#i'm probably not going to draw anything but i'm thinking on maybe a gifset...

[adelle-ein]

hi! i cant believe i saw ur post about my tags! (no worries about @ing or not @ing me.) and ur SO RIGHT about the quality being too high for 2013… (id also love an aesthetic writeup)

it really was just a surprise because the number of gif creators has been drastically reduced since this post type has been dying out on all other platforms. for me it gave me the similar vibe of recent dvd movies being redesigned for vhs covers (tho not quite that old). it was super charming!

and i hope i didnt imply that your gif work was bad or outdated! i think the colors are quite fitting and the quality speaks for itself.

im quite new to the fe3h and ferdibert scene, so im having a great time trawling tumblr for all the great posts ive missed since 2019. i was quite happy to see this particular gif post because it felt like such a classic tumblr staple, like all ships need (at least) one dedicated set of gifs/edits, and this was the one i needed 🥰

thanks again, for both your original post AND reply!

Hi! I'm glad there's no worries there, I went back and forth for a bit and I didn't want it to feel like a callout post because. it was very much not! I just wanted to talk about gif stuff a little bit

and I definitely don't feel bad about your comments or anything! At first I was surprised but when I went and looked at the gifset I definitely agreed with you (despite nitpicks about the time period heh.) It did make me think about how, in general, I don't think tumblr gif-making trends have continued changing as much since the mid-2010s, and if they have I stopped really keeping up with them. I think some of that is probably just me, esp due to my never buying Photoshop CC (i remember looking at others' methods in maybe 2016ish and seeing that I just didn't have the tools others did anymore. my old CS6 is still chugging along…) but also due to the site becoming less popular over time and there being less interest and fewer people getting into gif-making. Like you said it's a bit of a dying medium, and it's never really been a popular post type on other platforms, so if not for tumblr who would people be making gifsets for?

Lol I definitely feel you about that style of post being an older ship staple though! It used to be such a common thing that every fandom had (albiet less for video games bc that's often harder - I do not honestly remember really making that series of 3h ship gifs but that was definitely dedication to the cause at the time, there was so little media to work with). Now a bit of a dying art alas (including from me since I don't really make many gifs at all anymore….learning to draw instead for a number of reasons)

Anyway yes that was a fun rabbit hole to go down! Genuinely I would love to read a Tumblr gif/graphic aesthetic writeup - putting framerates aside I don't think people really use textures that much anymore for example unless they need a background, and sharpening has definitely been toned down. And fewer song quotes. And filters still lean more pastel than the really saturated stuff in the early 2010s. But I don't really have the time atm to do some kind of deep dive myself…it would be really neat though!

(Also just in general as someone who never left, seeing the site come back to life a little bit as the twitter BS kicked off has been fun…idk if it will last but i'm enjoying it while it does!)

#itsquip #ask #txt

[superbatson]

tagged by @wirypsychiatrist (technically; he opened it up for anyone to fill out and i love an excuse to talk about myself lol)

what book are you currently reading?

i have a tendency to read a few books in different formats so in print it's the matzah ball by jean meltzer (yay hanukkah romance!), in digital it's shazam & the seven magic lands (a reread bc i remember so little of it since the run ended in 2020), and in audiobook it's autism in heels by jennifer o'toole.

what’s your favorite movie you saw in theaters this year?

elvis, obviously. it's so good i saw it twice in theaters!

what do you usually wear?

lately i've been really dressing down bc i have literally nothing to do so it's just like a t-shirt and sweatpants. maybe i'll throw a sweatshirt on over the t-shirt if i get cold (which usually happens at night).

how tall are you?

5’4”

what’s your star sign?

gemini 💕

do you go by your name or a nickname?

my name lol. i mean, family/close friends/teachers have called me "rach" but usually i just go by my name. i don't have any real unique nicknames.

did you grow up to be what you wanted to be when you were a child?

lmao no, absolutely not. as a kid i think i had dreams of being a singer so that didn't happen. (neither did the author dream but that really developed in my teens.)

are you in a relationship? if not, who is your crush if you have one?

lmao i can't even make friends let alone date, ofc i'm single. i have too many celeb crushes to list here but irl i still kinda have a crush on this guy from high school (i've liked him since i was in 9th grade oop)

dogs or cats?

