#like...OBVIOUSLY

[wellofdean]

OK, I was going to reblog this excellent post by @luckshiptoshore so go read it, because yes. Yes!! YES!!! But then when I got started my post got super long and I felt bad tacking it onto her post and decided to make my own in response to these tags:

#i am actually a bit obsessed by the whole hunting as queerness metaphor#it’s so clearly something everyone involved in the show is thinking about#supernatural

Gurl, me too! Like go back to the start! By the time Supernatural began, the backlash against the Joseph Campbell Monomyth-style mode of storytelling had already begun in the hallowed halls of USC film school, and yo: I was there at the time of Kripke's graduation, and my best friends from college are full scale big giant time filmmakers now, whose names I will not share on main because it's uncool, and I don't want that attention, but... yeah. I am referencing FIRST HAND SOURCES on this.

But, for a real source? The Oxford English Dictionary places the first use of the term "Queer Theory" in 1990, with Queer Studies as an option in the academy by 1992. I know the kids think it's a new-fangled thing, but Kripke graduated USC in 1996 (I graduated in 1995) and it was ALL THE RAGE by then. My friends read queer theory in their Critical Studies courses in the Film School, I read it in the College of Humanities getting my degree in Literature. By that time, you could not get through that school with any degree in any non-STEM subject without knowing about ye olde postmodern lenses, queer and feminist theory, and without knowing how to employ those lenses.

Queer refers to sexuality, yes, but the word's earliest use (again, according to the OED) is in the 1500's, meaning: strange, odd, peculiar, eccentric. Also: of questionable character; suspicious, dubious.

So, ok, in 2005, Enter Supernatural, episode 1:

Presented? Two brothers. One actively seeking credit in the straight world that is not available to him in the bosom of his family: Stanford, law school, hot co-ed girlfriend, the other bound to his fractured, wounded family by duty, yes, but also by love, living on the fringe, alone, fighting monsters, and chasing after his father's approval, and who has long since given up any dream of being 'normal'. Episode 1 presents Sam's call to adventure, which he refuses when it's just familial duty, honor and love calling him, but accepts when the show takes a very straightforward and very telling path by classically fridging his woman. Ok, now he's on board. Like John, whose motivation is another dead woman, his motivation is revenge. So far so straight!

Dean though: he's different. He is already on the adventure and he was not 'called' or given the option of accepting or refusing because he had no agency when his feet were set upon this road. He does not fit the straight world at all, because he is cobbled together out of love, duty, deep guilt, striving, desperation and fear. This is who he is now, in some elemental, incontrovertible way. It was not a choice for him, he was born to it. His mother is dead, and we later learn, she made the choices that brought them all to this fate. Dean remembers her idyllically, but he is not motivated by revenge, more than any other thing, he wants to be worthy. He wants his father's approval, his brother's love.

Enter Supernatural's main theme: fucked up relationships between men enmeshed in patriarchy, which will eventually expand to include fucking GOD HIMSELF.

And like, there are SO MANY CLEAR STEPS ALONG THE ROAD in season one, and I am not even talking about sexuality and gender here, but there is SO MUCH TO SAY about it in season 1. But I am not talking about that -- I am talking at a structural, narrative level, the whole thing is just fucking all the way queered, yo.

The big climax?

At the end of the season, Dean says: "I just want my family back together. You, me, Dad... it's all I have." He is Sam's mother, John's partner! His vulnerability and emotion is feminized and contrasted with Sam and John's more overtly driven by their more masculine/straight heroic revenge quest. John: "Sam and I can get pretty obsessed, but you always take care of this family." Only that's not John talking, it's Azazel, and Dean knows it is because his father would never forgive how soft he is, how he will always choose love and family over revenge. Then, in the end, the show makes a huge point of telegraphing that Sam is finally aligning with Dean by refusing to shoot Azazel because he's possessing John, and Sam just can't do that to Dean.

Sam and Dean are thus bound together and cemented into a marginalised path, living on the road, haunting liminal spaces and cheap motels, confronting the monstrous everyday. Sam is presented as the brains of the operation, he does research, logics his way through things (masculine) while Dean is the heart who acts impulsively and on instinct and intuition (feminine).

It later transpires that Sam has a piece of the monster inside himself, and Dean has to learn to love the monstrous, he has no choice, because Sam is his brother and then Cas... and, and, and!

Like... I could go on and on, citing ENDLESS EXAMPLES. This could be a literal book. Maybe one you need to read with a magnifying glass like my condensed edition of the OED. LIke, the queerness of Supernatural is DIZZYING and MYRIAD.

But basically? FROM THE START, hunting is a queered version of family, and within that, Dean is a queered version of a Campbellian hero. Hunting is a metaphor for otherness and liminality, and that's even before you say a WORD about sex. It starts in deviation from the norms of family, masculinity and expands from there on so many levels both in story and on a meta level. The story is flesh on queer fucking bones.

