#s12 meta rewatch

[emberphantom]

how long have you been a fan of iasip and how long on sunnyblr? do you know who here has been around for a long time? how has the fandom developed and changed from your perspective? has it always been so reddit-oriented? what have the main opinions (general consensus kinda shit) been in your eyes? were you into macdennis right from the start? did the fandom always follow rcg so closely or is that only after the podcast? sorry for asking so much, just interested in the history of this space

Step into my office Anon. Let me regale you the tale of Sunnyblr from the days of yore. Or whatever.

Me personally, I started watching Sunny in late summer 2019 (tragically I had just missed the fake MacDennis script panic of July 2019). My friends had it on when I went to their house and we didn't have anything else to do, so we just watched like a shitton of episodes that day and I was like hold fuck on this scratches something in my brain. I didn't start poking around on the Sunny side of tumblr until possibly a week later? I think. Basically in my skipping around Sunny episodes I was starting to pick up the vibes Mac and Dennis were putting down and as a joke I was like hmm what if I just take a look at the ao3 tag ahaha jk unless. And that was the beginning of the end. I'm not sure if I checked out the Sunny tag on tumblr first or the MacDennis tag but literally at that time it didn't matter. Sunnyblr was essentially MacDennisblr. Tumblr didn't get me into MacDennis but it definitely accelerated my hyperfixation with them This was all pre-s14 at this point for reference.

Honestly, not many people remain from that time or even before. I remember some folks I had followed reminiscing about post-s12, wondering if Dennis was coming back, or if he turned into the bar. Idk man I'm so glad I didn't have to deal with not knowing if Dennis was coming back like that would've been too much for me.

But 2019 Sunnyblr, and this may just be the nostalgia talking, but man it was magical. The gif sets, the meta breakdowns of episodes, the macdennis posts--god we were eating GOOD. It felt like one giant group chat in the best way. And then The Gang Gets Romantic happens an we were absolutely FERAL. Okay? Like picture Nov 5th but on a way smaller scale. But that was the energy, okay?

But then, tragedy struck in the form of Dee Day. That, for me was kinda the beginning of the end of that version of Sunnyblr. A lot of people were pissed. The glass shelves we had propped RCG and Megan Ganz up on had shattered. A decent amount of people left right then and there. But those who stayed were holding out for something -- a better apology from them regarding the brownface for one. And that...didn't happen (I don't want to speak more on this bc like...look I'll be real with you, I stuck my head in the sand on this one. But people had a right to be hurt by that episode and to this day I haven't rewatched it since it aired). But we trudged along. Bc it's "satire" and these are "bad people" and we are DEF getting canon MacDennis okay they are going to KISS on the MOUTH in BIG MO.

....and then they didn't. Clown shoes squeaking.

Okay trying to get this back on track...

As far as reddit goes, that's always just been the "dudebro" place for Sunny. Sometimes they make valid points and our braincells align and that warrants someone posting it here to discuss.

I feel like the general opinions kinda feel the same to me? Mac and Dennis are endgame, Archie. Dennis is bastardman but also baby. Charlie poor little meow meow. I do have to say...I feel like some stuff used to feel a bit more...grounded than it does now?? If that makes sense? Like idk man people were out here writing academic prose to describe the meta in Clip Show. And I do feel like that vibe's kinda gone. But it's not a bad thing. It's just different. Like it's more unhinged but hey we're still having fun so who cares?

Uh what else? Oh yeah so the RCG stuff. Like I said before, there was a point where Sunnyblr propped them up and we got reality checked real quick, okay? They went from being UnProblematic Kings ™ to Rob posting copaganda on his IG at the height of the George Floyd protests in June of 2020. That happening after all the shit with Dee Day was basically a powder keg. And that's honestly when Sunnyblr as I knew it, really died.

I think the podcast has def shoved them back into a more favorable light in the fandom's eyes. Speaking for myself, I never stopped stanning Glenn but Rob and Charlie and Kait were on thin fucking ice (maybe not Charlie so much but def Rob and Kait--actually mostly Rob). I think RCG have to be prevalent in the fandom as much as the characters do bc they're so close to them and the show like this IS their show y'know?

That's...all I can really think of. Like I said, not many people remain from those days. I can think of maybe a handful off the top of my head but I wouldn't consider them nearly as active as they were regarding Sunny when I joined. We're still moots but that's bc we like each other beyond the MacDennis of it all.

Sorry this is so long too lmfao. Like Sunnyblr was such a huge part of my life during that time so I guess I got shit to say. I also for real in no way consider myself the end all be all expert on this either. Like in no way am I the sole authority on Sunnyblr history. This is based on stuff I experienced and picked up on from other's posts from before my time. Anybody can chime in with their own opinions and shit. Correct me too. Idc.

Uh yeah. So I guess that's what you missed on Glee. Or Sunnyblr. The end? I hope that helped (for real).

#allison answers shit #sunny asks #sunny #macdennis #long post

[angelsdean]

I’m sorry people are vague blogging and giving you crap about defending Dean. You don’t have to be hyper critical of every piece of media you consume. The early seasons of SPN were written in the early 2ks by a bunch of white men, so of course there are problems. We all know that. Your spreadsheet shows that those problems aren’t with Dean saying the word bitch a few times to female villains, but with the writers themselves, and no amount of critical character meta will undo that. And it’s weird for people to act like loving Dean through all the seasons means the viewer themselves is okay with misogyny. Dean (as the writers wrote him) changes drastically throughout the seasons, has depth, and is a fun character to watch. Enjoy your rewatch and monitoring Jackles jacting joices!

hi sorry i didn't see this earlier !! but thank you<3 I don't really mind others disagreeing w/ me but yeah i saw a few posts yesterday and i was like, oh no did i accidentally create discourse? sjfkdkdk i'm so insulated in my own corner of spnblr idk what's going on out there in the wild wild west. Also the vaguing feels very high school, like why are we doing that? But anyways, yes, the show as a whole has gone through SO many changes and lived through many eras where the social and political norms changed drastically. It's impossible to overlook those real world contexts and the writers themselves and what they each brought to the show / characters.