cats, obviously

if you draw/write, or create in any way, what’s your favorite picture/favorite line/favorite etc. from something you created this year?

my favorite gifset i've posted this year is definitely my "elvis + capt. marvel jr references" set not bc it's, like, my best set or anything, but simply bc it's like My Brand boiled down to a single gifset. i know i have a lot of interests but elvis (the man & the movie) and shazam are some of my biggest special interests so that set feels like a perfect representation of my faves. and i did really love getting to point out all the capt marvel references they made in elvis, it was a lot of fun. (now if only i could do a follow-up with fotg making elvis references. the movies are from the same studio, it's gotta happen!)

with fics, i felt like i was kinda lacking this year in terms of quality/quantity but i did enjoy some of the little caswen (hsmtmts) stuff i posted. the sneaky bunk sex one is my favorite.

what’s something you would like to create content for?

i really wish i could join my fellow elvis stans in writing imagines (for elvis, austin, or both) but i'm so uncomfortable writing in that format that i hardly ever do it. it's like i write them with myself in mind but i don't want to isolate my audience bc of that. yet the few imagines i've written in the past (for various fandoms) have gotten good responses, so idk. maybe i just gotta ignore my insecurities and write some freakin' imagines. there are a few ideas i've wanted to write for a little while now...

what’s something you’re currently obsessed with? 

idek i'm like between obsessions at the moment. i've kinda gotten involved in the santa clause fandom lately bc of the disney+ show (i've posted about it on my main) but idk if i'd call that an "obsession". maybe i'm just still holding onto elvis and shazam, at least for as long as i can until they probably become irrelevant (aka post-award season and post-dc reboot).

what’s something you were excited about that turned out to be disappointing this year? 

my children's literature class. i thought i was gonna have a blast getting to read kids' books but i wound up getting stressed out over having to read multiple books a week (which was fine when it was picture books but not when it was novels). i did get to read some good books for the class but somehow i wound up liking the other class i took that semester, american government, more.

what’s a hidden talent of yours?

i think i'm a pretty good singer? idk if that's considered a "hidden" talent but i don't exactly like to sing in front of people (i only do it when home alone or in the shower) so i guess it is kinda hidden.

are you religious? 

nah. i like judaism from a cultural perspective but i don't really agree with a lot of their religious beliefs. (i mean, like, with god and the kosher stuff and specific holiday practices, etc.)

what’s something you wish to have at this moment? 

a job that i enjoy

i tag: also whoever wants to do this. feel free to say i tagged you 🙂❤

#tag game

[lonelier-version-of-you]

Are there any eps of holby that you refuse to watch for a second time (or even at all)? for me it's the finale 😂. Just going to pretend that shit never happened. Also, Jacs breakdown episode because I can't bear what they put Rosie through

I skipped the Jac breakdown stuff because 1. it happened while Henrik was away from the show anyway (although to be honest if it had happened while he was there, I probably would've just only watched his bits) and 2. yeah, I couldn't bear to watch it knowing what it did to Rosie's own mental health.

As for episodes I refuse to rewatch... yeah, probably the finale for me too. Definitely anything from Henrik's CSA storyline, so... S22E40, S22E41, S22E42, S22E44, S23E01, S23E02, S23E03, S23E04, S23E05, S23E06, S23E07, S23E15, S23E16. I rewatched the storyline obsessively over and over while it aired (yeah, I was not in a good place) but now it's over I don't think I could ever watch it again. At least not without it doing dreadful things to my mental state (I've had to watch a couple of the episodes again recently to write down some of the dialogue and it left me feeling extremely triggered and upset all day). The fact that I don't consider it canon helps though, as it means I'd hardly have any excuse to watch it anyway. (Dunno what I'm gonna do though, when I get round to making that Henrik/John parallel gifset... I should draw a parallel between their backstories but I can't bring myself to watch any of the scenes where Henrik talks about his abuse, plus I don't even accept those scenes/episodes as canon. So. IDK. Maybe I'll figure out what the most obvious scene hinting at Henrik having been abused from his early episodes was and just use that??)

#asks #anons #tw;csa

[hoshiyoshis]

Hey, its gonna be okay. There are lots of moments in life where our pasions just arent as intense as before or even disapear for a little while, but that doesnt mean you should feel bad/angered with your self over it. Try to give this a breake, focus on other things even if it is only a week or two, because the more you drawn onto this feeling the harder its gonna be on you.

