#literally their love broke the narrative !!! their love is the one thing chuck could never truly erase !!!

[angelsdean]

when you remember that time Ash said dean and sam have died many times before and the angels just resurrected them and wiped their memories.......................................like not only is that so !!!!!!!! they have literally DIED multiple times and have zero memory of it, but also. it begs the question......what else have they erased ?? this is how deancas were fucking / together the whole time still wins !!!

#bc like cas was /also/ getting his memories wiped on the reg in those early years too #and then in the later years there was all of chuck's fuckery #like yes they have free will but chuck still has the ability to /erase/ what they do #which then makes me think. how many times did they find themselves in that dungeon? how many times did chuck try to erase cas's confession? #but no matter how hard he tried it always stuck and dean always remembered cas's words #literally their love broke the narrative !!! their love is the one thing chuck could never truly erase !!! #and in the meta of it all. when u think of all the destiel things left on the cutting room floor or censored by the network #still !!! their love echoes throughout the narrative !!! cutting scenes and lines don't change the fact that we can Feel their love #so chuck / the network tried to erase it from the narrative but their love continued to break thru the narrative #vic.txt

[jacenbren]

Apologies for yet another nonsensical insomnia rant but the fact that Legato Bluesummers a) has never truly been a free man and b) cannot fathom ever living outside of servitude. really hurts man. Like ohhhhhh boy.

In the ‘98 anime (due to trimax being incomplete at the time), we never really got to see the real dark and nasty bits of Legato’s story, and trigun stampede hasn’t yet gotten a chance to really delve into his character. While Legato still served the same purpose as he did in the manga with similar events playing out, I think a lot of his character’s depth was missing in tri98—we never really learn why it is that Legato is so deeply devoted to Knives, and he’s portrayed as a lot more… theatrical?? than he is in the manga?? anyway. Tri98 Legato serves his narrative purpose and is a great villain, but he seems a bit shallow, for lack of a better word, mostly because we don’t actually get to learn a lot about him.

In comparison to his counterparts, trimax Legato is… kinda a loser. The second we meet Knives, Legato gets crumpled like a soda can and spends the majority of the series as a quadriplegic who sits menacingly in the shadows in his body brace/coffin thing (which I affectionately like to call his Bitch Cocoon). He spends his time being very weird and unlikeable and tormenting Vash in various ways, all while dramatically singing Knives’s praises, despite him being the guy who quite literally rearranged all of Legato’s limbs and permanently crippled him. All in all, despite being an absolute menace in combat and just a generally fucking unsettling guy, Legato’s kind of pathetic and really easy to dunk on at first. Just ask Elendira, who roasts the shit out of him on a daily basis because she’s bored and even “accidentally” chucks a glass of water at him! He’s an easy target!

However, I think this makes the absolute gut punch that is finding out why Legato is the way he is infinitely worse, which I absolutely adore from a narrative and storytelling standpoint.

Legato has been a slave since he was a child, in every way but name—well, he was literally a slave as a child, and more specifically, a sex slave. He grew up knowing nothing other than the absolute worst of humanity, instilling a hatred towards his own kind that would last his entire life. It’s made abundantly clear that Legato doesn’t value himself in the slightest, because he grew up as little more than a commodity, to use and dispose. When Knives razes the city Legato’s being held captive in, and goes to kill him, this is the first act of kindness he has ever received, and yet also the greatest unkindness—Knives has destroyed Legato’s life, no matter how abhorrently shitty it was. Legato has never lived a life outside slavery, so he has no idea what to do with himself.

So he turns to Knives. Millions Knives, whose goal is to eradicate the humans who have done nothing but make Legato suffer. Knives, who seems all too willing to put him out of his misery should he turn down Legato’s offer to serve him.

Legato cannot fathom a life without a master, without pain and suffering and servitude. He cannot comprehend the idea of freedom, and most of all, he can’t understand Vash. He can’t understand that someone whose kind has been used and abused by humans for centuries, who’s suffered for decades alone in the desert, could find it in himself to forgive and love the ones who hurt him so unconditionally. Vash’s very existence infuriates Legato, because Vash is a mirror image of him—a mirror image whose trauma didn’t swallow him whole and turn him into something despicable. Sure, Knives might’ve saved him, but he’s just another master to serve. Knives broke every bone in his body as punishment for disobedience, and yet somehow, Knives still favors his brother—who keeps running, who keeps refusing, who keeps avoiding his past—over Legato, who’s sworn to never disobey his orders again.

Vash is what Legato could’ve been. Vash is what Legato desperately wants to be. The problem is, Legato refuses to heal, and he doesn’t want to be fixed, either.

#i think about him a lot #legato bluesummers #the load-bearing twink of trigun #trigun #trigun maximum #trigun meta #trigun maximum spoilers #cw mentions of child abuse/csa #basically cw for legato’s entire backstory

[mittensmorgul]

I feel like I should be posting more original content. I’ve been here for so long, posting original content analyzing every detail of this show, and posting literally millions of words on the subject, and the show has gone and done exactly the thing I’ve been writing about, confirmed in text that the story I’ve been watching in the subtext is really the story they were telling all along.

And I could be posting gleefully about the beauty of the most intense metanarrative, the absolute bananapants layers of meta in any piece of media I’ve ever consumed in my 46 years. From the self-referential and universe-bending plotlines to just how deeply embedded ALL of this has become as the central core narrative of the final season, as the characters grapple with what is even real when they’ve been characters in a story beyond their control or understanding for so long only to come so close to earning their freedom and “becoming real” by using their OWN words and declaring for themselves their truth and their happiness and their love.

It’s... mind boggling that everything I’ve ever written about this show is coming back around in a final grand swoop of the narrative arcs that I honestly don’t know what else I can do aside from waving one hand at canon and inviting everyone to just read the entirety of this stupid blog while looking smugly satisfied with myself.

It’s about love. The whole story is, was, and always will be about love. And not just destiel, but the whole damn show. The character of Dean Winchester, for all the jokes about being emotionally constipated, is essentially the embodiment of selfless love and has been since the start of the show. But because of the story itself, he had to become hardened to it, to accept that it wasn’t something he could have for himself if he lived the life he did. And yet he never let that destroy him, despite now understanding that that’s exactly what Chuck spent the last 15 years (and really the entirety of Dean’s life) attempting to do-- to break him for the sake of the story.

Cas’s confession in 15.18 wasn’t just about how Cas loves Dean, but why. Cas, the only version of Castiel in any of Chuck’s infinite universes who broke free of Heaven’s command, did so because of the love he saw in this selfless but self-hating man. Years of crack posts about Dean breaking angels cannot even begin to touch how deep this goes.

One line in Cas’s monologue about Dean thinking of himself as “daddy’s blunt instrument” was a line from season THREE, before Cas ever even MET Dean Winchester and began to know him. It was a phrase that had never been spoken aloud in reality. It happened literally inside Dean’s dream, where he knew he was doomed to go to hell and was confronted by the demon version of himself. Dean said this line TO HIMSELF, IN A DREAM, TWELVE SEASONS AGO. And then yelled down that demon-dream version of himself with this:

DREAM DEAN: Dad knew who you really were. A good soldier and nothing else. Daddy's blunt little instrument. Your own father didn't care whether you lived or died. Why should you?

DEAN: Son of a bitch!

DEAN pushes DREAM DEAN hard, knocking him into the wall above the desk.

DEAN: (screaming angrily) My father was an obsessed bastard!

DREAM DEAN tries to get up and DEAN kicks him down on the desk again. DEAN holds the weapon as a bat and hits DREAM DEAN once and then pins him to the wall with it.

DEAN: All that crap he dumped on me, about protecting Sam! That was his crap. He's the one who couldn't protect his family. He-

DEAN steps back and swings the weapon again, hitting DREAM DEAN twice.

DEAN: He's the one who let Mom die. who wasn't there for Sam. I always was! He wasn't fair! I didn't deserve what he put on me. And I don't deserve to go to Hell!

DEAN shoots DREAM DEAN twice in the chest. As he lowers the weapon and looking at DREAM DEAN, we see the latter is dead. Blood is splattered on DREAM DEAN's face and his eyes are closed.

--

And then after that, spoiler alert, he went to hell and Cas pulled him out.

Dean: Right. And why would an angel rescue me from Hell?  Castiel: Good things do happen, Dean. Dean: Not in my experience. Castiel: What's the matter? You don't think you deserve to be saved?

It took him YEARS to truly get past this. He didn’t really get to confront his own father until season 14, in a sort of “It’s A Wonderful Life” sort of episode where he could see what his life might’ve been like if things had turned out differently. And oh, Cas isn’t in his life. But he gets to confront John with his own self-acceptance, his own confidence in the life he’s made for himself and the people (including Cas) who have become his family. He gets to hear from John that he never wanted that life for Dean, and Dean gets to say, well I would choose this life anyway.

Until Chuck’s revelation pulled that rug out from under him. Dean had been-- if not deliriously happy, at least content with his life. Because it was HIS. And then he found out it wasn’t, that Chuck had always been writing the broad strokes of his life, had always been the one throwing catastrophe after apocalypse after cosmic crisis directly in his path because he wanted to watch Dean struggle to save the world yet again, and finally give him the ending to the story that Chuck wanted-- a broken and devastated Dean who’d sacrificed everything for the story yet again. And suddenly NOTHING about anything made sense to Dean anymore, and even Cas showing up in his life and then weirdly sticking around all these years was suspect to him. He trusted nothing, not his choices or his feelings or his own happiness.

But now? We know (and Dean knows) that Cas was one thing Chuck just couldn’t control. That he was never supposed to think for himself and rebel and fall in love with Dean. And Dean knows that too. He knows all of it. And ALL of that just went wooshing through Dean’s central processing unit in the span of two minutes and came up error messages, because it was too late now and Cas was gone again, and there might not be any getting him back this time.

So unless Dabb era has been entirely about destroying everything that was ever good about this show, and about their own storytelling, and the metanarrative and the subtext and the character arcs, making Dean and Cas’s relationship the main emotional arc of the entire season demands that Dean get a chance to answer to this.

If love is truly the ultimate weapon of their salvation, as the show has been screaming since s11, then Dean gets to keep Cas. Because anything less is failure at this point.

I’m sorry I haven’t been replying to many people in my inbox, but honestly I’m too tired to deal with anxiety over how the story will end. I only care about the story, and I’ve written more about it in the last howeverlong I’ve been at this than I can possibly reiterate before the next episode airs. All I can do is point and gawp at the fact that the story is what I have always thought it was, and be content.

Revenge of the Subtext, indeed.

#spn 15.18 #destiel #the scheherazade of supernatural #revenge of the subtext #it's spirals all the way down #order vs chaos and darkness vs light #using your words #grand unification via love theory #there's probably 3000 posts across those tags and more in other tags linked to those if you wanna know how i feel about this show #i feel like i've written everything bar the shouting at the end at this point #lol including Revenge of the Subtext aka my first dcbb fic back in 2015 so like... *eternal shrug emojis* #i don't know what else to say at this point other than you either read anything i've written in the last 8 years or so or like... #nothing i say now is really gonna help i guess #lol i even wrote about how chuck was controlling the story way back in s11 so like... #i think i was one of the few holdouts in s11 who was convinced that amara didn't need to be killed but reunited with chuck #from like two days after 10.23 aired and before we knew she was amara or that chuck would ever come back #or that he was god lol... i was calling them darkness and light or creation and destruction #i wrote a lot of wackadoo sounding shit because we had no context to define them yet but ALL of it held up all season #and then dabb era ushered in the age of the metanarrative where the story unfolded on at least six levels simultaneously #and i get that's not every casual fan's cup of tea but for someone invested in the characters it ws GLORIOUS #they laid this whole trail of subtext and meta breadcrumbs all the way up to this point circling around a huge pole holding up the entire #story... and the center of it all is LOVE and it's an angel's love of a single human that the show has been pointing at forever #you draped yourself in the flag of heaven but really you did it all to save one human... hello season 9! #and a broken human's love of an angel he feared he could never deserve... and that's the love that can defeat every cosmic power out there #that's what we have left to watch in the final two episodes and i honestly don't know what else to say #love wins

[neongreengummiebears]

Disorganized Thoughts on Sex Education Season 3

I binge watched the entirety of season 3 on Friday, and after sitting with it for a couple days, I have composed myself enough to offer some thoroughly disorganized thoughts on what I’ve seen. 

     While I did enjoy many things about this season, I don’t understand the people who claim it was the strongest. In fact, I believe that it was the weakest. I don’t know what exactly happened during the delay, but I swear they have to have lost staff. Writers, perhaps editors? Whoever usually reins things in a bit, keeps the show grounded, and everyone in character. Whoever had that job, they’re either gone, or they’ve just stopped giving a fuck which, while relatable, is unfortunate in regards to this show. Now what do I mean by that? Let me elaborate:

1. This season was gross. And I don’t mean in general, like I didn’t like it. No, I mean that the writers decided that being sexually explicit wasn’t funny enough and decided to add just a fuck-ton of fart jokes and toilet humor. And I get it, okay? This show prides itself on being crass. But you can be crass without being disgusting. I acknowledge that this comes entirely down to personal preference, but I can’t stand toilet humor and I feel like this season really ramped it up. Every episode was someone farting or talking about shit, or that god forsaken thrice cursed bus scene. Sex doesn’t gross me out, talk about sex all fucking day I don’t care, but I don’t need to watch an extended scene of someone digging their own shit out of a bus toilet in a sock and chucking it out the window onto someone’s car. And even just smaller things, like Aimee talking about the flour constipating her or her taking a massive shit in Jean’s toilet when she and Maureen were there. Those scenes weren’t necessary for the plot in any way, which leads me to believe they were just there because someone thought they were funny and if that’s you’re thing go off, but it most definitely isn’t mine. 

2. Ruby and Otis. And more importantly, what was the point of Ruby and Otis? Now don’t get me wrong, I like Ruby as a character and I found their relationship interesting. And I think that it would have been even more interesting if the writers had devoted more time to properly developing it- Ruby was getting better as a person but she wasn’t there yet. I liked it once Otis started standing up for himself more, and demanding respect in the relationship and as she started to actually care for him she did come to treat him more respectfully. I think with more time they could have been really good. But they didn’t get that time- she said she loved him and they didn’t even work through that fiasco before he was kissing Maeve at a gas station. Overall it had a lot of potential but the way they played it left me just sitting here like...why? Like from a narrative standpoint what was even the purpose? Because from where I’m sitting it really only served as yet another roadblock standing between Otis and Maeve and even though I shipped them like CRAZY in season 1 and 2 the constant unnecessary roadblocks are getting a little old. Which leads me to my next point...

3. Why was Maeve and Otis so unsatisfying? That’s not actually a rhetorical question, I can tell you: Because the writers put so little effort into what is supposed to be the main couple on the show. I feel like they put more effort into keeping them apart and then when it comes time to put them together they’re just kind of like NOW KISS, they only talk like once after and then they ship Maeve off to America. Now I’ve heard rumors that Emma Mackey might not want to return to the show for season 4 so if I had to guess at all of this I would say that both this point and the last was a sloppy attempt to cover their asses in the event that they can’t get her to sign back on. If she does return, they can explore the relationship between her and Otis in season 4. If she doesn’t, they’re probably going to put him back with Ruby. But they couldn’t just write her off without at least touching on the relationship they spent the past 2 seasons building, even though Otis and Maeve barely interact in this season, which is frankly another reason why it felt so shoddy. They spent exponentially more time talking to other people and then half the time when Otis was talking to her he was super cringe. 

     Overall, despite loving their relationship initially, the characters have changed so much from their original dynamic, and have interacted so little, that I really don’t even know what’s pulling these characters together. It’s disappointing to admit that I’m kind of over it but honestly even the writers don’t feel invested. it kind of feels like they put them together because the audience expected it and after 3 seasons of anticipation the payoff was generally underwhelming. 

4. Otis. Just...Otis. I understand that Otis was introduced as being a very nice helpful character in season one. He was the quintessential good guy. And then in season 2 he got to explore being a douche for a bit- which is fine. He is a teenager and he was going through some shit. But I really felt that by the end of season 2 he should have resolved that particular plot point. And he was a little better in season 3 I guess? But he didn’t really progress until the end of this season and from a writing standpoint I feel like they really dragged that out for too long. 

5. What’s with this show and it’s hard on for cheating? Like seriously, why does almost every relationship have some kind of infidelity. Like, were Otis and Ruby officially broken up when he kissed Maeve? Maeve certainly hadn’t broken up with Isaac, and this was almost directly on the heels of their very emotional sex scene. There was the issue with Jean and Jakob last season, and Eric cheating on Rahim with Adam. And then Eric (for some reason) cheating on Adam this season with random Nigerian dude whose name I can’t remember. Just...why is this a thing? 

     But also can we just talk about how weird the break up was? And out of left field? Like they literally spent the whole season developing their relationship, and then they get to Nigeria and after hiding the whole time he is subtly able to talk about Adam to his grandmother. And he sounds so proud, and so nice when he’s doing so, and not at all like he’s planning to end this wonderful relationship he’s describing. And then when he gets back, guilty after cheating on said boyfriend (like he should be) he asks Adam, seemingly as a test, if he would go out to a club with him. And Adam says no because that isn’t his scene and like...Eric knows that isn’t his scene. But at the same time, I feel like if Eric had sat him down and been like “You don’t have to wear makeup or dress outlandishly, just come to the club with me because it’s important to me” I really think Adam would have gone. And if the clothes and make-up were a dealbreaker like...why? You know who you’re dating. And while wanting him to tell his mom isn’t an overwhelmingly outrageous request, when you start getting into his physical appearance then that’s just actually trying to change him as a person and that’s just a really shitty thing to do. 

6. I promise there will be some positives in this list at some point but before that...what the fuck Eric? Like, I understand that Eric wants to get out there and explore his options, find someone more comfortable doing the things that he wants to go do. That’s realistic I guess, your high school relationships don’t work out and just because Adam came out for him he still isn’t obligated to stay in a relationship with him. But from a fictional narrative standpoint? What the fuck is this? Adam and Eric were one of the most popular ships on the show. They have been foreshadowed since season one, and had so so much effort put into developing them both as characters. Adam has come such a long way. They have brought him so far out of him comfort zone that Adam in season 3 is almost a completely different person to Adam in season 1. They spent so much of this season further developing the relationship they established last season, and for what? To break them up at the very end? WHY? 

7. Following on the heels of point 6, Aimee and Steve. They didn’t need to break up. I understand the direction the writers were taking this- Aimee wants to be single for a while to fully process her trauma and get to know her own body again. And that’s valid. I just don’t like it because I very strongly suspect that she will have a new love interest next season and that all her stuff about being single isn’t going to be shown. It will all happen off screen during whatever time skip they employ between seasons and then they’re going to use the fact that she is single to introduce a new more dramatic love interest for her since golden retriever boy Steve wasn’t interesting enough for them. Maybe that’s just me being cynical but if anyone can come out of season 3 NOT feeling a little cynical it would probably be a miracle. 

8. A positive! Finally a positive! I love the relationship between Adam and Rahim. Do I want them to date? Not particularly. I wouldn’t be mad if it happens, but I really just like them as like awkward begrudging friends. Some of my favorite scenes this season were the interactions between the two of them (Once again, the disgusting bus ride notwithstanding) I like Rahim a lot more when he isn’t interrupting my ship (which is a habit of mine. I liked Ola a lot more once she broke up with Otis) 

9. I don’t think Viv was out of character. Some people have been saying that she was, but I don’t think so. She has always been ambitious and even Jackson understand that about her in the show. And even when she was working for Hope and carrying out her rules, she was never an antagonist because she never gave up her personal morals to do it. For example, when Hope had them divided into boy and girl lines, Jackson asked her where Cal should go. She told him that boys went to the left and girls went to the right but as soon as Cal was like “Im not a boy or a girl,” Viv was immediately like, “ Oh! Right! Let me ask Hope.” She approached the situation in a way that made it clear that she recognized this issue as a legitimate problem and when she went to Hope it wasn’t framed like “This person is being an issue refusing to choose,” but instead like “We didn’t account for this possibility, that was our bad. How should we fix it?” Later on, on the class trip, Viv even lied to Hope and told her everything was fine because she didn’t want to get anyone in trouble. Viv took the opportunities presented to her, but I never interpreted it as her being an antagonist in any way. 

10. I love that Viv and Jackson remained friends, and I love that Viv has her sexy long-distance boyfriend who sexts about wheat XD Her sexting was one of my favorite scenes- well written, laugh out loud hilarious. No complaints. Sexy boyfriend was indeed very sexy and honestly, Viv absolutely deserves him. 

11. Mr. Groff better apologize to Adam next season, or at the very least have any kind of fucking conversation with his son at all or else why the fuck did I watch SO MANY scenes developing him as a sympathetic character? They could have spent that time developing ANYONE, but instead we were focused on him so like...I’m going to need some kind of payoff. Make it relevant

12. I want more bonding scenes between Adam and Maureen. I love Maureen- I love her friendship with Jean and I love how she always chooses her son over  her estranged husband (as she should) I especially love her very loving and supportive relationship with Adam, even though Adam is terrible at communication. It’s a self indulgent wish, I’d just like to see more. 