Like the show clearly got better (still had lots of flaws don't get me wrong!!) re: stuff like casual sexism / misogyny and the language used as what was socially acceptable to say changed. Like after I did my "bitch" and "skank" searches, I also searched "slut" out of curiosity and it doesn't occur very much (only 18 times out of 300+ episodes) and the use of the word drops off completely after season 12. Strangely it was used the most in season 4, a total of 9 times which is half the total usage of the word. I haven't had time to dig deeper but I'd be curious to see who those s4 writers were and to whom the word was being used (my guess is again villains / enemies / antagonists). But yea it's only used sparingly after s4, and then never after s12 which to me signals that like, the writers realized 'ok we can't get away with using that word anymore bc it's no longer socially acceptable' etc etc.

Anyways, thanks again<3 I'm very much having fun with this rewatch, it's feeding my brain so much haha.

#replies #spn data

[lateral-org]

1 13 and 18!

1) Is John misunderstood or a villain?

False dichotomy here. I think John is well understood by many fans in that he was a traumatized man and absent father who indoctrinated his sons into a brutal and violent lifestyle (raised them to be soldiers). Like Henrikksen was pretty spot on when he called him a cult leader. The demons just happened to be real.

It's disgusting to me how much John actively avoided his sons during season 1. They didn't even know vampires were still around! (???) John would just drop a pin at a location and send them on goose chases and maybe grace them with his presence if he needed them or they literally tracked him down. Despicable parent behavior.

I don't think this makes him a "villain" though. He's not actively antagonizing the boys (other than giving them soooooo much trauma that they aren't gonna work through). Arguably the most villainous he is is when he tells Dean he's gonna have to kill Sam, and then he dies.

So I don't know. I think he's a shitty dad who fucked them over at every opportunity, but in my head there's nuance between that and villain.

13) Leather jacket or Mary’s ring?

I'm definitely forgetting or missed the lore about Mary's ring, I'm assuming its one of the rings Dean used to wear before Jensen decided no he wouldn't. Or maybe it's from s12? Either way it didn't leave an impact on me (feel free to send me meta to change my mind 👀)

If I have to choose based on symbolism, leather jacket. The leather jacket is such a strong visual signifier of John's impact on Dean's life (your car is his your clothes are his even your music is his etc) AND the fact that he sheds it after a while demonstrates his growth away from being John's shadow. (I know they lost it but still it works for me in canon)

A ring just doesn't have that same (hah) ring to it, especially in a live action show where we don't get that many lingering shots of hands, or insight into how Mary affected Dean.

However. If Sam was wearing Mary's ring... That's something I could get into. Something about Sam latching onto a piece of the mother he never knew, wearing it every day (maybe on a chain so he could hide it under his shirt). Sam wearing the ring when he meets Ruby, wearing it on his hand after Dean goes to hell and staring at it when he exorcises demons (he's doing it for Her but really he's doing it for himself, just like John)

Agh I'm driving myself crazy with this idea actually, maybe the ring if Sam gets to wear it

18) When did Supernatural start declining in quality? (If it did?)

Hahaha well

I'm currently rewatching it so it's fresh in my mind. I've always said 4 and 5 are my favorite seasons but rewatching really cemented that for me. Supernatural is a show that varies in quality season by season, and after a certain point it varies drastically episode by episode. Seasons 1 and 2 are really fucking solid, but season 3 sucks a lot in a lot of ways due to the writer's strike. Then 4 and 5 come in and pick up the pieces pretty effectively.

I think if you're looking for a cohesive show with an ending that makes sense and narrative themes that work, you stop at the end of season 5. Season 6 is a huge dip in quality for me. The first half of the season is so fucking boring and confusing, and by the time it gets it's act together it's time for the finale. But that also makes it similar to season 3, just if season 3 had time to redeem itself.

But I love season 7. I love the new characters and the leviathan and the weird 2011 liberal sensibilities. Season 8 is straight up a vampire diaries soap opera.

Visually the quality declines drastically after season 5. Seasons 4 and 5 use a lot of interesting framing and visual symbolism which stood out compared to the rest of the show, and a lot of that is absent post season 5. A few episodes try to recapture it but the direction becomes pretty generic. The color grading too suffers a lot. There have been so many meta posts about it but truly why does the show get so bright and colorful. I'm not supposed to be able to distinguish dark green from black.

Character writing also suffers post s5. They put the boys through the same wringer over and over and Dean gets angrier and Sam gets quieter and that's it. Not that there aren't good lines or arcs, it's just that compared to the content of the first 5 seasons it's worse.

Notable exceptions, like I said I like season 7. I also think 11 and 12 are good. Season 15 is fucking crazy and evil but it also has like. A plot. Like it's doing season 5 again but at least it knows where it's going.

But yeah. Decline after season 5

Spn Discourse ask game

#ask game #spn posting #asked and answered #anonymous #thank you for letting me talk about eupernatural #i love her and i hate her #i will be thinking about sam wearing mary's ring a normal amount tho

[spngeorg]

Episode 73: 4.13 After School Special

Poor Sam thought he completely understood the situation when he was a freshman in high school, but fifteen years later from an adult perspective things look very, very different. And doesn’t this just define a big part of Sam? This burden of guilt he carries for so many things that aren’t really his fault, yet he still feels responsible for? Owwww.

Granted, this theme pretty much sums up the mytharc plot of s4, too, from both Sam and Dean’s perspectives-- not having the full story, believing they know the right thing from Sam’s putting his trust in Ruby in their mission to kill Lilith, and Dean not having the full story of what’s going on with Sam and assuming they’re on the same page...

And Dean in this episode, what we learn about him on the cusp of adulthood gives us a lot of insight into the mask of Performing Dean, his ability to fit himself into a situation as both a shield and a tool to get even a little of what he needs. It’s just sad all around. :(

But that’s why we watch this show. Bring on the suffering!

Supplemental materials for this week’s episode:

The Superwiki page for this episode

My tag for this episode

But especially these posts:

headcanons about the wonky timeline

More, slightly older headcanons about the wonky timeline

technically about s12 (and about four other episodes because meta), but very much about Performing Dean in this episode too

rewatch notes from June 2019

rewatch notes from April 2017

Story Arena and casting sides for Amanda, Dirk McGregor Senior, Mr. Wyatt, April, and young Dean

And yet another CW promo video

Listen now on AnchorFM, or wherever you enjoy podcasts!