Also, you dont need to apologise to people for following you, you are doing you best🌸💖

ive kinda left this one in my inbox all day bc i dont know what to really say to it, ig? like. obviously i want to start with the fact that i appreciate u took time out of ur day to say something nice to someone whos struggling bc it genuinely means a lot to me that u did that!!

idk take some ramblings of a struggling artist or w/e u wanna call me. 'depressed bitch' also works lmao

i guess i just... always feel like i'm not doing enough as a creator. like as a fan idc abt making content, but i like making things. i think just... stuff comes back around like darl+ing did, or like HOT did, and i just kinda watch everyone else make pretty much every single thing ever and i sit there and im like... well, what do i do? what can i do? everyone's always going to make things better than me to begin with.

it's not like drawing or writing where i'm the only person who can create a thing that way. its taking the exact same content as other people do and just... doing it, but always doing it worse because other people have done this enough times that it looks easy to them even though i know its not. some people probably have their stuff automated so that they can churn content out quickly.

i guess i'll always feel like... not good enough. and i think that's always where my passion dies out. and if i'm honest, i think i notice it the most in caratblr out of anything else. it always feels weirdly competitive. gif the mv first. make your sets for the new gose episode and get them posted as fast as you can but also make them look good. there's a new fancam? there will be gifsets already uploaded before you even view the first few seconds of it.

and it's not that i would ever ask another creator to slow down because if they're genuinely enjoying making their content then go for it? have fun? i just wish people consumed content better. if you aren't a "big name" then you aren't going to get notes. sometimes it feels like if you aren't a part of closed network that you aren't going to get anything either. or maybe people just... don't want to reblog things.

i don't know. i just notice it the most in caratblr compared to the other groups i made gifs for. i think that's honestly why i really prefer making content for groups like treasure or golcha? its just... more comfortable. i don't feel like i'm constantly competing with other people to produce something for them.

i make a gifset of hyunsuk and i feel at home with getting reblogs from my mutuals and seeing people be nice in the notes. i make that skz + red set and i see some ppl being super nice and calling it pretty/stunning or pointing out the way felix looks in one of the gifs.

which isnt to say caratblr isnt nice. i think abt the sweet tags i get usually from my mutuals, sometimes from ppl outside that circle, too. but idk, i just notice an imbalance more of reblogs to likes more often there. i compare myself to other creators who get hundreds of notes which is probably my own damn fault for comparing so much.

and i think that just... genuinely impacts my enjoyment of things. sometimes im like "oh maybe it'll be fun to gif the new mv haha" or something and then i remember oh, right, im not talented enough for that. other people are going to do it and do it better every single time so why should i try?

also lmao its just hard to be on tumblr in general when stuff like this happens. logic says "take a break for a few days" but i just... i dont want to. i like being here. i like interacting with my mutuals. i just know i'm going to sit there and feel fucking awful though if i try to scroll through my dash. and if i take a break for too long, then it feels like im falling even further behind. i already have to take a fucking extra semester to finish my schooling, i feel even more pathetic falling behind in a hobby that i actually like.

its stupid. sometimes i feel like i don't deserve to be here and to be a fan if i let so much stupid shit like that bother me. i know i don't have to create content to be a fan, but i just... i like doing it. its just hard to not lose all motivation again and wonder why i even bother being here and listening when i can't give them my all in return.

#hoshranghaes.ask #anon #sorry this is longer than i thought it was going to be

[nia-nita]

It’s been almost a year when I was first introduced to Hakuouki and I’ve never read Hijikata’s route even once. I’m such a bad fan, but can you actually blame me?! He got the anime, the movies, three hakumyu’s + the two live’s, the high school AU tv series+movie+stage and also the regular stage play (which i’ve never seen). I think I’ve gotten a pretty good grasp on what his route is about...

#i still feel bad for not having read it... #i also have barely started on going through edo blossoms #yeah i know... i have still not finished it #i've read shinpachi's and sanan's route #and started on sano's cause i'm weak xD #poor yamazaki iba souma and sakamoto having to wait for me until i've reread my bae first #it's also apparently hijichi week next week #i'm probably not going to draw anything but i'm thinking on maybe a gifset... #we'll see how it goes next week

[olderthannetfic]

I've seen so many people talk about the extreme toxicity of fandom recently and I'm beginning to wonder if I'm just blind that I don't see (much of) it or if it's only happening in fandoms I'm not hanging out in or if this is general fearmongering so it's more exciting to post a super taboo edgy darkfic about a ship that's absolutely *wrong*. What do you think? (Thank you 💕)

You want a salty comment? You got it!