13. Isaac. I made many posts after the season 2 release, about how much I despised Isaac. Unlike Ola, I find that I didn’t have a complete change of heart but I don’t hate him AS MUCH as I did before. I still don’t like him though and while you might think “Yeah but you hate anyone who stands in the way of Otis and Maeve” no. This is historically accurate and yet, this season? Not true. For example, I don’t hate Ruby. Do I think her inclusion in the story was handled poorly in a way that made the entire plot point unnecessary? Yes I do. I also feel that way about Isaac, but less so because I feel like the relationship between him and Maeve deepening was better foreshadowed and was kind of the natural conclusion given the events of the previous season. As a character though, I still don’t really like him, and after 2 seasons of him I don’t think it has anything to do with him interfering with Maeve’s relationship with Otis- I just legitimately don’t like him. And I don’t like him with Maeve. I think the biggest irritant this season was the way that, after confessing about deleting the message he was like “yeah I fucked up but only because I like you so much, just forgive me” And then at one point I believe I remember Maeve apologizing to him for her reaction to everything. But then when he found out that she kissed Otis (admittedly a shitty thing to do) he got so mad and like, held a fucking grudge about it. And I get it, he has a right to be mad, but also boy you were the one groveling like 2 episodes ago get over yourself. They both fucked up in different ways but he acts like he has the moral high ground all the time and it gets really annoying. I don’t know, maybe I’m letting my general dislike of the character color my perception of events, but this show has managed to change my opinion on characters before but it still hasn’t made me like him so I think it’s just not going to. 

14. What the hell were they trying to do with Hope? Like legitimately, what? Because I can’t quite figure it out. And that’s mostly because I feel like they were trying to make her a nuanced and sympathetic villain, but they broke a cardinal rule- To make a villain sympathetic you must also ensure that nothing they do is inherently irredeemable. For example, principal Groff. He was a grade A dick for the past 2 seasons but I still feel that, now that we have a sympathetic backstory, if handled properly he could still come back from this. He can see the error of his ways and if he works really really hard to make amends to his family he could perhaps have his character turned around. In Hope’s case however, I would argue that they did makes her nuanced, but failed to make her sympathetic because as a character she went too far. If they had stuck to her just being a general tyrant of a headmaster - enforcing strict rules and regulations but doing so out of insurmountable pressure from her own bosses -  and then softened us towards the character by showing us her willingness to help Maeve get a scholarship, her troubled marriage, and her inability to conceive, it could have worked. The trouble is when they brought in her racism and general bigotry. Those weren’t flaws brought on by stress, those were deeply rooted character flaws that the character isn’t going to overcome because by the end of the season the character hasn’t even admitted them to herself. The issues were addressed by others, but not by Hope herself, leaving me to believe that the character herself still views them as a nonissue. I would be very surprised if she even appears in season 4 and moreso if they manage to even half-way redeem her. I’m relatively certain we won’t see her again, which makes me question the effort put into her character development. 

15. I like Jakob as a character, I don’t like him as a love interest for Jean, but I LOVE him as a father figure for Otis. It’s very conflicting because I want him to stay in Otis’s life, but I don’t like him as a romantic interest for Jean. also it’s pretty clear he isn’t Joy’s father so that’s going to be an awkward fucking conversation. If she even tells him. The way the show is going I kind of feel like she won’t, or will at least put it off for as long as possible. 

16. I want more interaction between Otis and Jean. Positive interaction, not just her being intrusive or Otis being a little bitch. I like their mother-son dynamic when they’re getting along so I just generally want more of it. 

17. Adam. Adam has become my favorite character in this show and I just generally want more of him and his relationships with others. I love his relationship with his mother but I want more if him and Emily, and him and Ola and now him and Ruby. I want to see him and Ruby discussing the Kardashians. I want him to train Madam and enter her in more competitions and just ultimately grow his social circle. Get all the love and support for god’s sake this boy needs it. 

Im sure there are plenty of things I’m forgetting and you can ask me about them if you like but for now it’s late and I’m tired. 

#sex education season 3 #sex education season 3 spoilers #sex education #otis milburn #eric effiong #adam groff #jean milburn #maeve wiley #Aimee #I don't know Aimee's last name #My bad

[gallifreyanwriter]

We always talk about Castiel as the narrative breaker. Once he gripped Dean tight and raised him from perdition, he started messing with the natural order of things and never stopped. We know this.

But what about Naomi?

Stay with me here. The reveal that Chuck is god, and has been pulling more strings in a meta sense than we realized, echoes all the way back through the series.  What if Dean’s purgatory memory rewrite was the result of Chuck doing a little character building by wanting Dean to carry that guilt with him for the rest of his days? It’s not the most elegant solution, sure, but as far as Chuck was concerned, Dean would never find out.

(A small aside--what if that’s not the only time Chuck rewrote Dean, Sam, or anybody’s memories on the show? This is the only time it gets actively contradicted, but how many times has God literally made these characters unreliable narrators? The whole ghostfacers episode, where we get confirmation that things are a little different in the Supernatural World than we see on our screen...what has Chuck done behind the scenes that we never ever found out about?)

Anyway. Dean wasn’t ever supposed to find out about that memory rewrite, because Castiel would be in purgatory forever, right? Written off the show, as it were.

Until Naomi gripped Castiel tight and raised him from purgatory, with a lobotomy.

What if Naomi is also a narrative breaker? No one said that narrative breakers have to be on the side of the Winchesters, and no one said that narrative breakers have to do it all for love. All Naomi wants is law and order, conformity and control. Maybe she wanted that so bad that she broke away from what Chuck wanted for his special Winchester boys and decided to use Cas to complete her goals.  It backfired on her too, of course, and lead even FURTHER into the Winchester narrative breaking shit with goodbye stranger but. What if.

That would put a FUCKED UP spin on Cas and Naomi’s relationship to each other. Two angels, neither of which were part of the whole Apocalypse Destiny thing initially, with the drive to break the narrative based on their desires--for very different reasons. It could also lead to a FUCKED UP reveal that Chuck didn’t plan on raising Castiel from purgatory, and all those implications, and an even MORE fucked up confrontation between Naomi and Chuck, one day. It would show that Chuck has even less control over his creations than he thought, and how his world he created is spinning out of his control in more ways than he could ever imagine.

Tl;dr: Naomi using her narrative breaking powers for evil. Obsessed.

#spn #supernatural #meta #is this anything??? #my thoughts are disorganized and messy and i am not very Smart but i have connected the dots (you didnt connect shit) ive connected them

[holyhellpod]

Holy Hell: 3. Metanarrativity: Who’s the Deleuze and who’s the Guattari in your relationship? aka the analysis no one asked for.

In this ep, we delve into authorship, narrative, fandom and narrative meaning. And somehow, as always, bring it back to Cas and Misha Collins.

(Note: the reason I didn’t talk about Billie’s authorship and library is because I completely forgot it existed until I watched season 13 “Advanced Thanatology” again, while waiting for this episode to upload. I’ll find a way to work her into later episodes tho!)

I had to upload it as a new podcast to Spotify so if you could just re-subscribe that would be great! Or listen to it at these other links.

Please listen to the bit at the beginning about monetisation and if you have any questions don’t hesitate to message me here.

Apple | Spotify | Google

Transcript under the cut!

Warnings: discussions of incest, date rape, rpf, war, 9/11, the bush administration, abuse, mental health, addiction, homelessness. Most of these are just one off comments, they’re not full discussions.

Meta-Textuality: Who’s the Deleuze and who’s the Guattari in your relationship?

In the third episode of Season 6, “The Third Man,” Balthazar says to Cas, “you tore up the whole script and burned the pages.” That is the fundamental idea the writers of the first five seasons were trying to sell us: whatever grand plan the biblical God had cooking up is worth nothing in face of the love these men have—for each other and the world. Sam, Bobby, Cas and Dean will go to any lengths to protect one another and keep people safe. What’s real? What’s worth saving? People are real. Families are worth saving. 

This show plugs free will as the most important thing a person, angel, demon or otherwise can have. The fact of the matter is that Dean was always going to fight against the status quo, Sam was always going to go his own way, and Bobby was always going to do his best for his boys. The only uncertainty in the entire narrative is Cas. He was never meant to rebel. He was never meant to fall from Heaven. He was supposed to fall in line, be a good soldier, and help bring on the apocalypse, but Cas was the first agent of free will in the show’s timeline. Sam followed Lucifer, Dean followed Michael, and John gave himself up for the sins of his children, at once both a God and Jesus figure. But Cas wasn’t modelled off anyone else. He is original. There are definitely some parallels to Ruby, but I would argue those are largely unintentional. Cas broke the mold. 

That’s to say nothing of the impact he’s had on the fanbase, and the show itself, which would not have reached 15 seasons and be able to end the way they wanted it to without Cas and Misha Collins. His back must be breaking from carrying the entire show. 

But what the holy hell are we doing here today? Not just talking about Cas. We’re talking about metanarrativity: as I define it, and for purposes of this episode, the story within a story, and the act of storytelling. We’re going to go through a select few episodes which I think exemplify the best of what this show has to offer in terms of framing the narrative. We’ll talk about characters like Chuck and Becky and the baby dykes in season 10. And most importantly we’ll talk about the audience’s role, our role, in the reciprocal relationship of storytelling. After all, a tv show is nothing without the viewer.

I was in fact introduced to the concept of metanarrativity by Supernatural, so the fact that I’m revisiting it six years after I finished my degree to talk about the show is one of life’s little jokes.

 I’m brushing off my degree and bringing out the big guns (aka literary theorists) to examine this concept. This will be yet another piece of analysis that would’ve gone well in my English Lit degree, but I’ll try not to make it dry as dog shit. 

First off, I’m going to argue that the relationship between the creators of Supernatural and the fans has always been a dialogue, albeit with a power imbalance. Throughout the series, even before explicitly metanarrative episodes like season 10 “Fan Fiction” and season 4 “the monster at the end of this book,” the creators have always engaged in conversations with the fans through the show. This includes but is not limited to fan conventions, where the creators have actual, live conversations with the fans. Misha Collins admitted at a con that he’d read fanfiction of Cas while he was filming season 4, but it’s pretty clear even from the first season that the creators, at the very least Eric Kripke, were engaging with fans. The show aired around the same time as Twitter and Tumblr were created, both of which opened up new passageways for fans to interact with each other, and for Twitter and Facebook especially, new passageways for fans to interact with creators and celebrities.

But being the creators, they have ultimate control over what is written, filmed and aired, while we can only speculate and make our own transformative interpretations. But at least since s4, they have engaged in meta narrative construction that at once speaks to fans as well as expands the universe in fun and creative ways. My favourite episodes are the ones where we see the Winchesters through the lens of other characters, such as the season 3 episode “Jus In Bello,” in which Sam and Dean are arrested by Victor Henriksen, and the season 7 episode “Slash Fiction” in which Dean and Sam’s dopplegangers rob banks and kill a bunch of people, loathe as I am to admit that season 7 had an effect on any part of me except my upchuck reflex. My second favourite episodes are the meta episodes, and for this episode of Holy Hell, we’ll be discussing a few: The French Mistake, he Monster at the end of this book, the real ghostbusters, Fan Fiction, Metafiction, and Don’t Call Me Shurley. I’ll also discuss Becky more broadly, because, like, of course I’ll be discussing Becky, she died for our sins. 

Let’s take it back. The Monster At The End Of This Book — written by Julie Siege and Nancy Weiner and directed by Mike Rohl. Inarguably one of the better episodes in the first five seasons. Not only is Cas in it, looking so beautiful, but Sam gets something to do, thank god, and it introduces the character of Chuck, who becomes a source of comic relief over the next two seasons. The episode starts with Chuck Shurley, pen named Carver Edlund after my besties, having a vision while passed out drunk. He dreams of Sam and Dean larping as Feds and finding a series of books based on their lives that Chuck has written. They eventually track Chuck down, interrogate him, and realise that he’s a prophet of the lord, tasked with writing the Winchester Gospels. The B plot is Sam plotting to kill Lilith while Dean fails to get them out of the town to escape her. The C plot is Dean and Cas having a moment that strengthens their friendship and leads further into Cas’s eventual disobedience for Dean. Like the movie Disobedience. Exactly like the movie Disobedience. Cas definitely spits in Dean’s mouth, it’s kinda gross to be honest. Maybe I’m just not allo enough to appreciate art. 

When Eric Kripke was showrunner of the first five seasons of Supernatural,  he conceptualised the character of Chuck. Kripke as the author-god introduced the character of the author-prophet who would later become in Jeremy Carver’s showrun seasons the biblical God. Judith May Fathallah writes in “I’m A God: The Author and the Writing Fan in Supernatural” that Kripke writes himself both into and out of the text, ending his era with Chuck winking at the camera, saying, “nothing really ends,” and disappearing. Kripke stayed on as producer, continuing to write episodes through Sera Gamble’s era, and was even inserted in text in the season 6 episode “The French Mistake”. So nothing really does end, not Kripke’s grip on the show he created, not even the show itself, which fans have jokingly referred to as continuing into its 16th season. Except we’re not joking. It will die when all of us are dead, when there is no one left to remember it. According to W R Fisher, humans are homo narrans, natural storytellers. The Supernatural fandom is telling a fidelitous narrative, one which matches our own beliefs, values and experiences instead of that of canon. Instead of, at Fathallah says, “the Greek tradition, that we should struggle to do the right thing simply because it is right, though we will suffer and be punished anyway,” the fans have created an ending for the characters that satisfies each and every one of our desires, because we each create our own endings. It’s better because we get to share them with each other, in the tradition of campfire stories, each telling our own version and building upon the others. If that’s not the epitome of mythmaking then I don’t know. It’s just great. Dean and Cas are married, Eileen and Sam are married, Jack is sometimes a baby who Claire and Kaia are forced to babysit, Jody and Donna are gonna get hitched soon. It’s season 17, time for many weddings, and Kevin Tran is alive. Kripke, you have no control over this anymore, you crusty hag. 

Chuck is introduced as someone with power, but not influence over the story, only how the story is told through the medium of the novels. It’s basically a very badly written, non authorised biography, and Charlie reading literally every book and referencing things she should have no knowledge of is so damn creepy and funny. At first Chuck is surprised by his characters coming to life, despite having written it already, and when shown the intimidating array of weapons in Baby’s trunk he gets real scared. Which is the appropriate response for a skinny 5-foot-8 white guy in a bathrobe who writes terrible fantasy novels for a living. 

As far as I can remember, this is the first explicitly metanarrative episode in the series, or at least the first one with in world consequences. It builds upon the lore of Christianity, angels, and God, while teasing what’s to come. Chuck and Sam have a conversation about how the rest of the season is going to play out, and Sam comes away with the impression that he’ll go down with the ship. They touch on Sam’s addiction to demon blood, which Chuck admits he didn’t write into the books, because in the world of supernatural, addiction should be demonised ha ha at every opportunity, except for Dean’s alcoholism which is cool and manly and should never be analysed as an unhealthy trauma coping mechanism. 

Chuck is mostly impotent in the story of Sam and Dean, but his very presence presents an element of good luck that turns quickly into a force of antagonism in the series four finale, “Lucifer Rising”, when the archangel Raphael who defeats Lilith in this episode also kills Cas in the finale. It’s Cas’s quick thinking and Dean’s quick doing that resolve the episode and save them from Lilith, once again proving that free will is the greatest force in the universe. Cas is already tearing up pages and burning scripts. The fandom does the same, acting as gods of their own making in taking canon and transforming it into fan art. The fans aren’t impotent like Chuck, but neither do we have sway over the story in the way that Cas and Dean do. Sam isn’t interested in changing the story in the same way—he wants to kill Lilith and save the world, but in doing so continues the story in the way it was always supposed to go, the way the angels and the demons and even God wanted him to. 

Neither of them are author-gods in the way that God is. We find out later that Chuck is in fact the real biblical god, and he engineers everything. The one thing he doesn’t engineer, however, is Castiel, and I’ll get to that in a minute.

The Real Ghostbusters

Season 5’s “The real ghostbusters,” written by Nancy Weiner and Erik Kripke, and directed by James L Conway, situates the Winchesters at a fan convention for the Supernatural books. While there, they are confronted by a slew of fans cosplaying as Sam, Dean, Bobby, the scarecrow, Azazel, and more. They happen to stumble upon a case, in the midst of the game where the fans pretend to be on a case, and with the help of two fans cosplaying as Sam and Dean, they put to rest a group of homicidal ghost children and save the day. Chuck as the special guest of the con has a hero moment that spurs Becky on to return his affections. And at the end, we learn that the Colt, which they’ve been hunting down to kill the devil, was given to a demon named Crowley. It’s a fun episode, but ultimately skippable. This episode isn’t so much metanarrative as it is metatextual—metatextual meaning more than one layer of text but not necessarily about the storytelling in those texts—but let’s take a look at it anyway.

The metanarrative element of a show about a series of books about the brothers the show is based on is dope and expands upon what we saw in “the monster at the end of this book”. But the episode tells a tale about about the show itself, and the fandom that surrounds it. 

Where “The Monster At The End Of This Book” and the season 5 premiere “Sympathy For The Devil” poked at the coiled snake of fans and the concept of fandom, “the real ghostbusters” drags them into the harsh light of an enclosure and antagonises them in front of an audience. The metanarrative element revolves around not only the books themselves, but the stories concocted within the episode: namely Barnes and Demian the cosplayers and the story of the ghosts. The Winchester brothers’s history that we’ve seen throughout the first five seasons of the show is bared in a tongue in cheek way: while we cried with them when Sam and Dean fought with John, now the story is thrown out in such a way as to mock both the story and the fans’ relationship to it. Let me tell you, there is a lot to be made fun of on this show, but the fans’ relationship to the story of Sam, Dean and everyone they encounter along the way isn’t part of it. I don’t mean to be like, wow you can’t make fun of us ever because we’re special little snowflakes and we take everything so seriously, because you are welcome to make fun of us, but when the creators do it, I can’t help but notice a hint of malice. And I think that’s understandable in a way. Like The relationship between creator and fan is both layered and symbiotic. While Kripke and co no doubt owe the show’s popularity to the fans, especially as the fandom has grown and evolved over time, we’re not exactly free of sin. And don’t get me wrong, no fandom is. But the bad apples always seem to outweigh the good ones, and bad experiences can stick with us long past their due.

However, portraying us as losers with no lives who get too obsessed with this show — well, you know, actually, maybe they’re right. I am a loser with no life and I am too obsessed with this show. So maybe they have a point. But they’re so harsh about it. From wincestie Becky who they paint as a desperate shrew to these cosplayers who threaten Dean’s very perception of himself, we’re not painted in a very good light. 

Dean says to Demian and Barnes, “It must be nice to get out of your mom’s basement.” He’s judging them for deriving pleasure from dressing up and pretending to be someone else for a night. He doesn’t seem to get the irony that he does that for a living. As the seasons wore on, the creators made sure to include episodes where Dean’s inner geek could run rampant, often in the form of dressing up like a cowboy, such as season six “Frontierland” and season 13 “Tombstone”. I had to take a break from writing this to laugh for five minutes because Dean is so funny. He’s a car gay but he only likes one car. He doesn’t follow sports. His echolalia causes him to blurt out lines from his favourite movies. He’s a posse magnet. And he loves cosplay. But he will continually degrade and insult anyone who expresses interest in role play, fandom, or interests in general. Maybe that’s why Sam is such a boring person, because Dean as his mother didn’t allow him to have any interests outside of hunting. And when Sam does express interests, Dean insults him too. What a dick. He’s my soulmate, but I am not going to stop listening to hair metal for him. That’s where I draw the line. 

 Where “the monster at the end of this book” is concerned with narrative and authorship, “the real ghostbusters” is concerned with fandom and fan reactions to the show. It’s not really the best example to talk about in an episode about metanarrativity, but I wanted to include it anyway. It veers from talk of narrative by focusing on the people in the periphery of the narrative—the fans and the author. In season 9 “Metafiction,” Metatron asks the question, who gives the story meaning? The text would have you believe it’s the characters. The angels think it’s God. The fandom think it’s us. The creators think it’s them. Perhaps we will never come to a consensus or even a satisfactory answer to this question. Perhaps that’s the point.

The ultimate takeaway from this episode is that ordinary people, the people Sam and Dean save, the people they save the world for, the people they die for again and again, are what give their story meaning. Chuck defeats a ghost and saves the people in the conference room from being murdered. Demian and Barnes, don’t ask me which is which, burn the bodies of the ghost children and lay their spirits to rest. The text says that ordinary, every day people can rise to the challenge of becoming extraordinary. It’s not a bad note to end on, by any means. And then we find out that Demian and Barnes are a couple, which of course Dean is surprised at, because he lacks object permanence. 

