Season finale. Like from what I did in November, I've processed all the leakage and the promos that I've witnessed on YouTube and the internet to come up with these theories. Whatever you might see or hear should all be taken with "a pinch of salt" because they are just my ideas. 10. The Magical High Commission confronts Star about the events from Monster Bash - If you didn’t watch the mid-season finale, Star’s attempt to unite Mewmans and Monsters together with a royal party was foiled because of Miss Heinous/Meteora and Mina Loveberry. Things might get worse for her when she gets confronted by her mother and the magical high commission about all this events that occurred from that party at the monster temple. I do not blame Star for getting into a nasty argument with Moon over learning that she is related to Eclipsa’s daughter and keeping the Butterfly’s dark secret underneath all people who live on Mewni.

9. Meteora and Queen Eclipsa will meet face to face - Since the creative team for Star vs. The Forces of Evil brought up the confirmed fact that Miss Heinous is Eclipsa’s mewman/monster daughter named Meteora, I should expect a special moment where Meteora does reunite with Eclipsa after being separated for what seems to be eight or nine centuries. The best time that I could see all this occurring is before or during Eclipsa’s trial.

8. Ludo makes his return for Season 3 - Once I saw the names for the new episodes on Disney TV listings, I knew for a fact that Ludo would return to the series after drifting away in outer space. Even though I have jumped the gun for this prediction being slightly wrong, but I hope Ludo does become a good guy for once in his lifetime because I’ve gotten annoyed and tired with his miserable attempts to steal Star’s royal wand.

7. Kelly and Marco will be paired together as friends - After the events occurred from Lava Lake Beach, Monster Bash, and the Holiday Special, I can understand why Kelly is having a crush on Marco. The reason why both Kelly and Marco are paired with one another just so Kelly can get away from Tad (Kelly’s piece of hair she calls her ex-boyfriend) and for Marco to keep his mind off Star Butterfly. I can see one episode (probably Booth Buddies) where Marco and Kelly are hanging out with one another only to be “Just Friends”.

6. Marco Diaz confesses his feelings for Star Butterfly - With Marco having massive feelings for Star, there will definitely come a time where he will have to confess that he does have a crush on Star and why he decided to sacrifice his life on earth just to move over to Mewni. If Star Butterfly was able to confess her love for Marco before leaving with her mother to fight for her Kingdom in “Starcrushed”, Marco needs to do the same for Star regardless of how Tom Lucitor reacts to all this. My best bet is that it could all happen on an episode “Marco Jr.” where the Naysaya makes his return upon Marco’s neck.

5. The pairing between Star Butterfly and Tom Lucitor will come to an end - Don’t point any fingers at me, you all knew that this will be one of my predictions!!! I just do not see Star’s rekindled relationship with Tom lasting forever on this one. All I see coming out of the death of TomStar is another “Silver-bell Ball” situation with both of them bickering with one another like before. I can see this all happening if Daron Nefcy decides to produce two shipping episodes for both Star (Tom and Star) and Marco’s (Kelly and Marco) pair-ups.

4. Queen Butterfly confronts Star about her Butterfly form - I can see some sort of episode where Moon expresses all her concerns for Star when it comes to maintaining control of her golden butterfly formation. If you’ve seen “Sweet Dreams”, Star has a discussion with her mother over the dinner table about the concerns she has about her special ability while reluctantly keeping her incidents with sleep portaling to both herself and Marco. I feel that Moon will find herself in Star’s situation in one way or another.

3. Star Butterfly makes a deal with Queen Eclipsa - This is a moment that needs to happen until the end of Season 3 and I really mean it. With Glossaryck still in his delusional state, Eclipsa is most likely the one to teach Star all her magical tricks she has produced during her reign as queen. Just like what Moon did with the undaunted spell, Star is going to make a deal with the queen of darkness just so she can learn these new magical spells. I envision the consequences getting deep once their deal is made.

2. There will be mayhem during Queen Eclipsa’s trial - Before I watched the video package with the truth or punishment box, I assumed that Meteora and Mina Loveberry would barge into the trial while butting heads and causing chaos. I still believe that there will be chaos during the trial and it will all come the Truth or Punishment box. I say this because of the drama and shenanigans that the box has caused on a Sleepover episode from Season 2.

1. One of the main protagonists (either Star or Marco) will turn evil - I remember telling all of you that I wasn’t fond of Marco turning evil, but my mind suddenly changed when I saw some seeds being planted after all the events that occurred in Sophomore Slump, Lava Lake Beach, Night Life, and Deep Dive. I still have some hope for Star Butterfly turning evil especially with Queen Eclipsa becoming a catalyst for that moment and a possible break-up that would occur between her and Tom Lucitor. The best time for this moment to happen is in the season finale giving all of us something to talk about for Season 4. That is all that I wanted to share for today, feel free to comment if you have anything different to say or of you're planning to watch the final episodes of Star vs. The Forces of Evil Season 3 on Disney XD.