How hard it is to avoid depends on a couple of things: have you ever stuck your neck out and gotten canceled for something? Do you defend people from bullies? Do you defend the right of weird porn to exist? And by “Defend”, I mean post about it regularly under your regular account. Anything of that kind of thing will draw fire even if your own fandoms aren’t a toxic cesspit. If you’re pretty quiet, nobody will care enough to come after you... probably.

The second big factor is which fandoms you engage in, and by engage, I mean posting fic or very publicly discussing it, not passively reading fic and clicking like on gifsets. Posting art. Posting vids. Making very popular recs lists people might get mad about not being on. etc.

Do you hang out on twitter or other places people chase clout to drive suckers to their patreons? Do you go on discords of people you only know online? Are you 20-25? Do you publicly engage around f/f ships or ships with black characters in them? Do you make fanworks for those that are less than ultra fluff? Are you a non-US person criticizing everything being seen through a US framework of identity and progressiveness? There are certainly criteria that make you more likely to encounter toxicity, but none is universally sufficient or necessary.

Sometimes, you just get lucky. Or you haven’t opened your mouth yet and told your new totally “reasonable” and “nice” fandom that you think dubcon is acceptable to write about. You’d be surprised how many 20-somethings I meet who’ve just been ostracized by their entire set of fandom friends over something like that.

If you just ship white people in older fandoms and maybe the leads in a current c-drama or two while paying vague lipservice to BLM and handwringing and projecting your US-flavor white guilt and extreme ignorance onto everybody else, you’ll be fine with wokesters. It’s the self hate and the self flagellation that demonstrate internal goodness. Throw on a sprinkle of “don’t fetishize abuse”, and the anti-BDSM radfem crowd will know you’re on their side and leave you alone.

But go on twitter and find an Asian fan from Asia explaining why some faux-progressive US take on some BL/danmei/Asian media thing is missing aspects of the original cultural context and pretty often, you’ll find a conflagration. Or find anyone defending fictional noncon or anything to do with BDSM. People screaming abuse at each other aren’t hard to find.

And, hell, on the supposed pro-shipper side, we still see disproportionate and frankly fraudulent callouts and bullying, just with a slightly different set of acceptable targets.

It isn’t most people in fandom, but most people in fandom do turn a blind eye to it rather than getting embroiled on purpose, and a lot of the people who’ve been targeted were fine until one day their pretty fan art made someone jealous and all hell broke loose.

There’s a lot of victim blaming going on in fandom as people try to reassure themselves that it couldn’t happen to them.

--

Obligatory mention: This isn’t some unique The Liberals Suck problem.

There’s plenty of even more intense toxicity and screaming of racist slurs from the alt right types. The things above are more likely to crop up in fanfic fandom spaces, where this other shit is going to be more common in general fan-of-media-x spaces.

The overall problem within fanfic fandom is largely driven by:

differing ideas about what fandom is and should be

the continuing mental toll of the pandemic but also everything else wrong in the world before that

piece of shit social media that works intentionally as an outrage machine

#fandom meta #Anonymous

[queenmercurys]

Ah, I'm so sorry to hear that you've been getting hate for shipping Jo and Laurie. People can be so terrible. :( I'd love to hear more of your thoughts about them, but I understand if you prefer not to share more out of concern for the hate. Regardless, thank you for your answer.

Thank you! It’s really not a big deal, but I’m kinda at that point in my life where I really don’t need to be reading hateful comments about fictional ships on a website like Tumblr. And worst of all, most of these comments are added by people to gifsets I make. So, like, not only do I now feel like it’s risky to even post gifsets about Jo and Laurie, but also the very small amount of interaction I do get for my work is negative feedback. Not a good time. And it confuses me, because I kinda thought Jo and Laurie were a popular ship. And even if they weren’t, who cares? Amy and Laurie shippers already got everything they wanted in the film, why do they have to come after people who ship Jo and Laurie? Doesn’t make much sense to me. But yeah, overall I don’t think I should engage in the ship wars, I’m in my early twenties, I really am too old for this shit. But I will say this: to anyone who thinks it’s ok to comment (or write in the tags) negative things about a ship on an edit someone has spent time making and posting, you need to think about your life choices. And yes, this includes people who reblog the stuff and go “I hate the ship but I love their friendship” because bruh, that was not the point of the edit so like, just don’t interact. It’s that easy. If you don’t like something, don’t interact with it.