This is no doubt influenced by how a good portion of the transformative fandom are queer, and also a nod to the wincesties and RPF writers like Becky who continue to bottom feed off the wrong message of this show. But then, the creators encourage that sort of thing, so who are the real clowns here? Everyone. Everyone involved with this show in any way is a clown, except for the crew, who were able to feed their families for more than a decade. 

Okay side note… over the past year or so I’ve been in process of realising that even in fandom queers are in the minority. I know the statistic is that 10% of the world population is queer, but that doesn’t seem right to me? Maybe because 4/5 closest friends are queer and I hang around queers online, but I also think I lack object permanence when it comes to straight people. Like I just do not interact with straight people on a regular basis outside of my best friend and parents and school. So when I hear that someone in fandom is straight I’m like, what the fuck… can you keep that to yourself please? Like if I saw Misha Collins coming out as straight I would be like, I didn’t ask and you didn’t have to tell. Okay I’m mostly joking, but I do forget straight people exist. Mostly I don’t think about whether people are gay or trans or cis or straight unless they’ve explicitly said it and then yes it does colour my perception of them, because of course it would. If they’re part of the queer community, they’re my people. And if they’re straight and cis, then they could very well pose a threat to me and my wellbeing. But I never ask people because it’s not my business to ask. If they feel comfortable enough to tell me, that’s awesome.  I think Dean feels the same way. Towards the later seasons at least, he has a good reaction when it’s revealed that someone is queer, even if it is mostly played off as a joke. It’s just that he doesn’t have a frame of reference in his own life to having a gay relationship, either his or someone he’s close to. He says to Cesar and Jesse in season 11 “The Critters” that they fight like brothers, because that’s the only way he knows how to conceptualise it. He doesn’t have a way to categorise his and Cas’s relationship, which is in many ways, long before season 15 “Despair,” harking back even to the parallels between Ruby and Cas in season 3 and 4, a romantic one, aside from that Cas is like a brother to him. Because he’s never had anyone in his life care for him the way Cas does that wasn’t Sam and Bobby, and he doesn’t recognise the romantic element of their relationship until literally Cas says it to him in the third last episode, he just—doesn’t know what his and Cas’s relationship is. He just really doesn’t know. And he grew up with a father who despised him for taking the mom and wife role in their family, the role that John placed him in, for being subservient to John’s wishes where Sam was more rebellious, so of course he wouldn’t understand either his own desires or those of anyone around him who isn’t explicitly shoving their tits in his face. He moulded his entire personality around what he thought John wanted of him, and John says to him explicitly in season 14 “Lebanon”, “I thought you’d have a family,” meaning, like him, wife and two rugrats. And then, dear god, Dean says, thinking of Sam, Cas, Jack, Claire, and Mary, “I have a family.” God that hurts so much. But since for most of his life he hasn’t been himself, he’s been the man he thought his father wanted him to be, he’s never been able to examine his own desires, wants and goals. So even though he’s really good at reading people, he is not good at reading other people’s desires unless they have nefarious intentions. Because he doesn’t recognise what he feels is attraction to men, he doesn’t recognise that in anyone else. 

Okay that’s completely off topic, wow. Getting back to metanarrativity in “The Real Ghostbusters,” I’ll just cap it off by saying that the books in this episode are more a frame for the events than the events themselves. However, there are some good outtakes where Chuck answers some questions, and I’m not sure how much of that is scripted and how much is Rob Benedict just going for it, but it lends another element to the idea of Kripke as author-god. The idea of a fan convention is really cool, because at this point Supernatural conventions had been running for about 4 years, since 2006. It’s definitely a tribute to the fans, but also to their own self importance. So it’s a mixed bag, considering there were plenty of elements in there that show the good side of fandom and fans, but ultimately the Winchesters want nothing to do with it, consider it weird, and threaten Chuck when he says he’ll start releasing books again, which as far as they know is his only source of income. But it’s a fun episode and Dean is a grouchy bitch, so who the holy hell cares?

Season 10 episode “fanfiction” written by my close personal friend Robbie Thompson and directed by Phil Sgriccia is one of the funniest episodes this show has ever done. Not only is it full of metatextual and metanarrative jokes, the entire premise revolves around fanservice, but in like a fun and interesting way, not fanservice like killing the band Kansas so that Dean can listen to “Carry On My Wayward Son” in heaven twice. Twice. One version after another. Like I would watch this musical seven times in theatre, I would buy the soundtrack, I would listen to it on repeat and make all my friends listen to it when they attend my online Jitsi birthday party. This musical is my Hamilton. Top ten episodes of this show for sure. The only way it could be better is if Cas was there. And he deserved to be there. He deserved to watch little dyke Castiel make out with her girlfriend with her cute little wings, after which he and Dean share uncomfortable eye contact. Dean himself is forever coming to terms with the fact that gay people exist, but Cas should get every opportunity he can to hear that it’s super cool and great and awesome to be queer. But really he should be in every episode, all of them, all 300 plus episodes including the ones before angels were introduced. I’m going to commission the guy who edits Paddington into every movie to superimpose Cas standing on the highway into every episode at least once.

“Fan Fiction” starts with a tv script and the words “Supernatural pilot created by Eric Kripke”. This Immediately sets up the idea that it’s toying with narrative. Blah blah blah, some people go missing, they stumble into a scene from their worst nightmares: the school is putting on a musical production of a show inspired by the Supernatural books. It’s a comedy of errors. When people continue to go missing, Sam and Dean have to convince the girls that something supernatural is happening, while retaining their dignity and respect. They reveal that they are the real Sam and Dean, and Dean gives the director Marie a summary of their lives over the last five seasons, but they aren’t taken seriously. Because, like, of course they aren’t. Even when the girls realise that something supernatural is happening, they don’t actually believe that the musical they’ve made and the series of books they’re basing it on are real. Despite how Sam and Dean Winchester were literal fugitives for many years at many different times, and this was on the news, and they were wanted by the FBI, despite how they pretend to be FBI, and no one mentions it??? Did any of the staffwriters do the required reading or just do what I used to do for my 40 plus page readings of Baudrillard and just skim the first sentence of every paragraph? Neat hack for you: paragraphs are set up in a logical order of Topic, Example, Elaboration, Linking sentence. Do you have to read 60 pages of some crusty French dude waxing poetic about how his best friend Pierre wants to shag his wife and making that your problem? Read the first and last sentence of every paragraph. Boom, done. Just cut your work in half. 

The musical highlights a lot of the important moments of the show so far. The brothers have, as Charlie Bradbury says, their “broment,” and as Marie says, their “boy melodrama scene,” while she insinuates that there is a sexual element to their relationship. This show never passed up an opportunity to mention incest. It’s like: mentioning incest 5000 km, not being disgusting 1 km, what a hard decision. Actually, they do have to walk on their knees for 100 miles through the desert repenting. But there are other moments—such as Mary burning on the ceiling, a classic, Castiel waiting for Dean at the side of the highway, and Azazel poisoning Sam. With the help of the high schoolers, Sam and Dean overcome Calliope, the muse and bad guy of the episode, and save the day. What began as their lives reinterpreted and told back to them turns into a story they have some agency over.

In this episode, as opposed to “The Monster At The End Of This Book,” The storytelling has transferred from an alcoholic in a bathrobe into the hands of an overbearing and overachieving teenage girl, and honestly why not. Transformative fiction is by and large run by women, and queer women, so Marie and her stage manager slash Jody Mills’s understudy Maeve are just following in the footsteps of legends. This kind of really succinctly summarises the difference between curative fandom and transformative fandom, the former of which is populated mostly by men, and the latter mostly by women. As defined by LordByronic in 2015, Curative fandom is more like enjoying the text, collecting the merchandise, organising the knowledge — basically Reddit in terms of fandom curation. Transformative fandom is transforming the source text in some way — making fanart, fanfic, mvs, or a musical — basically Tumblr in general, and Archive of our own specifically. Like what do non fandom people even do on Tumblr? It is a complete mystery to me. Whereas Chuck literally writes himself into the narrative he receives through visions, Marie and co have agency and control over the narrative by writing it themselves. 

Chuck does appear in the episode towards the end, his first appearance after five seasons. The theory that he killed those lesbian theatre girls makes me wanna curl up and die, so I don’t subscribe to it. Chuck watched the musical and he liked it and he gave unwarranted notes and then he left, the end.

The Supernatural creative team is explicitly acknowledging the fandom’s efforts by making this episode. They’re writing us in again, with more obsessive fans, but with lethbians this time, which makes it infinitely better. And instead of showing us as potential date rapists, we’re just cool chicks who like to make art. And that’s fucken awesome. 

I just have to note that the characters literally say the word Destiel after Dean sees the actors playing Dean and Cas making out. He storms off and tells Sam to shut the fuck up when Sam makes fun of him, because Dean’s sexuality is NOT threatened he just needs to assert his dominance as a straight hetero man who has NEVER looked at another man’s lips and licked his own. He just… forgets that gay people exist until someone reminds him. BUT THEN, after a rousing speech that is stolen from Rent or Wicked or something, he echoes Marie’s words back, saying “put as much sub into that text as you possibly can.” What does Dean know about subbing, I wonder. Okay I’m suddenly reminded that he did literally go to a kink bar and get hit on by a leather daddy. Oh Dean, the experiences you have as a broad-shouldered, pixie-faced man with cowboy legs. You were born for this role.

Metatron is my favourite villain. As one tumblr user pointed out, he is an evil English literature major, which is just a normal English literature major. The season nine episode “Meta Fiction” written by my main man robbie thompson and directed by thomas j wright, happens within a curious season. Castiel, once again, becomes the leader of a portion of the heavenly host to take down Metatron, and Dean is affected by the Mark Of Cain. Sam was recently possessed by Gadreel, who killed Kevin in Sam’s body and then decided to run off with Metatron. Metatron himself is recruiting angels to join him, in the hopes that he can become the new God. It’s the first introduction of Hannah, who encourages Cas to recruit angels himself to take on Metatron. Also, we get to see Gabriel again, who is always a delight. 

This episode is a lot of fun. Metatron poses questions like, who tells a story and who is the most important person in the telling? Is it the writer? The audience? He starts off staring over his typewriter to address the camera, like a pompous dickhead. No longer content with consuming stories, he’s started to write his own. And they are hubristic ones about becoming God, a better god than Chuck ever was, but to do it he needs to kill a bunch of people and blame it on Cas. So really, he’s actually exactly like Chuck who blamed everything on Lucifer. 

But I think the most apt analogy we can use for this in terms of who is the creator is to think of Metatron as a fanfiction writer. He consumes the media—the Winchester Gospels—and starts to write his own version of events—leading an army to become God and kill Cas. Nevermind that no one has been able to kill Cas in a way that matters or a way that sticks. Which is canon, and what Metatron is trying to do is—well not fanon because it actually does impact the Winchesters’ storyline. It would be like if one of the writers of Supernatural began writing Supernatural fanfiction before they got a job on the show. Which as my generation and the generations coming after me get more comfortable with fanfiction and fandom, is going to be the case for a lot of shows. I think it’s already the case for Riverdale. Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t the woman who wrote the bi Dean essay go to work on Riverdale? Or something? I dunno, I have the post saved in my tumblr likes but that is quagmire of epic proportions that I will easily get lost in if I try to find it. 

Okay let me flex my literary degree. As Englund and Leach say in “Ethnography and the metanarratives of modernity,” “The influential “literary turn,” in which the problems of ethnography were seen as largely textual and their solutions as lying in experimental writing seems to have lost its impetus.” This can be taken to mean, in the context of Supernatural, that while Metatron’s writings seek to forge a new path in history, forgoing fate for a new kind of divine intervention, the problem with Metatron is that he’s too caught up in the textual, too caught up in the writing, to be effectual. And this as we see throughout seasons 9, 10 and 11, has no lasting effect. Cas gets his grace back, Dean survives, and Metatron becomes a powerless human. In this case, the impetus is his grace, which he loses when Cas cuts it out of him, a mirror to Metatron cutting out Cas’s grace. 

However, I realise that the concept of ethnography in Supernatural is a flawed one, ethnography being the observation of another culture: a lot of the angels observe humanity and seem to fit in. However, Cas has to slowly acclimatise to the Winchesters as they tame him, but he never quite fit in—missing cues, not understanding jokes or Dean’s personal space, the scene where he says, “We have a guinea pig? Where?” Show him the guinea pig Sam!!! He wants to see it!!! At most he passes as a human with autism. Cas doesn’t really observe humanity—he observes nature, as seen in season 7 “reading is fundamental” and “survival of the fittest”. Even the human acts he talks about in season 6 “the man who would be king” are from hundreds or thousands of years ago. He certainly doesn’t observe popular culture, which puts him at odds with Dean, who is made up of 90 per cent pop culture references and 10 per cent flannel. Metatron doesn’t seek to blend in with humanity so much as control it, which actually is the most apt example of ethnography for white people in the last—you know, forever. But of course the writers didn’t seek to make this analogy. It is purely by chance, and maybe I’m the only person insane enough to realise it. But probably not. There are a lot of cookies much smarter than me in the Supernatural fandom and they’ve like me have grown up and gone to university and gotten real jobs in the real world and real haircuts. I’m probably the only person to apply Englund and Leach to it though.

And yes, as I read this paper I did need to have one tab open on Google, with the word “define” in the search bar. 

Metatron has a few lines in this that I really like. He says: 

“The universe is made up of stories, not atoms.”

“You’re going to have to follow my script.”

“I’m an entity of my word.”

It’s really obvious, but they’re pushing the idea that Metatron has become an agent of authorship instead of just a consumer of media. He even throws a Supernatural book into his fire — a symbolic act of burning the script and flipping the writer off, much like Cas did to God and the angels in season 5. He’s not a Kripke figure so much as maybe a Gamble, Carver or Dabb figure, in that he usurps Chuck and becomes the author-god. This would be extremely postmodern of him if he didn’t just do exactly what Chuck was doing, except worse somehow. In fact, it’s postmodern of Cas to reject heaven’s narrative and fall for Dean. As one tumblr user points out, Cas really said “What’s fate compared to Dean Winchester?”

Okay this transcript is almost 8000 words already, and I still have two more episodes to review, and more things to say, so I’ll leave you with this. Metatron says to Cas, “Out of all of God’s wind up toys, you’re the only one with any spunk.” Why Cas has captured his attention comes down more than anything to a process of elimination. Most angels fucking suck. They follow the rules of whoever puts themselves in charge, and they either love Cas or hate him, or just plainly wanna fuck him, and there have been few angels who stood out. Balthazar was awesome, even though I hated him the first time I watched season 6. He UNSUNK the Titanic. Legend status. And Gabriel was of course the OG who loves to fuck shit up. But they’re gone at this stage in the narrative, and Cas survives. Cas always survives. He does have spunk. And everyone wants to fuck him.  

Season 11 episode 20 “Don’t Call Me Shurley,” the last episode written by the Christ like figure of Robbie Thompson — are we sensing a theme here? — and directed by my divine enemy Robert Singer, starts with Metatron dumpster diving for food. I’m not even going to bother commenting on this because like… it’s supernatural and it treats complex issues like homelessness and poverty with zero nuance. Like the Winchesters live in poverty but it’s fun and cool because they always scrape by but Metatron lives in poverty and it’s funny. Cas was homeless and it was hard but he needed to do it to atone for his sins, and Metatron is homeless and it’s funny because he brought it on himself by being a murderous dick. Fucking hell. Robbie, come on. The plot focuses on God, also known as Chuck Shurley, making himself known to Metatron and asking for Metatron’s opinion on his memoir. Meanwhile, the Winchesters battle another bout of infectious serial killer fog sent by Amara. At the end of the episode, Chuck heals everyone affected by the fog and reveals himself to Sam and Dean. 

Chuck says that he didn’t foresee Metatron trying to become god, but the idea of Season 15 is that Chuck has been writing the Winchesters’ story all their lives. When Metatron tries, he fails miserably, is locked up in prison, tortured by Dean, then rendered useless as a human and thrown into the world without a safety net. His authorship is reduced to nothing, and he is reduced to dumpster diving for food. He does actually attempt to live his life as someone who records tragedies as they happen and sells the footage to news stations, which is honestly hilarious and amazing and completely unsurprising because Metatron is, at the heart of it, an English Literature major. In true bastard style, he insults Chuck’s work and complains about the bar, but slips into his old role of editor when Chuck asks him to. 

The theory I’m consulting for this uses the term metanarrative in a different way than I am. They consider it an overarching narrative, a grand narrative like religion. Chuck’s biography is in a sense most loyal to Middleton and Walsh’s view of metanarrative: “the universal story of the world from arche to telos, a grand narrative encompassing world history from beginning to end.” Except instead of world history, it’s God’s history, and since God is construed in Supernatural as just some guy with some powers who is as fallible as the next some guy with some powers, his story has biases and agendas.  Okay so in the analysis I’m getting Middleton and Walsh’s quotes from, James K A Smith’s “A little story about metanarratives,” Smith dunks on them pretty bad, but for Supernatural purposes their words ring true. Think of them as the BuckLeming of Lyotard’s postmodern metanarrative analysis: a stopped clock right twice a day. Is anyone except me understanding the sequence of words I’m saying right now. Do I just have the most specific case of brain worms ever found in human history. I’m currently wearing my oversized Keith Haring shirt and dipping pretzels into peanut butter because it’s 3.18 in the morning and the homosexuals got to me. The total claims a comprehensive metanarrative of world history make do indeed, as Middleton and Walsh claim, lead to violence, stay with me here, because Chuck’s legacy is violence, and so is Metatron’s, and in trying to reject the metanarrative, Sam and Dean enact violence. Mostly Dean, because in season 15 he sacrifices his own son twice to defeat Chuck. But that means literally fighting violence with violence. Violence is, after all, all they know. Violence is the lens through which they interact with the world. If the writers wanted to do literally anything else, they could have continued Dean’s natural character progression into someone who eschews the violence that stems from intergeneration trauma — yes I will continue to use the phrase intergenerational trauma whenever I refer to Dean — and becomes a loving father and husband. Sam could eschew violence and start a monster rehabilitation centre with Eileen.

This episode of Holy Hell is me frantically grabbing at straws to make sense of a narrative that actively hates me and wants to kick me to death. But the violence Sam and Dean enact is not at a metanarrative level, because they are not author-gods of their own narrative. In season 15 “Atomic Monsters,” Becky points out that the ending of the Supernatural book series is bad because the brothers die, and then, in a shocking twist of fate, Dean does die, and the narrative is bad. The writers set themselves a goal post to kick through and instead just slammed their heat into the bars. They set up the dartboard and were like, let’s aim the darts at ourselves. Wouldn’t that be fun. Season 15’s writing is so grossly incompetent that I believe every single conspiracy theory that’s come out of the finale since November, because it’s so much more compelling than whatever the fuck happened on the road so far. Carry on? Why yes, I think I will carry on, carry on like a pork chop, screaming at the bars of my enclosure until I crack my voice open like an egg and spill out all my rage and frustration. The world will never know peace again. It’s now 3.29 and I’ve written over 9000 words of this transcript. And I’m not done.

Middleton and Walsh claim that metanarratives are merely social constructions masquerading as universal truths. Which is, exactly, Supernatural. The creators have constructed this elaborate web of narrative that they want to sell us as the be all and end all. They won’t let the actors discuss how they really feel about the finale. They won’t let Misha Collins talk about Destiel. They want us to believe it was good, actually, that Dean, a recovering alcoholic with a 30 year old infant son and a husband who loves him, deserved to die by getting NAILED, while Sam, who spent the last four seasons, the entirety of Andrew Dabb’s run as showrunner, excelling at creating a hunter network and romancing both the queen of hell and his deaf hunter girlfriend, should have lived a normie life with a normie faceless wife. Am I done? Not even close. I started this episode and I’m going to finish it.

When we find out that Chuck is God in the episode of season 11, it turns everything we knew about Chuck on its head. We find out in Season 15 that Chuck has been writing the Winchesters’ story all along, that everything that happened to them is his doing. The one thing he couldn’t control was Cas’s choice to rebel. If we take him at his word, Cas is the only true force of free will in the entire universe, and more specifically, the love that Cas had for Dean which caused him to rebel and fall from heaven. — This theory has holes of course. Why would Lucifer torture Lilith into becoming the first demon if he didn’t have free will? Did Chuck make him do that? And why? So that Chuck could be the hero and Lucifer the bad guy, like Lucifer claimed all along? That’s to say nothing of Adam and Eve, both characters the show introduced in different ways, one as an antagonist and the other as the narrative foil to Dean and Cas’s romance. Thinking about it makes my head hurt, so I’m just not gunna. 

So Chuck was doing the writing all along. And as Becky claims in “Atomic Monsters,” it’s bad writing. The writers explicitly said, the ending Chuck wrote is bad because there’s no Cas and everyone dies, and then they wrote an ending where there is no Cas and everyone dies. So talk about self-fulfilling prophecies. Talk about giant craters in the earth you could see from 800 kilometres away but you still fell into. Meanwhile fan writers have the opportunity to write a million different endings, all of which satisfy at least one person. The fandom is a hydra, prolific and unstoppable, and we’ll keep rewriting the ending a million more times.

