#i am NOT saying that jimmy in any way MEANS for all of this subtext to be layered into that question. not at all. i think he truly is

[debbierhea]

"#in my opinion the am i bad for you scene belongs in a different category of kim reacting to jimmy questioning their relationship#in this essay i will" tell me more!

okay. here goes

the "if you go to howard, you and i, we're done" "so, we're not done now" scene and the "come on. this guy?" scene are about jimmy doubting himself. he is worried that his actions are irredeemable, especially in the face of someone as ~virtuous as kim. he doesn't see himself on the same level as kim, knows that she is so far out of his league that he just doesn't understand why she would hang around, why she doesn't just pack it in and leave him. he pushes himself to be a better person for her and when he inevitably falls off course, in both of these instances specifically, he can't wrap his head around the fact that she still cares for him, loves him enough to stay, or, in rhea's own words, loves him "...not in spite of everything...she knows who he is and she loves him."

the "am i bad for you" "are you bad for me" scene is less about jimmy doubting himself but more about him doubting kim. the subtext, in my opinion, is not "wow i can't believe this amazing woman loves me and is choosing to stay" it's more "kim, should you really be letting me do this to you? should you really be with me?" her reaction, the crinkle in her brow, is not the sweet and tender disbelief of the first two scenes mentioned. it is not "jimmy how can you not see how good you are? how can you not see how much i love you?" it is kim's surprise and maybe even a bit of betrayal that, of all people, jimmy is now questioning her choices.

and isn't asking "am i bad for you" not another way of questioning kim's agency as well? after every other man on the show makes their opinion known of kim's choices—often implying that she doesn't know what she's doing, that she is somehow under jimmy's spell and he is driving her to ruin, that no woman like her in their right mind would make the decisions she is making and therefore she needs saving, needs to be shown the light—jimmy, her jimmy, the one person she thought understood her, is now doing the same thing. every person in her life has questioned her like this about jimmy (and probably countless other things too). everyone has their own idea about who kim is and what she should be doing.

she is not touched by this question. i think she is taken aback by it. how could he think that? how could he imply he is bad for her when she is the one making the choice to stay. why can't anyone trust her to know what's best for herself? why can't anyone see that she knows who jimmy is and loves him because of that?

the question "am i bad for you" gives jimmy all the power and agency in the relationship and implies that kim is somehow incapable of choosing things for herself. it implies that kim is participating in scams for jimmy and not because she wants to, not for herself or her own reasons. it takes away her ability to be an active participant in the relationship and in her life and i think that kim is sick to death of people doing that to her.

#i am NOT saying that jimmy in any way MEANS for all of this subtext to be layered into that question. not at all. i think he truly is #worried and wants to protect her. the thing is though that kim does not need anyone's protection. every single character in this show tells #her to her face who she should be and what she should do. it goes back to the quote about 'sometimes people only know who you are TO THEM' #or whatever. like kim is just constantly barraged with other people's opinions of her actions that more often than not involve jimmy's #~influence over her which takes away her agency and no matter how earnestly and lovingly jimmy is asking this question it still strikes the #same tone for her. it falls into the same category of howard and chuck and schweikart and kevin and ada ericson who have her inextricably #tied to an idea of jimmy they have in their minds and then proceed to tell her what they think of her because of it #kim knows she is her own person who makes her own choices. this also harkens back to bad choice road. maybe this question has been building #in jimmy since then. since kim quit mesa verde and mike told him that kim is in the game. jimmy tells kim what she SHOULD do #and kim tells him it's none of his damn business. i think everything she tells howard in something unforgiveable is pent up from every #single time someone has done this to her - taken away her agency - with their opinion #ANYWAYS..........this is why i think the 'am i bad for you scene' is in a whole other category. okay byeeeee #asks #anextrapart #bcs #better call saul

[postmodernmulticoloredcloak]

So I watched 10.09 recently, and it has that part where Dean tells a story about him basically being almost roofied as a teen, but somehow it ends up framed as the funny joke and yet another proof that John "did what he could", and I kind of hate this? And it's the same episode in which MoC!Dean killed guys that kidnapped and tried to rape Claire, and you'd think writers would've addressed the parallels and acknowledge that Dean could've been triggered by this situation. 1/2

2/2 But in the end, it's never addressed, and the whole situation is framed as the proof that Dean is evil now. And I'm not even sure what I am trying to say, but with that being the show's approach back in s10, I'm not surprised about the finale anymore. Guess we should've known?

That’s an excellent angle to look at the issue because the Mark of Cain arc is a clear example of how people with different experiences will see the same thing in wildly different ways. There’s this phase of season 10 where everyone is like “oh no Dean is Getting Worse” and when you look at what Dean is doing... you actually go “...good for him”.

Let’s give Caesar what belongs to Caesar. It’s not “the writers” in this case, it’s Dabb. Plenty of other writers don’t fall into this John apologism thing. Just look at how the episode before Lebanon, written by Buckner and Ross Leming, says that sometimes John would temporarily kick Dean out because he was “pissed at him” despite Dean always taking his side to mantain the peace. It almost seems like a statement to sprinkle some salt given what Dabb does in Lebanon, you know? Maybe not, but there is a tension between “John was shitty” writers and “John did his best” writers.

In hindsight, we gave Dabb too much of the benefit of the doubt. We were like, weeell, that’s supposed to be way the characters perceive the truth, which is distorted by the trauma... But now it’s obvious that he truly believed in the John-did-his-best version. He brought him back and got Mary back with him. No matter what happened to the finale, the network didn’t print those pictures of John and Mary to hang on Sam’s wall. He never took Dean’s abuse seriously and it shows.

The “anedocte” of Dean getting drugged and “saved” by John from being raped is obviously there to parallel him with Claire. Which works! It’s so weird because it’s like. You are soooo close to getting the point. Younger Dean was assaulted just like this teenage girl is assaulted and Dean saves her... but apparently John yelling at those people is a good way of dealing with the issue, while murdering child traffickers is an overraction thus bad.

That’s the problem, isn’t it? That Dean’s murder spree is framed as an overreaction. Sam is like “tell me you had to do this! tell me it was you or them!” - the answer to which (by the narrative) is obviously no, it wasn’t self defense, he just killed them because he could. He just murdered those men for no reason except he felt like being murdery. And the audience is supposed to be like “oh no! Dean is murdery for no reason except for murderiness! That’s bad!”.

But it’s a power fantasy, isn’t it? Going on a murder spree on rapists and traffickers. I bet any people who’s been violated like that has fantasized of doing the exact thing Dean does here. Killing them all.

Dean had the physical strength and skill to kill them all, why shouldn’t he kill them? (I mean, in real life I’m against private justice because I’m a fan of the state of law, but the Supernatural universe obviously works on different principles than the state of law. Again, it’s a fictional narrative that plays out as a fantasy for the audience, so.)

So what was Dabb’s intention? I’m afraid it’s the worst one. “John Winchester’s not going to win any Number One Dad awards, you know? But, you know, damn if he wasn’t there when we needed him”. What the fuck, Dabb? It’s been established since season 1 that John WASN’T there when they needed him. Which... I’m afraid... leads us to the Cas-Claire plot in the episode. Cas has fucked off with Jimmy’s body leaving Claire on her own. Parallels how John wasn’t going to win wny Number One Dad awards. But! Cas is there when Claire Really Needs Him i.e. when she’s about to be raped by older men. Parallels how John was there when Dean Really Needed Him i.e. when he was about to be raped by older men.

I think the point is to say, Cas kinda sucked because he took Claire’s dad away but hey! He’s actually a good figure for Claire because he gets there in time to prevent her from being raped. Just like (ew) John kinda sucked as a father because hunting and stuff, but hey! He’s actually a good figure for Dean because he got there in time to prevent him from being raped.

It’s pretty yucky. Literally NOBODY wanted a parallel between Cas and John. But he made one. And he made one to absolve Cas from the guilt he carried for what he did to Claire (Claire’s mother is a mother so who fucking cares about her. She’s basically a Blurry Wife(TM), she’s only a tool for Claire’s arc, Cas apparently only cares about the harm he did the child, not the wife, for some reason.) and to absolve Cas from his guilt it absolves John too. Don’t worry, being a parent is hard. You often screw up. But you can *looks at smudged writing on hand* prevent the kid from being raped by predatory adults and everything’s fine now.

It’s not really important if the child suffered hunger or whatever, the only important thing is that they don’t get raped, because that’s bad, everything else is just a little detail.

All Dabb got with that scene was to paint Sam as extremely unsympathetic because he’s no longer a child, he’s a full adult now and still thinks of that episode at the CBGB as a funny story. That’s not a good look. It almost makes you think that the writer himself saw it as a funny story. Lol teenage boy biting more than he can chew. But then why the Claire parallel? The Claire scene onviously is not supposed to be anything but horrific. I'll give Dabb the benefit of the doubt on this specific thing.

It’s weird, yes, because Dabb wrote Dark Side of the Moon where he establishes that John was a bad husband/father even before tragedy hit the family. But apparently that’s the “not going to win any Number One Dad awards” part, I suppose? I guess he intended to write John as this flawed, ~complex~ figure who was imperfect but still brave and whatever blah blah did his best blah blah. I’m all for flawed complicated characters but a horrible father is a horrible father. A rose by any other name... parental abuse is still parental abuse even if the poor guy was complicated and traumatized and did what he thought he had to do to prepare his sons for a violent world.

Also, the story frames Dean’s escapade as a teenager being stupid. “You know what he got for that? Me whining about how much he embarrassed me. Me telling him that I hated him. But then he stopped and turned around looked at me and said, Son, you don’t like me? That’s fine. It’s not my job to be liked.” “It’s my job to raise you right.” This seems straight from a novel about teenagers doing something stupid that they’re too young to realize that their parents are right to be against them doing. But this isn’t just... a parent walking into a bar to stop their child to drink alcohol. Dean literally describes feeling sick from something that was inside the alcohol.

Sure, it makes sense that he’d lash out to John because of the shame and shock. But the scene is... off. Are we supposed to see this as a typical teenage mistake? Are we supposed to read it as something as horrific as what happened to Claire, literally sold into rape? Or, worse, are we supposed to see what happened to Claire as a teenage mistake, ah silly teenager, blindly trusting shady people, no wonder you end up in a situation where you’d get raped if a father figure didn’t sweep in and save you. I hope that wasn’t the intent.

To get back to Dean’s Mark-of-Cain violence, the writers clearly didn’t intend it to come from the Darkness up to a certain point. It was supposed to an arc about your own inner darkness (consider the Charlie episode, a couple episodes later). Then they came up with the idea of The(TM) Darkness, the suppressed cosmic feminine. While it caused a bit of dissonance in the subtext, it doesn’t really change Dean’s narrative, because his inner darkness is the trauma, and his trauma is inherebtly tied to the “feminine” i.e. the parts of him that don’t fit seamlessly into the scheme of toxic masculinity values. That the violence that comes from the Mark of Cain comes from Dean himself and that’s it, or is connected to the Darkness, it doesn’t change what it means for Dean. Dean and Amara have parallel histories, the feminine principle locked away, the trauma the anger stems from.

In 10x09 we’re still in the Before The (TM) Darkness era, before the suppressed cosmic feminine. The Mark of Cain arc is still about... well, Cain. But the shift is the signal that someone looked at Dean’s arc and said... you know what? “Lucifer gave me this curse so now I’m demonic and murdery” is meh. “Toxic masculinity suppresses the feminine and it creates trauma which rage and violence comes from” is more interesting. I don’t know whose idea it was, but it was a good idea, and surely the idea came from seeing how Dean’s MoC narrative was unfolding.

Dean’s MoC narrative was unfolding in a certain way, in fact, because of a pretty simple reason. There’s a fundamental tension in Dean’s MoC arc. We want him to go murdery, but it’s also our main character, so we don’t want him to do really horrible things because he still needs to be relatable. The audience cannot hate him, so he must NOT do something entirely unforgivable. He still needs to be somewhat relatable, even when demonic or demonic-adjacent.