#spn 4.13 #spn podcasts #spiders georg of the tnt loop

[antigonewinchester]

well, I’ve been watching more of s11 and… actually kind of liking it! especially after the extended Sam & Dean conflict of the last 3 seasons, them finally working together again against an external threat is such a breath of fresh air. I can see why s11 is a fan fav, esp against all the messiness of s9 & s10. also suspect the writers were enjoying it more too, just given how these eps feel better written, more entertaining & overall more cohesive. while things could change in s12 - s15, I’ve seen the idea that Dean becomes the main character instead of Sam (even from talking to friends IRL who watched the show but aren’t in fandom) and I’d disagree / have quibbles with it, at least thru what I’ve seen. if the Kripke era started the audience in Sam’s POV and was abt his journey and could-be-good, could-be-bad destiny, then s11 returns to the formula of Sam back in a more heroic role & having mysterious stuff to deal with once again. the show even has Sam having prophetic / meaningful dreams, just like early seasons. and then Dean’s back in a more directly supportive role, esp in contrast to s10, which took Dean far out from his usual narrative role and the writers really struggled with it, imo.

anyway, “Baby” was a cool, inventive frame for an ep, and I liked how the violence almost got into slapstick territory. really enjoyed the spookiness of both “Thin Lizzie” and “Plush,” the costumes especially were very creepy, and Donna is a great side-character. there’s some kind of meta around soullness as connected to trauma & how different ppl react to trauma (and definitely some threads re: good vs bad victims here). Crowley being an evil, manipulative dad really works, and the show is not subtle in having Crowley wanting / trying to kill Dean after ‘becoming’ a dad, huh. the Dean & Crowley & Amara scene in 11x06 actually gave me some faint echoes of “Devil’s Trap”? in Dean being threatened by a demonic father figure but then saved by Amara & her powers (what Sam was unable to fully do in 1x22) and then with Amara wanting to fill a Sam-esque obsessive sibling spot in Dean’s life, her “you save me, I save you” speech and the God’s sister reveal. overall, the Dean & Amara’s connection is appropriately disconcerting, uncomfortable & intriguing. Jensen played the ‘I’m both drawn to you & incredibly disturbed by it’ ending of 11x06 really well, esp opposite a teen Amara. it’s always great to see how he plays these quieter scenes.

the whole “we need to save people again!” thing isn’t totally working for me, tho. I get what the show is going for, returning to the “saving ppl, hunting things” idea and wanting to focus more on the saving rather than killing part, but because the show didn’t focus much on it for most of Carver’s era, it just feels kind of awkward to be like, oh, now they care abt not killing hosts / vessels. thematically, it certainly feels again like a calling back to early seasons, which had such a focus on the “saving vs killing” and the family motto, although I’d say Kripke’s era had a lot of complexities to Sam and Dean and how they viewed the family motto even early on, so it wasn’t a 1 to 1, saving or killing, for either of them.

the last thing is that it is wild to be watching this season right after having finished my casual Revolutionary Girl Utena rewatch, because in RGU there’s also a prominent God and his sister as the darkness plot which goes in quite a different direction to what’s happened / happens on SPN. on one level the plot and character similarities are a coincidence, as these 2 shows are quite distant in their themes & ideas, but on another level... given narrative threads around responsibility shifting, good vs bad victims and esp gender, my thoughts are percolating here.

#sam #dean #amara #sam & dean #dean & amara #spn rewatch #season 11 #a girl who can't become a princess is doomed to become a witch

[oatflatwhite]

I saw you're watching Criminal Minds and I wanted to recommend a blog I used to check in on when I watched it back in the day. It's matociquala on livejournal under the tag geeks with guns. She always had such interesting things to say about the show, like:

theme, and the ways one establish and work with theme, are really hard to discuss, because theme is the part of a narrative that does what Ursula LeGuin describes as "using words to talk about things that cannot be discussed in words." And usually, thematic elements, expecially in television shows, tend to be simple and binary and easy to digest. Banal. There are good guys and bad guys, and the good guys are right and the bad guys are in their way.

This show is not doing that. It does, in fact, have a thematic discussion rather than an ideology, and the discussion is expanded and reflected back on itself every week. And they've even managed to explain the discussion in the title of the show.

and

And then there are the meta-narrative games. The thematic discussion it undertakes, about the nature of free will and personal responsibility, which alone is brilliant. The way it deconstructs its own genre--the thriller--in a number of interesting ways. (The Person In Peril often rescues him or herself. The Person In Peril is fairly frequently male. The Villains… aren't. They are often terribly pathetic people who have been brutally betrayed, time and time again. The Question of Evil.) The lovely lovely dissection in The Big Game and Revelation regarding violence-and-shock-as-entertainment, in the middle of one of the most viscerally horrible hours of network television I have ever seen. Not because the violence was graphic, or extreme, but because it was real violence, and heartbreaking with it. It was, in fact, far less graphic than many things I've seen on TV.

And it hurt so very much more, because it was pathetic.

Individual episodes, especially on a plot level, can be heavyhanded. But this is the show that can humanize a terrorist at the same time it demonstrates just how evil he can be, that is shockingly responsible and humane in its depiction of the most nauseating things they can get away with on prime time, that allows characters to break, and fail, and to be wrong, without becoming villains.

very cool, thank you! i'll make a note to check it out!

truly i have a lot of love in my heart for criminal minds, as frustrating and sometimes terrible as it can be. i first watched it about 8 years ago?? when s10 was airing. i dropped off around the s12 mark but often do rewatches from the beginning up to whenever i get tired of it. that or i rewatch my favourite all time eps - special shoutouts to true genius, north mammon, revelations, derailed, and 100, among many others.

there are such great throughlines in the show despite the moments they seem to be forgotten, because they'll always come back round. it's impressive for a procedural cop show. and even though some of their eps are as you said heavy handed (sometimes a tad insensitive/uncomfortable, especially when handling mental illness) they do put the effort in, and it pays off.

#answered #starkandspangle #criminal minds

[mittensmorgul]

11.13: Okay I know I haven’t been keeping up with the s12 meta rewatch, but I have to comment on this episode specifically. Not in how it relates to s12, but on how it turns the ENTIRE relationship between Amara and Dean on its head and PERFECTLY shows us exactly what that relationship was about.

Melissa: I swear. I really did love Dan. Maybe a little too much. I just…I wanted him to love me back. So I got some advice and I confided in my hairdresser about the affair.

She loved her husband obsessively, completely... but he didn’t love her in return. She sought out a spell to FORCE him to love her, but instead was given the curse of the qareen.

Like Amara, who loved Chuck obsessively, completely... but she felt he didn’t love her in return. When his affection “strayed” from her to creation itself, he locked her away (like the witch locking the qareen’s heart in a box so she could control it).