#KTNUSA #Musgrave322 #SVTFOE #Star Butterfly #star vs the forces of evil #disneyxd

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junker-town · 6 years

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Joe Moorhead’s rare adaptability could play quite well at Mississippi State

If you can win playoff games at Fordham and turn around the Penn State offense almost immediately, you can win in Starkville.

The SEC has always been a defense-first kind of league. Back in the 1950s, when a different league team was making a national title run each year, it was always based around dominant D: Auburn allowed 28 total points in an unbeaten 1957 run, Ole Miss allowed 21 points in 1959, Alabama allowed 25 points in 1961, etc.

Defense is in the DNA. But points aren’t a bad thing. Nor is adapting with the times.

The SEC technically still grades out as the nation’s best conference, on average, this season. But after enjoying a massive advantage as recently as two or three years ago, the advantage has shrunk quickly, if not disappeared altogether.

You can make the case that coaching hires have been the primary cause.

While the ACC has upgraded its coaching roster significantly, adding Mark Richt, Bobby Petrino, Justin Fuente, Dave Clawson, Bronco Mendenhall, and others within the last few years, the SEC has been a little bit more predictable.

From 2013-16, the league hired nine new head coaches. Six of them came from the defensive side; of the four hires made in 2015-16, three had Nick Saban ties.

To a degree, those hires worked out. Georgia’s Kirby Smart appears to be the one former Saban assistant who has flashed a Saban-level ceiling, Florida Jim McElwain managed to snag two division titles before flaming out, and while South Carolina’s Will Muschamp isn’t putting an aesthetically pleasing team on the field, he’s 8-4.

While football is a copycat’s game, copying the master doesn’t usually produce master-level results (Smart aside).

You might need to figure out a different path.

So far, so good. At least six league teams are replacing head coaches — Arkansas, Florida, Mississippi State, Ole Miss, Tennessee, and Texas A&M — and the first three to make their choices have all gone after offensive guys.

Florida’s Dan Mullen is a former Gator coordinator whose Mississippi State offense has ranked 31st or better in Off. S&P+ in five of the last eight seasons.

New full-time Ole Miss head coach Matt Luke was offensive co-coordinator at Duke and Ole Miss. He helped to raise Duke’s Off. S&P+ rankings from the 100s to the 50s, and Ole Miss’ offense has ranked 14th or better in each of the last three years (including 2017, in which the Rebels dealt with QB injuries).

Forced to replace Mullen, Mississippi State has evidently selected Penn State coordinator Joe Moorhead, who oversaw possibly the most fun offense in the country over the last two years.

For all we know, the other three league schools could still skew toward defense. Tennessee, after all, tried to sign Ohio State defensive coordinator Greg Schiano before unsuccessfully going after offense-friendly Oklahoma State head coach Mike Gundy on Tuesday. (The next options on the list appear to be offensive guys, at least.) And who the hell knows what Arkansas is going to do? Arkansas doesn’t, therefore we don’t.

The Moorhead hire is particularly intriguing.

First, he comes from outside the league. A few outside influences aren’t a bad thing. We don’t know anything about the staff he will put together or how he will establish ties in a new recruiting area, but the organic growth of his offensive system has been startling.

The first time Moorhead was officially in charge of an offense, he raised Georgetown’s scoring average from 17.4 points per game to 22.6 in 2003. He ended up on Rob Brookhart’s staff at Akron, and in three years, the Zips’ Off. S&P+ ranking rose from 100th to 55th. His first year as Randy Edsall’s coordinator at UConn (2009) produced a six-point improvement and No. 31 ranking in Off. S&P+.

He became Fordham head coach in 2012, and after a 6-5 debut, the Rams took off. They went 32-8 from 2013-15, and this Bruce Feldman piece does a great job of outlining all the tweaks and tricks that took shape. The Rams stole from exciting offenses all the time.

Fordham head coach Andrew Breiner (Fordham offensive coordinator/QB coach, 2011-14): I can still remember it was Eastern Illinois vs. Northern Illinois. They were on the right hash going into the end zone away from the scoreboard in NIU. We probably watched [EIU QB Jimmy Garoppolo] 15 times. Our staff got into an argument over whether they were actually reading a safety in the run game or not. Joe was saying, “I think they’re reading the safety.”

I said, “No, how can you ask the QB to read a safety [as a run defender] and make a throw?” We kept going back and forth on it, and the more we watched it, the more I realized Joe was right. The safety was making an immediate movement towards the line of scrimmage, reacting on the run, and then they’re bringing the post right behind him from the X-receiver into the boundary.