And all this is not even talking about the fact that Chuck is a man, Metatron is a man, Sam and Dean and Cas are men, and the writers and directors of the show are, by an overwhelming majority, men. Most of them are white, straight, cis men. Feminist scholarship has done a lot to unpack the damage done by paternalistic approaches to theory, sociology, ethnography, all the -ys, but I propose we go a step further with these men. Kill them. Metanarratively, of course. Amara, the Darkness, God’s sister, had a chance to write her own story without Chuck, after killing everything in the universe, and I think she had the right idea. Knock it all down to build it from the ground up. Billie also had the opportunity to write a narrative, but her folly was, of course, putting any kind of faith in the Winchesters who are also grossly incompetent and often fail up. She is, as all author-gods on this show are, undone by Castiel. The only one with any spunk, the only one who exists outside of his own narrative confines, the only one the author-gods don’t have any control over. The one who died for love, and in dying, gave life. 

The French Mistake

Let’s change the channel. Let’s calm ourselves and cleanse our libras. Let’s commune with nature and chug some sage bongs. 

“The French Mistake” is a song from the Mel Brooks film Blazing Saddles. In the iconic second last scene of the film, as the cowboys fight amongst themselves, the camera pans back to reveal a studio lot and a door through which a chorus of gay dancersingers perform “the French Mistake”. The lyrics go, “Throw out your hands, stick out your tush, hands on your hips, give ‘em a push. You’ll be surprised you’re doing the French Mistake.” 

I’m not sure what went through the heads of the Supernatural creators when they came up with the season 6 episode, “The French Mistake,” written by the love of my life Ben Edlund and directed by some guy Charles Beeson. Just reading the Wikipedia summary is so batshit incomprehensible. In short: Balthazar sends Sam and Dean to an alternate universe where they are the actors Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles, who play Sam and Dean on the tv show Supernatural. I don’t think this had ever been done in television history before. The first seven seasons of this show are certifiable. Like this was ten years ago. Think about the things that have happened in the last 10 slutty, slutty years. We have lived through atrocities and upheaval and the entire world stopping to mourn, but also we had twitter throughout that entire time, which makes it infinitely worse.

In this universe, Sam and Dean wear makeup, Cas is played by attractive crying man Misha Collins, and Genevieve Padalecki nee Cortese makes an appearance. Magic doesn’t exist, Serge has good ideas, and the two leads have to act in order to get through the day. Sorry man I do not know how to pronounce your name.

Sidenote: I don’t know if me being attracted aesthetically to Misha Collins is because he’s attractive, because this show has gaslighted me into thinking he’s attractive, or because Castiel’s iconic entrance in 2008 hit my developing mind like a torpedo full of spaghetti and blew my fucking brains all over the place. It’s one of life’s little mysteries and God’s little gifts.

Let’s talk about therapy. More specifically, “Agency and purpose in narrative therapy: questioning the postmodern rejection of metanarrative” by Cameron Lee. In this paper, Lee outlines four key ideas as proposed by Freedman and Combs:

Realities are socially constructed

Realities are constituted through language

Realities are organised and maintained through narrative

And there are no essential truths.

Let’s break this down in the case of this episode. Realities are socially constructed: the reality of Sam and Dean arose from the Bush era. Do I even need to elaborate? From what I understand with my limited Australian perception, and being a child at the time, 9/11 really was a prominent shifting point in the last twenty years. As Americans describe it, sometimes jokingly, it was the last time they were really truly innocent. That means to me that until they saw the repercussions of their government’s actions in funding turf wars throughout the middle east for a good chunk of the 20th Century, they allowed themselves to be hindered by their own ignorance. The threat of terrorism ran rampant throughout the States, spurred on by right wing nationalists and gun-toting NRA supporters, so it’s really no surprise that the show Supernatural started with the premise of killing everything in sight and driving around with only your closest kin and a trunk full of guns. Kripke constructed that reality from the social-political climate of the time, and it has wrought untold horrors on the minds of lesbians who lived through the noughties, in that we are now attracted to Misha Collins.

Number two: Realities are constituted through language. Before a show can become a show, it needs to be a script. It’s written down, typed up, and given to actors who say the lines out loud. In this respect, they are using the language of speech and words to convey meaning. But tv shows are not all about words, and they’re barely about scripts. From what I understand of being raised by television, they are about action, visuals, imagery, and behaviours. All of the work that goes into them—the scripts, the lighting, the audio, the sound mixing, the cameras, the extras, the ADs, the gaffing, the props, the stunts, everything—is about conveying a story through the medium of images. In that way, images are the language. The reality of the show Supernatural, inside the show Supernatural, is constituted through words: the script, the journalists talking to Sam, the makeup artist taking off Dean’s makeup, the conversations between the creators, the tweets Misha sends. But also through imagery: the fish tank in Jensen’s trailer, the model poses on the front cover of the magazine, the opulence of Jared’s house, Misha’s iconic sweater. Words and images are the language that constitutes both of these realities. Okay for real, I feel like I’ve only seen this episode max three times, including when I watched it for research for this episode, but I remember so much about it. 

Number three: realities are organised and maintained through narrative. In this universe of the French Mistake, their lives are structured around two narratives: the internal narrative of the show within the show, in which they are two actors on a tv set; and the episode narrative in which they need to keep the key safe and return to their own universe. This is made difficult by the revelation that magic doesn’t work in this universe, however, they find a way. Before they can get back, though, an avenging angel by the name of Virgil guns down author-god Eric Kripke and tries to kill the Winchesters. However, they are saved by Balthazar and the freeze frame and brought back into their own world, the world of Supernatural the show, not Supernatural the show within the show within the nesting doll. And then that reality is done with, never to be revisited or even mentioned, but with an impact that has lasted longer than the second Bush administration.

And number four: there are no essential truths. This one is a bit tricky because I can’t find what Lee means by essential truths, so I’m just going to interpret that. To me, essential truths means what lies beneath the narratives we tell ourselves. Supernatural was a show that ran for 15 years. Supernatural had actors. Supernatural was showrun by four different writers. In the show within a show, there is nothing, because that ceases to exist for longer than the forty two minute episode “The French Mistake”. And since Supernatural no longer exists except in our computers, it is nothing too. It is only the narratives we tell ourselves to sleep better at night, to wake up in the morning with a smile, to get through the day, to connect with other people, to understand ourselves better. It’s not even the narrative that the showrunners told, because they have no agency over it as soon as it shows up on our screens. The essential truth of the show is lost in the translation from creating to consuming. Who gives the story meaning? The people watching it and the people creating it. We all do. 

Lee says that humans are predisposed to construct narratives in order to make sense of the world. We see this in cultures from all over the world: from cave paintings to vases, from The Dreaming to Beowulf, humans have always constructed stories. The way you think about yourself is a story that you’ve constructed. The way you interact with your loved ones and the furries you rightfully cyberbully on Twitter is influenced by the narratives you tell yourself about them. And these narratives are intricate, expansive, personalised, and can colour our perceptions completely, so that we turn into a different person when we interact with one person as opposed to another. 

Whatever happened in season 6, most of which I want to forget, doesn’t interest me in the way I’m telling myself the writers intended. For me, the entirety of season 6 was based around the premise of Cas being in love with Dean, and the complete impotence of this love. He turns up when Dean calls, he agonises as he watches Dean rake leaves and live his apple pie life with Lisa, and Dean is the person he feels most horribly about betraying. He says, verbatim, to Sam, “Dean and I do share a more profound bond.” And Balthazar says, “You’re confusing me with the other angel, the one in the dirty trenchcoat who’s in love with you.” He says this in season 6, and we couldn’t do a fucken thing about it. 

The song “The French Mistake” shines a light on the hidden scene of gay men performing a gay narrative, in the midst of a scene about the manliest profession you can have: professional horse wrangler, poncho wearer, and rodeo meister, the cowboy. If this isn’t a perfect encapsulation of the lovestory between Dean and Cas, which Ben Edlund has been championing from day fucking one of Misha Collins walking onto that set with his sex hair and chapped lips, then I don’t know what the fuck we’re even doing here. What in the hell else could it possibly mean. The layers to this. The intricacy. The agendas. The subtextual AND blatant queerness. The micro aggressions Crowley aimed at Car in “The Man Who Would Be King,” another Bedlund special. Bed Edlund is a fucking genius. Bed Edlund is cool girl. Ben Edlund is the missing link. Bed Edlund IS wikileaks. Ben Edlund is a cool breeze on a humid summer day. Ben Edlund is the stop loading button on a browser tab. Ben Edlund is the perfect cross between Spotify and Apple Music, in which you can search for good playlists, but without having to be on Spotify. He can take my keys and fuck my wife. You best believe I’m doing an entire episode of Holy Hell on Bedlund’s top five. He is the reason I want to get into staffwriting on a tv show. I saw season 4 episode “On the head of a pin” when my brain was still torpedoed spaghetti mush from the premiere, and it nestled its way deep into my exposed bones, so that when I finally recovered from that, I was a changed person. My god, this transcript is 11,000 words, and I haven’t even finished the Becky section. Which is a good transition.

Oh, Becky. She is an incarnation of how the writers, or at least Kripke, view the fans. Watching season 5 “Sympathy for the Devil” live in 2009 was a whole fucking trip that I as a baby gay was not prepared for. Figuring out my sexuality was a journey that started with the Supernatural fandom and is in some aspects still raging against the dying of the light today. Add to that, this conception of the audience was this, like, personification of the librarian cellist from Juno, but also completely without boundaries, common sense, or shame. It made me wonder about my position in the narrative as a consumer consuming. Is that how Kripke saw me, specifically? Was I like Becky? Did my forays into DeanCasNatural on El Jay dot com make me a fucking loser whose only claim to fame is writing some nasty fanfiction that I’ve since deleted all traces of? Don’t get me wrong, me and my unhinged Casgirl friends loved Becky. I can’t remember if I ever wrote any fanfiction with her in it because I was mostly writing smut, which is extremely Becky coded of me, but I read some and my friends and I would always chat about her when she came up. She was great entertainment value before season 7. But in the eyes of the powers that be, Becky, like the fans themselves, are expendable. First they turned her into a desperate bride wannabe who drugs Sam so that he’ll be with her, then Chuck waves his hand and she disappears. We’re seeing now with regards to Destiel, Cas, and Misha Collins this erasure of them from the narrative. Becky says in season 15 “Atomic Monsters” that the ending Chuck writes is bad because, for one, there’s no Cas, and that’s exactly what’s happening to the text post-finale. It literally makes me insane akin to the throes of mania to think about the layers of this. They literally said, “No Cas = bad” and now Misha isn’t even allowed to talk in his Cassona voice—at least at the time I wrote that—to the detriment of the fans who care about him. It’s the same shit over and over. They introduce something we like, they realise they have no control over how much we like it, and then they pretend they never introduced it in the first place. Season 7, my god. The only reason Gamble brought back Cas was because the ratings were tanking the show. I didn’t even bother watching most of it live, and would just hear from my friends whether Cas was in the episodes or not. And then Sera, dear Sera, had the gall to say it was a Homer’s Odyssey narrative. I’m rusty on Homer aka I’ve never read it but apparently Odysseus goes away, ends up with a wife on an island somewhere, and then comes back to Terabithia like it never happened. How convenient. But since Sera Gamble loves to bury her gays, we can all guess why Cas was written out of the show: Cas being gay is a threat to the toxic heteronormativity spouted by both the show and the characters themselves. In season 15, after Becky gets her life together, has kids, gets married, and starts a business, she is outgrowing the narrative and Chuck kills her. The fans got Destiel Wedding trending on Twitter, and now the creators are acting like he doesn’t exist. New liver, same eagles.

I have to add an adendum: as of this morning, Sunday 11th, don’t ask me what time that is in Americaland, Misha Collins did an online con/Q&A thing and answered a bunch of questions about Cas and Dean, which goes to show that he cannot be silenced. So the narrative wants to be told. It’s continuing well into it’s 16th or 17th season. It’s going to keep happening and they have no recourse to stop it. So fuck you, Supernatural.

I did write the start of a speech about representation but, who the holy hell cares. I also read some disappointing Masters theses that I hope didn’t take them longer to research and write than this episode of a podcast I’m making for funsies took me, considering it’s the same number of pages. Then again I have the last four months and another 8 years of fandom fuelling my obsession, and when I don’t sleep I write, hence the 4,000 words I knocked out in the last 12 hours. 

Some final words. Lyotard defines postmodernism, the age we live in, as an incredulity towards metanarratives. Modernism was obsessed with order and meaning, but postmodernism seeks to disrupt that. Modernists lived within the frame of the narrative of their society, but postmodernists seek to destroy the frame and live within our own self-written contexts. Okay I love postmodernist theory so this has been a real treat for me. Yoghurt, Sam? Postmodernist theory? Could I BE more gay? 

Middleton and Walsh in their analysis of postmodernism claim that biblical faith is grounded in metanarrative, and explore how this intersects with an era that rejects metanarrative. This is one of the fundamental ideas Supernatural is getting at throughout definitely the last season, but other seasons as well. The narratives of Good vs Evil, Michael vs Lucifer, Dean vs Sam, were encoded into the overarching story of the show from season 1, and since then Sam and Dean have sought to break free of them. Sam broke free of John’s narrative, which was the hunting life, and revenge, and this moralistic machismo that they wrapped themselves up in. If they’re killing the evil, then they’re not the evil. That’s the story they told, and the impetus of the show that Sam was sucked back into. But this thread unravelled in later seasons when Dean became friends with Benny and the idea that all supernatural creatures are inherently evil unravelled as well. While they never completely broke free of John’s hold over them, welcoming Jack into their lives meant confronting a bias that had been ingrained in them since Dean was 4 years old and Sam 6 months. In the face of the question, “are all monsters monstrous?” the narrative loosens its control. Even by questioning it, it throws into doubt the overarching narrative of John’s plan, which is usurped at the end of season 2 when they kill Azazel by Dean’s demon deal and a new narrative unfolds. John as author-god is usurped by the actual God in season 4, who has his own narrative that controls the lives of Sam, Dean and Cas. 

Okay like for real, I do actually think the metanarrativity in Supernatural is something that should be studied by someone other than me, unless you wanna pay me for it and then shit yeah. It is extremely cool to introduce a biographical narrative about the fictional narrative it’s in. It’s cool that the characters are constantly calling this narrative into focus by fighting against it, struggling to break free from their textual confines to live a life outside of the external forces that control them. And the thing is? The really real, honest thing? They have. Sam, Dean and Cas have broken free of the narrative that Kripke, Carver, Gamble and Dabb wrote for them. The very fact that the textual confession of love that Cas has for Dean ushered in a resurgence of fans, fandom and activity that has kept the show trending for five months after it ended, is just phenomenal. People have pointed out that fans stopped caring about Game of Thrones as soon as it ended. Despite the hold they had over tv watchers everywhere, their cultural currency has been spent. The opposite is true for Supernatural. Despite how the finale of the show angered and confused people, it gains more momentum every day. More fanworks, more videos, more fics, more art, more ire, more merch is being generated by the fans still. The Supernatural subreddit, which was averaging a few posts a week by season 15, has been incensed by the finale. And yours truly happily traipsed back into the fandom snake pit after 8 years with a smile on my face and a skip in my step ready to pump that dopamine straight into my veins babeeeeeeyyyyy. It’s been WILD. I recently reconnected with one of my mutuals from 2010 and it’s like nothing’s changed. We’re both still unhinged and we both still simp for Supernatural. Even before season 15, I was obsessed with the podcast Ride Or Die, which I started listening to in late 2019, and Supernatural was always in the back of my mind. You just don’t get over your first fandom. Actually, Danny Phantom was my first fandom, and I remember being 12 talking on Danny Phantom forums to people much too old to be the target audience of the show. So I guess that hasn’t left me either. And the fondest memories I have of Supernatural is how the characters have usurped their creators to become mythic, long past the point they were supposed to die a quiet death. The myth weaving that the Supernatural fandom is doing right now is the legacy that will endure. 

References

I got all of these for free from Google Scholar! 

Judith May Fathallah, “I’m A God: The Author and the Writing Fan in Supernatural.” 

James K A Smith, “A Little Story About Metanarratives: Lyotard, Religion and Postmodernism Revisited.” 2001.

Cameron Lee, “Agency and Purpose in Narrative Therapy: Questioning the Postmodern Rejection of Metanarrative.” 2004.

Harri Englund and James Leach, “Ethnography and the Meta Narratives of Modernity.” 2000.

https://uproxx.com/filmdrunk/mel-brooks-explains-french-mistake-blazing-saddles-blu-ray/

#transcripts #supernatural #supernatural podcast #<60mins #this is first and foremost a podcast about cas and misha collins

[lilac-city-skylines]

you're like my favorite tdc blog and I've submitted several asks to you (you've answered them all I think, thank you!!) but I honestly just love you and your blog so I think I'll go off anon now :) I've noticed for years, in the scene where Kira and Jen are waking up and cuddling after the garthim attacked the podling village, that Kira has these brown spots on her legs. What do you think they are? Natural pigmentation? Scars? 💗

Ah, those! Those marks have been in my head for a while now, actually, which is why it’s taken so long to get to this ask (I’m sorry) 

BUT! I think now I have gathered enough evidence to show what I think those are. I don’t think those are natural marks at all. Why? Well, we have one example of a naked gelfling. 

Taking a look at the lighting on his leg, we can see that there are no natural marks or pigmentation anywhere on his body. Since we’ve yet to see any other naked gelfling - this is what we have to go on. 

“But Lilac,” I hear you beginning to say from the other side of the screen. “That’s both a male and probably from a different clan! How can we be sure that there’s nothing in Kira’s heritage that would suggest this?” 

“Well,” I begin, setting up my overthought, somewhat pretentious, explanation. 

While Jen is male and displays traits of a different clan, he’s still a gelfling. When it comes to a species, yes we’re talking gelfling puppet genetics, they tend to display the same traits over time. Think about cats. While cats can vary in size, shape, and color, they all look like cats. Gelfling can vary in size and shape and color, but they all generally share the same traits of skin patterns. 

The only other gelfling we’ve seen with “discoloration” of any kind is these goth boys. Even then, I can’t pick out any brown or brown-red earth tones. Lots of blue and white and yellow and some green, but that kind of tone on Kira’s legs? Cant’ seem to find it. 

And while the different clans display different skin tones and colors, none of them display a patterned skin mark. 

Now, onto the marks themselves. 

These are repetitive marks that go down her legs in a repeated, near-perfect pattern. Since the only other gelfling leg we have is absent of these marks, evidence would point to the idea that these aren’t natural. 

HOWEVER! One naked gelfling leg does not a case make. So, I decided to look into human birthmarks. Since the gelfling are narratively stand-ins for humans and, in both their biology and reproductive habits, seem to be very close to mammals and humans. 

There are a few kinds of very common human birthmarks:

Macular Stains (angel kisses/stork bites) these are most common in babies and often go away after a few years and are most noticeable when a child is crying. They are almost always on the face or neck area, so that doesn’t match up at all with what we see on Kira’s legs. 

Next is hemangiomas. These are birthmarks that often occur on the face of an infant within the first few weeks of life. They are big and usually red and typically appear on the face, neck, chest, or back. Once again, not a match with our gelfling queen. 

Next on the list of common birthmarks would be port-wine stains. These are typically larger birthmarks that occur almost anywhere on the body and look like wine has been stained on the skin - hence the name. While these can occur on the legs, where Kira’s marks are, there is no way those are port-wine stains 

Next would be the café-au-lait spots. These are a lot like port-wine stains, just with a different color. These are closer in color but, when it comes to shape and repetition, there is also no way this could possibly be our answer. 

Now, we’ve gone over more common birthmarks, but does there exist any that could be one shape repeated in a pattern over the body? Something that would hold shape and form and repeat in a pattern over a place in the body? 

No. That isn’t a thing for mammals with skin like a human. So with the combined evidence of naked Jen and what we know about human birthmarks - Kira doesn’t have a birthmark. This leaves the questions though: 

What are they? 

Remember what Kira said to Jen after the Garthim attacked that podling village? When he was throwing the shard and telling Kira that he believed her village was attacked because of him? 

“The Garthim have always come.” 

And, even earlier in the film, we see Kira during the dreamfast, hiding form and identifying the Garthim as they hunt podlings. She’s seen them before, has an intimate knowledge of how to hide from them, and knows that they look specifically for podlings. “They capture the podlings” was her exact phrasing. 

What do we know about the Garthim? Well, the show let us know that the Garthim are a rather sad combination of Grunak and Arathim, made to be perfect soldiers. For the Skeksis this means they need to be fearless, obedient, and as close to indestructible as possible. These guys were created to be a weapon against the rebellion gelfling - they were created to be the instrumental blow that destroys the rebellion, which we know they did. 