Sorry about that mild rant, Tumblr is very frustrating. But yeah, no, I think I’m good with talking more about them, and if someone is offended, they can (and should... I dare you, please) just block me. 

For some AU things, I really love the idea of Laurie actually receiving Jo’s letter and the consequences of that. I’ve seen a few fics kind of delve into that, but not really in the way I see it. So, maybe one day I’ll write like a fic based on it. Though that would make me kind of have to address the Amy situation, which I’m not really interested in writing about. But even as just a concept, Laurie finding Jo’s letter and reading it when it’s “too late” is just so bittersweet and I both love and hate the idea. Their entire scene in the attic is just full-on bittersweet. 

I fully subscribe to the idea (I mean, it’s not an idea, it’s what it says in the official script) that Jo didn’t actually run after Friedrich, and allegedly did end up marrying no one. Mostly because it’s what she wanted, ultimately, and also because I really don’t think she and Friedrich were compatible at all. I’m not really seeing it as “if Laurie can’t have her, no one can”, I just don’t see that relationship working. Even if Laurie and Jo had ended up together, I’m not confident that they would have needed to get married, or get married right away. They could have traveled around Europe together, as Jo had always wanted, and gotten to know each other as romantic partners and seen where it’d go from there. I don’t think Jo and Laurie are one of those traditional couples (or friends) in any aspect, so I can’t imagine the basic “marriage, then kids” formula for them. 

I really would have liked to have known what Jo wrote to Laurie in those letters while he was gone, the ones he never answered. I’m not expecting them to have included anything romantic (because if they had, Laurie probably would have felt more positive about answering them), but still, I would have liked to have read them. I truly think the two of them were best friends and as close as two people could possibly be, so their separation is even sadder because of that. I also hate that Laurie was not there for Jo when Beth died. Obviously that’s because he wasn’t in the country, but that’s when she needed Laurie the most, and he wasn’t there, which sucks. 

I’m not sure if anyone else noticed this, but Laurie is still wearing the ring Jo gave him even in the scene where Amy draws him. I just find it really heartbreaking that even after everything, he still couldn’t let her go. And Jo, too, still wears the red scarf shared by her and Laurie (which I assume originally belonged to Laurie) after all those years. I don’t think it’s that easy to let go of your first love (or any love), and Laurie’s facial expressions and reactions around Jo and Friedrich say everything I need to know about how he felt. 

My main headcanon for how I would have wanted Jo and Laurie to end up together would’ve been essentially what would have happened in the film if Amy had not gotten involved. I think I still would’ve wanted Laurie to go to Europe and Jo to have that time to figure out her thoughts, and when he’d return, she’d express her feelings and then, maybe they would go back to Europe together, because I really do want Jo to have that trip. Or alternatively, she figures out her feelings earlier and joins Laurie in Europe. A bit of a romantic sentiment not really befitting Jo’s personality, but the impulsivity is there. And that way, she could, again, see Europe. 

I think overall, I respect everyone’s opinions about the ships in this film, but I have found that I can’t personally understand where the reasoning for Amy and Laurie or Jo and Friedrich comes from. That is, no doubt, reflective of my own personal preferences and biases, and doesn’t reflect any kind of “truth”. This is just my opinion. In the script, they refer to Laurie as Jo’s childhood love, and I really do believe she loved him, and that they could have been an amazing couple. And as a lover of the good, old-fashioned friends-to-lovers trope, I would have liked to see it. A couple with mutual respect, admiration and 100% comfort around each other is a rare thing to find. All too often, Hollywood ships consist of two people who seem to hate each other, but that “hate” is supposed to be translated into some kind of sexual tension (also present in LW). I never understood this, so for me, Jo and Laurie were pretty much perfect. And, as kind of a sidenote, I adore how out-of-the-norm their aesthetic is. How many ships can you name where the man and the woman swap clothes consistently without it being a big deal? The two are so comfortable around each other, I’ve never seen anything like it. I think their chemistry is outstanding, their story is beautiful and even though they weren’t endgame, they’re still definitely my OTP and the only ship I’ve given a damn about in years. So, I think they did some things right. 