So he goes on a murder spree... but it’s rapists and child traffickers. He’s demon, but he kills a misogynistic dude that wanted his wife dead for cheating on him. He’s a demon, but beats up dudes that harass women. He does a slaughter, but they’re nazi. He’s off the deep end, but works a case of kidnapped and abused young women...

Speaking of which. 10x23, written by Jeremy Carver. Dean works a case where a girl was killed while dressed scantily and Dean makes some slut-shaming remarks, and we’re supposed to think “whoa Dean, that’s bad”. But later he confronts the girl’s father and what does he say?

I’m just doing my job, Mr. McKinley.

By suggesting my daughter was a slut?

I’ll admit that thought crossed my mind. Then I came here, and I smelled the deceit and the beatings and the shame that pervade this home.

You shut your face right now.

And you know what? I don’t blame Rose anymore. No wonder she put on that skank outfit and went out there looking for validation, right into the arms of the monster that killed her.

Back then the episode was super controversial and everyone hated the case because of the apparent slut-shaming but I loved it! Because it’s not about the girl. It’s about Dean. Dean doesn’t think that a girl gets killed because she dresses in a miniskirt so it’s her fault. Dean is projecting on himself and he’s not actually victim blaming the girl, he’s victim blaming himself. And when he absolves the girl by putting the blame on the father... well, subtextually he’s absolving himself by putting the blame on his father. On the deceit and the beatings and the shame that pervaded his own home. He’s textually not ready to absolve himself, of course, he summons Death to ask him to kill him later, but subtextually he’s on the right path.

Rose McKinley basically did the same mistake Dean did at the CBGB when he trusted some older people who offered him drinks and the same mistake Claire did when she trusted a man who sold her for money because he offered him a place and stability. She trusted the wrong people (in this case, vampires, which adds the whole subtext of vampires and sexuality) who took advantage of her. Except Rose had no one to save her. (Her friend, Crystal, gets rescued by Dean, even if he causes the other hunter Rudy to die in the process.)

Carver’s writing is pretty brutal. The girl made that mistake because was abused at home, so she was desperate for validation and that desperation drove her into the wrong hands. (Rose even has a brother who blames himself for bringing her sister to her future murderers, destructive sibling relationship check.) It doesn’t actually even matter if Dean guessed right about Rose’s family situation, because what matters is what it tells us about Dean. He basically relates to a dead abused girl. Actually all through the season Dean is paralleled to “skanks” “sluts” and sex workers. Obviously this happens kinda all through the show, the whole “the business is based on absent fathers” thing happened much earlier in the story, so it’s not new. But s10 draws a picture of female suffering - abuse, manipulation and death. Season 10 was difficult to go through. In hindsight, it was probably on purpose because it was supposed to be darkest hour of the feminine. Summed with some good old fashioned misogyny, but hey.

The Carver era was wonky but Carver wanted to free the feminine. (I believe that Mary’s comeback, while written by Dabb because of the showrunner shift, was planned before the showrunner shift.) We thought the Dabb era wanted the same, with Mary choosing life and Amara being independent and so on, but it evidently wasn’t the case. Not a single woman arrives at end of the story. It’s hardly ~Bucklemming or ~the network or ~covid because it starts before the very end.

I’m not saying that dead sluts are more feminist than living women, but if the women die or disappear anyway (and they did) I’d rather have an exploration of trauma than nothing. And I definitely prefer a dead slut narrative that calls out parental abuse than a narrative where women live but abuse gets the you-did-your-best treatment.

Whoops! I digressed! But feel free to ask for any clarification or send me any observation or thought.

#anon #my spn thoughts #season 10 #spn 10x09 #spn 10x23 #dean and john #parental abuse #john winchester's a+ parenting #mark of cain #demon dean #spn #i love talking about season 10 uh

[theseerasures]

YOu have a lot of interesting thoughts abt Winter what dyou think will happen with her this season?? Iknow you already said she won't die but. other stuff?? What do you think of the idea that she defects to salem

y’know, anon: i was actually gonna write something to this tune unprompted before the hiatus ended? i didn’t, because when it’s inevitably revealed that i was wrong about Everything and the village children throw their eggs and laugh i didn’t want to give them any more receipts, but now that someone has asked i might as well

quick disclaimer before i start! these are subjective speculations about a character who has thus far been--particularly in 8.1--sparsely and ambivalently characterized, on purpose. i am spinning from the same subtext as anyone else, and if i am reading it differently, then all that means that i am reading it differently. Mr. Teeth is not sending me secret data. i am not the Steve Kornacki of RWBY Defections, as hilarious as it is to imagine someone like that existing.

okay? okay. below are some ideas and theories about where Winter could be going this season

The Defection (no not that one yet)

yeah, i’m still an “AceOps defect as a team” truther. this one actually has the least to do with Winter, and most to do with story economy. and the story of the AceOps is this: under Clover they were “the perfect team”--efficient, powerful, professional, and the perfect emblem of Atlesian values. law and order above all else. the mission matters more than the team. don’t get attached.

Clover’s absence from the team begins in late season 7, which means all that shiny varnish is stripped from Atlas at the same time it’s stripped from the AceOps. it turns out that the law isn’t always right, it turns out it’s super easy to turn “the needs of the many” into “the needs of the few who have many,” and it turns out once you go even a single inch past their facade the “best Huntsmen in Atlas” are conflicted, directionless, and squabble like children. they have a better showing against Penny this season, but their continued dynamic shows that fault lines--particularly between Marrow and Harriet--are reaching crisis. The AceOps model is unsustainable, in the same way that all of Atlas is ultimately unsustainable.

then Ironwood puts Winter in charge, and at first i did think: well, this is probably just to accelerate the inevitable fallout. they are, by their own testimony, emotional strangers to each other, and now some of them disagree on ideological grounds to the point where they can barely stand to be in the same room; slapping an abrasive volatile live wire on top of all that is pouring gasoline on Rome while Rome burns.

but the revelation of Renvision was that they’ve been lying--about HAVING feelings, but also about their feelings with and about each other. moreover: Winter’s own emotions mirror theirs. they’re speaking, in whatever horrifically repressed way, a similar language.

i’m not going to discount the possibility that this kind of ice-water-in-the-face moment might not be enough for some of them; one thing i’ve always respected about RWBY is its unwillingness to flinch away from the idea that sometimes it IS too late for people. but when it comes down to the AceOps, i think the operating question isn’t “will they pick JOYR over setting off the bomb,” because they’re not ready to make that kind of decision together as a team yet. no, the operating question is: if it comes down to one of them, or setting off the bomb, what will they choose?

Clover would set off the bomb, without hesitation or remorse. the mission and protocol HAVE to come first, and in this case there’s a compelling argument that it’s the right call. the team under Clover would have followed suit. the team without Clover would have likely done the same.

the team under Winter...

well, the thing about Winter is that she’s NOT Clover. not a perfect soldier, but--let’s stick with “not a perfect soldier.” she cannot lead in the same way Clover did, with that infuriating mixture of self-assurance and personal charisma, but i don’t think she thinks of herself as any less in command, which means that for the time being, the AceOps are her team. i can’t be certain what Winter would choose in this situation--whether her personal feelings can win out against years of consequentialist thinking--but i do feel fairly confident in saying that she’d be more willing to sacrifice HERSELF in order to choose both.

and in this crucial moment where the AceOps are forced to re-evaluate how they feel about each other, and the team, that might count for something.

so tl;dr #1: the AceOps find a team identity separate from the Atlesian structure. whether they defect to the RIGHT people, or survive defection, and whether Winter counts narratively as one of the AceOps by that point, i’m less sure about, but a cursory stab in the dark would be: yes, not all of them, and no.

The Return

how much do the writers care about the Winter-Ironwood dynamic? probably less than i do, but i also care more than any human should be permitted to under the law, especially since people have moved onto speculating about all the hot NEW abusers she could have in her life. whatever--it is something that needs closure, and i think the writers know that. my preference is still that they confront each other in person, at Atlas Academy (Qrow having fucked off via either healthy decision making or force). if this does happen, i don’t think there’s any chance that both of them will make it out alive; Winter would ONLY confront Ironwood if she’s forced to--either by him or other forces--and both of them are too rigid with themselves and with each other to offer any kind of give, or forgiveness.

that’s what i’d prefer, but it no longer seems the most likely option; Winter clearly has no plans to make it back, and the queue for “people who want to slug it out with DILF Jimmy” just keeps getting longer. it’s possible that they’ll end on the same personal-impersonal teeter-totter which they’ve always resided, where they’re just voices in each other’s earpieces, and she’s giving him a report, and he is issuing her orders.

there’s a way to make that meaningful, though: Winter HAS just disobeyed an explicit order--the first she’s done when she fully had the capacity to carry it out. her own treasons are piling up, and it’s a secret that he should know, for plot and character reasons. the obvious choice among the AceOps to tattle is Harriet, but i also think there’s a nonzero chance that, if asked, Winter herself will tell him. for all her flaws, i do think Winter is capable of owning up to her decisions (it’d make a nice parallel with Yang telling Ironwood about what she and Blake did during Gravity, but that’s neither here nor there), but even more importantly...i think she’d tell him because she wants to be reassured. that she did the right thing, but also that they’re still on the same page, and that he’s still the same person he always was, with her.

he won’t reassure her, of course. especially after he finds out that she disobeyed him for Ozpin. she’ll have no one left.

tl;dr #2: Winter and Ironwood have to reach some kind of End by the finale. whether it’s with a bang or a whimper i’m again less certain of, but if it DOES end with a bang one of them will die, and it’s going to be Ironwood.

Winter Alone

i, like many others, assumed going into the season that Winter’s core dilemma would be something like “her family or her family,” meaning: her sisters or her (adoptive) father. but i think as far as the show’s concerned that conflict was resolved when she let them go in The Enemy of Trust, and it’s not worth re-litigating. since the season started she’s just missed Weiss and/or Penny TWICE by narrative contrivance--during the Amity heist, and the abortive recovery mission--and she’s been sent away from Ironwood. it’s increasingly looking to me like Winter and Weiss will not talk to each other at ALL this season (do they have Scroll reception in the whale? i guess they must if Watts talked to Tyrian), or at most will only catch a tantalizing glimpse of each other before being whisked away again. all of this points to the issue not being “whose side will Winter choose,” but “what kind of person IS Winter, when she doesn’t have anyone else’s ideology to fall back upon?”

which is very exciting to me! the What You Are in the Dark trope is an obvious staple, but i’m especially a sucker for it when it happens to characters like Winter, who lucked out in the sense that their more selfish motivations (protecting herself from Dad) have never quite conflicted with doing Good (protecting other people). the cognitive dissonance for that with Winter has already been played up to the max, so for it to come to a crisis for her, at a point when EVERYONE WHOSE OPINION SHE CARES ABOUT HAS ALREADY FUCKED OFF, is just great drama. it’s made all the better by the fact that RWBY specifically has a lot of villains whose backstories involve them being put in a similar situation, and choosing wrong: Adam chose spite. Raven chose cowardice. getting to see someone make that choice in the story proper, then, adds to and complicates what RWBY has to say the conditions of possibility for heroism and villainy.

furthermore, and this might be where my biases become delusions: that Winter is being maneuvered to make these decisions for herself, BY herself, points to the possibility that she might be graduating from a mostly region-locked character (Ilia, the Belladonnas, Beacon staff and students) to full-on supporting cast (TRQ, Maria, the villains). if Weiss and/or Penny reach out to Winter in a climactic confrontation this season, then the story isn’t NOT about Winter, but it would place more emphasis on Weiss and/or Penny, as main cast members, and their ability to save a person they love. but if their relationships are given more space and time for breathe (or fester!)--if Winter gets to change away from Weiss in the way that Weiss changed and grew away from Winter in Mistral, for example--then it points to a greater parity in terms of their mutual importance in the story.

tl;dr #3: Schneester Bowl might have to wait at least another season, because Winter’s too busy trying out independent thinking. now, whether Winter will make the RIGHT choice, or the story will LET her make that call after she’s decided...