I'm so sorry, but anyone who thinks queerness was not BAKED INTO Supernatural and more specifically into Dean from DAY 1 has clearly never seen Dean's insane lip gloss in season 1, and vastly underestimates the cultural awareness of people who write shit in Hollywood, and also the other people who put pink lip gloss on pretty boys in Hollywood. Nothing that gets on your screen wasn't a fucking choice made and approved by a LONG LIST of people who know what they are about.

#supernatural #dean winchester #sam winchester #the queerness is baked in from the word go #like...OBVIOUSLY #and transparently

[flouryhedgehog]

Turning off the reblogs on this. At the time I wrote it, it felt like what I needed to say. There's not as much activity on the post now, but when there is, I feel...sort of hollow. We're so far past the point where this even means anything.

Y'all remember "cops aren't supposed to kill guilty people, either", right?

Palestinians who have done something wrong don't deserve to die beneath the rubble of their homes.

Palestinians who have done something wrong don't deserve to be shot with expanding bullets that cause massive tissue damage leading to amputation.

Palestinians who have done something wrong don't deserve to have their flesh burned away with white phosphorous.

Palestinians who have done something wrong don't deserve their fishing boats blown up.

Palestinians who have done something wrong don't deserve to see their husbands and fathers executed in front of them along evacuation routes.

Palestinians who have done something wrong don't deserve an anonymous phone call threatening to destroy their lives and families.

Palestinians who have done something wrong don't deserve to be detained for years without charges.

Palestinians who have done something wrong don't deserve to be tortured, starved, and sexually assaulted in prison.

Palestinians who have done something wrong don't deserve to be deprived of water.

Palestinians who have done something wrong don't deserve their olive trees to be uprooted while they look on.

Palestinians who have done something wrong don't deserve sixteen years of blockade.

Palestinians who have done something wrong don't deserve to be prevented from traveling for lifesaving medical care.

Palestinians who have done something wrong don't deserve this genocide.

#like obviously we're right to talk about innocent palestinians #but also #there is no guilt any palestinian could possibly carry as an individual #and sure as hell no guilt that could attach to palestinians collectively #that justifies any of this

[wasabi-gumdrop]

local ladies man’s signature move totally useless against autistic monster enthusiast. more on Kabru’s fumble era at 6

#i’ve seen so many interpretations of that 1 hr freeze frame of Kabru’s smile in ep 16 #he’s meeting his long time crush of course he’s trying to charm him #Kabru so obviously has a big fat giant crush on Laios #like atp in the story he’s tried to talk to him and get his attention so many times agjdjajdj #Laios is the human rubix cube he’s been searching for his entire life #everyone else is almost too easy for Kabru to pin down #Laios on the other hand … a treasure trove of autistic mystery #Kabru is so locked in #Kabru used signature move: charming smile #Laios: no effect! #there’s something so beautiful about the popular pretty boy entering his fumble era when his one true love turns out to be autistic #labru #laios touden #kabru of utaya #dungeon meshi #delicious in dungeon #wasabi rambles #seen so many clock that smile as nefarious and machiavellian #baby no Kabru is just dialing the charm up to 100 and what we’re all feeling is second hand embarrassment LMAO

[good-to-drive]

It's kinda funny when you get a bunch of likes but no reblogs like I enjoyed your post but I'd prefer if no one else saw it

#kidding obviously #likes are also really nice and fun #shitpost #it's just funny lol

[seenthisepisode]

no offence but the reason tumblr is “dying” is, well, yes, of course the cursed like/reblog ratio and the change in user behaviour (because of people being used to how instagram and tiktok work) BUT also the lack of weekly shows. i say it with my whole chest, they don't produce captivating and engaging stupid weekly tv shows anymore because streaming killed that so you have spikes of activity here when Something happens in general fandom or up to three days after a new season of whatever drops and then it's a wasteland. this is obviously an old woman yelling at a cloud missing supernatural and the vampire diaries and pretty little liars and all these other shows type of post but honestly give me back weekly tv shows where i have something to watch for 40 minutes almost every day of the week after work so then i can read and reblog it on tumblr give it back for the sake of my sanity

#we used to be a proper country #or something #this post is brought to you by me coming back from work and being like okay what now 🧍🏻‍♂️ #i mean obviously i have stuff to do but these are just chores and what i need what i have been programmed to need is a 40 minute long #episode of stupid cw show with a gay ship that's never gonna go canon... :((( #tumblr #fandom

[valmillion]

really funny that every website is in an arms race to make itself as bad as possible and immediately someone makes a firefox extension to fix it

#its not a real solution obviously like they should work properly in the first place #but it shows how all these changes are not for the benefit of the user and are always unpopular

[jakeperalta]

#obviously we know what the sweep is going to be but i'm curious #like did Anyone use it???? #polls

[moonlarked]

monarchy has no real purpose and should be abolished irl but im a slut for royal families in fiction. the politics. the intrigue. families divided by the eyes of a nation. the pressure of children told from birth that they are born to rule, born for only one purpose. the stifling of empathy and real bonds and love. the loneliness when all eyes are on you. it’s so inherently tragic and yet everyone involved is terrible because that’s all they can be. gimme.