Davidson co-offensive coordinator Tim Zetts (Fordham running backs coach, 2011-14):: The thing that Joe did which was phenomenal was finding that next thing to be innovative. Before he did that, he was always saying, “If you can’t block him, read him. He’s too good to block.” He was finding ways to cancel [interior] players out.

An open mind led to Moorhead’s early adoption of the run-pass option, but his offense is still grounded in rushing potential and H-backs.

[Smart Football’s Chris] Brown thinks offenses will move more in the direction of Penn State, continuing to chug down the RPO tracks but trying to get the quarterback hit less.

“If you watch Penn State,” he says, “almost everything for them is based on having five interior linemen and an H-Back. Oklahoma State is still in 10 personnel [one back, four receivers] because of those great receivers, but now it’s much more 11 personnel [one back, one tight end or H-Back] — and they’re usually blocking the six interior linemen and linebackers.

“They’re not very often leaving the defensive end unblocked so he can crash down on the quarterback as he’s making one of those downfield RPOs. They’ll do a bunch of variations of that.”

Penn State head coach James Franklin’s trajectory in Happy Valley took a nearly 180-degree turn when he brought Moorhead to town. His first two Nittany Lion teams each went 7-6, and despite the presence of blue-chip quarterback Christian Hackenberg, they ranked 112th and 62nd, respectively, in Off. S&P+.

In need of an energy boost and a healthy dose of adaptability, Franklin looked to Moorhead. PSU improved immediately, to 18th last year and 12th this year, and they are 21-5 since he came to town. Brent Pry’s defense has been top-20 in Def. S&P+ both years, too — this hasn’t been a one-dimensional team — but the defense was good before Moorhead arrived. The offense, not so much.

Moorhead won’t inherit a Saquon Barkley in Starkville.

He will take over an offense scheduled to return quarterback Nick Fitzgerald, running back Aeris Williams and Kylin Hill, a foursome of freshman and sophomore receivers (Deddrick Thomas, Reggie Todd, Keith Mixon, Jamal Couch) that combined for 800 receiving yards and eight touchdowns, and an offensive line with only one 2017 senior.

His work with Fitzgerald could be fascinating. As important as Barkley (2,630 rushing yards, 996 receiving yards, 41 combined touchdowns in 2016-17) has been, Moorhead’s bond with quarterback Trace McSorley was as or more vital.

McSorley's completion rate was just 55 seven games into his first season with Moorhead, his passer rating just 133.4. Since then: 63 percent and 162.1. He caught fire, playing nearly perfect ball in the Big Ten title game against Wisconsin and throwing four TDs in the tight Rose Bowl loss to USC. This year, he's thrown for 3,228 yards and 26 touchdowns despite rarely playing in fourth quarters. (Not including sacks, he’s also rushed for 1,093 yards in the last two seasons.)

Moorhead will only get one year with Fitzgerald. The QB pipeline isn’t dry after him, mind you — four-star prospect Keytaon Thompson got thrown into the deep end when Fitzgerald went down early in the Egg Bowl — but how quickly Moorhead and Fitzgerald can reach the same page will set the bar for 2018.

(A defense with only two seniors among its top 16 tacklers can’t hurt.)

Moorhead is known for points, but his resourcefulness could pay off just as much.

From 1954 to 2010, Fordham didn't offer football scholarships. The Rams play in the Patriot League, a non-scholarship league. In 2009, they elected to offer scholarships, which disqualified them from the Patriot League title but allowed them to better position for at-large playoff bids.

Still, they were playing catch-up. Despite this, creaky facilities, and crowded offices, Moorhead’s Rams indeed made the FCS playoffs for three straight years. They beat Sacred Heart in the first round in both 2013 and 2014 and lost only to excellent teams each time: Towson in 2013 (the Tigers went on to make the finals), New Hampshire in 2014 (the Wildcats made the semis), and Chattanooga in 2015 (the Mocs barely lost to No. 1 Jacksonville State in the next round).

In Feldman’s oral history piece, Zetts said, “I don’t think there’s anybody who can do more with less than Joe. That’s him. His big thing was, ‘It doesn’t matter.’ That ended up being the mindset of our players. They were numb to it.” You could argue Moorhead’s culture and Tripper-from-Meatballs attitude might be even more important than his RPOs.

The MSU job is commonly regarded as the hardest in the SEC West — the facilities are good but no better than that of division peers, there’s less history to sell, and Starkville is small and isolated.

Before leaving for Florida, Mullen raised expectations to a nearly unforeseen level. He inherited a program that had won just 29 games in eight years and, in its history, had attended 13 bowls with three top-15 finishes. In nine seasons, he engineered eight bowl bids and two top-15 finishes.

This is a much better job than it once was, but you’re always going to be playing catch-up in Starkvegas. That won’t be anything new to Moorhead.

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