Let’s take a look at the Garthim: 

We can already identify some key things here: they have purple eyes which signals their close relationship with the corrupted crystal and the Darkening, they have a hard exterior shell like a crab, and even have one crab-looking claw. They also display one hand for grabbing, what looks like a blade or sharpened edge to their claw (which could be pretty handy to slashing through any gelfling that is frankly stupid enough to get in its way), as well as many legs that lend them to quick and somewhat precise movement. They clearly have a hardened exterior, since they can bust through podling walls and Aughra’s windows without even flinching, and it takes a landstrider literally stabbing it through with a hardened hoof to slow it down.  

I mentioned earlier that Kira knows how to hide from them, as shown in the dreamfast. While we don’t have an exact age for her, we know that she’s scrappy and clearly has had brushes with danger in her childhood. Can we honestly believe that Ydra and the other podlings were able to sit her down and carefully teach her over dinner? Truly? That’s not at all a realistic idea. They most likely taught her not to walk into a patch of gobbles and how to communicate with different creatures, but in her dreamfast Kira doesn’t make any special note of any kind of education like Jen did. So Kira most likely got her knowledge from a combination of talking to the podlings and learning through her own experience. I’m sure Ydra or one of her other podling cousins would have told her not to wander into a gobble patch and not lay down in a Nebrie mouth, clearly, the forest has a lot of natural predators that small creatures need to have a decent knowledge of how to avoid. So Kira most likely learned through a combination of listening to Ydra and through personal experience. 

Back to the Garthim. These are very literal creatures. They don’t act outside what they are told to do and have absolutely no free will of their own. When Kira was hiding from them in her dreamfast, she was just crouching behind a rock. If the Garthim wanted to grab her and take her to the Skeksis, they very easily could have. Why didn’t they? Because that wasn’t their command. They were commanded to get more podlings, more slaves, but nothing was telling them to look for any surviving gelfling. To them, she was just as worthless as a nebrie or a landstrider, she wasn’t the target. 

We also know that she is very fiercely protective and driven for those she loves. One does not get ¾ of their essence drained, chuck the last hope of the planet across and room, and then get stabbed in the back for just anyone. So it’s entirely possible that Kira had, at least at one point in her life, got on the wrong side of a Garthim claw in an effort to protect a loved one. How could this be? 

Let’s take a look at the Garthim again - but pay attention to their more crabby claw: 

Kinda looks like this … 

That, my friends, is the coconut crab. It has the strongest pinch in the known world. You can bet that getting snagged by one of those would be absolutely horrid. 

Gelfling are small and Garthim, by comparison, are huge. Imagine being small, maybe a child or pre-teen, and getting the long side of your leg caught between those suckers. Maybe even both of your legs. That’s fixing for a painful and crummy conjuncture. 

“Lilac! Are you trying to say that Kira probably has lifelong scars from trying to save a podling that she was very close to and, in her struggle against the Garthim, broke her skin in a way that scarred her legs horribly?” 

Yes, That is exactly what I’m saying. 

TLDR: I think those are scars from the Garthim on her legs and I spent a good 3 hours of my life collecting photos and evidence for this argument. Never let anyone question my dedication to this fandom ever again. 

#thanks for the ask! #ask box #ask #thank you! #lilac #lilac speaks #The Dark Crystal #the dark crystal age of resistance #Age of Resistance #the dark crystal age of resistance headcanon #the dark crystal theory #age of resistance theory #the dark crystal age of resistance fanfiction #age of resistance headcanon #tdc age of resistance #tdc aor fanfiction #tdc aor headcanon #tdc aor #tdc #gelfling clans #gelflings #Gelfling #gelfling headcanon #the dark crystal kira #jen x kira #kira #jen and kira #the dark crystal jen #jen #garthim war

[chocolatecakecas]

20, 23, 24, plus one you'd like to answer

 Hi thank you so much for the SPN ask!!!

20) Favourite villain?: I’ve gotta go with Crowley!!! I literally just love him so much. Mark Sheppard was incredible, he’s one of my favorite characters, (his entrance on the show, alone, makes him one of the best characters), he is the best “villian” on the show, and they literally did him so dirty (don’t get me started)

23) What are some lores/world building that you love from Post s5?: Ooo I’m gonna say just the inclusion of Purgatory as a whole, I love that entire arc and I just love season 8. THEE biblical Cain and his OC wife Colette for sure because it makes me go absolutely insane, because after pushing the Cain vs Abel parallel for 9 seasons, they just didn’t even mention it at all and created an OC wife so she could parallel Cas. I. am also going to say I really did think the entire, “Chuck has been controlling our narrative the entire time” was genius, because their entire thing “yeah this is awful but we have free will, we have a choice”, only to find out they never actually had a choice and it broke them. And that this Cas was the only being in all of the universes that defied Chuck’s narrative because of his love....too bad they threw out the entire plot for a musty wail (finale? what finale??)

24) What are some lores/world building that you love from s1-5?: The introduction of angels. It is THEE turning point of the show, like you can just feel the shift and it’s so unlike anything else they had done so far. And honestly, just like the whole of season 4-6 with the seals and the heaven vs hell war, the God is an absent deadbeat father, the demon blood, and just the overall discussion of of free will and choice. And I mean of course, it’s the introduction of Cas and just the building of all of the “angel lore” and biblical symbolism/parallels, I love it (to be clarify I am not religious by any means lol)

And I’lll pick, 25) Do you recommend the show to people? Till which season?: AHASGADKJASADJKSKSLS I have only ever recommended this show to my best friend, because he watches a ton of other CW shows, so he’s the only one who I think could handle the insanity(he has not yet but he knows about all of. the insanity second hand). Other than him, I’ve never actually recommended spn to anyone else. Like I started watching when I was 11 because my older cousin made me watch a few eps and I was hooked, then as middle school continued people I was friends with just also happened to watch it so it worked out at the time. I am also someone who never stopped watching, so I would recommend the whole show and stop at 15x18.

Hope you have a great day/night wherever you are in the world!!! 💛

SPN ask game (ask me!!!)

#im sorry if this is incoherent i havent slept in like 24 hours #bec answers #spn asks

[nazariolahela]

Best Beloved: Chapter 2

A/N: Hey y'all! This is a PM AU I’ve been working on. It’s a bit different than my previous fic series and I’m really excited to try something new. I hope y’all enjoy it. This story is told in dual first-person narrative, from Kaia (F!MC) and Damien’s POV. The first half of this story takes place during Kaia’s freshman year and Damien’s senior year of college. The second half is two years after Kaia graduates. There will be sprinklings of canon in this fic, but we’ll try to step out of the box for the most part. Thanks for reading, and please leave feedback, and/or if you would like to be tagged.

Catch up here

Series Tags: @lady-calypso​ @irishwhiskys-blog​

Synopsis: What happens when you find yourself crushing on your best friend? For years, Damien and Kaia have been friends, while secretly harboring feelings for one another. Everything changes one night after a little too much alcohol and years of pent up feelings. Can they control their emotions and salvage their friendship, or will the feelings they hold for one another destroy everything they have?

All characters are the property of Pixelberry Studios. Thanks for allowing me to borrow them.

Chapter Summary: Nadia introduces the group to her new boyfriend. Kaia and Damien get paired up for a class project.

Kaia

“Kaia! Over here,” Sloane called out from across the dining hall. I waved to her and snaked my way through the tables of cliques that made up Hartfeld’s student body. Jocks. Greek Life. Musicians. Techies. Theater Kids. When you think about it, college wasn’t that different from high school.

I arrived at the table she held for us and set my bag down next to my chair. “Nadia just text me. She’s on her way and should be here any minute.”

Sloane nodded and her stomach made an angry growling sound. “Do you mind if I go get in line now? I only had a granola bar for breakfast this morning and I’m starving.”

“Nope. Go ahead,” I told her. She smiled and made her way over to the register. I watched her scan her meal card, then happily skip over to the pizza station. I pulled out my phone and opened up my text messages to ask Nadia where she was when a high-pitched voice rang out through the dining hall.

“Kaia! There you are!” my cousin shouted as she meandered her way across the dining hall. I stood up from my seat and greeted her with a hug.

“Hey, girlie. How were your first few classes?”

“Oh. My. GODS, Kaia! I am SO excited for this semester,” she squealed. “I literally have the best schedule. It’s all art classes!”  She reached into her bag and pulled out a piece of paper, handing it to me. “What’s your class schedule look like?” 

I pulled mine out and handed it to her. “Mostly Gen Eds. But I do have a 200 level course, which I’m kind of excited about.” I scanned her class schedule and my eyebrows dipped into a V. “You know you’re going to have to take your Gen Eds before you can take your upper-level courses, right?”

She waved me off. “I can do that next semester. College is all about having fun. Who wants to take a bunch of boring courses where stuffy professors drone on about things no one cares about?”

I shook my head and handed her back her schedule. That’s Nadia for you. She never took anything serious growing up, which both amused and worried me. She did the same thing in high school. Her advisor told her she couldn’t take all elective courses, so when it came to the end of her high school career, she had to backload a bunch of Math and Science courses just to graduate on time.

A few minutes later, Sloane approached the table, holding her lunch tray. She set it down and took a seat next to me. “You must be Nadia. I’m Sloane. It’s nice to meet you,” she said, extending her hand to Nadia.

“Oh, my gods! You are so pretty!” Nadia replied, leaning over the table and wrapping Sloane up in a hug. Sloane tensed up for a moment, then relaxed and patted Nadia on the back before they released from each other’s grips.

“So...Where’s this mysterious guy you’re so eager for me to meet? I’m starving!” I said to Nadia. At that moment, she jolted up from her seat and began waving her arms over her head.

“Steve! Come say hi to my cousin,” she said. “Guys! I want you to meet my boyfriend.” Sloane and I exchanged a glance and mouthed “boyfriend?” as a tall blond guy made his way over to our table. He was at least six feet tall and built like a tight end. I eyed the Berry High Letterman jacket he wore and was taken aback. I didn’t think that was Nadia’s type. His long locks framed his face, and he tucked a strand behind one of his ears as he approached us.

“You must be Kaia! I’ve heard so much about you ” he smiled as he extended his hand. I took it in a friendly shake.

“All good things, I hope,” I replied, side-eyeing my cousin.

She laughed, wrapping an arm around Steve’s torso. “Ignore my cynical cousin. She’s totally kidding. This is Sloane, Kaia’s friend.” He shook her hand and then he and Nadia took a seat across the table from me and Sloane.

“Sorry, I’m late. My marketing class ran late,” he leaned in and pressed a kiss to Nadia’s temple.

“No biggie, babe. You’re here now.”

Sloane and I gave each other amusing looks at Nadia's use of the word 'babe.' “So, Steve. What are you majoring in?” I asked.

His eyes lit up. “Econ & Finance. My dad runs an investment firm that I’m hoping to take over after graduation. That is if my NFL career doesn’t pan out. Got into Hartfeld on a football scholarship.”

“You play football? What position?” Sloane asked, shoving a bite of pizza in her mouth.

“Wide receiver. I was a five-star recruit coming out of high school,” he replied, pointing to the logo on his letterman jacket. “I’m hungry, babe. Ready to get something to eat?”

“Let’s go,” Nadia answered. “Come on, Kaia.” I waved to Sloane and followed Steve and Nadia up to the register. We scanned our lunch cards and Steve made a beeline for the carving station. Nadia and I moved over to the sandwich station. She decided on the Caprese Melt while I opted for the Reuben.

“Soooo...what do you think?” Nadia inquired as we stood in line for dessert.

“He seems nice. How’d you guys meet?”

“Funny story. We’re dorm neighbors. I was moving my things into my room move-in weekend, and I had some boxes piled up in front of the door. So, I’m in my room trying to set stuff down when I hear this loud crash. I run out into the hall and there he is, laying on the ground, my stuff scattered everywhere. I had set the boxes down in front of his door and when he came out of his room, he accidentally tripped over it. I thought he broke his ankle because he was rubbing it. I felt so bad. I grabbed a cold pack and brought him into my room to elevate it and put ice on it.  I asked him if there was anything I could do to make it up to him. He said, ‘Take me out to dinner and we’ll call it even.’ So I took him out Saturday night to this cute little restaurant. We got to talking. Hit it off immediately. We came back to the dorms, got a little drunk. One thing led to another, and, well…”

“STOP! For the love of gods, please stop. I do not need to hear the rest of that sentence,” I pleaded. She giggled and picked up a plate of blueberry pie, setting it on the tray next to her sandwich. “So you guys are official now?”

“As of last night,” she blushed, her eyes sparkling. Uh oh. I knew that look. I love my cousin, but she tends to fall in love way too quickly. The douchey theater kid she dated our sophomore year of high school comes to mind. They only knew each other for a few weeks, but she claimed they were in love. Her parents hated the guy and forbade her from seeing him, so she ran away from home so they could be together. Thankfully his parents found them at the train station before it took off. They shipped him off to some boarding school out west and she never heard from him again.

“Soooo...guess who I literally ran into this morning,” I said changing the subject. 

“Who?”

“Damien.”

Nadia gasped, nearly dropping her tray. I looked over at her and saw the frown on her face. She was the only one who knew of the “situation,” besides Damien and me. She was with me the days following his departure when I cried endlessly and refused to get out of bed.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

“Yeah. I mean, it was a shock seeing him, but I think enough time has passed where we can be around each other without shit getting awkward. Plus, I guess he has a girlfriend now.”

She sighed and reached out to touch my arm. “Let me know if you want to talk about it, okay?”

I nodded and we made our way back to the table where Sloane and Steve were chatting over their schedules.

“I heard Dr. Carson is a real hardass. I am not looking forward to that class,” she replied.

“What class is that?” Nadia asked, sitting down next to Steve. He slung an arm around the back of her chair and stuck his fork in her pie, stealing a bite.

“Calculus. Sloane and I have it at 2 today,” he said, licking the blueberry filling off his fork. Nadia watched him, eyes filled with lust and I cleared my throat to snap her out of it. “What classes do you have, Kaia?” he asked.

I slid my schedule across the table to him and he eyed it, then nodded approvingly. Nadia snuck a peek at Sloane’s schedule, then turned to me. “I’m kind of sad we don’t have any classes together this semester, Kaia. We’ll have to make sure we make time to hang out.”

“That’s your fault for not taking any Gen Eds, dork,” I replied, chucking a french fry at her. She swatted it away with her hand and laughed. The four of us talked through the remainder of our lunch hour. We discussed our majors, Steve’s football schedule, and any good parties coming up. Steve then invited us to watch the Bobcats play their first home game of the season on Saturday. Sloane commented that she had never been to a football game or a party before and we all gasped.

“Seriously, never?” Nadia questioned.

Sloane shook her head and took a sip of her Diet Coke. “I was too busy studying to participate in all that stuff. Plus, no one ever invited me.”

Nadia slammed her palm down on the table, causing all of us to jump. “That’s it, Sloane. I’m giving you your first real taste of college life. You’re coming to the Delta Mu Kappa party with us on Saturday. The quarterback on Steve’s team is a member and he’s extended an invitation to all the new freshmen. It’s kind of like a housewarming party for the new school year. You should come too, Kaia.”

Sloane looked over at me nervously. I smiled and turned back to Nadia. “Sounds fun. We can meet after Steve’s game and go together.”

“It’s a date,” Nadia said, clapping her hands together excitedly. We finished up lunch and headed off to our next classes. I made my way through the bustling crowd back to Clark Hall, where my noon class was held. Thankfully, I didn’t have to trek to the third floor this time. I arrived in room 210 for Dr. Ross’s Interpersonal Communication class. I scanned the rows of desks, looking for an open seat, and found one near the middle of the room. I made my way past the chairs filled with chatting students and claimed my spot for the semester.

I pulled out my MacBook and a bag of candy and prepared to take notes once class began when a familiar voice spoke. “Is this seat taken?”

I looked up and locked eyes with Damien. Oh. Shit.

***

Damien

“Is this seat taken?” I asked, hoping that it wasn’t.

When I walked into Dr. Ross’s classroom a few moments ago, I spotted her almost immediately. I noticed the empty seat next to her and thanked the Gods for my good luck. I moved through the rows of seats and approached where she was sitting, watching her type on her laptop. A bag of Skittles lay open on her desk. She always loved those damn things. Once a week we’d walk down to the convenience store just so she could buy them.

She looked up from her computer at the sound of my voice and her eyes immediately went wide, like she had just seen a ghost. She quickly composed herself and shook her head, motioning for me to sit down. 

I plunked down in the chair and drank in the sight of her. I couldn’t believe the girl I knew all those years ago looked like that. I was so taken aback by her bumping into me in the courtyard, I didn’t get a chance to appreciate her beauty. Her soft chocolate waves rested on her shoulder. Her deep brown eyes were the color of the earth after torrential rain. Her full lips pressed together as she chewed on the bottom one nervously. Her black and white collared shirt and A-Line skirt gave me some serious naughty schoolgirl vibes.

“Well, fancy running into you again,” I said with a laugh.

“Thankfully no humans or phones were injured in the process this time. But at least I can tell people you literally knocked me off my feet,” she quirked. Her comment drew a hearty laugh from me and several students turned around to look at us.

I winked and smiled back at her. “And no wardrobe casualties this time. My eyes traveled downward and I noticed she was no longer wearing pantyhose, giving me a view of her long legs. Down, boy I mentally told my dick. 

Her cheeks flushed and she turned away. “Yeah, I had to toss them. Can’t walk around on the first day with a run in my pantyhose. Know what I mean?” She replied, brushing away an invisible piece of lint from her skirt.

“Mmm, I know all about that. My freshman year, I went through so many pairs of pantyhose. Had to stop wearing them ‘cause I couldn’t afford to keep buying new ones. You have a lot to learn, freshman.”

She giggled, the melodic sound filling my ears. “So, what are you doing here?”

“I’m in this class.”

She burst out laughing but stopped when she noticed I wasn’t joking. “Wait, really?”

“Yeah, long story. I’ll tell you about it later." 

At that moment, Dr. Ross strolled in and began the class. I pulled out my notebook, sneaking peeks of her from the corner of my eye. She was fully immersed in the lecture, typing furiously as the professor went over the syllabus. 

I remember being that eager on my first day. Taking note of every word the professor said, making sure not to miss a thing. Now, I just rely on the cliff notes and blind luck. I was pretty sure I still had my notes from the first time I attempted to take this class. I reminded myself to look for them this afternoon. I watched her for a few moments as the professor went over what to expect from this class. Her long, slender fingers glided over the keys as her lips pursed in concentration.

“Can I borrow a pencil?” I leaned in and whispered. I didn’t need one, I just wanted an excuse to talk to her. She reached into her bag and handed it to me, our fingers lightly brushing as I took it from her. Her breath hitched and she jerked her hand back like she touched a hot stove. The corner of my mouth tugged up in a small grin. 

Professor Ross moved on to discussing the series of semester group projects he had planned for us. Oh boy. Here we go again. I tried to avoid group projects for most of my college career. They’re fucking awful. One person in the group always ended up doing the majority of the work, while everyone else fucked off and still got the credit. I did, however, meet Alana through a group project, so I guessed they weren't all bad.

“Okay, class. I’m going to divide you into groups of four. When I call your name, pair up with the other members of your group and get started on an outline for your first project.” He began calling off names and students shuffled around the room to pair up with their new groupmates. “...Group 4 will be Brad King, Allison Page, Kaia Park, and Damien Nazario.”

I looked over at Kaia and she ducked her head. Well, then. I gathered up my books and followed her over to where Allison and Brad sat. My eyes involuntarily traveled down her back and landed right on her ass as her skirt swished with her movements.

Stop it, Dames. But it was no use. This was happening, and my dick couldn’t be happier. I moved my books in front of my crotch to hide the semi currently taking up residence in my pants. She took a seat where a guy with brown hair and glasses, and a girl with wavy blonde hair were sitting. I grabbed the one next to her and subtly adjusted myself.

Brad, the self-appointed group leader took one look at Kaia, making a show of slowly looking up and down her body, then held his hand out to her with a smirk. “Well, you look promising.” He glanced around the classroom, then back to her. “You’re obviously the hottest girl here, which means we definitely need to be introduced.”

“Uh...I’m Kaia,” she asked, holding out her hand for a shake.

He took her hand and drew it to his lips for a kiss. “The name’s Brad,” he replied. Of course, it was. And he was a textbook douchebag. I shot a look at Kaia and Allison, silently begging them to let me punch him.

Allison piped up. “Hi, I’m Alli-”

“Alright, let’s skip introductions and move straight to the part where you give me your number,” Douchebag Brad said, waving Allison off and wiggling his eyebrows in Kaia’s direction.

“Orrr...we could just stick to introductions so we can get on with this project.” she snapped. That’s my girl!

Brad winked at her then eyed me incredulously. “And you must be Damien.”

“Yep, that's me. Let’s get this over with so we can start assigning parts.” I said, rolling my eyes.