#jo x laurie #ask #anonymous #again thank you for giving me the opportunity to talk about them! #this is a lot more scattered sorry about that #and again if you dont agree thats fine

[elizabethrobertajones]

i love jack a lot but i don't get everyone's excitement about dean eventually adopting him. like why would you want to force him into another parental role with a kid with unstable powers JUST when he's escaping his role with sam? i'm not accusing you or anything i'm just really really frustrated at fandom's mentality

Yeah, there’s some good posts around discussing the various metaphorical and direct representations of the bad family dynamics going on here. I think it’s possible to enjoy and dislike the same thing from different angles. I LOVE Jack choosing Cas as his father and setting his personal compass by Cas. It’s perfect. But for Cas’s sake I’m genuinely skeeved out by it because of the way Jack(’s powers) latched onto him from the womb and that it is basically what I figured all along - that Jack himself is an innocent sweetie pie because he has a soul and he is therefore gifted free will and a blank slate to be what he wants and is at the very least not inherently evil… 

But his powers still did something because of his increased awareness and powers in the womb that I don’t like, which is… convincing… Cas to be his guardian. Cas being forced into the dynamic is one of the metaphorical parallels to the brothers’ issues which I’ve enjoyed the meta about, because of course Cas can still love Jack and all and have meant it because I don’t think he wasn’t acting from the heart in 12x23 because have you met Cas, that was a classic example of his heart on display. And I’m actually hoping they do have a sweet dynamic when Cas gets back. But I still don’t like HOW it happened, in the exact same way I really dig sweet moments between Sam and Dean which don’t have the complicated baggage, but I can still be uncomfortable about romanticising other parts of their relationship, and critical of how Dean was forced to parent Sam… 

So yeah. Anyway, I think the thing with Dean and Jack is that it’s the goal - Sam already likes Jack and wants to give him a chance. Cas has his connection to him already and it’s unlikely he’ll hate Jack on his return :P Dean is not wrong to be upset and critical based on the information he has like @k-vichan‘s post I just recently reblogged was explaining (Sam hasn’t even told him on camera that Jack said that Cas is his father which means until we get past the point of disbelief that he hasn’t said it off-camera that’s still something we might find out later from Dean’s POV to affect how he feels about him. Although I’m usually careful not to get over-attached to what hasn’t been said on camera in case the writers start assuming it’s obvious they shared it and leave an emotional gap… But this is such a big thing it might HAVE to be said on screen or else be a gap.)

Like… Obviously the emotional hook for “coming to like Jack” is something that falls on Dean to have while the others are already seeming to be clear on it. He’s the obstacle - the thing standing between Jack and a happy families thing (so it might be a long haul or Dean is just starting to warm up when things go bad either with Cas’s return or something that happens with Jack for what will be a frankly bizarre season if they don’t tease him ~going dark~ to test him at some point). It’s like a will they won’t they on Dean liking Jack :P 

And I think that in this case it’s not forcing anything on Dean when he comes to NATURALLY adopt random youngins and other hapless friends (like Garth, tbh :P) but that he has to want to do it and it is something he does instinctively because he’s a nurturer and has a caring soul. Maybe because of the Sam stuff but it’s not weird when he does it to, like, Krissy or something. It’s one of his softer traits but in this case it has mytharc relevance, since Jack is, WE can tell, really sweet, but Dean is in no position to see him for what he is, which may compromise them looking after him, and even if Jack is sweet and squishy right now, he has cosmic powers and intentionally or not he’s going to be dangerous on a huge level even if it’s just for drawing attention. I think Dean coming to like him will play a big part in reconciling this whole situation just because he’s the one who instinctively doesn’t like Jack already. And that’s something where he’s messed up with grief and hasn’t seen anything to convince him Jack isn’t a problem, so it’s set up to be a bigger struggle for him.