But Amara, first through the Mark of Cain and then in person after she was released from the Mark (and “became” the embodiment of the Mark), sought to do the same with Dean. She narrowed her focus to Dean because Chuck wasn’t answering her calls. He was just a proxy for her.

Sam: Alright (pulls out book) got it. It looks like we’re dealing with a Qareen. Dean: Never heard of it Sam: It’s a creature, corporeal in form. A slave to your commands. Dean: Kinda like a genie Sam: I guess. Here we go. Someone chants a curse, lays a wet one on you, then the victim is seduced and killed by the Qareen, but instead of taking the form of Barbara Eden, the present themselves as your deepest, darkest desire. Dean: Makes sense why the sitter was killed by the husband. The husband by the sitter. Sam: Yeah. And why Melissa was attacked by Dan. She really loved him.

I think the whole point is that Melissa was attacked by Dan not because she loved him, but because she wanted to “own his heart.” It was about obsession, possession, and control. Which is NOT love. In Melissa’s case it may have been borne of love, but it had been warped and twisted into this secretive, borderline revenge-driven sense of ownership over Dan’s heart. What Dan felt or wanted didn’t matter to her at all. Because if Dan didn’t want or love her back the same way she wanted him to love her, that was unacceptable to her. Only her own desires mattered to her.

Like Amara, both in how she wanted Chuck to only love her, and how she transferred that feeling to Dean. Through the Mark of Cain that attempted to change Dean from the inside, controlling his actions and taking over him (via all the heart metaphors... the love and love). And then finally Dean’s reaction to Amara’s physical presence, the control she had over him when he was in her presence.

Amara wanted Dean’s heart, not because Dean wanted HER. Her own heart had been “stolen” by Chuck, so like the qareen (or the witch controlling the qareen, or both at the same time), she tried to fill that void with Dean. She tried to rip out his heart.

Sonja: Someone has to punish these men. But you know the only thing worse than a cheating man, is one who gets away with it.

That pretty much sums up Amara’s revenge mission on Chuck... she didn’t want to let him get away with “cheating on her” via the rest of creation.

Amara: You’re a mystery. I can see inside your heart. Feel the love you feel. Except it’s cloaked in shame. When it comes to this, you can’t help yourself, so why fight it. Just give in. Dean: Yeah. You know what? You’re right. The real Amara does have a hold on me, but you? Are nothing but a cheap imitation.

The “real Amara” has a hold on him, because she forced it on him. Not because he feels it in himself. If he truly felt it in himself, all that love Dean felt would’ve left him just as vulnerable in the face of Qareen Amara as the real thing. Dean IS full of love and longing, just... NOT FOR AMARA.

What the quareen tapped into was the thing it understood. Not true love. Not selfless devotion. But that part of Dean that Amara taps into. The part that is helpless to resist Amara when he’s in her presence, because she’s tried to claim his heart for herself.

Dean: Honestly? You seriously think the sister of God is my deepest darkest desire? Sam: She isn’t? Dean: No! She can’t be! Sam: Why not? Dean: Why? Because if she is that means that I’m… Sam: Means you’re what? Complicit? Weak? Evil? Dean: For starters, yeah Sam: Dean. Do you honestly think you ever had a choice in the matter? She’s the sister of God, and for some reason she picked you and that sucks, but if you think I’m gonna blame you or judge you…I’m not. Dean: You know that I want her ass dead Sam: Yes. Of course. And I know you’ve also probably beaten yourself up a hundred times over it, but where has that gotten us? (Long silence) Just how bad is it? Dean: Standing here right now, every bone in my body wants to run her through. Send her back to that hole she crawled out of. But when I’m near her, I don’t know. Something happens and I can’t explain it, but to call it desire or love…it’s not that. I’m screwed man. We wanna kill the darkness. We need to kill the darkness. And I don’t think I can. I’m sorry to do that to you, ya know, but when it comes right down to it…

What Amara wants from Dean is what Melissa wanted from Dan. Not the literal tearing out of his heart like the qareen curse, but the “return to love” spell she thought she was using... She didn’t care if Dan’s love for her was “fake,” or that he was being forced to feel love for her, and not his own real love for her. Even if Dan really did love Stacy the babysitter instead, Melissa was willing to settle for hijacking that love and forcing Dan to redirect it at her.

And that’s exactly what Amara was doing to Dean. Taking his own love for others and warping it and trying to force him to feel it toward her instead.

The whole of s11 was about love, wasn’t it...

I feel like I’ve made this post before...

Who cares it bears repeating.

#spn 11.13 #and now the darkness #here have my belated thoughts on the whole love... and love #because why not maybe the lock and key are a function of hands and hearts #s12 meta rewatch #i always feel like people miss the entire point of this episode and it wrongly gets maligned #oh dean #the scheherazade of supernatural #because this was a major turning point for dean in acknowledging the truth about amara's effect over him #and heck now i'm watching 11.14 and having such intense feelings about the fact dean learned about casifer #one episode after acknowledging what amara was doing to him... and then his entire reason for being becomes saving cas #hmmm i wonder if that's a significant series of events >.>

[castielcommunism]

I finally rewatched season 12 because of all your love for it, and it's a WILD RIDE. On a meta sense, I cannot understand the politics of it at all. like, we've got the whole, "The President is Satan" angle, which, given the 2016 American primaries and election fiasco... yeah okay (though I'm not sure of the timing of writing episodes, so I'm also kinda like...is this also because people thought Obama was the antichrist because he wanted to help poor people? ANYWAYS). And THEN there is the weird pro-life brainwashing baby son of Satan stuff, which is its own can of worms that I'm still wrapping my head around. And the whole BMOL stuff that is basically like, "bureaucracy is bad" when it should have been saying, "genocide is bad." Would have loved for Sam and Dean to have another moral reckoning with their work that actually had some CHANGES for their behavior... i digress.

but at the same time, I get to see Dean being uncertain and messy with his mom, and Sam getting to take on a leadership role as Dean steps back, and I'm HERE for that stuff. I remember being pretty peeved that they brough Mary back when I watched it live because I was kind of tired of resurrection (shocker) and didn't trust them to do anything meaningful with her story (because spn + women is almost always bad), but on rewatch I like her in season 12 with her questionable decisions and her misplacement in life and her awkward socialization with her sons.

this has been a long message, and I hope you don't mind! Thanks for reading (and for recommending another look at s12).

I’m glad you enjoyed it!! Season 12 is an absolutely insane season lol.