2Defect2Salem

i actually touched on this before, so tl;dr #4.1: i do not find the ways that people talk about HOW Salem gets Winter to defect to be very convincing. the idea that Salem could easily manipulate Winter because they have similar backstories makes me...tilt my head, but i think that’s more due to my personal belief that people who are similar in those ways actually tend to be each other’s blind spots (i also think this about Blake and Winter, FWIW). more to the point: my personal reading of Winter locates a streak buried deep within that is unyieldingly CATEGORICAL. despite being embedded within Atlesian rationality, despite her mentor being James Ironwood, there is something in Winter that instinctively judges an immediate instance to be right or wrong, and she’s never been able to suppress that all the way.

and with that in mind, i genuinely don’t think Winter is enough of a long-term, big picture thinker to give herself over to despair for Atlas as a whole. oh, we see her parrot “for the good of all, not just a few” just fine, but if she was already having trouble internalizing that when it was coming from IRONWOOD, a man she loves and trusts, then why would Salem--a person she is predisposed to distrust--be better at convincing her that the ends justify the means? why would she believe that submission is preferable to extinction from someone that EVERYONE SHE KNOWS considers an enemy? it’s hard for me to conceive of a Winter who, perched at the lip of the despair event horizon, will a) think enough of herself to make a decision for everyone and b) accept that the decision is imperfect and compromise, when she could just do what soldiers do, what she’s been asked to do, and die for an impossible cause.

(also not to belabor the point, but: ...how is she supposed to deliver Atlas to Salem? are we assuming that the Atlas Military works via Klingon Promotion, or that Ironwood gave her all his passwords?)

this is not to say that i think Winter will completely no-sell Salem (though that would be VERY funny). assuming that she and Salem do end up in the same room (which is still up in the air), i can easily picture a scenario where Salem manipulates Winter into making a bad decision (though honestly, Winter’s been doing just fine with that all on her own), but the distance between “a bad decision” and “a decision that she knows will help the Big Bad” is still quite far. i can similarly picture a scenario where Salem gradually sways Winter--not a single Anakin-style dramatic reversal, but an Atris-style descent-by-inches, through a million little non-choices--but that’s the thing: manipulation takes TIME, no matter how good at it you are, and we’re running up against the fact that the season ends in 6 episodes, and Winter is only one of about a trillion dangling threads.

tl;dr #4.2: the only way i can see Winter defecting to Salem THIS SEASON, then, is if it’s not her choice at all. for me, this makes the most thematic sense--that she’s been playing keep-away so long with her own agency, and Salem ends up resolving the issue by taking it away from her completely. that she wants so much to be sure she’s making the right choice, or to not have to make the call, and Salem gives her exactly what she wants. she’ll never have to think for herself again. we know Salem is capable of something like that, because we’ve just seen the Hound. Winter won’t be another Hound, if only because churning out the same horror will only yield diminishing returns, but she might be...something else.

regardless, tl;dr #4.3: if “Winter defecting to Salem” shakes down in any way--either as originally posited or as i just described--it would be an FANTASTIC story and character engine. i’ve already talked about the potential conflict this could create within Team RWBY, but like...imagine Weiss talking to ANYONE about her sister. imagine Weiss talking to Emerald, who would have just joined the heroes, whose decision to cut herself off from Cinder would feel like a portent. imagine Winter with the villains! not just Salem, but Cinder! imagine the subtextual parallels between the two becoming TEXT. imagine the two of them having to work together! imagine how Cinder would feel to lose Emerald and get Winter. imagine how Mercury would feel! can you imagine Winter and Mercury bonding over their daddy issues?? because i can’t! but i wanna. my love for Winter isn’t contingent on her making the right choices, but on her getting the right material. this would not only be the right material, but A LOT OF IT, and if the writers do choose to go in this direction, i trust them enough to be excited about where it might go.

#Anonymous #winter schnee #rwby #happy to announce that i am here to disappoint everyone on both sides of the 'will winter defect or nah' fence!! #don't you all feel lucky #'i wish hornets didn't sting me' complains area woman as she swings a bat wildly at a hornets nest #helen writes meta

[orionsangel86]

Cas ans Jack barely had scenes together in the first half of the season and now he is trapped in the AU world? When will they share scenes again? They clearly dont care about Cas as a character, sadly he only exist as a ship fodder on the show these days. Cas meeting with Claire and Jody? Not possible. Jack and Cas having a bond beyond lipservice? Not possible.

Hun I’m really sorry that you felt this way after the last episode. But I wholeheartedly disagree with you about Dabb and Co not caring about Cas as a character. He is not ship fodder. I absolutely hate that very concept and would take Cas being amazing and having a deep and meaningful arc over canon destiel any day. 

I have basically super dropped the ball on my reviews at the moment, and haven’t actually made any comments on tumblr at all about my 13x09 episode thoughts yet. So I will admit here that I am quite annoyed about Cas being pushed aside in the last episode. I don’t really understand the decision to lock him in a cage over the midseason story and for Wayward Sisters. Especially when Cas’s presence in Wayward Sisters would have only further encouraged viewership. Yet I guess they could argue that they didn’t want him pulling focus (which being Cas he would do regardless - he’s just that much adored by fandom). 

I remain quite baffled at how he has been dropped from these supposedly super important episodes right after a 6 episode run where the subtext, empty space, and basically TEXT at certain times was all about Cas. After all, our season opening song was literally “nothing else matters” being played over a sweeping shot of Cas’s dead body.

To address your specific points, I imagine the ship fodder thing comes from 13x06? The whole cowboy thing was rather excellent for fanfiction purposes. But I don’t think it was there entirely for ship fodder. If you strip away the destiel reading for the time being, what the writers are trying to tell the audience with this episode is that Castiel is so important to Dean that he can literally lift him up to a level of pure happiness just by his very presence. Castiel is the embodiment of happiness for Dean Winchester. That is what that episode told us (as well as the very obvious lack of Castiel in the previous 5 episodes where the entire focal point was to tell everyone that Cas’s death has broken Dean.) This isn’t about shipping fodder. Shipping fodder is comments like “last time someone looked at me like that, I got laid”. Shipping fodder is also a mixtape (though honestly I’d say it’s less fodder and more proof of canon romantic love but that’s just me.)

What episodes 1 - 6 has given us is NOT shipping fodder. It is 100% undeniable proof of Castiel’s importance in the show. It is this show going out of its way to tell us that without Castiel, at this point, Dean Winchester is a broken shell of a man. 

Also, if Cas was just shipping fodder, why would his fight for survival in 13x04 have been so freaking amazing and overwhelming and poignant and such a beautiful representation of overcoming depression? Castiel was made a phoenix in that episode. Reborn from the ashes of his own depression and terrible self hatred. I share your anger at his lack of screen time. Believe me I do. But Cas (and also Sam) often have character arcs that play out over a longer time period and with far less frequency than Dean’s. They often get overshadowed by Dean. 

I still have a lot of faith that they will come back to Cas and his own awesome story (which imo will continue to be a journey of faith in himself and his found family and to finally make peace with his own past). So I’m not gonna get super bitter about that just yet. 

As for your point about Jack being trapped in the au world, I don’t personally think that will last all that long. Yeah I can understand wanting Jack and Cas to be together and bond or whatever, but there is still a lot of ambiguity about what Jack is doing to Cas and others with his powers so I am less enthused by Cas taking on the daddy role just yet. In fact I am rather opposed to it. It makes me uncomfortable that he has had this satan child just thrust upon him. He didn’t ask for it, or want it, until the forced change of mind in 12x19 and now he’s just like “well I am responsible for this kid” and its just another thing for him to feel guilty about and yeah I’m side eyeing the whole daddy cas thing super hard. I don’t see how it is a good thing for his own development, so I’m not bothered that they have separated them (I would have just liked the Winchesters to have been shown trying to reach Cas in 13x09 when they found Jack though because not even having that mentioned that they tried to call him makes them seem idiotic and it was a major factor in me not enjoying the episode).

(I feel I need to add a disclaimer here that I love Jack as a character and find him extremely interesting as a mirror for TFW and a comment on the nature vs nurture theory and love that he is a baby bird who has somehow imprinted on Cas BUT I don’t LIKE the relationship he has with Cas because it hasn’t been built by natural means but rather supernatural means which makes me uncomfortable. I hope they build on this and we get some proper answers in the second half that’s for sure. Or I’ll be pissed.)

My response to your point about Claire is similar. Now I get super annoyed when Cas doesn’t get brought up in Claire episodes. It is one of my big pet peeves of the later seasons since Claire came back. I don’t need her to be asking after him all the time, but it would be nice if he was mentioned in the background, or in an off hand comment or something in a Claire ep. There have been Claire episodes in the middle of HUGE mytharc plots where terrible stuff has been happening to Cas off screen and the fact that the boys don’t bring him up, or Claire doesn’t seem to mention him irks me to no end. 

However I DO understand that they have a complicated history, and I DO understand that Claire needs to have her own story going forward and not be tied to Cas as a character. I don’t NEED Cas to be in Claire’s episodes, or in the Wayward Sisters episodes all the time. I don’t think that it is necessary for him to be a big part of that story at all, because they are going down completely different paths. HOWEVER I do think it is integral to Cas’s growth that he and Claire have a healthy relationship. Because they were only just beginning to build on that when we last saw them interact. I don’t need him there, I just need proof that they interact.

Also, because Cas now appears to have adopted two wayward children, I would like to think that his first adopted child at least fucking acknowledges him every now and again and actually HAS an ongoing relationship with him. I don’t need her calling him her father, but I do want it to be textual that she has forgiven him for Jimmy. I don’t consider that very complex and emotional story closed, and I think it is necessary. Especially since Cas haters still use it against him and us, as his fans. 

As far as Jody is concerned I guess they haven’t ever had any reason for them to interact so far. Jody has only really been part of the mytharc since the end of season 12. I have a feeling they probably will meet soon. So this doesn’t bother me. 

I guess you can say that whilst I don’t agree with you and your comments about Cas, I can understand where you are coming from and do understand your frustrations. They are also my frustrations, but I try not to let my own frustrations fester. I have faith in where they are taking Cas’s story. Sort of. I have a few gripes. If they get sorted out, I’ll be happy. I have been saying for a long time that Dabb is a huge Cas fan. Season 13 has not changed my mind about that at all.

#castiel #supernatural #destiel #season 13 #13x09 #spn meta #spn speculation #cas analysis #my poor angel #claire novak #jack the nephilim #nougat winchester #negativity for ts #asks #anon #Anonymous

[mittensmorgul]

My boyfriend admitted yesterday after finally watching 13.1 that Dean and Cas DO love each other. He has no doubt in his mind that if Cas were female, Destiel would have happened. BUT he sees Dean as straight and doesn't believe anything could happen with Cas in Jimmy's body. I told him that this is heteronormative bi erasure and that as a bisexual, I find it offensive that he makes that assumption. What if these sorts of casual viewer opinions keep Destiel from ever happening? I'm losing hope.

Hi there! And congrats to your boyfriend for seeing the love there. :D

First off, no offense to straight dudes, but the straight dude I’ve been married to for 20 years has absolutely no sense of bifi. Or gaydar. I mean, if he sees two dudes kissing at Pride he’d pick up on it (and there are a few famous people who came out that he wasn’t surprised at all about– George Michael, Rob Halford, he was shocked that anyone was shocked…), but when it comes to closeted bisexuals who deliberately do not want to be detected, especially the way Dean performs dudebro heterosexuality as well as Dean does especially in early seasons, he just has no clue.

*insert that gif of Sam telling Dean he’s overcompensating*

The things about Dean that have been screamingly obvious because I relate to them from personal experience just don’t register to a straight dude who has never once questioned his sexuality (like Sam, for instance). To a person who has experienced it first-hand, a lot of Dean’s behavior reads as signal flares as bright as day. If it were only used for the occasional joke, or rare random things that didn’t fit into a much larger pattern, or if it were just enough to make me sit up and notice once or twice a season, I’d assume it was just a coincidence. But… it’s not a rare random occurrence. It’s something we see in nearly every episode, more and more blatantly as the seasons progress.