Douchebag Brad smirked then opened up the packet Professor Ross handed us. “Okay, everyone turn to page three, where you’ll see a list of topics for this project. I was thinking we could do the first part on the Gibbs Reflective Cycle.”

“What about the Johari window model for our first part? It’s a great method to enhance our perception of others. And it’s the perfect way to reveal information about ourselves to the rest of the group and learn about ourselves from their feedback,” Allison chimed in.

Kaia hummed and tapped her finger to her lips, drawing my eyes there. I thought back to the night of my graduation party and what they tasted like. “I like Allison’s idea for the first part. We could use it to get to know each other. Then we could use Brad’s suggestion for the second part of the project and move to Knapp’s Relationship Model for the third part,” she said, looking in my direction.

My body tensed. Was she taunting me? The rest of the group turned to me, waiting on my input. I quickly scanned the page of topics the professor gave us and picked the first one I saw. 

“Nonverbal communication seems like a good place to start,” I replied curtly, drawing looks of confusion and annoyance from the rest of my group.

Kaia sighed. “Well, it doesn't look like we’re going to agree on the first part of this project today. How about everyone pick a couple of topics that they like and we’ll compare notes in Wednesday’s class. We need to have the first part laid out by next Monday, so that gives us a few days.”

The others nodded in agreement and class was dismissed a few minutes later. We all exchanged phone numbers and Allison waved goodbye as she left the classroom. Brad extended his wrist and checked his watch. “So, Kaia. Are you doing anything tonight? We could meet at the library for a study session, then grab a bite after.”

“Uhh...I’m actually busy tonight. But I’ll see you in class on Wednesday,” she replied. He looked at me quickly in annoyance, then back at her.

“The offer’s still open,” he said, winking at her as he sauntered out of the classroom. I watched as Kaia packed up her things. She looked up at me and smiled softly, then slung her backpack over her shoulder and walked off. I trailed a respectable distance behind her, avoiding staring at her ass this time. When we exited Clark Hall, she stopped walking and turned to me.

“So, what’s your next class?”

A light breeze blew a strand of hair into her face and I had to shove my hands in my pockets to avoid touching her. “I’m done for the day. You?”

“I have College Algebra, then I’m done. You wanna get coffee after?” she asked. 

“I thought you had plans.”

She laughed. “I just said that so Brad would leave me alone. I was hoping you were free this evening. I could buy you a cup of coffee to apologize for brutally crashing into you this morning, and it will give us a chance to catch up.”  

Guilt slammed in my chest. You have a girlfriend, asshole. Remember? “Uh...I-I have plans... with my girlfriend tonight. But we can get together another time.”

“Oh…okay,” she said, not meeting my eyes. We both stood there in awkward silence for a few beats before she spoke up. “Okay, well I gotta get to class. Umm...I’ll see you later.” She gave me a quick wave before taking off in almost a dead sprint.

I knew I was doing the right thing by not leading her on, but I still felt like shit about it. I pulled out my phone and shot a text to Alana, seeing if she was free. I walked over to a bench near the center of the courtyard and sat down waiting for her reply. The afternoon sun lit up the campus with a warm glow as students moved from building to building, talking and laughing.

A few minutes later, my phone buzzed in my hand. I looked down and saw a text from Alana telling me that she had something come up and wouldn’t be able to meet me tonight. Fuck. I didn’t want to believe that she was mad, but here it was in black and white. I dragged my hand down my face and gathered my backpack before shuffling my way back to my dorm alone. 

#best beloved #pm au #college au #friends to lovers #perfect match #choices fanfic #damien nazario #kaia park #damien x mc #nazariolahela fanfic

[lollydrag0n]

CASTIEL AND HIS SACRED OATH - 12x10, 12x12, 12x23

This scene here. This split second glance is so so important. I don’t know why people aren’t talking about it (I couldn’t even find any gifs of it and had to take pictures coz I’m computerly incompitent). But I wanted to give my own analytical response to this millisecond glance, because I think it demonstrates properly why Cas has never done anything about his feelings for Dean. 

First, some context from my behalf: I always assumed Cas had never admitted his love for Dean for one of two reasons, 1) he was an angel, therefore not quite understanding his feelings himself - perhaps confusing them with familial love, Dean style. Or 2) he was afraid his love may not be reciprocated. But after watching 12x10, 12x12 and 12x23, I can thoroughly rule out reason 1. 

Now, I’ll be talking a lot about 12x10 as that ENTIRE EPISODE and THIS LOOK are so closely correlated. 

Okay, so 12x10 (Lily Sanders Has Some Regrets). I’m sure you’re all familiar with this episode as it gave us some truly awesome Destiel moments as well as fem!cas. Now my initial reading of this episode (as well as many others, I’m sure) was that this was a detailed explanation as to why Cas hasn’t opened up about his feelings. The reason to this: God. Yes, Chuck, I’m looking at you, you huge cock-blocking celestial dork. You are the reason Cas is so fearful and closed-off. 

Lets delve into this episode a little bit for those who need a refresher: Ishim (an angel of the lord™) falls in love with a human and convinces Heaven a nephilim has been born, all so he and his squad can dispose of this child and the angel who stole the love of his life. Just to hurt Lily and free himself from the pain of rejection. 

I was somewhat surprised with this episode (because hot damn! The symbolism and themes are just SO BLATANT), but mainly by Cas. He seemed so concerned and disgruntled with Akabel who (supposedly) fathered a nephilim and fell in love with a human. Previously (in 12x08) he refers to this as an “abomination” (a word that prompts us to think of another so called “abomination”). Cas sounded quite just damning Akabel, explaining he “broke our [Heaven/God] most sacred oath.” This is important. 

This surprised me, and it felt wrong. Here’s why:

He was a soldier and angry at Akabel for laying with a human, falling in love with her, and birthing a nephilim… But, like… Isn’t this exactly what he’s done with Dean? (maybe not the nephilim part, but you get my point). If we’re to believe that for all these years Cas has had a huge crush on Dean “Humanity” Winchester (which he has), why then is he so stoic and cold when another angel does the same? Obviously this was many years ago when he was still a loyal servant of Heaven, and you can argue that that’s all it is - however - during this episode, Cas still seems uncomfortable with the whole angel/human relationship concept. It came off as very hypocritical, and that’s why it felt wrong. 

Now, it was one thing for Cas to act this way hundreds of years ago - before Heaven lost its controlling iron grip, before he fell, and before he met Dean. But Cas still appears justified with this “abomination” ruling. As he, Dean, Sam, and Ishim sit inside that church (the home of God), discussing the situation, Cas has nothing to say in regards to Akabel. He doesn’t seemed phased about getting him killed and only appears to offer a hint of remorse in conjunction with the child, calling it “horrific, but necessary.” 

After watching this episode I came to some pretty amazing conclusions and realised I was wrong about a few things. Cas wasn’t unsure of his feelings for Dean - he was ashamed by them. Much like I believe Dean is surrounding his sexuality. So now we have both Cas and Dean seeing their feelings as ‘wrong’ in some way. With Dean it’s in regards to his own perception of masculinity. And with Cas its believing his father sees human/angel relationships as “abominations” (this is often explained through the nephilim narrative). This makes Cas’s views way more intense in my opinion. He wouldn’t just be defying himself if he admitted his feeling, he’d be defying God himself - his father. He sees Chuck as believing angels and humans should not be together romantically. And I mean, when your father - the literal creator of everything - says something is wrong, you may feel inclined to obay.     

I also believe this is a parallel to Dean/John - mirroring their early relationship. The reason Dean isn’t comfortable admitting his bisexuality and subsequent love for Cas, most likely stems from his relationship with his dad and his upbringing. John never let him be a kid, never let him play around and shoved masculine behavior so far down his throat that he became frightened to do anything outside these teachings. Which most likely included homosexuality, as he grew up in a time where this subject was often stereotyped with femininity and weakness. John’s word was law in Dean’s world. And we’re only now starting to see him break free and come to terms with who he is. 

Doesn’t this sound a lot like Cas and Chuck? God created humanity and with that came rules - God’s law. One of which being “so like, all my angel children, don’t go around sleeping with my humans, that ain’t cool. Just don’t - in fact, its an abomination.” We know Cas isn’t one for following rules and has certainly distanced himself from Heaven in recent years, however, he is still an angel, and despite falling, he is still loyal. He cares for his brothers and sisters, even when they’re pieces of shit to him (*cough* Ishim *cough*). He is still seen helping heaven and other angels even though they may hate him. Because he remains loyal to them to an extent. This is why he still follows their most sacred oath. 

I’ll break down very basically the two rules Dean and Cas are currently controlled by, thanks to their fathers. 

Dean: “Man shall not lay with man. It is an abomination.”

Cas: “Angel shall not lay with humanity. It is an abomination.”

I believe this is the simplest way to put our two boy’s dilemmas. And although Dean isn’t exactly religious in a lot of aspects, this is the basic outline for their fears (as well as Dean’s being “can’t be seen as weak, can’t be seen as girly”).

Some of you may say (just like I did while writing this): “What about April? Cas had no qualms sleeping with her and he thought she was human, so waddup?” April, as you may recall, was that piece of crap that slept with Cas and stabbed him the chest before Dean rightfully kicked her ass. Well you’re right. When Cas slept with her, he did in fact think she was human (and not a reaper like we later find out). But don’t forget Cas was also human during this moment. Metatron had stolen his grace. If he really feels being with a human (love or sex) is as bad as I think he thinks it is, he must have convinced himself of that fact. “She’s human, I’m human - this is fiiiiiine.” You can even see the confused and conflicting fear skim across his face as he kisses her. 

I’d also like to point out that this episode is literally called “I’m No Angel” with Cas repeating this line after they have sex.

 Next up, we have Daphne (also human and practically the female equivalent of Dean), who was his wife for the briefest of moments during 7x17. But again, Cas wasn’t himself, he had amnesia, thought he too was human, and therefore saw no wrong in this. Other than these two examples, I don’t believe Cas has ever had another human love interest (excluding Dean, obviously) in all of the 9 years we’ve known him, which is a hell of a long time. So I think its safe to assume that Cas (when he’s fully sound of mind and all graced-up) believes it is wrong to be with a human. 

So, to recap: 

Cas loved Dean and is fully aware of this.

Sees human/angel relationships as wrong (thanks to the rules of Heaven and Chuck which are hard-wired into his brain).

Hasn’t done anything about his feeling because he is AFRAID (of Dean’s response) and ASHAMED (of what God would think).

Has only been with Humans when he is human, or thinks he’s human.

Okay, now its finally time to get back to those first three stills (thank god, you must be saying). Here is the scene that plays out directly before the glance:

This is then where we’re presented with that half-a-second glance at Dean from Cas. Pay close attention to what Luci says here and when it cuts to Cas. Directly after: “We can’t, daddy’s watching.” 

LOOK AT HIS FACE! Note how the frame LINGERS ON DEAN AS CAS FADES INTO THE BACKGROUND! LIKE!!???!?! I see no other reason for this exchange unless it is specifically related to something Lucifer is saying. The only other explanation I can think of is perhaps Cas is worried about Dean because Satan is mocking Sam and clearly not bothered by the threat of God, and he knows how Dean could get aggravated by this, but that’s stretching it. No, what we have here is Cas connecting to something Lucifer is saying. Its reminding him of his own fears. Namely, “Dean and I can never be together because daddy is always watching, and he would hate me. I can’t break my oath.”  

BOOM! There it is - the moment that made me sure of why Cas has never opened up to Dean and why he couldn’t keep eye contact during his group love confession. Because he is ASHAMED AND SCARED. I didn’t notice this glance my first watch through, but when I did the second time, HOLY SHT. This just drove home suspicions I had after watching 12x10 that Cas is fearful of his emotions and worried about how his father would react to them - even if it may be subconsciously.

I may be slow to this realisation, but I really wanted to bring up this scene in 12x23 as I don’t think anyone’s mentioned it. I just hope we get more of this, more of Cas confronting his feelings and dealing with why he hides them. Maybe we could even see him disregard his fears and start to accept himself and become less closed-off, like we’ve been seeing Dean do in the last two seasons. 

Anyway, that’s all I have. Thank you to anyone that read all the way through. 

EDIT: I wrote this before Season 13 came out and I feel compelled to mention Cas’s depression/empty!cas scene in 13x04. This entire post was about me believing Cas was ashamed of his love because he thought God would judge him (even if that may be wrong from what we - the audience - know of Chuck, but Cas certainly believes it - maybe subconsciously). This episode just further solidified my analysis with the whole “I know who you love, what you fear” line. 

Empty!cas is most Definitely referring to a secret feeling Cas harbors for someone (yes, singular) for which he feels shame. This is just more proof (fool proof proof that’s finally being rammed down the antis throats) that Cas is in love with Dean and thinks what he feels for him specifically is wrong and something he should be ASHAMED of. I am so happy with my reading after seeing this episode and empty!cas spelling out all my beliefs in the most obvious way that SPN could possibly present. I even appreciate empty!cas kicking Cas while he’s down by pretty much saying “I know what you hate (yourself, your emotions, why you are the way you are), who you love (Dean), what you fear (him not loving you back, and the ramifications you would face if you ever did anything about it)”. 

Beautiful. This episode was just beautiful. I could not have wished for anything more. LollyDragon out.

@tinkdw @olympiahell @postmodernmulticoloredcloak @elizabethrobertajones I’m interested in your guy’s response, if ya’ll have the time

#supernatural #Destiel #DESTIEL FANDOM #its canon #destiel is real #destiel is canon #castiel #dean winchester #chuck shurley #12x23 #12x12 #12x10 #ishim #lilly sanders #andrew dabb #season 12 #destiel meta #bi!dean #cas and dean #destiel evidence #empty!cas #13x04 #supernatural fandom

[elizabethrobertajones]

Pre-Wayward Sisters Rewatch Notes

1x09: HAVE SOME PATIENCE WHILE WE GO TO MISSOURI

I've been through here so recently but it still cracks me up in the intro when it recaps that Mary "is never coming back", and then the ground it goes on to cover with her which is literally just her season 12 arc she returns to deal with properly. It's pretty much neither here nor there, and while technically I'm rewatching this for Missouri, I have to admit I'm like 90% coming back here because of the phone call parallel to 13x01's prayer because I like tormenting myself and that really sealed the deal on if I would come back to rewatch, since I covered seasons 1-4 in the hiatus.

It's interesting to me that the recap covers so much of the already established Winchester Family History circa 1x09 because it's going over the mythos of the family that led us to this point where we go to the home to explore all this and dig down into the emotional drama behind everything... To actually expose some of the things that we've been sitting on until this point. Our first sight of John since the Pilot, and Mary's last moments in her chronological story until 11x23.  And beginning to get into the mystery of the evil that was done to Sam, and Mary's part in it.

The reason I say all this is because obviously when we get to the season 13 episodes introducing us to our Wayward squad, the recaps of the episodes are going to have to cover this same ground - to tell us who everyone is, to bring them into the fold and to tie their stories together. Hopefully by the proper Wayward Sisters episode when we've had all the new girls' stories, we'll get a recap with a very similar feel: just a straightforward "this is the family, do you want to find out more about them?" sort of explanation.

I also remember from the rewatch I did in the summer that the Home one stood out to me for being so focused only on the Winchester mythos and the surrounding ones were more about the monsters and fighting and "saving people hunting things" that the family focus felt far more important here even before the episode started.

It's weird, it makes me preemptively excited to see the family come together just because I know they'll have to do the montage, and like this one was in a low key way, it will high key be a special event, because it will be ABOUT the new family we care about.

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I am momentarily distracted by how this episode opens on Sam's vision and then him obsessing over drawing the tree from outside the house over and over. I watched 1x17 last night with my mum and it reminds me of this season's great subtle mirroring and repetition of moments and ideas and motifs, when Dean is obsessing over his mystery symbol. That was the silly example of this to break the tension but to keep consistency through the season, subtly repeating ideas in a way that just keeps it all kind of the same aesthetic, of Sam and Dean doodling on motel paper... Anyway, reminds me of Dabb era's methods but they have 12 seasons of past canon to play with and in season 11 it was extremely blatant the way they revisited old ideas and told us they were shaking them up and doing them differently or just bringing them back for our consideration. I wonder if anyone ever collected up all the ways season 1 internally mirrors itself. It's really just a spiral of mirrors that unlike the character development spiralling closer and closer to a desired end, this spirals out and out that the more canon there is the more there is to reference and repeat, and so it grows exponentially in mirrored subject matter...

At this point Wayward Sisters is going to have a bit of a job navigating the story to tell its own stuff in a fresh way without falling back on the repeated ideas - I don't know if we should be looking for mirroring or if introducing the characters as part of Supernatural's main canon means they can be used by the narrative in this way but only when they get to their own show will they then build their own language. The new show means they can play around with new ways of telling things and the tropes will probably be very different all over the place. Like, for once I'm not expecting a new psychic character to massively mirror Sam, even though Home and how Missouri and Sam bond over his powers is obviously like the main reason to come back here to rewatch before we get an episode where she does it with her own granddaughter. I don't think there's anything evil behind Patience's powers especially if we're assuming they're inherited from Missouri and they're not going to introduce some weird ideas about where those powers came from - it's enough having them I think :P

On the other hand if Patience is being hunted by a hungry wraith that likes her powers then it IS a parallel to all the interest in Jack for HIS powers. We'll see how it shakes out but once they're in a show where they're the main characters (and I really hope Patience is the POV character - I think actually not long after I was talking about that somewhere I saw an interview suggesting she WOULD be, which is AWESOME) then the fact that Patience is/was a Sam and Jack mirror will be utterly by the by. Really I just hope they don't bend her to meet the perfect criteria for a mirror but develop her for herself and put Sam and Jack in her shadow.

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Sam realises they need to go home and this is the motivation to reveal that he has been having psychic nightmares - the fact that someone is in trouble and needs saving and the only way to explain to Dean why he knows this is because he suspects he's psychic. For narrative parallels to whatever might happen in 13x03 purposes, I'm interested in how Patience's story compares to Sam's, as she is reconnecting with Missouri by the sounds of things, and has her own issues with being disconnected from her family probably - this episode is still filled with massive disconnects and both of their parents withholding information or just outright avoiding them, seemingly for their own protection. (Mary being rather more direct about protecting them in a heroic way than John, hiding in the shadows refusing to confront them with the mytharc knowledge about Sam). Patience is prooobably going to be out of the loop on what's happening to her, or out of the family loop, which means that this is going to be personal discovery for her too.

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Oh hey and then Sam gets them through the door into the house by using a conditional amount of the truth (they're sam and dean winchester and they used to live here) just like in 13x01 Dean just used the truth to the sheriff and got her on-board and them out of jail with that frankness... Sometimes it pays.

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OH GOD Dean having to relive the fire by telling it to Sam... and 13x01 starting with Dean re-imagining/dreaming/having a vision about it again :<

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I swear I started this trying to tell myself I would not make this about Man Pain because this is the Wayward Sisters watch but I am an addict

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Dean goes to make the call and there's a big blue shipping container thing beside him and it's so claustrophobic, like he's chosen the most confined secret space to make the call... It's in total contrast to the vast open space he prayed in - but he STILL shuffled into the shadow of the (blue) building in order to make the prayer and get that illusion of privacy and confinement. The wide shot as he goes in here shows him behind the car and weaving between gas station junk and between these two buildings/large structures. In 13x02 just the random car parked at the back stops Dean from being entirely alone and exposed. I'll take that as a commentary on his layers and how open he is being, although it's sort of awkward when both times, of course, he's going for a super private call that he's going to open himself up for completely, revealing deep down things that have never been exposed before.

People literally started loving Dean about this exact second of the show because he broke so wonderfully to cry and reveal he's not all his top layer stuff. I think someone on the superspecpod (2 of them?) said/agreed on this moment.

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Of course we can assume Chuck is listening and not acting, not just because he's omnipotent and abnormally attached to Dean of all humans, but also because John literally did hear this voicemail and either already was in or came straight to Lawrence.

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God the fact he makes the call in front of the men's room but then it's the buccaneer's room in 13x02... what a goofy episode... I hate it... Pfft

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THIS IS SO HARD TO WATCH.

I rank Dean's pain proportionate to his experience, and this is definitely the worst he's ever been at this point, mostly because we never see him cry until then.

He certainly is dealing better than in 13x02 because he still has a job to do and it might be hard but at least he has some sort of focus and a reason for being there, and even if everything is all messed up (he has to be back here AND Sam has just revealed he's psychic) that's not completely and utterly unbearable in the same way losing Mary and Cas (and even Crowley) has made him shut down so hard in season 13. There's no forward momentum for him. Jack is not enough of a motivation >.>

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SAM: All right, so there are a few psychics and palm readers in town. There’s someone named El Divino. There’s, uh –-[He laughs.]—there’s the Mysterious Mister Fortinsky. Uh, Missouri Moseley—

Dear lord bring back these other guys just to kill them off for the epic 13 years of continuity you could get for free.