The satan for president shit was almost definitely a Trump thing (I doubt they were responding to right wing racism aimed at Obama, especially given that the president character in spn was a white Republican). spn’s politics become much more genetically liberal by the later seasons so it’s not super surprising. That stuff was mostly goofy shit that I didn’t really mind. Like it was inoffensively silly for the most part. And also Dean and Sam being arrested for trying for exorcise the president of the United States is an objectively hilarious plotline. The anti-christ plot line is something I can’t really place? Like I also don’t know what to think of it outside of it being just generally weird and setting up plot shit for the next season. But it’s also funny and mostly inoffensive.

However, I feel like the British Men of Letters, ridiculous and weird as they are, are thematically appropriate villains for season 12 because they’re grappling with the legitimacy of the show’s premise in much the same way Mary’s resurrection is. The BMOL are the obvious, logical conclusion to hunting - monsters are essentially bad and the only way to deal with monsters as a class of people is to destroy them. The BMOL is what hunting would look like if it were “institutional.”

But, and this is where spn runs into the wall because it can’t fully confront itself, framing the conflict as individualistic American hunting vs organisational British hunting is a false dichotomy, because American hunting is already institutional, it’s just decentralised and unstructured. The “institution” that undergirds hunting is white supremacy, specifically the American flavour of it. Hunting in supernatural forwards a bio-essentialist view of “monsters”, who are broadly speaking a class of people. Monsters don’t arise because of social forces, they are not historically or politically contingent, and the word “monster” is not an ideological one, it is a purely descriptive one. Monsters are just monsters because they’re monstrous. They are inherently bad and must be killed.

And I don’t think spn is consciously arguing this so much as it is glorifying a rugged individualistic white American masculinity, but in so doing it imports that reactionary baggage into the show. But because it’s not a text that is consciously political as such, it’s inconsistent. This is why ghosts and other spirits, for example, mostly fall outside of this model - ghosts arise from historical events, from fear and suffering, from trauma, from injustice. They’re “contingent” in this sense and not inherently evil. They are the consequence of human action, and the only way to defeat them is to reckon with the actions that led to their creation. But generally when you have flesh-and-blood monsters in the show, it’s almost always purely biological. Sometimes it’s genetic (rougarou) and sometimes it’s infectious (vampires, werewolves, Sam’s demon blood, etc). You also have cases of exception, like Garth, where people can consciously fight against their own biological destiny and be “one of the good ones,” so that further complicates it.

What the BMOL do is take all of that complexity and stand as hardliners. There are no exceptions, and it doesn’t matter what type of monster you are. They’re all bad and must be destroyed. And once you destroy the enemy in your own backyard, you move elsewhere and begin the process again.

And obviously Sam and Dean are uncomfortable with that! You’re supposed to be uncomfortable with it. The Winchester (and .: American) model of hunting is more flexible and informal, and they want to keep it that way. And like strictly speaking that’s a better model, but it’s comprised of the same ideological “stuff” as the BMOL model of hunting. The political battleground is basically how far you want to take hunting as a societal project. Do you leave it to individuals who hunt at the margins of society, or do you formalise it and make it a conscious part of society?

So like season 12 is grappling with the show Supernatural as a concept, with its politics on the one hand and its emotional core on the other. Hunting isn’t actually an unalloyed good and has unequivocally fascist conclusions if you were to industrialise it. Mary is not the perfect saintly mother figure whose corpse provides emotional justification for hunting. The biggest problem season 12 suffers from is, ironically, that it is a season of Supernatural, a show dedicated to not fundamentally changing anything, so these questions (is hunting actually bad? Is Mary a human being?) are never properly answered. Mary eventually dies again, the BMOL fade away and their remnants (Ketch) become an ally.

But despite all of that I still really enjoy season 12. I think it’s one of the most unique seasons of supernatural for this reason, and if you focus on the Winchester family drama it’s really rewarding television. I’m glad all my posting about it inspired you to rewatch it, and I’m glad you enjoyed it!

#spn.txt #asks #libertariannatural #racism tw #(for general discussion of racism I mean)

[dirtydancingdean]

✨ fic recs ✨

ok so back in like 2014 i watched supernatural for a solid 3 years until they killed kevin and charlie and i got bored of the bmol storyline. now im here again let’s not talk about it. BUT during this time i accumulated a Lot of fic and in the past two months i’ve gone through all 213 of my bookmarks and gone through like every rec list made after s12 in order to read fic set during every specific season while i rewatch the show. because im insane <3 im on s8 rn and wanted to share my list of favourites from each season so far as well as my favourite aus ! they’re all generally nsfw so minors be careful, and also check the warnings ! and i will update this when i finish s15 <3

aus

asunder by rageprufrock (23.8k, e, background samruby)

obviously the most perfect thing to ever exist. 

and this, your living kiss by opal_bullets (56k, m, background saileen)

poet dean fic need i say more. part dean studies if dean studies was elaborated on lovingly in detail for 56k words, part gorgeous and beautiful poetry, part incredibly clever commentary on meta and fan allusions, and part stunning exploration of the relationships in the show turned on their heads.  

one white little lie by komodobits (11k, gen)

this is SOOO cute. cas is so embarrassing i was covering my face the entire time i was reading it. if u want to be cheered up. read this. 

broadway musical by griftings (12k, m)

this is genuinely sooo funny. big “castiel did you fuck the michael sword” energy and jimmy novak as that “am not against gays” tweet, plus jo <3

c-s-t-l by komodobits (90k, m)

i haven't read this in a while but from what i remember it was incredible and also had cassie <3 

rest is under the cut because it got long fhjfkfklf

pre-series/season 1-3*

a turn of the earth by microcomets (time travel, 95k, standford era, m)

i think everyone’s read this at this point but if u haven't. what are u doing. go read it. it’s absolutely everything i reread it in the week before the finale without remembering half of the stuff it talked about and i was a WRECK. if u think about standford era dean every day read this. cas punches john winchester in the FACE. 

geography by aeli_kindara (3k, teen and up, warnings for discussion of rape/non-con and prostitution)

not dean/cas but a really wonderful and needed conversation with sam and dean during 2x02.

season 4

so says the sword by komodobits (85k, e)

yeah. i dont need to say anything.  

consequences of falling by fayjay (37k, e, background samruby, warnings for rape/non-con)

THISSSS FIC. pls it’s perfect literally everything i wanted when i was watching s4 and obsessed with love as an act of worship + ruby and cas parallels. ruby and cas get drunk together! ruby says this: “dean and castiel sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G. First comes love, then comes the fall from grace, then comes battling the hosts of hell and wishing that you’d managed to get your skinny ass laid before the freaking apocalypse”! what more could u want!