I tell everyone to read this:

http://destielhiseyesopened.tumblr.com/post/102023741956/slash-and-subtext-series

It’s a lot to read, yes, but it’s incredibly thorough and the sort of thing your neck will be sore from nodding along in agreement the entire time. :P

As for whether or not the show will go there, which NONE of us can say for sure, the one thing I can say for sure is that it will not be casual viewer opinions that will influence Dabb’s storytelling. He’s said it multiple times, that he’s going to tell this story his way, whatever that might mean in the end. Dude’s not telling. I mean, look at him:

So while it’s great to have hope, because we DESERVE representation in blatant and clear terms, there is no guarantee that we will actually GET it. I mean, that is a very real possibility. It’s why I personally don’t watch the show with any expectation for ANYTHING, you know? Then every new hint that they are taking this somewhere is a pleasant surprise. For me, watching from the standpoint that I EXPECT a certain outcome is just not an enjoyable way to live. It’s just too much to stress about.

And as I’ve said over and over again, just like Dabb, I personally couldn’t give a flying fuck with the mysterious “general audience” sees when they watch the show. I watch because of what *I* see in the show, because I like analyzing the story, writing meta (with the friendly reminder that “meta” has exactly zero to do with predicting the future of the story… that’s speculation, and aside from being able to read obvious twists and turns in near-future plot points, or understanding general character development arcs and where they could potentially be headed in vague general ways, I DO NOT ENJOY SPECULATION, especially when it involves the sort of detail that a lot of more casual fans seem to expect of meta writers. I AM TIRED OF FOLKS HAVING THE IMPRESSION THAT SPECULATION AND POSITIVITY FOR THE FUTURE OF THE SERIES AND CHARACTERS IS “”””META”””” BECAUSE IT ABSOLUTELY IS NOT.

Sorry for yelling, I needed to put that out there. Comments of “I love your meta!” when referring to headcanons and speculation about endgame destiel is just… missing the entire point. The meta is the long academic character analysis, the comparisons with the current arc to past canon, the examination of episodes THAT ARE ALREADY PART OF CANON. Looking to the future to make guesses about what COULD happen in the future is SPECULATION. NOT META.

I’m so tired of people who do not understand that giving meta writers hate and dismissing EVERYTHING we’ve written because a “prediction” didn’t come true on the show exactly as someone wrote it… A guess of what will happen in the future that doesn’t quite pan out doesn’t invalidate all the ACTUAL meta we’ve all written over the years. Because just like pr is not showrunning, speculation isn’t meta.

*even when the speculation is attached to the bottom of a really long meta post. The speculation bit isn’t the tl;dr of the post. it’s the interesting and fun little bonus bit after you’ve consumed the factual part of the analysis. It’s the little blop of whipped cream on top of the pie that is the actual important content. It’s mostly decorative and just a bit of fun.*

Thanks, this has been a meta writer PSA.)

The point of all that is that none of us have a crystal ball, none of us have some secret insider information into Andrew Dabb’s brain. Despite the fact that we’ve been watching his storytelling over the last 8+ years (yes, he’s been writing for the show since s4, and has written more episodes of Supernatural than any other writer, so we have A LOT of history to look over, not to mention all of s12 and the back ~third~ at least of s11 after he silently took over the showrunning from Carver to look at when trying to understand his pet themes and how he writes), the best we can do is make educated guesses.

I’m not basing my hope for canon on some ability to read the future, I’m basing it on MY ability to look at the entirety of extant canon and be objectively logical about where the story started, where the story is NOW, and as far as individual character development arcs based on having watched them all evolve over twelve plus seasons already…

Well, let’s just say that for *me,* I can see the characters have been on a logical emotional progression over the course of the entire series (that would be the “meta” part of things). As new canon unfolds, and characters continue to develop and interpersonal storylines continue to evolve… here’s a metaphor. The writers are walking the characters down a long hallway with loads of doorways open to potential future development arcs. As they walk past each doorway and don’t veer off course, it’s like they’re closing off logical possibilities to detour into alternate routes. They’re slamming and locking those doors up forever. The closer we get to the end of canon (in whatever nebulous future that the series will reach its end, and NONE of us know when that will be right now), the fewer doorways are left to walk past, and the less logical any detour from what looks (again, from reading the meta and looking back at the entirety of past canon) like the steady progression of development would be.

Does that make sense? I mean, they’re writing themselves into a corner (or into the end of the hallway where there’s only going to be one last exit door to walk through). But again, as long as there’s still hallway ahead of us, they could take an “easier” route or just decide to stop walking altogether and just sort of set up camp at their current point in character development. It wouldn’t really be sensible for the STORY as it stands right now for them to do either of these things, because if they start backtracking looking for a different door the entire narrative falls apart. Whatever they do, they must keep writing forward.

*stops and scrolls up and cries a lil bit at how much I wrote*

Point is, we just don’t know. I’m hopeful, I feel like we DESERVE to be seen and this love story absolutely DESERVES canon acknowledgement for what it is, and that every sign in past canon and every sign the writers are continuing to carry on down this hallway is pointing to it happening at some distant point in the future… but as of right now none of us have any idea what that eventual resolution will look like. What even is canon?

I mean, your boyfriend said he sees that Dean and Cas love each other. Is that canon? What would “qualify” as being legitimately canon? I love @bluestar86′s spec post about how easy it would be to make Dean’s bisexuality textually canon, but I have no idea if we’d ever get an episode stating it so blatantly. We might, though. We did have Dean asking a gay married couple what it was like settling down with another hunter…

The point is, even trying to speculate on what will happen in the future– especially something so unknowable and distant as “endgame,” is honestly impossible. We have no idea what will happen in canon between now and then in specific terms. In the meantime, I’m perfectly content to point and flail at what is actually happening in canon right now and paying exactly zero attention to what “casual viewers” think they’re watching.

I know exactly what I’m watching, and I love it.

Will they ever make it undeniably obvious and clear in canon? I mean, it is undeniably obvious and clear to *me* but everyone has their own personal biases and wishes and checklists of things they feel must happen, and no matter if the series ends with Dean and Cas getting married there will still always be people who deny it was “enough” to make their relationship obvious, you know? I just… don’t have the energy to deal with that level of denialism. It just stresses me out to worry about what “endgame” might look like specifically when as far as we know, “endgame” isn’t even on the table yet.

So by all means, if you can, take that small step back and try and enjoy the continuing story, and don’t put too much stock in anyone’s opinion of what may or may not happen in the future. But most of all, don’t put much much stock in what random straight dudes in the general audience think. Because Andrew Dabb doesn’t. :P

Wow okay that turned into a treatise…

#spn meta meta #revenge of the subtext #the destiel #destiel #the scheherazade of supernatural #carasauruswrex #this is an andrew dabb appreciation blog (except when it comes to car stuff) #dabb vs cars

[tinkdw]

I need you

So I’ve been talking about Cas and Dean/Cas a lot, obviously. Then @amwritingmeta cemented yesterday through a post about Cas in 12x23 (addressed below) some concepts that were floating around my head throughout season 11/12 in relation to Cas’ view of self and how Dean speaks to him so thank you dear! - here it is. 

For me Cas’ mental state and how broken he is is of utmost importance to my reading of the events of season 12, so here it is.

( Before I start, I must state that I AM A DEAN GIRL, I LOVE DEAN, this is NOT an anti Dean post, because I know some might jump on this like how dare you, I LOVE DEAN but I am not blind to his actions and his own issues and how they affect others and how these need to be resolved and are being resolved. This is my perception of what is going on on screen in front of my eyes for 2 years and how it impacts others. It’s a part of the story and it is totally relevant and hugely important to both Dean and Cas’ own arcs, so this may seem negative NOW but it is NOT in the long run. )

Right, that over, here it is.

Dean’s repression and his miscommunication with Cas in seasons 11 & 12, on top of Cas’ already fragile mental state results in misunderstanding and actually cementing Cas’ sense of lack of self worth and value as his own person.

Which obviously is completely the opposite of what Dean wants to do.

Dean’s own issues are making Cas’ worse, or at least, not helping resolve them. Together they can grow. Their arcs are heavily interlinked and not just romantically.

By repressing his feelings and not being honest about what he feels and wants Dean, through his words throughout these two seasons in particular is actually reinforcing Cas’ sense of usefulness only as a tool and even then not a very good one. Even though he tries at individual times to be honest and open, particularly in season 12, the general gist is not this (that is what is under the cut as it’s long).

Eg. 12x10: Dean tries to be honest, he is clear that he cares about Cas. 

But due to all the rest outside of this (see below) and Cas’ own personal issues Cas still thinks his own life is not important

This attempt by Dean to be kind and honest and gentle is just like the beer:

“Well, this will do very little for me, but I-I appreciate the gesture.”

Cas can see the attempt, he is grateful for it, but it doesn't CHANGE anything, it still does LITTLE FOR HIM, it’s not enough and his own issues stop it from being seen for what it is.

So Dean (just like in 12x07 and so many other times) can't cope with this discussion, with Cas saying he’s prepared to sacrifice himself, so he represses his feelings and moves on, back to the case, as per his usual form

Which for Cas therefore just means that he understands that Dean doesn't care as much as he does, as much as WE know he does, because Cas is so literal and has such low self worth and depression, this all comes together to mean he just doesn't see below this facade and this repression to the caring below, he still keeps thinking of himself as expendable and less important than the Winchesters and particularly of course, Dean.

Cas is so literal, yes he’s learning, but he is still extremely literal and doesn't really get subtext, in season 8 for example he went and bought things that Dean has talked about out loud or shown to Cas visually that he likes: pie, the porn mags, toilet roll. When Mary says she was nervous and had to pee, he says “urination, I understand” because he does understand urination, but does he understand what she’s saying about being nervous? That there’s an issue for her? He doesn't offer her any kind of words of support like “it’ll be fine, Mary”, which you know he would if she flat out said “I’m nervous”, because we saw that attempt at support with Kelly on numerous occasions.

- Dean represses and doesn't use his words and hopes people understand what he means. - Cas needs things to be said pretty literally for him to understand them. It’s a standard misunderstanding romance trope.

Moving forwards Dean needs to learn to use his words and face his own feelings and Cas needs to escape his depression and find self worth. Lucky (ikr?! :p) this is exactly what has been set up, particularly through showing this negative side to come out shining at the other end :)

All this background in season 11 and 12 under the cut:

Season 11:

WE see that Cas is clearly and expressly depressed. He has a FULL ON panic attack, he is depressed, watching day time TV, Metatron TELLS US he is broken

Dean notices but doesn't see how bad it is, he tries to pull him out of it by using the case, using his usefulness 

He then continues this theme all the way through until Cas gives himself over to Lucifer

We also have a clear exposition in both Cas’ meeting with Amara and Ambriel that he, due to his personal reasons aside from Dean, feels useless and only useful as a tool, which allows Lucifer to possess him to help.

This is NOT RESOLVED.

Dean doesn't see what WE see, he knows Cas is not fine but not up to what point, he also doesn't really know how to cope with it so copes how he would with himself, focusing on getting by day by day, repressing and trying to be of use, because that is just about what works for him, getting from one apocalypse to another, but it doesn't work, it’s not addressing the issue, it’s masking the symptoms by just keeping going, which we know for ALL of them just keeps making it worse until it finally all blows up...

Then we have season 12 where this continues. Dean doesn't tell Mary (on screen) who Cas really is, what he means to them and how much he’s helped etc etc etc (I’m reminded of him talking to Claire about Cas saving the world and Jimmy being a hero in s10 and how Cas ofc doesn't see this, it’s just MORE of the them not telling each other how they feel), so Dean tells Mary just that he’s an Angel, not that he's like a brother to them even (which, is another point, because Cas doesn't want to be an Angel, he wants to be a part of their family, but here is Dean introducing him as precisely not what he wants to be) 

then Cas is used to find Sam, beating up the informants and doing the leg work, when we know that Cas hates doing this, he doesn’t like conflict, hurting people, fighting, but he does it because it’s necessary.