El Divino would be hilarious because I'm guessing the divine -> cas connection would be especially hilarious to play on

-

These lines are moments apart:

SAM: [reading] I went to Missouri and I learned the truth. [...] DEAN: Why didn’t you tell him? MISSOURI: People don’t come here for the truth. They come for good news.

Yeah, not that she gave John any.............................. or did she not tell him EVERYTHING she suspected/read about what had happened to Sam in that night? Exactly how far-ranging are her powers? Could she have seen what Azazel did by proximity to the attack around the time it happened and to John? She could see that dude's wife was having an affair, which is out of his knowledge range, so does that mean she knew about Mary's deal, which is loosely coded as infidelity to John with Azazel?

Gaaaah.

-

but oh NO - Missouri takes one look at Sam and Dean and specifically analyses Sam's woes as missing his dead loved one and Dean's as his missing parent...

*flippy flippy to season 13's entire framing of their loss*

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TBH Missouri getting annoyed at Dean asking where their father is is probably specifically because she knows exactly where he is, aka hiding in the spare room upstairs doing whatever angsty things John does, and she's trying to shake Dean off of asking, and she is probably not that great at lying when she is in the middle of it all instead of just cheerfully telling people what they want to hear.

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Maybe the whack you with a spoon thing was also to make Dean so uncomfortable with her he wouldn't keep bugging her for info about things she did not want to admit right then.

Keep them on track

-

I do feel like she was here to challenge them, not to nurture them, and I think it's weirdly the same issue people are having with Mary in season 12 and Dean "parenting" Jack in season 13, where she is not actually meant to be a motherly character, and I have historically had no issues with her in the past, before fandom and everything needing to be tuned to being good to your fave or otherwise the Worst. She's interesting and introduced even just with that guy she lies to as being mercurial and emotionally untrustworthy. She lets them behind the veil as it were since they know she's really psychic but clearly using that power carefully and not being too accurate all the time for people when the truth hurts and her powers can be better used for reading people and working out what would be best to tell them... But for hunters it's a different story... but that doesn't change her default personality... Especially as the end of the episode reveals she has been withholding literally the object of this season's quest from them at this early stage. She literally plays them like her customers except with the personal plot info she can't tell them.

So when she goes through the door saying Dean's not the sharpest tool the shed, she is not a person in a position of emotional responsibility to them, we just see Sam and Dean as scared confused little ducklings (like Jack in season 13) and people being harsh with them, especially I think when we come back to them with years of seeing them grow up and grow harder, so they're all soft and fluffy and mostly unharmed at this point, it's so easy to be defensive of them... And I mean I AM because DEAN, but not so much I think this means Missouri is a horrible person or that she's cruel or Dean shouldn't give her the time of day in season 13 or whatever. I find her to be interesting and she's an obstacle they DON'T overcome because she is twice as fast as them with her psychic advantage so she can help them for the GREATER GOOD, but conceal their much more personal issue from them, making her a minor (friendly and great good-motivated) antagonistic as far as the stuff that matters on the character side of things goes.

In season 13 she has nothing to lose in hiding things from them or lying to them, I bet, especially as she appears to be the one asking them for help rather than them coming to her, so I assume she will be more open, and I also assume that with 13 years space in between, Dean is not going to hold a serious grudge for the way she treated him - because those words are just a few from a one-off meeting with her rather than a childhood of negging or something. Like with Mary she doesn't have responsibility over them as adults, or a moral obligation to them in the same way a recognised caregiver would.

If she can read inside their heads and treats Dean this way she is doing it for a reason and she's running circles around them to not reveal that John has been in contact with her or that even at this point perhaps she knows he's already in town.

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OH NO the nursery scene... This is where it all happened. A dark energy in the room...

And now we know that Jack being born and sloping off to the nursery to hide in the corner was heralded by a wave of powerful GOOD energy, not the "toxic" energy of Lucifer and the same thing that Azazel corrupted this room with.

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Also Missouri calling Dean an amateur for using an EMF meter might be more of the negging but this scene is Missouri being a serious professional at the ghost hunting thing just by  being herself... I think since she's coming back and it will be a less personally charged episode - pretty much has to be - then her natural competence at hunting will be an asset. She might not be able to handle wraiths as easily as ghosts but she certainly has a whole load of real spell ingredients and knowledge about things that really work for actual hunting. She's not a hapless bystander even if her day job is fortune telling...

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Oh and then we have Sam out-psychic-ing Missouri. Probably because he's got demon blood but it is interesting what might happen with Patience - if she's more sensitive than Missouri as well, or if they have the same level of talent. It would change from being ominous about Sam - with Missouri as our default example of what the generic psychic of this world building can do as the season 1 intro of such a character, and how Sam is unnerving because he can do more - to a story about outgrowing the talent of your elders and forging your own way in the world with your own strength that only you can define since help can only go so far when you outshine them... In storytelling purposes I can't really imagine they won't make Patience as good as (but with a better innovative mindset) or better than Missouri (in raw power) just because "oh here's a slightly less psychic character" just doesn't really sparkle off the page as a hook. We'll see, but I can imagine it being kinda like the stuff that happens with Sam here, but not in an ominous way, just in a way that Patience is going to move on and join the Wayward Sisters.

Of course Missouri could just die and motivate her even if she has average/normal powers, because she won't be measuring herself against Missouri and it would be a motivation to be as good as she was from a start where her powers are a bit wonky.

(Although with Jack around I can see them being veeery tempted by her being super powerful but not knowing how to control it yet just for the sake of having a parallel.)

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I am still not over Sam saying he can "see" Mary now before she appears to him, neatly book-ending this scene and 12x22 and Dean asking Mary to see HIM, and basically the fact they stole literally Mary's entire arc in season 12 from the staging of this scene.

And if you want to keep recycling it in reverse, she burns up again in 13x01 in Dean's dream, to cap that all off.

Wheee

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It's weird having Mary on screen in this over-dramatic OMG it's MARY way where it's the most amazing thing that's ever happened, and then we got a whole season of her where she was just kinda around :P

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SAM: What’s happening to me? MISSOURI: I know I should have all the answers, but I don’t know.

And yep she's still lying to them and hiding everything she knows, and as such even though she's kinder to Sam since he's probing her less and less snappy than Dean, she doesn't give him the exact advice and information he needs even though apparently she and John knew a hell of a lot for ages...

You know what I would like? This is a total pipe dream, but for her to tell Dean what she actually knew when they met her, and maybe even apologise for withholding information because John said it was for the best and all. Because Sam was FUCKED UP by all this and honestly considering it's all one emotional arc right through the show it makes you wonder what Sam being given actual information by someone other than Azazel when it amuses him to do so would have ever done to help him figure out who he was, what was happening to him, and how he should react to it.

He's sitting on these steps feeling probably somewhat the same as Jack did in 13x02 where he was sitting on that crate in the alley, although from a less aggressive situation, just, kinda reflecting on everything that happened. He sees there's a pattern in everything kicking off, and now Mary apologises to him... And he's got these powers he's only just daring to even voice exist and grappling with what will be his myth arc for basically ever... And Missouri lies to him and withholds information he needs. John knows stuff about Sam - he DIES knowing more about Sam than they ever did until waaay too late. He probably knew BY THEN that Sam had demon blood, which wasn't revealed until the end of season 2, but logically follows from John's last words to mean that whatever reveal about Sam came at the end of the season, this is what he was worried Dean had to save Sam from (or kill him) at the start of the season when he could last have any input on that. And he spent most of season 1 chasing Azazel or working out how to kill him rather than researching Sam so I go back to wondering if Missouri put most of it together herself.

I wonder how much she didn't tell John.

I wonder what she DID tell John the moment the credits rolled on the episode and they were free to talk plot without spoiling anything for us. Did Missouri get him a cup of tea, sit down with him and tell him her full professional opinion of Sam which kicked off the entire everything else John did re: Sam? It's only a couple of episodes before he's on the other side of the country chasing leads on Azazel.

I wonder if she'd tell us any of this 13 years later...

...

I bet she says basically nothing, but these are my hanging questions about season 1 and 2 which ONLY she can enlighten us on.

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"Don't you boys be strangers!" "We won't." "See you around!"

welp, sorry Alpha Vampire and "see you next season" but this absolutely and emphatically takes the cake now she is actually returning at long last and it's not just an amusing line about her never coming back - it's an amusing line about her not coming back for thirteen freakin years.

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Oh look it's JDM

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This rewatch is so weird and messed up about what characters and plot things we're going to pass through. Sure the Wayward Sisters are utterly embedded in the show and even w/o the Patience thing go back more than half it's run - 3/4 of its run in fact - but they appear in such strange places tangential to massive happenings that following the characters around is going to be The Most Chaotic Rewatch Ever, for someone who likes meta-ing patterns.

I mean after this my next episode is to hop along to Claire's intro.

-

Anyway, John resisting going to see them but "not until I know the truth" which I assume is not the reason Chuck is being hands off in season 13 but I assume he thinks he has his reasons not to intervene.

John learned the truth from Missouri about monsters and the like, but now he's chasing the much bigger, plot important truths... It's going to mean he basically never sees his sons again, except for the prolonged contact at the end of this season/start of the next where he's sitting on whatever he knew about Sam which prompted his last words to Dean. I seriously, SERIOUSLY wonder if him saying he needs to know the truth ties back to "I went to Missouri and learned the truth" and that she DID tell John that Sam has demon blood and she put it all together between their initial contact and meeting Sam with his powers activated in their present day.

Oh gosh, I am sure someone has come up with that before, probably 13 years ago, but still. That's a good conspiracy to end on...

#1x09 #spn rewatches #I mean to post this last night and I'm already another episode through this thing :P #I'll keep adding the parts to this post #I hope I can do them all at the very least by the next time we see a wayward sisters episode #even if I don't think I can watch them all by Friday #at the very least this was the most important one to do for Patience's sake #:D #wayward sisters

[amwritingmeta]

dean said cas to stop being their nurse. what’s wrong in that? this is how people show their love - for protect and support someone you are loved. it’s like dean with his sam - yeah, they are more codependent but the same reason - take care, show love. and dean has nothing like "this is wrong". so why he told that to cas? he doesn’t need his help bc cas blundered? Or he doesn’t care at all? I can’t believe in that tbh

Hello, my dearest darlingest Anon!

I believe that you’re referring to the scene in 12x19 when Dean tells Cas off for acting like their “babysitter”? 

This comment comes off of Cas explaining his reasons for not contacting them when –>

a) he went off piste and decided to bring Kelly to Heaven instead of shooting her with the stolen borrowed Colt

b) his truck broke down and he knew he needed help

And Cas’ foremost reason for not contacting them is that he believes Kelly and the baby - because they’re an extension of Lucifer being free from the cage - are his responsibility. 

A sentiment he’s stated more than once throughout S12. 

A sentiment rooted in his need to feel useful and to have a purpose. 

This need, in turn, rooted in the fact that, at this moment in time, he’s never felt more lost or uncertain of where he truly belongs, feeling like he doesn’t belong anywhere, like he doesn’t even know who he is anymore, loving Dean with all his heart and feeling no hope that the love will ever be returned he’s drifting, without any anchor whatsoever.

Of course, Dean then doesn’t help the situation when he negates Cas’ biggest motivator and dismisses it as though it’s really all in Cas’ own head: protecting them isn’t his job.

Dean is right, of course. It was never his job. He made them his job, he interpreted his orders to protect them in a way that would justify staying close to them and I think that’s underlined in 7x21 when he tries to stop Hester from hurting the brothers by saying “Please, they’re the ones we were put here to protect” and Hester replies simply with a “No, Castiel”. 

And that’s the truth.

Cas has extended his order to bring Dean out of hell and secure Michael’s vessel to protecting the brothers against all odds. Because he’s falling in love with Dean, and he can’t make sense of that emotion.

This has made him dress himself as the hammer and assign all his worth to that role because, again and again, it’s underlined the brothers only call on him for angelic assistance. The problem is, again, miscommunication, because throughout S12 Sam finally, and very vocally and earnestly, contradicts Cas every single time he says that Lucifer is his responsibility. Sam is the one to repeatedly tell Cas he’s wrong in S12, they’re in it together, and he should come to them for help.

But Sam isn’t the person who needs to say it.

Dean agrees, but he agrees in vague ways, like being pissed off - which to our literal angel is the same as negating Sam’s words or being nothing but hyper critical of Cas’ opinion, which for our as-stubborn-as-Dean-Winchester Cas more or less means he’ll just dig his heels down even deeper - or Dean agrees by saying stuff that only underline Cas’ belief that Dean can’t possibly see any real worth in him. That he’s a liability. And expendable. Only useful for the powers he brings to the fight.

This is in 12x23, of course, where they’re together, TFW about to assemble, but instead of there being a sense of team spirit, Cas gets a Dean who barges in, takes over and then asks if he still has the immense power that killed a Prince of Hell.

In 12x19 they finally begin to open up the doors to open communication during the Mixtape Exchange, but that episode is titled The Future and I believe that cornerstone was placed there to show what they’re working towards. That scene is a beautiful study of body language because both of these actors are remarkably attuned to using it as a tool of expression. And that’s more or less the basis for the entire Destiel narrative because it’s so much in the subtext of how these two interact with each other. 

That’s how you build a will-they-won’t-they, btw. No matter the genders involved. There has to be a dance of long looks and glances when the other isn’t looking. There has to be stuff neither one says out loud. There HAS to be miscommunication because complete honesty takes away the obstacles and without obstacles there’s no character growth and there’s absolutely no fucking intrigue to following the progression of the love story.

But now I digress.

So if 12x19 gives a cornerstone to open communication, then why don’t they keep building on that? They are, and they will. Moments of misunderstanding - like this one in 12x23 where Dean is more or less hinging their survival on whether Cas still has the power up juices flowing through him (look at Cas’ face - it hurts him!) - are more or less essential at this juncture, and these misunderstandings stem from the fact that these two men care so much about what the other thinks of them that they can’t stand the thought of disappointing the other, or failing them in any way, neither understanding that how they feel the other can’t disappoint them or fail them no matter what they do is how BOTH OF THEM FEEL ABOUT EACH OTHER! 

(dance my pretties dance!)

There is all the love here, darling Anon, don’t you fret!

The reason Dean tells Cas that he isn’t their babysitter comes from Dean’s conviction that Cas still thinks of himself as their protector foremost, like he stated out loud and unequivocally in 7x21. That statement came as a horrified surprise to Dean back then, because that was Dean’s biggest fear, wasn’t it? That Cas was one of those angels that, when they try to care, it ends up breaking them apart? 

That’s how he views Cas’ choices and sacrifices by the end of S7: they’re breaking Cas apart and Cas made them because he cares.

The problem for Dean is that he’s wanted to humanise Cas - to make him CARE - almost from the moment their story began: giving him his nickname is just the beginning. Why did he do that? 

Because Dean Winchester is a control freak, plain and simple. 

I don’t believe it’s love at first sight with these two. It’s attraction at first sight for Dean (that I do believe), but Dean is out of his depth with Cas and he has an immediate need to bring him down to Earth. To make him feel like an equal. Possibly even an inferior.

Which is why, at least this is my interpretation of it, whenever he gets to put Cas in a tight spot doing human things - such as taking Cas to a den of iniquity - Dean is practically bouncing in his seat from having the upper hand completely and irrevocably.

S12, however, does a lot to tell us that much has changed since S7, including how the brothers view Cas and his choices and his sacrifices. 

In 12x10, after the whole Ishim incident, Sam tells Cas that Cas may have changed, but it’s for the better. And Dean voices support as well, telling Cas he’s not weak, like Ishim proclaimed him to be.

So for Cas, nine episodes later, to come off as though he still considers himself the brothers angelic protector rubs Dean the wrong way. He doesn’t want Cas to feel like he has to protect them because he’s not their defender, he’s not the hammer: he’s their friend and brother in arms and worth a helluva lot more than whatever responsibility he feels like placing on his own two shoulders. 

(Also Dean is completely in love with him and, I’d argue, is subtly terrified that Cas still, after all these years, is so much an angel that whatever that “I love you” in 12x12 was, it sure as hell didn’t mean Cas is in love with him, because Dean’s still nothing more than a mere ward for Cas, someone he feels responsible for, someone he’s formed a bond with, sure, but a bond that never could be romantic based on how they’re from two so completely different worlds - hence the mixtape from Dean, as he tries to over-subtly test the waters)

So, you see? Dean telling Cas off for acting like he protects them by excluding them comes from a place of love.

“You, me, and Sam - we’re just better together.”

Dean tries to convince Cas with this statement, but the Mixtape Exchange is a Destiel scene, and Cas is done now, after having said “I love you” out loud, no matter how vaguely, to pretend like he doesn’t want more. That’s why he gestures between him and Dean when he says “We?” and Dean ruins it when he says “Yes, we. You, me… and Sam.” Unable to give Cas more than his little finger and leaving Cas thinking that, after all is said and done, Dean Winchester does not love him back. And again, neither is stating the whole truth, nothing but the truth, so help them Chuck - dancing around each other for this fear of rejection, this fear that stems in the feeling that they’re really not worthy of the other’s love.

There is a complex web of emotion that these men are stuck in, and I, for one, cannot wait to watch it slowly detangle.

And Dean cares. Oh, he cares.

Looooooook at his faaaaaaaace! :)

xx

#answered asks #destiel #spn 7x21 #spn 12x19 #spn 12x23 #dean winchester #cas #all the love #ALL OF IT #forever #and ever #the greatest love story ever told #spn meta

[fallintosanity]

@shaonharryandpannisim in response to this post!

(WARNING FOR EVERYONE ELSE: EXTREME DEAN AND SHOW NEGATIVITY AHEAD. This is something I’ve been frustrated about for a while, so it’s very ranty, because it would be so fucking easy for the writers to fix it but they don’t because Status Quo Is God. If you don’t want to read a very bitter critique of both Dean’s character and the show’s writing, here’s a subreddit full of cute things you can look at instead.)

Sure, Dean likes to hear that he did good things. Everyone does. But the only person who’s ever praised Cas is Sam, and no one’s genuinely praised Sam on the show that I can think of.

Sam and Dean broke exactly the same number of seals on Lucifer’s Cage. Sam is the only one ever blamed for it, except one manipulative line by Dean in S5. Otherwise, Dean is either the one doing the blaming or standing silent while others do.

Dean gets the credit for saving the world, even though it was Sam who did it. Dean helped, sure, but Sam was the one who overcame Lucifer and dragged two archangels into the Cage. No one on the show has given him credit for this - when the subject comes up, Dean gets the praise. Charlie thanks Dean for saving the world, and says to Sam, “Sorry your girlfriends die a lot.” Even Chuck, who should know better than anyone what exactly happened in Stull Cemetery, gives Dean the credit and praises him for being the one to save the world all the time.

As for who’s done more bad stuff, what counts as “bad” depends entirely on what’s beneficial for Dean:

It’s bad to sell yourself to a demon to save someone you love (John saving Dean via a deal with Azazel), except when Dean does it (selling his soul to bring Sam back).

It’s bad to befriend a demon who’s gone out of her way to help you at great personal sacrifice (Sam and Ruby in S4), except when Dean does it with a demon who openly admits to hating the Winchesters and only being in it to save his own skin (Dean and Crowley in S5).

It’s bad to befriend a monster and let her live when she kills only criminal lowlifes to save her son (Sam and Amy), except when Dean befriends a monster and brings him back from the dead when the monster freely admits to killing humans for fun and food (Dean and Benny).

It’s bad to leave your brother (believed) dead and in Heaven and try to continue living after even when that’s what you and your brother agreed on (Sam and Amelia), except when Dean leaves his brother alive and being tortured for eternity by two archangels in Hell because that’s what they agreed on (Dean and Lisa).

It’s bad to possess a human and use their body against their will (every demon on the show and a lot of angels) except when Dean tricks Sam into being possessed because he can’t stand the thought of living without him (Gadreel).

It’s bad when an external force is causing you to be not yourself and to harm others and it’s wrong for those endangered others to take action to restore you safely (Dean and the Mark of Cain) except when it’s Dean who wants to do the restoring even if it’ll kill you (Soulless Sam).

It’s bad to put your brother at risk in order to take out a much bigger threat even if you know you can cure him (Soulless Sam letting Dean be turned into a vampire) except when it’s Dean getting ready to murder his brother in cold blood in a way that almost certainly can’t be undone (”Close your eyes, Sammy”).

It’s bad when something awful happens to your brother because of you even if you had no say in the matter and you run away and make reckless decisions that endanger yourself (Sam after Dean is killed by hellhounds) except when it’s Dean who knowingly violated Sam and feels guilty and runs away and makes a reckless decision that endangers the entire world (Dean taking the Mark of Cain)

These are the biggest examples of situations where Dean and the narrative frame Dean’s actions as objectively “good” and “right” and Sam’s identical actions as “bad” and “wrong”. Dean’s praises are sung, he’s the hero, he’s the one who gets the long lingering camera shots of his single man-tears even when it’s Sam doing the heroics, Sam being ignored or blamed by the supporting cast, Sam being physically and mentally assaulted by Dean.