named by rc_machlan (94k, m)

literally the best fic in the world i am not going to say Anything if you love dean and angels and the mythology of s4-s5 that was promptly dropped, you absolutely have to read this.

four people ruby seduced & one she actually fell for (or: ruby's epic love affair with humanity in general and sam in specific) by tuesday (3.7k, e, samruby, ruby/jo)

this is more background deancas than anything else and does contain brief, not romantic in any way dean/ruby and dean/cas, but like. if u love ruby (which i do) u have to read this.

season 5

final fantasy by orange_crushed (1.9k, m)

endverse.....this made me want to die

the (mostly accidental) courtship of dean winchester by tuesday (11k, m)

a classic for a reason. really cute and soft and the handprint and cas beating dean up in 5x18 are angelic marriage rites. what more could you ask for.

the girlfriend experience by rageprufrock (15k, explicit)

of Course i mean of COURSE. thee s5 deancas fic.

strike me down and i’ll come back more powerful than you can possibly imagine by trinityofone (10k, gen)

post 5x22 dean and cas rescue sam from hell with the help of some special guests. PERFECT. the only valid good omens crossover.

season 6**

something stupid by zatnikatel (20k, e)

this broke my heart and put it back together. one of my favourite cas characterizations, takes place over s5-s6 and it’s just stunning. 

a crash course in someone else’s history by annie d (11k, teen and up)

s4 cas ends up in the body of cas in 6x20. fucking life-ruining.

season 7

make known by domesticadventures (16k, teen and up)

this is a really heartbreaking look at dean’s headspace near the end of s6 and throughout s7, and it’s really wonderful with a hopeful ending.

redemption road by a whole bunch of people (652k, virtual season, explicit)

oh boy. ok. know ur herstory ! this was written from 2011 to 2012 and it is thee s7 fic, a virtual season written by 17 fans all together. it’s very very long and it suffers sometimes from having being written a decade ago, but im making my way through it right now and it still fucking holds up. i really do recommend reading at least some of it, you can stop around halfway through and you should be fine.

season 8***

rinse, repeat by ias (3k, teen and up)

exploration of cas when naomi forces him to kill copies of dean and then his perspective in goodbye stranger.

my keeper by whelvenwings (5k, gen)

another goodbye stranger fic, this time with bonus artist cas!

though the course may change by imogenbynight (51k, e)

au after 8x23. i love this fic so much. dean accidentally ends up making himself have to go undercover with cas and pretend to be fake engaged. also, charlie and kevin. do i need to say more.

apres by imogenbynight (24k, e)

au after 8x23 where dean goes to find cas after the angels fall in paris 🥺

*i have found exactly one bela fic that i loved, and zero henriksen fics that i loved, so IF u have recs for those. i would appreciate that.

**mostly the s6 fics i read were uh...vampire dean fics...

***have found one (1) good dean/aaron fic but im still searching for the perfect purgatory crew fics 

#mine #supernatural #deancas #fic recs #destiel

[verobatto]

Destiel Chronicles

It was a love story from the very beginning

Vol. LXXI

Don't You Love Me?

(11x19)

Hi everyone! How are you? This is another piece from this adventure, it has more than one year and we reached and passed volume 70th!! I'm so glad you are still reading my nonsenses, and keep sharing my ramblings. Thank you! So much hard work rewatching and taking notes is worth it if you are reading this on the other side! 💕💕

Are you ready for the angst? Let's do this!

Worried about Cas

After seeing with his own eyes that Castiel didn't want to be rescued, that he really wanted to be used by Lucifer so they could defeat Amara, Dean stays all night long awake, trying to find a way to rescue him now from Amara, who has Casifer prisoner.

With a heart broken again, and worried because Amara could kill Cas anytime, Dean can't sleep. First if all, the pain in his heart for being rejected again, is too big, and the idea of loosing Cas for ever, to see the man he loves die, terrifies him.

So the first dialogue between Dean and Sam shows us all of that.

Gif credit @subcas

Sam: Dude, you even move since last night?

Is the first words we heard from Sam, and is showing to the audience a very important point: why Dean didn't moved the whole time? It means that when Sam went to bed, he was in the same spot. Is saying Dean didn't slept that night. He didn't move from that chair, trying to find Cas. A very important point to show how much Dean cares about Cas.

Dean: [tiredly] Sleeping is the new smoking.

Sam: What? No, it’s not. It’s sitting. Sitting is the new smoking.

Dean: That’s can’t be right.

Okay, this could be an innocent quote, Dean mistaking the famous phrase, but is not. Dean is relating the quote to DEPRESSION, that's why he names SLEEPING to SMOKING, because he's talking about depression. But when Sam relates this with SITTING, which we know is talking about other kind of diseases, Diabetes, hypertension, etc, Dean says 'THAT'S CAN'T RIGHT' because those are not meanings he was looking for, he wasn't talking about those diseases, that's why he didn't talk about sitting/sedentariness, but sleeping/depression. Because he was feeling that way.

Sam: Dean, we’ll find Cas, okay? He’s stronger that he looks.

And because Sammy knows, he knows why Dean is in that shape: Cas.

Dean: You know, we gambled with Cas, and now Amara has him.

Sam: For a reason, which means he’s still alive.

Dean is spitting out his fears right there, but not all the fears he was ruminating the whole night, and Sam is trying to give to each depressing thought a light of hopes, to make his brother to feel better.

Dean: [shakes his head] I’ve been with Amara. Her beef is with the big guys … with God, with Lucifer. The small fries, even an angel like Cas, doesn’t even register. And if it meant hurting Lucifer, killing Cas would mean nothing to her.

Another thought flying in his mind, he is afraid Amara could kill Cas.

Sam: It’s been a week. We’ve still got no leads.

Dean: You think I don’t know that? [rises from the chair]

So we just had three thoughts that kept Dean awake the whole night: HE DIDN'T NOTICED CAS WOULD SAY YES TO LUCIFER, HE KNOWS AMARA COULD KILL HIM ANYTIME, AND IT'S BEEN A WEEK! It's been a week, which means, Dean had been an entire week in this shape, without sleeping and worried about him.

Knowing this, let's jump to the other point.