6x06:

(SO many season 6/12 parallels I have a tag for it and it’s just... yeah, so relevant).

Then in 12x03 we see Cas still feeling the guilt and need to find Lucifer, it’s brilliant that the boys want to go with him, but Cas rejects this and they don't push. It’s just MORE miscommunication. If Cas had said I feel awful and depressed and I need to fix this, I want your support but I don't feel like I deserve it, I feel like I should do this alone and not burden you... If Dean and Sam said no, we want to come with you, we are FAMILY, we will support you and do this together, because IMO this is what they are all thinking but no, they don't, so Dean is upset that Cas has left (and is pissy with him about it, because hell, why not add ANOTHER layer of angst to all this right guys? and this is just how Dean deals - when things are shit and his emotions are too much and he can't cope he gets ANGRY) so Cas continues to feel depressed and worthless until the point they meet up again in 12x07

Cas still wants to sacrifice himself and Dean does say “engaged in what? Killing you?” but he doesn't STOP him. MORE of this half attempt but not fully talking it out.

Dean then over the episodes since Cas is missing, he’s trying to convince Cas to call him / come home by appealing to his sense of DUTY, by saying they need him for his hands, not that they love and miss him, he’s using this as an excuse and not to face his own feelings but this just reinforces Cas’ perception that he’s not wanted, just needed. Hence his comment about not meaning to add to their distress, because Dean never said he was distressed in his messages, of course there was an underlying tone of this but it wasn't EXPLICIT until he said so when Cas returned.

xx

The mixtape scene in the bunker, as beautiful as the gift, again, is a reverse shit sandwich. FIRST he tells Cas they lost Kelly because he was missing

Then they have the beautiful mixtape exchange but he ends again telling Cas that they’re better together with Sam and for the job, “let’s get it done” and LEAVES.

x

Then since 12x19 to 12x23 Dean and Sam try to control Cas, Cas does accept their request to go to the bunker to talk it out and he does wait to hear Sam out at the end but when Sam then flat out tells him “no, that ain’t happening” that is when he decides he has no choice and boops them to sleep. 

When they turn up in 12x23 Dean immediately starts giving him orders, as @amwritingmeta pointed out:

Then Dean is dismissive of his “making friends” in the rift world and his faith in his “unborn baby god”.

I mean.... from Cas’ POV I can totally see the issue, because CAS is not seeing everything WE are seeing from Dean about Cas.

Cas has not seen Dean’s worry, his constant thinking about Cas and not as a tool, for who he is, all Cas sees are moments of familial care but A HELL OF A LOT of Dean giving him orders and, from his POV, him and others all needing him only for his ‘hands’.

x  Given that Cas already has deeply rooted emotional issues and depression focusing on his usefulness for YEARS, his perception of his being needed on Earth by Dean and Sam is IMO warped (because I’m not saying they mean for this to come across like this OF COURSE! but this is how I think Cas sees it, even though he does see the care too, he’s blinded by his depression and his own personal lack of self worth) so it’s no surprise that he asks this of Kelvin or then states:

x  His perception is that he is not even good at even just being useful because even then, he’s unleashed worse eg. Lucifer, this is massively important in considering his mental state during these two seasons and particularly at the end of season 12.

This is a HUGE issue for Cas so I can totally see his perception is warped (I am not saying that Dean is doing this on purpose at ALL(and Sam up to a point, but let’s be real a lot of this is with Dean and due to Dean being his primary contact with the two and the person he is in love with), this is all from Cas’ POV in his emotionally vulnerable condition).

(I’m going to just inject here the fact that this theme of Cas feeling needed only as a tool and bossed around by Dean is also entirely paralleled with season 6 as part of the season 12 / season 6 callback theme that goes over the whole of season 12:

Which is why it’s even more awful when Cas tries to call into play the family card in 6x21 and Dean rejects it, AGAIN, not that it’s entirely Dean’s FAULT of course, but from Cas’ POV this is heartbreaking because HE believes he is doing the right thing, that Dean only called him all season for his help as a tool and that he always comes when Dean calls, even during a Heavenly civil war, even when he first tried to put Rachel there first, because he didn't think Dean wanted HIM, he thought he wanted just A TOOL, THAT ANY ANGEL WOULD DO, and it all fell apart due to Dean’s attitude and Rachel’s defensive stance of Cas, but not because Dean said “no I want Cas because I care about Cas”, which we don't expect at this point really in season 6, their relationship isnt quite at this point yet, but still, it’s an important factor when looking at season 12 in the way it mirrors season 6 and Cas’ lack of self worth and self love for YEARS).

Now, of course interspersed with this we do have Dean telling Cas in 11x23 that he is their brother, we have Sam telling him they’re fighting for him, Dean telling Cas that they’re family and won't leave him behind and that he's worried, not mad, he tells Cas that he’s upset that they were ignored, but again these are all FAMILIAL words and mostly all WE’s not I’s. DEAN IS TRYING. He is not the bad guy here. REPRESSION, DEPRESSION, a LACK OF SELF WORTH and MISCOMMUNICATION are.

It’s not enough, Dean is of course showing Cas familial love, which is great, but not the whole truth and plus he still also frames this a lot of the time within a general excuse of needing Cas for his help rather than WANTING him to stay for HIM.

WE have seen Dean’s worry for 2 seasons, WE have seen him not sleeping, worrying so badly that Sam has to console him, WE have seen him framed as the worried husband.

CAS HAS NOT.

The words: I need you.  The meaning: I love you and care for you. The understanding: I need you as a tool.

Moving forwards I’m sure this is going to be addressed and I can't wait :)

#when will they get their fucking act together #miscommunication #destiel #tinks meta #destiel meta #season exposition 11 #season fanfic 12 #season 6 v season 12 #Cas was not the big bad in season 6 #miscommunication and trying to protect others #was as it was in season 12 #season destiheaven 13 #i hope #:p

[elizabethrobertajones]

This week's big debate seems to be about Cas and humanity. I've read posts that are both excited and upset about how it seems like Cas is eventually going to choose to become human. I was wondering if you had any insight into whether that's a good thing or a bad thing for him, or if he should choose to stay an angel.

Heya! :) I am going to answer this to the best of my ability which is a liiittle bit loopy and over-tired today :P 

But yeah I have been scrolling my dash and I am not dead yet so I have seen this discussion going on :D I sort of feel like I haven’t got much to say about it in a way that I haven’t said/agreed with before (so it’s been redundant to weigh in), but like… riiiight back when I was a Fandom Newbie and getting to know the lay of the land and I just got absorbed right into the general fandom consensus at that time among the groups of meta writers I glommed onto… 

I mean, because I showed up after 9x18, and then though of course I was around for the following episodes I really started the whole circus of new episode reactions along with everyone, with season 10… between tearing apart the Cas stuff in 9x18 and then the Cas and Hannah stuff in 10x01-3 it just seemed really really obvious where Carver was going with it, and what it meant to Cas? And I mean okay this was 3 (4?) years ago but I also feel like with Cas’s development getting stalled over and over and over except in tangential ways, this was all put on ice like 3 times over before he even got possessed by Lucifer, so the MAJOR work on this was between the last minutes of 8x23 and 10x18 and even then that’s the STORYTELLING of it, and of course Cas himself puts the whole thing on ice as something he has the luxury to think about in 9x09. (Except for the one peanut butter and jelly conversation.)

So in 9x18 the MAJOR thing is that the lyrics “loneliness is a coat you wear” are laid over Cas taking off the coat to mend it (although that’s left out so it’s more like… he takes it off to gather his thoughts on what he’s going to do next, which is even more symbolic and useless in a practical way of why he does it). He then puts the coat back on to greet his army… And in a few episodes Metatron does the “draped yourself in the flag of Heaven” thing, which when 9x18 is all about the subtext and telling us to pay attention, I find a very very straight line to what that meant about him doing similar to 12x19 - using Heaven but not wanting Heaven, and never mind his motivation with Dean (and that being what changes his mind and makes him play Metatron’s game), the way it portrays Heaven as an obligation and a duty to help, but with a loneliness that comes from wearing that coat. He’s walking out into a parking lot full of angels but the lyrics are screaming that he’s without love, and lonely, and the end of the season confirms these choices were the reason. 

And in season 10 it gets more personal, and we have Hannah as a counter example. With Daniel in 10x01 who wants to stay on earth and gets what that’s all about we see Cas empathising, but at the end of the episode he goes way deeper than that, talking about human things that upset and startle Hannah. She literally drapes the flag of Heaven over him in 10x02 and smooths it down and accidentally reveals that the plaid of Winchesters is underneath the collar all along, and Cas is sleeping and acting more and more human while sick. She wants to give him his grace back to stop this and he resists… Out of penance and lack of self-worth and knowing he did a heinous thing to steal grace in the first place (again, for Dean, not just to be an angel again but because he needed to survive to warn him about Ezekiel). But symbolically she is trying to make him take the grace and be an angel. Be a leader, the angel the others will rally behind and follow. She represents how all of Heaven feels about him (and 12x19 and 12x15 cover similar ground in what Kelvin says about Cas). 

But also in 10x07 it goes deeper with how she feels about humanity - that the human things are forbidden, that love and enjoying sensual pleasures like showers are just *wrong* for angels to experience. She rejects human things entirely as stuff that’s not for her, and nopes out hard. And she is symbolic of angels in general, of Heaven’s desires and feelings in general when she asks him to be a leader. 

This is the sort of pressure - innocent of malice but FULL of lack of understanding - that is at odds with what Cas FEELS which is full empathy to wanting to be on earth… an actual understanding and feeling for these human things. He’s in his own body without a shared vessel as 10x09 goes on to confirm, which means he has none of the conflict Hannah does there, and 10x09 paints quite a picture of Cas as wildly unlike all the angels in this way, because it confirms for once and for all he’s alone in there and the Jimmy issue is resolved. 

To quickly skip ahead on this side of things, 12x10 shows the same thing but dialled up to a zillion. Instead of Hannah standing in for a clueless family that doesn’t understand and can’t empathise with the different feelings and sense of belonging Cas has, but is still mostly harmless if accidentally intolerant and stifling with their expectations and demands, we have Ishim, who stands in for the worst sort of family experience with intolerance. He’s also in love with a human and that’s the metaphor for violent, self-loathing homophobia I guess, as he kills Lily’s daughter to emotionally sever himself from her, to no avail, and tries to kill Cas for having the same “weakness”. Lashing out with hatred because of the internalised feelings of crossing a taboo line that their society has turned into a harsh rule. Supposedly good reasons are offered with the nephilim thing, but obviously Cas and Dean aren’t gonna have a baby any time soon, so the metaphor unfolds itself as queer through and through once Ishim turns on Dean.

And to walk aaaall the way back DOWN canon, I’m stalled in my rewatch in 4x10 at Anna pacing around talking about how she did the worst thing imaginable and cut out her grace and fell. 4x10 is the first episode to actually explore the nature of angels and lays down some ground rules, like that sex and disobedience are forbidden. 

ANNAOrders are orders. I’m sure I have a death sentence on my head.

PAMELAWhy?

ANNAI disobeyed… which, for us, is about the worst thing you can do. I fell.

DEANMeaning?

PAMELAShe fell to earth, became human.