I should note, I don’t mean this as picking on Dean-as-a-person. I used to really like Dean; I found his character fascinating. He saw the world in black and white when everything around him was shades of grey, and his early (S1-3) character arcs as he learned to deal with this were sympathetic and fun to watch.

But, starting in S4 when he became the show’s viewpoint character, the writing sort of forgot that he wasn’t the only protagonist and that Sam wasn’t a semi-villanous Sixth Ranger, MacGuffin Girl, or sexy lamp. And when the show did that, it oriented itself not on a relatively objective moral axis, but around the moral axis of Dean Winchester specifically - aka whatever’s most convenient to make Dean look the most like the Righteous Man at any given point. And starting in S8 (looking at you, Carver), this became the defining feature of both the show and Dean’s personality.

Frankly, it’s lazy writing, and I strongly disagree that it in any way has a message that we can still be good even after making a few disasterous decisions. If anyone shows that, it’s Sam, who remains the kindest, gentlest, most honestly good person on the show despite his bad decisions and despite the entire SPN universe shitting on him constantly. If the show actually dealt with this disparity - if it allowed Sam to acknowledge how unfairly he’s treated and react to it - it would be the source of fantastic drama and angst and tension both in the Winchesters’ relationship with each other and their relationships with other hunters. But the show doesn’t, because that’s hard and chick-flick and maybe if we ignore Sam hard enough he’ll vanish and this can go back to being the Dean Winchester show. (did I mention I’m bitter? >.< )

Dean, on the other hand, feels like an example of how the belief that we can still be good after a bad decision can go spectacularly wrong. Dean believes he’s the Righteous Man still, that he maybe slipped up once or twice and did something slightly less than perfect but he’s still Righteous and Good and the Arbiter of What is Just. But this has led him to spiral further and further down a path of self-centered cruelty in the way he treats others, until - as his actions demonstrate over the seasons - he’s more monstrous than half the literal monsters the Winchesters face.

What I would absolutely love to see, but will probably never get, is someone standing up to Dean, throwing every one of his hypocritical actions back in his face, and utterly tearing him down denial by denial, until he has to face what he’s done to Sam and Cas; accept that not only is he not perfect, but he’s deeply flawed and damaging to the people he cares about; and begin to make a change. He, and the writers, have gotten too committed to the idea that Dean Winchester can do no wrong (and that Sam Winchester can do no right). There aren’t any moral questions any more, there isn’t any introspection, there isn’t any wrestling with inner demons - there’s only what Dean says is right and what Dean says is wrong, and it’s so. boring.

*deep breath*

Okay, so that got even more ranty than I was expecting, but hopefully I haven’t scared you off completely. Like I said above, this frustrates me so much in large part because Dean as a character has so much potential. (Sam does, too, and it’s ignored just as much as Dean’s, but that’s a rant for another time.) But the writers just keep ignoring all that glorious potential for drama and moral questioning and meaty plotlines in favor of doubling, tripling, and quadrupling down on the Righteous Man bullshit. The fact that they could do so much more but won’t offends me on a professional, writer-to-writer level as much as it angers me to see characters I love get treated so poorly.

#supernatural #dean winchester #sam winchester #meta #dean negative #sanity replies

[mittensmorgul]

it’s been six days since i watched 15.19 and i will never be over this

for Chuck, the ultimate punishment, the worst thing they could do to him-- far worse than instant death-- was to render him utterly powerless. he’d cosplayed as a human for a very long time, superficially exploring his creation while retaining complete control over it. a snap of his fingers could still alter reality (he gave himself the ability to play music, he experimented with human relationships and still utterly failed to grasp the concepts of human joy and love and care). he did all of this while still fundamentally seeing his own creation as a playground for him to dominate, and the beings he’d created with with the ability to love and choose for themselves were merely his personal playthings. every instance of lucifer referring to humanity as chuck’s “toys” was spot on, all along.

and now that he is human himself, it’s irrelevant if he ever grows into this realization for himself. he’s been rendered entirely superfluous to the narrative he’d sought to control and eventually obliterate on a whim. sure, we can hope that he will grow to see the beauty and wonder and potential joy and love that humans are capable of, but it doesn’t matter. if he does, then good for him. if not, we are the bodily incarnation of the shrug emoji. that’s his problem now, basically. it’s the ending he deserved.

but for cas-- the ONE element of the story that he could never fully eliminate or bend to his will, the SINGLE incarnation of this character across all his universes to simply fail to do what he was told and bugger off back to heaven with the rest of the mindless angels-- cas is the SINGLE angel who actually fell in love with humanity. he’s the one who let humanity change him, because of the love he saw in dean winchester-- a man who spent the last 15 seasons believing he was broken, poison, nothing more than a weapon or a killer, who ruined everything he touched including this angel.

love never ruined anything, hon.

cas has been dipping his toes into humanity since his first season on the show. he’s been blowing apart the doorways to doubt, feeling more and more human emotions despite repeated attempts to program that humanity out of him and restore him to proper angelic obedience. and because of the love he began to understand only after he did fully fall and become human, when he had to give up his humanity because of necessity to save the world yet again, in an act he deemed “barbaric” and only chose because he felt he had no other choice, he’s never felt that was a viable option for him to choose again, for himself.

he’s needed to be “prepared” to go to war at every turn. there’s never been a time when he felt he could lay that magical armor and sense of duty to the universe of being an angel down. it’s... horrifying, actually. knowing that he carries so much love, and the one thing he wants he feels he can never have, because instead he would have to choose to sacrifice any chance of it to be ready at all times to pick up his arms again and fling himself in front of the cosmic bullets the universe kept firing at them. he held on to it all as a shield-- both for his own fear of his feelings not being reciprocated from dean because we have been told over and over for years that angels are like “marble statues” and are incapable of true human feelings (and even in more mundane ways like how cas mourned the flavor of pb&j once his grace was restored... nothing really hit the same, like the grace itself was a shield in the same way cas described dean’s demonhood as a shield that protected him from feeling his feelings), but in a very literal way cas used his grace to shield dean from danger, ready to stand between dean and death at every turn, regardless of the consequences, and regardless of how DEAN would react to losing him. Some sacrifices just aren’t worth surviving, you know? which dean proved out to us in early s13... and which cas has no IDEA about...

but back to the point...

in a post-chuck world, where TFW’s sacrifices of raising jack to believe in the beauty of creation and the power of human love and joy and wonder and beauty and balance have restored the natural order and changed the entire stakes of the game from saving the world to saving themselves and finally having total freedom to make their own choices in life without a risk-reward calculation on whether they can save the universe from the current round of existential threat imposed on them by a malicious god, is there any other logical choice that cas would make than to finally be able to lay his shield down? there’s nothing more to fight for, except themselves and the love they’d never felt was possible.

for chuck, humanity was the ultimate punishment. but for cas, the angel who broke the mold, it would be the ultimate reward.

and for all of us humans down here in the muck who chuck would’ve just as soon seen stomped back into the mud for the rest of eternity? i don’t think there could be any greater affirmation of OUR humanity and the validity and power of our own lives, our own love, and our own choices than demonstrating that humanity itself isn’t and should never be a punishment to anyone who truly loves.

this is my story, and i’m sticking with it.

#spn s15 spoilers #spn 15.19 #spn 15.20 #spn s15 speculation #castiel winchester #any ending that doesn't frame cas as choosing humanity is effectively dead to me #i just can't accept that one of the final messages of a show that's been about human love and free will and the value of those things #would be NAH BEING HUMAN IS SHIT AND A PUNISHMENT AND 'DEMEANING' because that's just gross #i hope they don't legit make me pull this out after tomorrow night to burn the whole ending down with... but i'm prepared anyway

[graceosborneillustration-blog]

Original transcript and new narrative

G: How did you become homeless?

K:I had a nervous breakdown kind of thing, and depression. And I, my relationship broke down, kind of thing.

G: How do you think people who aren't homeless view people who are homeless?

K: I think people are sad. I hid it when I was homeless, no one knew. I hid that I was homeless. It's only about six months ago I stopped hiding it, but before then I hid it. I was washing, cleaning, hid my stuff. I had a little bit of money, but not two much.

G: If you were to think back years ago before you were homeless, and you saw someone who was homeless, what did you think then?

K: I didn't think I’d ever be in hat situation, but wha I thought was, I wanted to help, I tried to give a sandwich or something. I though it was sad and I just, I wanted to help, I just thought it was sad to be honest. You don't ask, you don't say whats going on. Because you might not be able to help. I didn't realise there was so much help for the homeless, until I became homeless. I thought people on the street were starving, they cant do anything, they're cold, but theres so much help. Thats anther aspect, I did not realise there was so much help. There is places you can go and have something to eat, theres places like the soup run and they give you clothes and food, and I went to the Arch and got a sleeping bag cause before I was homeless I had a tent and a sleeping bag that I got myself. But then they got nicked and I didn't have much money, so I got one from the Arch.

I didn't know what BBH was or I might have come here as well, I might have come to see CAPS sooner.

I’ll always remember the first time I came here.

G: How much sleep did you use to get, when you were in the tent and outside Debenhams.

K: Sometimes about six hours, sometimes less. Because it is noisy on the street, I had my shoes nicked once. You leave anything around people will take it, they think its funny.

G: Did loads of people sleep outside Debenhams?

K: I was on my own. I was where no one bothered me, the other side there use to be five or six people in a row. And they all knew each other. Then when I was there CAPS found me and I started talking to them. But before that I was going to commit suicide, but I saw CAPS and the story comes after that.

G: Whats the best thing thats happened to you this week?

K: This week? You really want to know? I’ve just moved in to a flat. I moved in yesterday, its not a council flat. I went from CAPS and BBH to Genesis house which is like a hostel kind of thing. Bishop Bridge is like the bottom of the ladder and then Genesis and then with in there theres a move on flat which is completely self reliant but theres still help if I need it.

G: Thats amazing, congratulations.

K: I came here on the 22nd September and then they asked my on the 27th December if I wanted a flat and then I moved in yesterday.

G: What three words would you use to describe being homeless?

K: three words, thats interesting, scared. Maybe, I felt dirty I guess even though I wasn't really, unclean maybe. And depressing.

G: What made you feel safe? Or what makes you feel safe? K: safe? When I was homeless, I wasn't safe. I didn't feel safe. G: What was the scariest bit about it?

K: When I got my shoes nicked, and when other people open your sleeping bag at night and say ‘oh no wrong person’. Theres people after each other, Ive known people who've been weed on, students think its funny. Someone had their sleeping bad set fire to, while they were in it. Groups of kids at night time, they kick the sleeping bags. You get spat at, people got stabbed.

There was something that happened last winter, there were two guy, young guys who were sleeping rough and they'd gone to sleep by one of the vents by castle mall, they curled up by one of the heating vents. In freeing weather, and a security guard from Castle Mall came out and threw a bucket of cold water over them. It mush have been mine three. They literally had what they were wearing, people sleep in what they've got to keep warm. And he threw a bucket of old water over them. They got down here I think with in 24 hours and I think the guys lost his job. They're human beings who are trying to keep warm when its minus 2.

G: What does the word home mean to you?

K: Safe, comfort, just normal really. Like when you get of the street and come here, just a bed and a shower. Lots of the time it's so cold you just cant sleep, you just wake up from shivering.

G: Where would you like to be in a years time?

K: I would like to have my own place and I would like to have a job. Be normal really. I never thought, thirty years ago that I would be homeless. Its all things people take for granted, thats what I see as normal. watching telly, sitting down, being okay, being safe. Having hot food, we take that for granted. Being warm, clean, hot water. Thats what I want.

G: Is there anything you think its important for people to know about?

K: The homeless need help, we do need help. There are some bad ones on the streets, I m not saying there aren’t. But they make the good ones look bad. You only need one bad one.

I’ll give you an example of bad, begging on the streets saying they've got nowhere to sleep when they have. Professional beggars.

G: I never know whether to give money or food or not

K: If you offer food and they don't take it that means they're not homeless. Thats my opinion. I saw someone give this couple who were begging a pizza once, and he got the pizza and chucked it in the bin, Ive seen that. I was disgusted with that, theres other people out there who are homeless and hungry they could have just given it to them. People out there do want help and I think the problem is a lot of people don't know they can get help. I did not know I could get help.

G: do you think theres anything the government could do?

K: They try, they do try, but there is so much homelessness. Everyday there is somewhere people can go and get food. People only can get help if they want it. If I don't want help then theres nothing you can do. I didn't realise you had to be registered as homeless with the council before you can be recognised as homeless, if you're not registered you cant get anywhere. You have to help yourself before anyone can help you. CAPS, they have to see you on the street three or four

times, and at different times, they wont give you a date when there gonna come or whatever. The first 12/14 months I just hid, I didn't want help so I wasn't recognised as homeless, I was never recognised. If its too easy everyone would just be turning up at the council.

At the moment I'm doing charity work, you know St. Stephan's Street church? Homeless can go in there and say ‘I’m homeless’ and get a free coffee and something to eat. Theres the soup run and kings on a Sunday, the soup runs a dodgy though, I wouldn't go. Dont go anywhere near it, people have been seriously hurt, people are desperate you know, and they fight.

Some people get offered rooms, places with the council but because they've been on the streets for such a long time and it's so ingrained in them they cant deal with it, they get scared. Having a roof and a bed just becomes so overwhelming and they're scared. Theres a lady who's got so many bags and she's been offered places by the council but she cant deal with it, she doesn't know how. Thats what the government need to work on more. Theres so many.

And it is overwhelming, I went from sleeping in Debenham door way to BBH to Genesis to my own flat in 4 months and I did feel depressed during, especially leaving here. But I’ve been volunteering, cooked at quakers and St Stephens Street. I cooked Christmas dinner here, and I loved it. That was on my bucket list, I’ve always wanted to do Christmas dinner for the homeless.

Its all started to come together when I nicked some sandwiches from Tesco, I was desperate you know and the police gave me a list of all the help you can get. The saddest thing, I’ve been homeless for to years and Ive only started getting help six months ago, six months, I didn't know you could still be on the job seekers if you were homeless, did you know that? So people might be getting that but they might not, you don't know.

I didn't have a phone so they couldn’t get in contact with me when I started getting help, so I came in here to see what was going on and I waited a bit and then I got in, by timing and luck and my whole life changed.

But I have been down, I wanted to end it, everything to be honest. And I did cut my wrist, and I went to Eaton Park where the boating lake is and the other lake. I went there, to jump in. And these ducks were following my around, wouldn't let me go in. I’m not stupid I know they wanted food you know but after that I went to see the ARK and asked for help.

This is what saved me, this place. This is the point from when things got better. This changed my live, BBH and all the staff. Well, i changed my life but BBH enabled me and helped me, I did the hard work but they put the support in. They help, they really did. Even the police helped.

How long do I sleep for? Well, sometimes about six hours, sometimes less. Because it is noisy on the street, I had my shoes nicked once. You leave anything around people will take it, they think its funny. Someone had their sleeping bag set fire to, while they were in it. Groups of kids at night time, they kick the sleeping bags. You get spat at, people got stabbed.

I wanted to end it, I went to the boating lake. I went there, to jump in. And these ducks were following me around, they wouldn't let me go in. I’m not stupid I know they wanted food you know but after that I went to see the ARK and asked for help. I went from sleeping in Debenham doorway to BBH to Genesis to my own flat in 4 months and I did feel depressed during, especially leaving here. But I’ve been volunteering, cooked at quakers and St Stephens Street. I cooked Christmas dinner here, and I loved it. That was on my bucket list, I’ve always wanted to do Christmas dinner for the homeless. I would like to have my own place and I would like to have a job. Be normal really. I never thought, thirty years ago that I would be homeless. Its all things people take for granted, that’s what I see as normal. watching telly, sitting down, being okay, being safe. Having hot food, we take that for granted. Being warm, clean, hot water. That's what I want. I was on my own, but some people help. 

We used text directly from the transcript but have condensed it so that read out it will be able to fit into a minute long video which we feel will capture the hearts and attention of its audience.

This animatic was created by Emily and although its really good it doesn't reay fit with what we want to get across. This is because she hasnt  been able to combine for any of the meetings so, we are going to create a newanimatic 

#bbc

[mittensmorgul]

I was having a conversation with someone about spn recently. I was saying how it was compelling to me how Cas was basically the only one to embrace free will and escape the narrative, and he did this because he loved Dean. And because of that, Cas invented free will. His choosing Dean over heaven is the variable that made this reality different from every other reality, right?

The person I was talking to agreed that Cas embraced free will, but she also argued that Sam and Dean also embraced free will because they refused to kill each other the way other versions of themselves did.

So my point is that: Only Cas's love for Dean invented free will, and that's what allowed Sam and Dean to break free of the narrative.

Her point was: Sam, Dean, and Cas all simultaneously embraced free will, and thus broke free of the narrative together.

I prefer my interpretation because of Destiel/queer-love-defying-god-and-saving-the-universe reasons (my god why does this stupid show have to be so compelling???). But I'm also wondering what you think. I'm kind of looking for textual validation for MY interpretation, and I'm curious if you know of any off that top of your head.

No worries if not, I was just curious about it. You're my fav meta writer, and thanks for all you do ☺️

Hi there! I'm flattered that you've enjoyed anything I've written here! I appreciate that! But unfortunately I agree with your friend. Or... mostly...

The show has been about free will for years. Cas's arc in it was his personal coming to truly understand and embrace free will for himself. To understand all the lessons about free will that he literally learned from Dean.

"Just because you can do what you want doesn't mean you can do whatever you want," and all that.

Other angels did start down that road. Anna, specifically, chose to be born human to experience humanity and free will for herself, and then was dragged back. Balthazar took the whole free will thing to the sorts of extremes that Cas did in s6 (doing whatever he wanted, because nothing mattered in the end). It was the same sort of nihilism that plagued AU!Michael after "following all God's orders perfectly" and bringing about their apocalypse as ordered/destined by God, and then didn't come with the expected "reward" of God's return to their world.

This was Cas's primary struggle in s4, where he fought against his own essential programming, and against the belief that he was effectively created to follow God's orders, to obey Heaven's commands. We know he had crises of conscience before, in the past, thanks to Naomi's confirmation that Cas was present at other objectionable events carried out by angels in the past (killing the firstborns of Egypt, for example) that were wiped from his memory because they were leading him to question authority or doubt their orders. The difference in *THIS* universe, though, was that *this* Cas had Dean.

Dean didn't exist in the Apocalypse AU. That Cas may have had some similar objections, and from his behavior (the eye twitch, etc.) there is definitely a potential read there that Cas himself had tried to object enough, and had been "reprogrammed" enough to have finally completely broken him.

I've written about how some angels are "specialists," a term first used to describe Uriel and his city-leveling abilities. We know Zachariah (even the AU version of him) had the special power to implant visions directly into people's brains. And that Cas's "special power" was that he could "strip memories" out of people's minds. What a HORRIBLE power. But also, very much what Naomi's brain reprogramming torture hat was supposed to do, yes?

Ironic that Cas was the one that reprogramming hat didn't completely work on.

But the difference for Cas wasn't that he "escaped the narrative," because in the end he did not at all. In the end because of the love for Dean that he understood through his own free will, he chose to die so that Dean could live. Which... is effectively exactly what Chuck wanted for Cas in the narrative. He wanted him gone. Cas ultimately gave in to Chuck's narrative first of TFW.

He made the choice for himself, but Chuck's narrative was always one step ahead of all of them right to the end. It was a choice he should never have had to make. "Either we both die right here and Chuck wins, or I save Dean by sacrificing myself so he can go on without me to stop Chuck." That was what his final act boiled down to.

Once Chuck was defeated, this was obviously the very first act we all assumed Jack would undertake to undo that sacrifice. Which makes me believe that Chuck actually won... but that's a rant for another post (and a goodly number of posts I've already made lol).

But humanity was created WITH FREE WILL! Angels were not. So... I'd offer that Cas was the first angel to successfully understand free will and apply it to himself. He was also the first angel to inhabit his own body (not a vessel after 5.01), the first to have been made human within that body, and the first to experience life as a human while retaining all his memories of his entire existence before becoming human. He fully understood humanity, and said "yeah I like this better."

All these themes of humanity, love, and free will were wrapped up in his entire story arc, and I personally feel like it takes something important away from his story to suggest that he was the ONLY character with free will, when he only learned free will for himself BECAUSE of Dean and his love for Dean. Which is what Cas actually said in his confession.

"You know, ever since we met, ever since I pulled you out of Hell, knowing you has changed me. Because you cared, I cared. I cared about you. I cared about Sam. I cared about Jack. I cared about the whole world because of you. You changed me, Dean.

I refuse to take that away from them.

#spn 15.18 #that's what free will is #castiel winchester #destiel #there's probably a lot more on this topic in my free will tag up there... but also in my cas vs humanity tag which is #you learned it from the goats