Worrisome+heart broken

Repressing all the feelings again

I just want you to recall a timeline about Dean's perceptions of Cas feelings for him. If you read my previous metas From season 5+6, 8, 9 and 10, you would be aware of the following facts:

- Finale S5: Cas flew away from the car without saying goodbye to Dean. Dean went to Lisa and never contacted Cas (feeling kind of offended) until Sam said Cas wasn't answering to his prayers.

-S8: After the crypt scene, Dean felt rejected.

-S9: Road Trip episode: Castiel comforted Dean as a lover, with devoted words and supportive looks.

-s10: After Dean came back from being a demon, Castiel names a female in his car waiting for him, and Dean reacts like a jilted lover, and the episode after that is using OOC a blind dates app.

And now... We have a rejected Dean, because Cas didn't want to be rescued by him. Again. Like in Purgatory. So... Time to repress the feeling even more... And we had 11x19 'The Chitters' talking about that.

This is gonna be a very huge mis if symbolism in just one monster. First of all, we have the description of the eyes...

Cori: [hesitates] The thing that took Libby was naked and pale. Except for the eyes. I swear to God, they flashed green for a second.

Okay, I'm the crazy old lady of colors, so you know what I'm gonna point here: GREEN is DEAN. Keep that in mind...

Cori: It was shaped like a man. Or was it a woman?

Dean: [curiously] Was it a man or a woman?

Cori: It didn’t have a … [points downward with her fingers]

Dean: A penis?

Cori: [wide-eyed] It didn’t have anything.

Dean: What you’re saying it was junkless?

Cori: Completely.

Second thing I want you to recall is... This monster has not genre, first thing Dean thought about angels, remember? But we learned, same angel can take different genres of vessels. Because they are utterly indifferent to sexuality. Just pointing here that this characteristic is related to angels, in Dean's mind junkless, and in canon with Raphael and even Castiel taking male and female vessel. Keep this facts in mind too...

This monster took a vessel too to copulate, into a very huge orgy. Lest's take a piece of the dialogue between the Winchester and one of the residents who lost his husband.

Etta: Oh, yeah [nods]. Gran said that if you got the chitters, you get so revved up with lust that your eyes would shine like emeralds 

So, time to convey all these facts...

This is representing two important things: Green eyes talks about Dean, so, this junkless monster that search's for a vessel to copulate represents angels. They are presenting this chitter as something filthy, and people doing insane, sinful things (the orgies) Is something BAD AND FILTHY, as we will see in the next scene, but pay attention to these two conclusions: Dean thinks he doesn't deserve Cas, he thinks Cas is not interested romantically on him. So he repressed his feelings (including lust and shame of daring to love a celestial and pure creature, and passion too because is part of being in love). Second, we have the angels and their Sacred Oath, they can't bond with humans physically, we talked about this in season 8 with the tests Castiel had to achieve to close Heaven and we will talk about this in s12 too. If angels have sex with humans, both deserve to die because IS DEFINITELY NOT ALLOWED. So the cause of those forbidden feelings in Castiel has GREEN EYES.

Last thing i want to point is one of Cochrane's quote, when he was talking about her daughter and the people that had died 30 years ago...

Cochran: Yeah, better to bury it. [voice cracks] All of it.

The angst from this scene is huge, but the phrase I marked here, plus all the things we were talking about SHAME/REPRESSED FEELINGS, is showing us how finally Dean, brokenhearted as he is right now, were thinking all of this things these nights he was awake, plus the depression of not seeing Cas in bad shape saying yes to Lucy, plus the fear of lose him for ever.

And finally, to show you this entire "Chitters'" thing was about and angel and a human in love... I will turn this scene into a Destiel one...

Gif credit @spacedudeee

Because who's the sinner? And who's the rebel?

Do I have to answer that? Okay, DEAN AND CAS. Sinner and Rebel. Can a sinner, with shame inside, feel that he deserves a love of an angel? And can a rebel angel allow himself to love a human with such passion?

Again, this episode was a huge Dean's POV...

I think I explained my point here... Let's jump to the easy part 🤣🤣

Jesse and Cesar: What we want for Destiel

This is a canon fact very well known for the fandom, Jesse as Dean mirror and Cesar as Castiel.

Both men were a reflection of what Dean really wants in his heart, his curiosity spoke by itself when he asked

Gif credit @mooseleys

Dean: What’s it like, settling down with a hunter?

Is expressing perfectly his deep desires. And seeing them both together, supporting each other, and being a real couple, was very important to his self discovering. Two badass Manly men that fell in love with each other.

It wasn't casual writers decided to team up Cesar with Dean and Jesse with Sam, it was like a picture of Dean talking with Cas about himself, and Sam talking with Dean about their childhood traumas.

It was a very beautiful gesture of Dean to not disturb them asking them for help with Amara, because he knew about their plans of retirement. And this is talking about another wish in Dean's heart: retirement with his beloved.

Gif credit @thejabberwock

To Conclude:

Episode 11x19 was about everything Dean has playing in his mind: Fears of loosing Cas, shame for loving him and feeling he doesn't deserve him. His fantasies about what Cas thinks about him, or worst, about him being in love with him. And how he decided to repress all of it again, because he felt rejected again by the angel, and that's why he will start saying We and not I.

It also presents Sacred Oath for angels, a very important topic for the next season.

And we had Jesse and Cesar, Destiel beautiful mirror, talking about Dean's deep desire. And what we want for Destiel.

Hope you like this meta! See you in the next one!

Tagging @magnificent-winged-beast @emblue-sparks @weirddorkylittlediana @michyribeiro @whyjm @legendary-destiel @a-bit-of-influence @thatwitchydestielfan @misha-moose-dean-burger-lover @lykanyouko @evvvissticante @savannadarkbaby @dea-stiel @poorreputation @bre95611 @thewolfathedoor @charlottemanchmal @neii3n @deathswaywardson @followyourenergy @dean-is-bi-till-i-die @hekatelilith-blog @avidbkwrm @anarchiana @dickpuncher365 @vampyrosa @authorsararayne @anonymoustitans @mybonsai1976 @love-neve-dies @dustythewind @wayward-winchester67 @angelwithashotgunandtrenchcoat @trashblackrainbow @deeutdutdutdoh @destiel-shipper-11 @larrem88 @charmedbycastiel @ran-savant @little-crazy-misha-minion @samoosetheshipper

@shadows-and-padlocked-hearts @mishtho @dancingtuesdaymorning @nerditoutwithbooks @mikennacac73 @justmeand-myinsight @idontwantpeopletoknowmyname @tenshilover20 @teddybeardoctor @pepevons @helevetica @isthisdestiel @dizzypinwheel @jawnlockwinchester @horsez2 @qanelyytha

@imjustkipping @destielle @agusvedder @spnsmile @shippsblog @robot-feels @superlock-in-the-tardis

If you want to be added or removed from this list, just let me know.