(I have the transcript open and scrolled down to that part in a tab and have for months… CBA to go find her talking about sex later but I think we all know the stuff she says)

That “worst thing you can do” line feels to me like with retcons from 12x10, that the “sacred oath” may be any sort of angel to human dalliance or connection or desire to BE and to be FREE. The same thing Hannah nopes out of in 10x07 is what Anna had to tear out her grace to experience. Anna having to take her grace back to survive is tragic, especially as it puts her right in the vulnerable firing line of Naomi’s reprogramming. This metaphor is SO much worse with Anna than even Cas, as it’s so simple about her returning to her family as an angel again after making a break to be free and live as a human like she wants, then to be tortured back to the family line and pure obedience, to her eventual death as an unrecognisable killer, a la Cas in 8x17. But without the sympathetic inside view and long arc to explain it or the narrative having any interest in saving her >.> (Hi, I like Anna and am bitter about that whole thing 5eva :P) 

Cas in 9x09 also takes back a grace to survive (and this whole arc brings in the clear concept that has been on the backburner since Anna of grace and consciousness as 2 separate things, and grace to an angel being more of its power than its mind, though functionally they seem one and the same when nothing hinky is going on - something else important for human endgame as well as showing ways of removing grace without falling and turning into a human baby)… Again like Anna Cas has little choice when he takes the grace back. He was happy to die human until he learned Sam and Dean were in trouble, and made a horrific choice to help them by stealing grace. After that getting his real grace seemed like the only way to fix him dying of his actions, though he seemed happy to again, the story had other ideas :P (And Mittens wrote something on how Cas has “let himself die” in the way he didn’t in 10x18, where he has to pass through death for change and reaping the character benefits of transitions. (Flyingfish1′s heroine journey meta also comes to mind). Of course by not letting himself die, he’s trapped in the 10x18 > 12x19 holding pattern on his entire life and personal arcs except the ever-worsening depression and self-worth arcs that spring up in the meantime, and the belonging one.)

Anyway it’s all connected, these angels with their connections to humanity, either what they really really want and are denied by fate, or by fate end up experiencing, and really really don’t want. Or in Ishim’s case he really wanted and then because of being an example of a total tool representing institutional prejudices, decided murder was the best way out of his brush with feeling human things. And they all tell us things about Cas from different angles, with different angels (sorry. wordplay was right there.) The long and short of it is that Cas is supposed to be one of those marble statues with no doubts (in 4x10 - *buzzer noise* WRONG *points at 4x07 and “I have doubts”) or that human things are not for them (*points at Cas even bringing up the subject and confusing Hannah about why you’d want to learn them and horrified that Cas seemed to have picked up human cooties by admiring these qualities in the first place*) or indeed that angels in general are massively intolerant to humans and from start to finish it’s a death penalty offence to get tangled up with them or want to be/be one of them. (I know 12x10 is more applicable to the Destiel side of things but the general message about Heaven’s intolerance with “humanity” instead of queerness with all the other examples makes a lot of sense to me.)

Actually I’ve seen the argument a lot that this debate is metaphorical to the trans experience for Cas changing species, even more than the interspecies romance parallel to sexuality metaphors, and I think it is fairly simple to me that this is part of the general queer metaphor applied to Cas as something the angels are intolerant of. 12x10 threw in the Benjamin stuff too and made it a little angel gender studies thing (which Hannah also helped with in 10x17 by reprising her “totally in love with Cas” look in a male vessel and not giving a crap about the change). With Benjamin they said that the angel Cas was closest to there was the one who had a ….. friendship ….. with his vessel. So there’s a lot going on there between that and the “his vessel is a woman, benjamin is an angel” thing) :P 

I think, anyway, Anna wanting to be human and getting disowned on pain of death and having to become an angel again, and even then being hunted for daring to not be an angel once, is the closest parallel to what Cas faces. Especially for internalised ideas he had at the time and hadn’t got to unlearn until he was a human. 

And I think, additionally to that, he may not have even realised that being human even answered his feeling of not belonging or being different until AFTER it happened. Like, Metatron forced it on him too soon and then everything was non-stop awful and then suddenly he’s had to get grace again (and heading for that flag of heaven metaphor), and only then he gets to reflect on what it felt like, by way of being an angel again looking back on it. It was so brutal and short that he never got a chance to appreciate being human at the time in a way where it would explain to him what he lacks. 

By 10x18 he has the family dinner and he takes his coat off for it. Heaven has rejected him, he’s seemingly chosen the Winchesters again, and got his grace back, but he has to go back to the grind, and he doesn’t change his wardrobe, he keeps the coat which is basically performative angel-ness with Winchester plaid underneath. 

(Actually about the only time I can think of that angel-ness is used as the queer metaphor and not the other way around is in 9x06 when Cas is playing cis straight human to Nora and Dean shows up yelling about him being an angel at his workplace… I think that’s a very circumstantial metaphor which is more about delightfully queercoding the entire thing than a wider statement… After all, contained within a season where the main arc for Cas is leading a heaven army thing, and ending in “i just want to be an angel” in utter, tragic defeat on the emotional battlefield. Absolutely NOT a statement on what would make Cas feel HAPPY, just useful and numb, per 10x03 and what he says about human pain and how revealing those lines are side by side about what Cas is feeling and how angel is he REALLY, like, deep down in his too-big heart where it matters)

But yeah he just keeps on going after 10x18 and this all kinda drops away, so I think until season 12 basically nothing was really done to mess around with this concept again in a substantial, meaningful way aside from attack dog and similar arcs tangential to this and more about Cas’s state of mind in general (as the same conflict can be applied to Dean when human). It has become more about Cas belonging in the Winchesters as the main thing - 12x19 has Cas being way more upfront about using Kelvin to his face, that he’s only going along with it because his old connections to Heaven are useful, as well as shining a massive spotlight on Cas considering himself a guardian angel as a bad bad thing, which is actively damaging his beloved family relationships and especially upsetting Dean. He would rather protect them from afar, and I think long-term Cas ending up with the Winchesters but as an angel would always be somewhat prone to that sort of thought in an emergency that as a more powerful being he would have to protect them, and a sense of not belonging entirely as another species that can’t quiiite relate no matter how different he is and how much more kinship he feels with humanity even as an angel. I can’t see that as a happy ending, and since 12x19 it feels rather more like it would be not finishing a plotline that is not JUST about this relationship but using it to move the piece on the board about Cas’s human arc forward another step, as his endgame would be not just as human, but also with them, so tying the concepts together isn’t a bad idea, as long as it’s clear this is something in season 9 and 10 Cas came to as a desire without very much contact with them at all, and therefore very much for himself as an understanding of what he is and what he desires. 

And, again, I don’t think Cas has great resources for self-reflection on the subject - not just that Metatron had to turn him human briefly to even make him realise he could ever do it, but something like using the belonging with family arc to help speed it along gives him a clear reason and goal for why it works and would feel right for him and to give him the place to self-analyse with motivation. I really don’t like the idea of equating this entirely with Cas’s belonging with the Winchesters arc all on its own, though. It CAN’T just be about that he should be human to be with his human friends/family etc. But I do think that a lot of the work to explain why he identifies with humanity has ALREADY been done and is a solid, existing part of his character already. 

In a happy ending even if it all gets told tied up with the Winchesters, I would point to season 9 & 10 to argue that it was not JUST FOR them, but that they were the soft landing for him to make a decision. If he became human he wouldn’t be forcing himself to fit in with them, he would be doing it for himself. I mean, since season 4 he is equated with Anna, protesting loudly he’s nothing like her when even before we meet her he admits to one of the cardinal sins of doubt. He has ALWAYS had a slight leaning towards humanity and clearly described as UNANGELIC traits and feelings. So in this way he’s always FELT different and therefore as it gets expanded and expanded and ends up being a deeply complex metaphor and fascinating way to relate to Cas, it’s clear this is an inherent part of him from the start. The human feelings that Hannah violently nopes out of have been things Cas has tolerated, defined himself by, and felt all along. She’s used to show that Cas hasn’t ever been bothered in the same way, and just uses her leaving as an excuse to delve even deeper into human connections by worrying about Claire, and in the narrative, walking us right into proving he has his own body and no Jimmy, and another way Cas is both unique, and uniquely suited to a human endgame.

I think though that a lot of this is personal and subjective on the arguments going around, and I see this sooo deeply through the old meta I read back in season 9 & 10 which has shaped all my ongoing thoughts I do know I have developed probably my own biases on this. I think Cas would never be happy as an angel in a happy families endgame because the Guardian Angel Cas issue (which was his downfall in season 6, so not a new thing, just re-focused recently) would always play on his mind as it’s shown that he self-sabotages his relationships in order to protect them. I see it like season 4 Sam using his powers to exorcise because it’s an ethical way to get rid of demons quick in a fight without stabbing the innocent meatsuit. In season 5 even knowing aaall the trouble it caused him and that Ruby played off his desire to save people as a GOOD thing to do great evil, he was tempted by the demon blood and regrets/resents not being able to use powers to exorcise the kids. (Obviously before he learns they were all just human all along because that episode is so disturbing >.>)

Even if it went some pretty hinky places (as in the end of season 6 for Cas and the guardian angel mentality, with Crowley as his Ruby, as he uses “i still considered myself the Winchesters’ guardian” as a justification) Sam’s motives were for good originally and he missed the idea of sacrificing his own morality to save people for an objective better good. Cas seeing his powers as making him more powerful, therefore more expendable, less included, and with a personal sense of duty to watch over and protect them, HAVING the powers would only ever be living in temptation to do a 12x19 again. Sam only recovers properly without the powers to tempt him and I feel he’s in a very different place as a person by now… Cas with a human endgame might not get room to grow out of it on screen but by his grace being removed (hopefully and tbh by necessity willingly), he’d have the potential and promise that he would be able to recover in the same way from this toxic mentality. And I consider 12x19 very much doing for Cas and the guardian angel thing what Carver era and 8x01 especially did for the codependency. Just put it all on the table and told us, this is hurting them more than it’s doing good in the world. Let’s look at how it hurts them and why. Let’s aim to fix it and let them move past it.

And even if Cas can start to recover from some broad strokes, like feeling more included, feeling like less of a tool/personal attack dog, he will only have a long term chance at happiness if the temptation is removed at the source, and he will need to UNDERSTAND that too and to vocalise some things about his reasons for watching over them like this LONG before he chooses humanity. And these are very much my personal subjective feelings on why it feels BAD to me that Cas would stay an angel, as it’s right off on another end of the spectrum of why people are arguing they feel bad if he would become human. To me the personal identity stuff right down to complex sexuality and gender metaphors are MAIN TEXT in Cas’s arc due to him being an inherently queer character. The “it feel bad” reaction to me right now is that I feel sad for Cas being an angel around the Winchesters forever because he will always be their guardian angel and that’s BAD for what he WANTS which is just to be a part of the family with no complicated strings attached like his obligation to protect them. So to me I see humanity as the obvious answer to that. But that’s a personal reading of what I hope would happen and why. So my explanation of what I see in the text is one thing and this part is another, if that makes sense?

… I hope any of this makes sense. I apologise for typing so long… I know I said I’ve said it all before but I mean I assume you’re not tag-diving on my blog if you’re just asking me and tbh I wouldn’t know what tag to dive either and they’re *my* tags so I’m not judging ;)

#Asks #Caaas #human!Cas #long post for ts #Cas analysis

[jimmyclip]

slacking ➝ self para series  (pt.1)

WHO: jimmy smythe, anna & dalton smythe. (mentions: @silassmythe, npc - olly smythe, @hxnterclarington, @sawyerpearce​ (very brief lol), npc - ms adams)

WHEN: 1994-2003

WHERE: jimmy’s head; cotton plant elementary and high school, smythe family home

SUMMARY: a reflection of jimmy’s depression throughout their life (first instalment). not As angsty as the triggers list makes it sound i ?hope.

TRIGGERS: depression (persistent, possibly misdiagnosed), self worth issues & contingency (grades; being a positive person), implied dysphoria, misgendering (pre-coming out), panic attacks, vomit. 

WORDCOUNT: 3k+

As long as Jimmy could remember, there’d been something different about them. At six-years-old, they could stand, smiling in a room full of kids and still feel alone. There were days, even back then, they remembered not wanting to get out of bed. Their mom would make jokes about them not being a morning person, and they wouldn’t know how to tell her that it wasn’t just mornings that made them feel like this.  That it wasn’t just a disgruntlement at getting out of bed, and some days, it didn’t go away when they got back into bed at night. 