#this is obviously about #hamlet #I’ve seen a lot of other fantasy monarchies that I like too tho

[officialspec]

can i say something. for years i thought the joke of the song short skirt/long jacket by cake was that he wanted a woman who was hung like a horse. like i thought when he says jacket it was a last-second fakeout because he very obviously meant to say cock. and the rest of the things in the song were just her personality and interests. which were secondary to her awesome penis

#is anyone else doing this. or am i stupid #i didnt question it at all i thought that was just the obviously intended meaning of the song #and i was like damn this is pretty progressive for the 90s i wonder why no one talks about this song when theyre talking abt #popular songs about trans women at the time. i guess some of the stuff mentioned could potentially rub people the wrong way- #OH. SO IT WAS JUST ABOUT A WOMAN WHOIS PRAGMATIC AND BUSINESS CASUAL WITH IT. I SEE #EDIT THE LINE 'a voice that is dark like tinted glass' LIKE....U GET WHAT I MEAN

[apollos-olives]

okay so a ceasefire will happen soon, inshallah, but i just know the second it does, most of y'all will pack it up and go home. the world has proven time and time again that the second the violence "stops", then everyone forgets about us and then we just go back to suffering under the israeli occupation. you guys need to promise us, promise every single palestinian child in the world right now, that you will not stop fighting. that you will continue boycotting, you will continue protesting, you will continue disrupting the world until palestine is free. and then we'll do it again. and again and again and again and again. for sudan, for the congo, for everyone who is suffering right now.

you guys cant keep leaving us and forgetting about us once you've done "your part". it always happens, and we always go back to suffering. you need to stand with us until palestine is completely free. until we have our land back, until we can rebuild our homes, until we can drink clean water and breathe clean air, until our children grow up never having to face a horror like the nakba ever again. you need to stay fighting until we are all free forever.

#palestine #free palestine #im aching for a ceasefire obviously but some of yall will just straight up leave once it's done #like no. we mean FREE palestine. like all of it. forever

[the-tired-commander]

hey could y'all do me a favour?

Reblog if you're okay with "weird" compliments on your stuff!

things like "biting this" and such

#i hab mental eelness with shrimptoms so i am unreasonably nervous about giving compliments like this #even though i really like saying it and having people say it on my posts jdsfdfs #shaking like a wet chihuahua while i try and say nice things publicly #obviously there is a line with these kinds of things! i fully understand and respect that #i'm just a nervous beast about even starting to approach the line

[bastardlybonkers]

i feel like not enough ppl are factoring in the cultural clash between laios and shuro and the many micro agressions shuro faced while being in their group. literally the name 'shuro' in itself is one

his name is toshiro 😭 lets also not forget that he has his own communication issues, in the opposite way that laios does- thats literally a factor in their argument, that his envy for laios's ability to express himself sincerely manifested as part of his distaste for him.

ig all this to say like, was their fight heart wrenching, especially when reading laios as autistic? absolutely. anybody whos ever been in laios's position knows how much it hurts to realize someone you thought was your friend doesnt actually like having you around, especially when they didnt tell you and you had no way of knowing due to not understanding their cues. but im begging yall to step back and see the nuance of this situation cause im gonna be real a lot of you are kinda just brushing over it acting like everything is toshiros fault and that hes a terrible person when in reality hes an average guy who really, really clashed with laios and it led to a very long misunderstanding due to their supremely opposite methods of communication. even laios and toshiro, after letting everything out in their fight, were able to come to an understanding and start a foundation for an actual friendship built on better communication

ok yknow what Edit: i shouldve made it even more explicit at the end of this post, i hadnt thought i would need to since i started the post with this, but i think a few too many people are missing my point so i just wanna clarify. i shouldnt have said 'really clashed' and left it at that because yeah they did, but it wasnt just their opposite methods of communication, it is also very much that toshiro was experiencing microaggressions via laios. it may have been unintentional on laios's part, but it still happened and wore him down, made it harder for him to communicate on top of both the more subtle social cues that he was raised with and his own communication difficulties. i also want to say that the fandom reaction to toshiro and the complete ignorance of this point is also racist tbh or at the very least ignorant. i understand that the anime did not cover this panel, and neither did the manga, as this was an omake, but im gonna be real with you guys. there are enough context clues within the story to clue you into this. if you didnt pick up on it thats ok, but i think this is a good lesson in picking up subtext in the stories that youre watching and/or reading. kui shouldnt have to explicitly say 'by the way laios was racist to toshiro' for this point to be understood, and at the very least, when the author portrays a character in a sympathetic light (as kui clearly does) it should make you question Why they are doing so and what makes them sympathetic, rather than youre immediate and only reaction to be 'well i hated what this guy did/said so i hate them and they suck'. idk exactly how to finish this, just. idk. question your biases and gut reactions to things you see in media and stories, and think about whether or not theres subtext that youre missing.