And that probably also plays into Dean as the emotional centre of the show - that Sam is usually dealing with the plot stuff head on, while Dean is the filter we struggle with it through. I think Dean not trusting Jack is another way of drawing out uncertainty and tension about Jack in the narrative. Is Sam wrong to trust him? Is there still something hinky between Jack and Cas? Will Jack turn bad? Even if it’s seeming quite clear that Jack is not as bad as Dean thinks by far, and Sam’s made the right call here, to go with his confidence in leadership and standing up for himself arc, playing the reconciliation to Jack’s presence in their lives through Dean is giving us (or, well, the surface level read of the show, which I pay as much attention to as I can out of curiosity as a writer about stringing appearances and cheap drama out of more complex stories and I watch the episodes from the POV of “what is the show trying to tell us” before “what can I read into this”) a more drawn out exploration of who and what Jack is and the conclusion on what his character can be. 

And I think that means Dean will be challenging Jack too, and always probably be more on the side of checking if he really is what he seems or second-guessing his actions etc. It will give Jack something to grow and fight against, especially since people HATE letting Dean down and Dean is the moral centre of the show when it comes to love, humanity, what is the right thing to do, the free will choice, just generally a beacon of these themes. If Jack has to win Dean’s approval, it’s going to be a complex and satisfying story and a good way of proving we can definitively trust him. Not because Sam makes bad choices or because Jack doesn’t already seem like a good guy, but just because Dean has Standards which are so high you can define and navigate the story by them. Like Cas rebelling in 4x22. Or on the flip side, 6x20.

This is all kinda wishy washy stuff for later in the season that what we already have, though, and I don’t know how thoroughly others have thought it through or if I am missing some really obvious lines of thought here myself, but I don’t think the instinctive reaction that people are wishing Dean adopts Jack is all just forcing a new child on him, or that people think Dean shouldn’t come to that choice himself, and approve of Jack for real reasons. One of the short posts out there about it that I like is a line of spec that Dean will start to like Jack after he does a Benny - does something to save or help Cas that Dean can’t deny Jack is good any more after seeing. That’s not just wishing another child to look after on Dean, that’s a complicated series of Dean recognising Jack’s potential to be good and understanding him better or now having a motivation to reach out to him. 

And I do personally find it kind of creepy to be super gung ho about Jack as any of their children - Cas for the reasons I already said although I like it for Jack and would be open to Cas being cool with it :P But Sam and Dean as well because I think there’s a lot of point scoring going on with who gets to parent Jack like it’s a token or trophy for them, unlocking a whole bunch of parent headcanons and also, and I know it’s weird to say about a 1 day old baby, infantilising Jack. I think he’s already starting to get an idea of the more complex stuff and a lot of his literal born yesterday mannerisms will disappear as he gets older, since he has an adult intellect to deal with the world, so I’m very curious about his character growth. 

I think it’s just a fandom thing to be eager for the main characters you care about to have fun relationships and the idea of just giving them a kid can be appealing to some people, but it kinda weirds me out. I saw a gifset of the father reveal to Sam captioned with “Sam realises he’s an uncle” and I like that a lot more because it emphasises his brother relationship to Cas, and puts Jack in that context to him. I think since Jack said Cas is his father, “parenting” just means “we are responsible for guiding this young soul” not “I will be his father” and Sam and Dean are basically his uncles, not surrogate fathers, and I’m pretty much just gonna treat it that way, personally, since it’s less skeevy to me. That’s a YMMV thing, though, so I’m not saying you can’t enjoy the dad TFW stuff, I just don’t wanna :P 

(The Claire stuff was different since they didn’t have a whole bunch of responsibility over her and the episodes she was in never made it weird, and it was a side storyline… With this it’s all such high tension it sort of feels to me like I need to draw much stronger lines, especially since with all the fatherhood parallels some/all of TFW are going to be examined through being John at some point or another… There is a LOT more going on with Jack that makes it complicated and fraught :P)

So… uh… tl;dr… I have no idea if I’m even answering your original thought any more :P Idk about the wider fandom of crack posts and cracky art, but I think the meta folks I follow are not being too weird about it or will at least entertain all the posts being critical or introspective about these dynamics and I think some crack posts are just made in the spirit of fun, though it doesn’t help NOT give the impression everyone’s gaga for dad TFW and not being very considerate of the deep dark meta stuff and character angst going on… :P 

#Asks #nougat winchester #dean analysis #season 13 speculation #I still kinda hate spec but at least I've got the grounding of knowing how #13x01 #played out... which makes me a bit more confident making a few stabs in the dark :P