Of course, they didn’t always feel like that. Sometimes they would get days or weeks or months that were easy; that were light. They would mean it when they smiled, and their negative thoughts wouldn’t get in the way of them speaking up in class, or starting conversations. When Jimmy got to feel themself, they were the happiest kid you could meet. Even then, though, it felt like they had to be careful about letting people too close. After all, it was never a question of if they would feel hollow again, only a question of when. They’d thought at seven, and eight, and nine: if anyone ever found out how sad I am, no one could stand to be around me. 

When they’d first started school, their solution to this was pretty simple. They always smiled the brightest, and though they were shy, they tried their best to make conversation. They revolved around groups of people pretty naturally, but never hung around long enough to actually cement themself as a part of one. The most time they spent with anybody was Silas’ friends. They’d ramble, and offer the appropriate cheery smiles when they were up for it. When they weren’t, they’d find something else to do. Silas was their brother, and there was a certain degree of safety that came with that. They trusted him enough to open up sometimes at school. 

They didn’t much like the thought of overstaying their welcome. While other kids weren’t generally unhappy to see them, sometimes Jimmy just couldn’t stomach how inconvenient they felt. So, somedays, they would say they had something they wanted to find out about, and venture off into the library to busy themself with a book. 

At first, it was just so people wouldn’t ask them why they weren’t playing with their friends. However, the more stuff they learned about, the more stuff they found that they wanted to learn about. There was the gruesome viking history book that no 7-year-old should be allowed to read, and censored sex education textbooks they’d found by mistake (which led to several uncomfortable family dinners), and later there was animal science (in case a dog was ever in trouble). 

Learning was a good fix. They were finally excited about something like other kids seemed to be. Even on the days when they didn’t have it in them to read, they knew they could go to the library and pretend like they were just too engrossed in a book to talk to anyone. It was a security blanket. A security blanket that made getting up and going to school a little less daunting. Jimmy wasn’t as stressed when they didn’t have to talk to people so much.  Books took the pressure off them to make friends. Friends, which they knew, they would have to keep parts of themself from.

Reading quickly replaced spending time with other kids. Eventually, being in the library at lunch became a more common habit than not. They sometimes hanged around groups of kids. After all, they were eight and they were charming -- in their own way. Despite how it felt, they didn’t really have to try that hard when they wanted to entertain people. However, they spent less time in groups or on playgrounds than was probably normal for a kid their age. It was lonely, but they didn’t mind it. Having the library made them love school. And having free roam of the far edge of the oval to pull off their own ‘experiments’ didn’t stop them being friendly in class, or from being enthusiastic when they did make it to the playground, so nobody seemed to mind.

Jimmy didn’t really make a friend of their own until they were eight. A lot of the other kids were scared of Hunter. He was volatile and easily irritated, and he acted out when he was upset. But, just like Jimmy knew that always acting happy didn’t mean you were always happy, they knew that Hunter always acting mad, didn’t mean he always was. One day they’d approached him, because he was sitting by himself, and they were nothing if not curious. Of course, they didn’t actually ask what had happened (that much was obvious). They did, however, stick around to find out more. For once, a kid in their class actually seemed interesting enough to be worth all the effort it took to be around.

Gradually, things seemed to slide into place. A lot of people didn’t really get it, because the two of them, frankly, couldn’t have been more different. But, for the first time in their life Jimmy had something that was just theirs. They thought, maybe now that they’d found a friend of their own in Hunter -- things would get better. And they did, for a while. When they weren’t, however, Hunter still stuck around.

The thing is, when you start fake-smiling before you can read, you tend to get very good at it. After all, no one expects Jimmy, of all kids, to be clinically depressed. Jimmy knew exactly the right things to say, and exactly the right places to go, so no one would have to know about this thing they carried around. Hell, they didn’t even let themself linger on it. When you have a mental illness, though, ignoring the problem only works for so long. And when the school year that Jimmy turned fifteen in started... ignoring the problem stopped working.

It started when their History teacher, Ms Adams, called in a parent/teacher interview.

Jimmy was typically a little disorganised, but lately, even the simplest tasks had felt impossible and overwhelming. Anyone that knew them could have told you how big of a nerd they were. The last few months, however, reading up about things they were interested in was stressing them out. Managing to do anything more seemed insurmountable. Most nights, they’d come home and end up staring at their homework so long it distorted their vision.

Eventually, they’d lie to their parents about having done it. Then, go do something stupid and reckless in the backyard with Olly to keep themself occupied until Silas came home. Sometimes, they’d rush to finish things poorly the next day before class, but most of the time they didn’t even bother. It was catching up to them. 

Ms Adams was their favourite teacher, and because of this, Jimmy put the most pressure on themself to do well in her class. Naturally, hers was the one they were failing miserably at. Before Jimmy had Hunter, Ms Adams would sometimes eat her lunch in the library, pretending she had work to catch up on. She taught high schoolers, so Jimmy hadn’t known who she was at the time, but she’d never told them they should be outside playing. Every now and then, she’d trade them their animal crackers for a contraband peanut-butter sandwich. In their books, that made her cool. 

She seemed to understand that Jimmy was a very private person, even as a seven-year-old. She never tried to make friends with them, but that didn’t stop her from keeping them company from time to time, or asking what they were reading about. They liked that about her, that she didn’t mind conversation for the sake of the subject matter. That it didn’t have to have an underlying concern or subtext. Back then, them being alone wasn’t because they couldn’t make friends, it was just because they were too overwhelmed to handle having any. In spite of that, she gave them the opportunity to talk to someone in depth without the pressure of an actual relationship.

Ms Adams had been suspicious of them for a while, they knew. Jimmy had loved the content they were covering in history this semester. Their work was still suffering though.

So, when she’d called them back after class one day to ask why, they hadn’t been all that surprised. They remembered how she’d touched their shoulder, which seemed a little out of character for her. They felt like she was looking right through them. “Jimmy, you’re a smart kid. I know you can do this work.”

Being them, they had just shrugged her off, fake smiling and scrunching their eyebrows in a false confusion. It was clear they weren’t planning on talking about anything personal with her anytime soon. 

Realising this, Ms Adams seemed to pull back. There was still a subtle hint of the concern she’d shown so openly before hidden in her expression, but otherwise she seemed unfazed. They thought that they’d got her off their back for a while. When she’d called their parents in less than a week later, well, they probably should’ve seen it coming.

Jimmy had been listening through the door as Ms Adams detailed the dip in their grades this year. “James is a very intelligent young man. He just needs to learn how to apply himself to his work.” They absent-mindedly fiddled with their gameboy, trying to distract themself from the tightness creeping up in their chest. “I’m a little worried about his attitude in class. Lately, it hasn’t seemed like he’s even trying.” 

Logically, they knew it would only be so long before something like this happened. They’d been doing a pretty good job at hiding things but they knew Silas knew something, and they knew not handing in their homework so many times was bound to get them in trouble. Hell, the last few weeks even Sawyer seemed to be getting frustrated with how distant they were. Right now, though, everything was happening too quickly. They were just barely managing to keep their breath steady with the thought of it.

So, they did what came naturally to them: They ran. Or, more accurately, they walked. They didn’t have anywhere to go. They didn’t even really have a conscious thought propelling them, but they got up and they left. They walked for nearly fifteen minutes before their body finally won over. By that point, they were practically seizing with how hard they were shaking. They were next to a line of trees behind the town cemetery, though they could’ve just-as-easily been on a main street with how little attention they were paying.  They put their palm flat against a tree trunk to steady themself, and they bent over. They heaved, and heaved. They threw up until there was nothing left in them. Their cheeks were wet with tears, but all they could focus on was the bile burning in their throat and nose, and the fact that they were choking on it. 

Jimmy had never had a panic attack before. They thought they were dying. They couldn’t breathe. Their chest was too tight. The air kept getting caught in their throat. They stood like that:  hyperventilating, dry-heaving, sobbing, leaning against a tree for nearly fifteen minutes before their breath calmed. Though, they were still scared shitless -- even more so because they had no clue what was happening.

Their chest hurt so badly, they wanted to crumble in on themself.  So much of them felt like they should just stay there forever, just give up and let this thing have them. A bigger part of them, however, knew getting this upset about something this small made no sense. Knew they had no way of explaining what was really going on. Knew, that if someone found them like this there’d be even more questions than if they faced the music. So, they spent some time talking themself down, and they walked home.

When they opened the front door, their mom was there waiting. She’d been pacing back and forth, and she looked worried as hell. Her entire body sagged with relief the minute she laid eyes on them. They immediately felt guilty. 

“Jimmy where the hell have you been?” She yelled, though the quiver in her voice gave away how worried she was. “Your father’s been driving around looking for you for half an hour.” 

Jimmy had swallowed thickly, looking down at their shoes. The tips of their sneakers were stained with vomit. They didn’t have the energy to explain any of this. They were just so tired. “I’m sorry, mom. I’ll go to my room” 

Their mom had softened, registering how upset they were. "No, you wont,” She’d said gently, “Go sit at the dinner table. We’ll talk about this when your dad comes home.” 

She reached across and squeezed Jimmy’s shoulder, making them squirm uncomfortably. They dragged their shoe against the mat in the doorway, and mumbled a quick “Okay”, before heading into the kitchen. They were fifteen; they didn’t want to be confronted about this. They didn’t want it to be coaxed out of them by their teachers. They didn’t want to tell anyone, least of all their mom and dad. 

Jim rubbed their neck anxiously, trying not to seem too upset. They knew they weren’t as talented-a-kid as their siblings. Knew they couldn’t match up with school stuff to Silas, or with imagination to Olly-- but they were happy, they were friendly, and they were easy. They were worried now that their parents could see it was all a lie, they might not ever look at them the same.

When their dad finally came home it was almost half-an-hour later, and with a fairly sweaty-looking Silas in tow. Though, Jimmy didn’t see him. Only heard their mom talking to him in a hushed voice, before both their parents came into the kitchen.

They traded loaded looks before Dalton pulled up the chair in front of Jimmy, tugging at the knot of his tie to loosen it. He looked a little uncomfortable, like he didn’t really know where to begin.  “James-” The name felt like a punishment. Jimmy bit their cheek at it, closing in on themself even more. Dalton looked toward Anna, at loss of what to do.

“Jimmy,” Their mom said, pulling up the chair next to Jimmy’s and sitting down. \ “Do you know why Ms. Adams called us into class today?”

“No.” Jimmy didn’t bother looking up. Instead, they fidgeted with their hands against the table-top.

“Jim-”

“Do we have to talk about this?” They asked uncomfortably, avoiding their mother’s eye line. Their words were strained and petulant.

“Yes,” Their father said sternly, an expectant look in his eye which meant Jimmy wouldn’t be leaving the table any time soon.

Jimmy rolled their lips uncomfortably, slumping a little in their chair. They didn’t want to look up again and see how disappointed their parents were. They didn’t want to talk about this. They didn’t want to talk about anything. Why couldn’t their parents understand that?

“We think...” Their mother started, sighing deeply to herself, “Your teacher told us she thinks that you might be depressed,”

“What?” Jimmy’s head snapped up defensively. 

“Jim-” She began.

“I’m not.” They interrupted, their mouth open in an uncomfortable, disbelieving expression. They looked between their parents, as if trying to gauge how either of them could believe this. They’d expected to be yelled at for slacking off not this. They weren’t depressed, they liked their life they just... they were having some trouble concentrating at the moment. It’d always been like this, and it had always lifted until now.

Their father clenched his jaw, folding his arms against his chest. 

“I’m not!” Jimmy yelled again, a little more desperate this time around.

“Jimmy” Their father warned. 

They felt that tightness pulling at their chest again. They had been so careful. They didn’t even let themself be sad around themself most of the time. They didn’t understand how this was happening. 

Quietly, with a forced nonchalance, they spoke: “I don’t know why she would tell you that, okay?” They finally chanced a glance toward their mother, who looked like she was holding back tears. Their gut churned guiltily. They were so desperate for their parents to just believe them, to not think of them as this sad little boy. “It’s not true. Ask Hunter, Ask Silas.” They looked toward their father then, who’s resolve had broken in slightly. His brow was tensed, but it was enough for them to read. Neither of their parents bought it, and that knowledge was crushing. “I’m sorry. I’ve been slacking off but I’ll stop.” Their voice broke, tears thick in their throat. They felt so sick.