#dunmeshi #dungeon meshi #shuro dungeon meshi #delicious in dungeon #toshiro nakamoto #dont get me wrong i understand relating to a character and hating whoever wrongs them cause youre protective or you relate really hard #but i think toshiros been getting the short end of the stick for a long time now 😭 #even his love for falin is misunderstood #he literally states all the reasons he likes her #and none of them are superficial #but hes so closed off and has such difficulty expressing himself that instead of asking her out or smth he just #proposed to her out of the blue 😭 #leading a lot of ppl to just assume that he went 'white woman spotted' and proposed #do Not misunderstand me i am #a HUGE farcille stan #obviously #but i dont think toshiros feelings are surface level and i think theyre absolutely crucial to understanding him and his motivations #as a character in this story

[reasonsforhope]

Sometimes you just have one of those moments where the progress we've made as a culture get thrown into stark relief. You look at something and go "Holy shit, that would never have happened when I was a kid."

Today, I had one of those moments when I realized that the teenage boys I'm working with are just. genuinely, openly enthusiastic about going to Build-a-Bear for their outing.

These are sixteen and seventeen year old boys! They just had a whole conversation about what to name their "cute", mostly new squishmallows! They're genuinely excited that they're going to Build-a-Bear this weekend and asking other kids to pick up specific accessories for them!!

Holy shit, that never would've happened when I was 16. None of the boys would have dared to be visibly interested - and neither would most of the girls! There would have been a million gay jokes and "Haha, you're a girl" jokes and "What are you, a baby?" jokes. Teenagers weren't even supposed to care about anything back then!

Less than 15 years later, and I'm watching three 17 year old boys treat all that as not even worthy of comment.

So let's call that a reason for hope. Even when the kids aren't alright, in some ways apparently they are alright. Go Gen Z, honestly. It's so lovely to watch you guys just openly doing and saying stuff that, when I was a teen, would've been a social death sentence.

#obligatory disclaimer that this really really obviously is not universal #I do live in a major progressive city #there's definitely a level of a liberal bubble effect here #but it's still really powerful to see it #because even in a major liberal enclave there were so many limits on the gender roles and homophobia etc. etc. fronts #and also the limits of the oppressive weight of obligatory teen apathy lol #seriously go gen z. so glad you guys decided cringe is dead. I love you for that so much #and I love it for you #not news #life #hope #homophobia #sexism #teens #teenagers #progress #gen z #btw if it wasn't clear I'm a #millennial #plush toy #plushie #squishmallows #build a bear #stuffed animal #like the idea of almost any teenager much less teenage boys #saying IN FRONT OF THEIR PEERS #that they are excited about their STUFFED ANIMALS #when I was a teenager #????? #cannot imagine that ever happening.

[chloesimaginationthings]

Matpat will always be welcomed into the FNAF universe

#myart #chloesimagination #comic #matpat #ness fnaf #mike schmidt #abby schmidt #dj music man #music man #fnaf #fnaf movie #game theory #security breach #fnaf fanart #five nights at freddy's #Today is matpat’s last theory!! #I drew this in celebration for the occasion! #Matpat’s character Ness meeting his beloved Music man #people asked if I’d ever draw this and obviously today felt like the perfect time to #I hope he enjoys his retirement #Tysm to Matpat for everything!!

[minimanuke]

This image was MADE for them

#Yes valentino is smoking at like 2am #he has his hat on too obviously #vox is so done with him #dont ask how his wings changed colour ok #thats ARTISTIC LIBERTY ✨ #hazbin hotel #hazbin hotel vox #hazbin hotel valentino #vox #valentino #vox x valentino #voxval #staticmoth #my boys #love them #digital art #art

[lokh]

(not) recognising the self in the other...

#the opposite of the post about them seeing 'rivals' and being like Hah. theyre not REAL Rivals (homoerotic tension) #bartocav #zosan #one piece #art #feat nami <3 #roronoa zoro #black leg sanji #bartolomeo op #cavendish op #btw if anything like this already happened in canon i obviously dont know about it cos i dont read or watch op <3