Their mom reached across the table, trying to comfort them by clasping their hands with hers, but Jimmy pulled back. They balled their hands up into fists and tucked them under their armpits, making themself small. 

A silence lingered for just a touch too long, their parents seemingly waiting for them to break. They considered making a move to leave, but before they could find it in them to try, their mother started speaking softly: “Jimmy, I think that we might need to take you to see a psychiatrist.”

“I’m not crazy, mom.” 

Except, well... They were, weren’t they? They’d practically been a hermit their whole life, and they had just spent fifteen minutes dry heaving because they were scared of admitting it.

“Oh, James, we know.” They could hear how hard their mom was trying to make this all okay. They hated it. It made them wanna tear their ears off.

“I don’t-” They started, sighing frustratedly.  “I'm tired. Can I just go upstairs now? Please?”

Reluctantly, their mom nodded, seemingly giving up getting through to them right then. They were gone before anybody could say much else.

#[ p : me ] #[ p ] #[ p : slacking ] #depression // #misgendering // #vomit // #panic attack // #jesus ok its finally done #this is probably a little disjointed but oh my god am i done writing it #it 3am so i hope its not terrible But #[ f ]

[bartsugsy]

The Robron Break-Ups : A Definitive Guide (Part One/So Many)

Foreword

Do you ever start something you wish you hadn't? Well, then you have something in common with both Katie Sugden and myself, because here, my friends, here is my magnum opus: the definitive guide to the dark times.

I, anguished, alone and with clearly no better way to spend my time, have gone back to the start of this mess of a fictional relationship we refer to as robron and counted every single break up, every single dismissal, every single time one of these boys were cruelly (or rightfully lbr) #denied by the other. Yeah. That's right. This is going to be the longest series of posts you've ever seen.

A large amount of the blame here lies with @stolemyhheart, firstly for suggesting I do this in the first place (probably not seriously, but I clearly hate myself) and for providing the genius rating system I use throughout. The rest of the blame lies with Robert, Aaron and the writers for everything they have put us through in the last 2 years.

“But Lo,” I hear you yell, “this is depressing af, what about the happy times?” WELL YOU KNOW WHAT I WISH I HAD WRITTEN ABOUT THE HAPPY TIMES BECAUSE IT WOULD HAVE ENDED IN A LOT SMALLER A WORD COUNT. But let's be honest… deep down, we all want to know just how many times it's been now that they've broken up/rejected one another…. right?

Following on from this, here is the answer to a sure to be heavily asked question: Why am I counting rejections etc. as break ups?

Honestly? It's the only way to save my sanity. I can't express how hard it would be to work out what is and is not a break up otherwise. The gdoc title of this list is actually The Robron Rejection Compendium, which is far more accurate. It’s just… It's the only way. You’ll see what I mean as we get into it.

But hey, you probably know. You've all seen it. The Rating System

For each break up, I give the following information, so that you can all see just how terrible these boys are at staying away from one another:

How long did it last?

Who came crawling back first?

How little did they mean it? (Score out of a possible 5, with 5 being 'they meant it as much as any two people can mean a break up and still end up back together' and 1 being 'get out of my life but also let's go to a theme park together tomorrow')

Anyway, onwards we go - starting at the beginning. Pre-affair days, because I was already here and why not, honestly?

Follow me as I list out every time robron broke up (or said they didn't want to be with each other), and narrate you through it, like Jimmy Carr in one of those random Christmas TV filler list countdown specials.

(Pre-warning : this post gets lightly nsfw pretty quickly, with hatesex talk and makeup sex talk abounds, because I have no restraint.)

Part One : Pre-Manslaughter

1. 24 November 2014

Ah, the first rejection. An iconic one - mostly because of all the wall-slamming. Do you miss the wall-slamming? I miss the wall-slamming.

For context - Aaron and Robert have a little Woolpack Bathroom Confrontation™ over Chrissie’s ring, which was stolen in their little Fake Robbery Escapade™ and then Aaron actually finds and retrieves Chrissie's ring from Ross, because Aaron is a good and decent soul. Robert smiles in response and looks at him in a slightly different, 'you could be worth more to me than I initially thought' way. Which is nice, because 2014!Robert seemed to always immediately assume all people were worthless morons not worthy of his time. Because 2014!Robert is a grade-A butthole. (I love him though. I love him.)

Anyway, Robert decides to reward Aaron by tracking him down and offering him cash, so really in this scene, Aaron is actually rejecting Robert's money as opposed to his dick, but it's still a rejection and honestly, as previously mentioned, if I don't get really liberal with the definition, I won't make it out of this alive. Also, please, as if they didn't both go home and think about being pressed up against that wall together all night. I bet Aaron was really annoyed about it too. You just know he hated how attracted he was to Robert's smug face. How long did it last? A day? No time at all, honestly.  

Who came crawling back first? Robert, absolutely not taking Aaron’s ‘stay out of my way’ warnings to heart and instead deciding to confront him in the pub over Aaron’s ~obvious feelings for Chrissie~. Ok, Robert.

How little did they mean it? 5/5, because Aaron really didn't want Rob’s money. (Did want his dick tho, he just didn't quite realise that that would be on offer)

2. 2nd December 2014

Second on our list, it's the ‘Chrissie wants to buy Rob a car’ moment. Rob is all panicky and on-edge at the idea of Aaron talking to Chrissie (because he doesn't want Aaron spilling about the fake robbery and Aaron looks about as mild and easy to control as a live wire).

Chrissie leaves and Aaron yells at Robert about putting the woman he's about to marry through a shitty time and Robert… doesn't really care too much, to be honest. Aaron doesn't want to deal with him anymore and walks away. Robert gets this look on his face. Is it guilt? Maybe? He's really hard to read at this point, ok, he's like a moral black hole, but Aaron’s words have had some sort of effect, nonetheless.

How long did it last? Minutes? As long as it took Bob to make two americanos? The next time we see them, Aaron’s slamming a car boot down and still visibly agitated and Rob’s got the aforementioned coffees in and is trying to make nice

Who came crawling back first? Robert, with his coffee and his smiles and his apologies. Does he genuinely mean it? Is he just trying to keep Aaron on side so that he can potentially keep him quiet longer? Probably a mixture of both, let's be real. But Rob’s smile is cute and Aaron's smile in response is just as sweet and GUYS THEY'RE ALREADY IN LOVE IT'S HAPPENED THEY'RE BONDING OVER COFFEE AND CARS (and Chrissie?)

How little did they mean it? 2/5. Aaron genuinely did think Robert was being a terrible person, but also, it literally lasted minutes and all Rob had to do was buy a cup of coffee and turn on the charm to make things better… and oh boy, is Aaron a sucker for that charm.

Honourable Mention #1

The first honorary mention appears here, on 3/12/14, while Robert is having a Sugden family meal that's going just as well as you would expect a Sugden family meal to go and Diane invites Aaron to join in on the fun. Robert isn't about this idea at all, apparently and says so and then the two of them make subtexty sexual tension eyes at each other across the room. Robert runs away immediately, probably because he doesn't want the rest of his family to know he's in a constant state of ‘5 seconds away from ripping Aaron’s clothes off with his teeth’.

3. 3rd December 2014

Next up, we have what I like to call The First Date Rejection. Aaron came out to Robert, Rob got this Curious Look™ on his face and watched Aaron walk away. They made googly eyes at one another in front of Robert’s entire family and Aaron now finds Rob sitting in his car and for reasons that I can only assume relate to the wall-slamming incident and all the heated looks they've been sharing every time they're within touching distance of one another, Aaron basically asks Robert out on a date. It's not really intended to be a romantic date but... they both know they'd getting lucky at the end of it. Aaron’s trying to play it cool and kind of failing. Most inconvenient crush ever, am I right? Anyway, Robert blind panics again and immediately turns Aaron down, sounding insulted at Aaron’s entirely accurate reading of the situation. Aaron gets annoyed because honestly, why did he expect more from Robert in the first place? It all plays out in subtext and it's amazing, but also everyone is sad and no one is getting laid.

How long did it last? A day. An entire day.

Who came crawling back first? Robert again, fresh with the knowledge that Aaron would absolutely be up for it, desperately wanting to do something about it himself and also looking to get some payback on Chrissie for doubting his fidelity. Yeah... you... you show her Robert... how... how dare she believe that you couldn't be faithful to her… you! Of all… of all the people...

How little did they mean it? 2/5, because Robert is still scared of himself (and probably doesn't want to play away so close to home, more on that later) but also, you just know that he really wishes he could go flirt with Aaron over drinks and away from prying eyes and not care - as seen by his troubled face in the very last shot of the scene. Poor, deeply closeted Robert. Aaron is absolutely on to you, my son.

4. 4th December 2014 - The First Kiss (Rejections)

Ah. Ah the lay by. Iconic location of an iconic first kiss. Now since I'm obviously here to talk less about the romantic stuff, and more about the heartache, heart break and general You’re Dead To Me’s, I'm going to skip the mush and hop straight to the good stuff. Robert, having made the decision to throw caution to the wind in an impulsive angry reaction to Chrissie’s doubts, does the following: fakes a breakdown (or not even - just turning the engine off, what kind of terrible cover), gets Aaron's number from Vic and lures Aaron out to the side of a road under false pretenses.

Aaron gets there, pretty quickly realises what's up and he is All. About. It. Then, of course, Robert panics and chickens out, but Aaron has long had him sussed, chases after him and that's about as far as Rob’s defences will hold when it comes to Aaron.

They have an epic, epic first kiss that turns into an epic, epic make out session. All that sexual tension that's been building expressed in one moment - enough that Aaron basically starts shoving Robert into his low loader and pulling off his shirt, because they've both had Enough™ of the whole sensible restraint thing.

Naturally, this is when Robert freaks out again and pulls away. Aaron follows, they almost go at it again on the hood of Robert’s car and then finally, Rob comes to his senses and drives away.

(I lied earlier. I really didn't skip the mush at all. They love each other and they want to bang. That's all.)

How long did it last? The first pull away lasted a whole whopping second. The second one? Just long enough for Robert to bone Chrissie, realise he still wasn't satisfied because he wanted Aaron and then hang around the garage like a creeper for a bit. So about 2 hours.

Who came crawling back first? True to form once more, it's Robert, looking to scratch a particularly cute and scruffy itch that his fiancé just couldn't help with.

How little did they mean it? 1/5, Rob’s panicking again, still woefully in the closet and… probably coming to his senses a little, realising that this wouldn't end well? Aaron’s too close to home, already has too much to hold over Robert without this too, and… it's just not a good idea, is it?

But really, as we know, all of Robert’s defences are absolutely useless against Aaron, so… onto garage sex (or blowjobs anyway, I'm still saying blowjobs) in some rando’s car. Beautiful.

5. 5th December 2014

So, they've banged in a car (and then Robert went back and banged Chrissie again, because apparently he's literally the horniest person alive) and now we skip to the next day, where Aaron has managed to find a car for Robert, per Chrissie’s request.

At home farm, Chrissie wants to have a little private chat with Aaron about payment and Robert, panicking once more over his terrible decisions, pulls Aaron to the side and offers him hush money. Again. Because he apparently did not learn the first time.

Aaron, as expected, does not take this well.

How long did it last? About 3 days.

Who came crawling back first? Aaron? If you count taking Finn out to make Robert jealous, having the plan backfire entirely and make Robert more smug and then going out and absolutely battering Rob’s new car as “crawling back”. Either way, there's more wall-slamming and they end up having angry sex in Aaron’s room, so it's a win all round. Except for Rob’s car. And Chrissie, I guess.

How little did they mean it? 4/5. Enough that they ended up having angry sex a few days later, anyway. That counts as ‘meaning it’ in the robron book of arguments.

And that’s Part One! Tune in next time... maybe we’ll get to 2015. God help me what am I doing 

#robron #the robron rejection compendium #long post #ed