If you want to read the previous metas From s11, here you have the links:

Vol. LXII, LXIII, LXIV, LXV, LXVI, LXVII, LXVIII, LXIX. LXX.

Buenos Aires July 21th 2020 6:34 PM

#destiel #destiel chronicles #destiel meta #supernatural meta #season 11 meta #vol LXX

[brodependent]

9, 24, 28 :)

9. Thoughts on the Moc arc

Excited to revisit it in my rewatch! When I first watched it I think it just really made me unbearably sad...and I think I was also expecting a bit more straightforward processing of Gadreel in s9 and more time with Demon!Dean in s10. But on reflection it was really the dark night of Dean’s soul, the chosen loss of autonomy, that he fought off all through s1-s8. It was a really pivotal time for him, maybe even more so than his time in Hell. I’m ready to view it with fresh eyes.

24. What do you think was ooc for tfw?

I mean honestly, as much as I got into *at the time*, the whole concept of TFW is a bit OOC. At least the way it gets spun in fanon. Dean, and to a lesser extent Sam (I think Sam has more capacity for non-Dean relationships) relate to other people in fragments of their relationship with each other. As an excellent meta I read recently said, Sam and Dean have (in my view, platonically) filled every traditional relational role for each other. Siblings, parent/child, business associates, allies, team-mates, life partners...like they have literally done it all. With Jack, Sam especially stepped into a parent role--a role he hadn’t yet filled, being the younger in his relationship with Dean. And obviously Bobby was like another father to them. But Cas--since we’re talking about TFW 1.0--was at various times a friend, ally, advisor, and an enemy. He was sometimes all these things at once, or was absent during crucial moments. By s12 especially, Cas was still very important to Sam and Dean, but I increasingly found him to be an outsider to their particular dynamic...more so than in late s5 and s6 (before, you know, the villain reveal). 

All of which to say, although I used to be a TFW stan in my first watch-through (going on 7 years ago lol), I’ve increasingly realized that the beating heart of the show AND my love for it is SamNDean. People who come into contact with the legendary Winchester bond have their destiny shaped by it--I think that’s true of every ally they’ve had--but they don’t become a *part* of SamNDean’s relationship. By shaped, mind you, I don’t always mean just oops, ends up in death. I mean getting caught up in the life, caught up in the hero thing, learning to love humanity...whatever it may be.

Which I guess brings me to the moment I think was most OOC for a member of “TFW.” If we accept M*sha’s interpretation of the end of 15x18 (which I don’t), it would be that. 

28. Cruelest things TFW has done to each other? 

Take this with a #24 grain of salt but: Sam hasn’t really done anything awful to Cas that I can remember, Dean has definitely frozen Cas out but I usually find it pretty justified, Cas manipulated them in his early days A LOT, and he BROUGHT DOWN THE FREAKING WALL IN SAM’S MIND...that’s up there for me. 

As far as cruel things Sam and Dean have done to each other, I’ll exclude Soulless!Sam and Demon!Dean bc that doesn’t really count. I think “cruel” is often them taking over the reins of each other’s agency out of fear of losing each other. So as far back as Sam going in heal-first-ask-questions-later with Roy LaGrange (which left Dean carrying guilt), Dean saying yes to Gadreel...things like that. Dean, I admit, does this more often than Sam. I think on a more human/family-dynamic level, Sam can be very harsh and cutting to Dean when he’s angry with him in a way that I think is John-derivative. Not that it isn’t always justified! But it still makes me flinch. 

Also Dean messing with Sam/Amelia was unfair. Dean had a lot of growing to do in S8-S10. I do believe he did it. Sam had a lot of growing to do in S1-5, but that wasn’t directed at Dean (which is part of why Dean had such a hard time with it). ANyway, they’ve both had their moments but I’m soft for both of them and I root for them all the way.

#spn critical #just a little #anti-castiel #again just a little but tagging to be sure #spn #sam winchester #dean winchester #anti-destiel #prince-of-elsinore #thanks for playing!! #inbox games

[dimples-of-discontent]

Personally, it’s made me a lot happier to basically ignore the PR for the show because it differs so substantially from the experience of watching it that you don’t actually learn anything. Sometimes it’s even INTENTIONALLY misleading, especially with a Big Secret (TM). Even if they tell us something that’s true it’s very often without the context that makes it mean something different and usually better than our dire predictions.

For instance, I remember when S12 was ending and everyone correctly spec-ed out Cas’s death (while also correctly predicting that he’d be back in S13, which Jared told everyone accidentally on purpose at JIB anyway). There was SO. MUCH. UPSET. Like, I get it because Cas is extremely important to me too and I think in the past especially writers have under-used his character’s potential. And Misha is the best man in the world imo so I also want all the good things for him. (And I think in HIS opinion not being in every episode of the show IS a good thing...let’s not forget that he has some agency in how he negotiates his seasonal contracts and that everyone knows he’s vital to the show.)

So I get it. But the emotional rollercoaster that Misha/Cas devotees find themselves on when following the party line seem exhausting and makes me sad at the situation where everyone feels so hair-trigger ready to assume the worst about the writers, the showrunner, and the network. I’m not blaming the fans alone--I think SPN got itself into this position with some earlier public reactions and decisions (CHARLIE!!!) and there’s some trust TPTB will never get back. (Also, sincerely, fuck Mark Pedowitz and Bob Singer while we’re at it; they have terrible instincts about where the show should be NOW vs a decade ago.)

It’s a fine line between excited anticipation and anxiety, especially nowadays when the world is made of anxieties. PR communications of all kinds, including interviews, are carefully managed by a team that has a very specific purpose (watch the episode!!!) and has designed a communications strategy for that. I feel like the promo editors literally have never even watched the show. Even the actors have a message to push, things to mention, and things they can under no circumstances mention. It’s heavily managed, and for that reason I only like to read interviews or commentary after the fact. 

If you’re finding the mounting speculation and the conflicting information about Cas’s endgame stressful I would--if you can--step back. Read meta here that stays within the show, or just rewatch favorite Cas episodes. I send you love and understanding, but I also want you to have some peace (and this time before you’re done). <3

#fandom things #fandom life #finale speculation #endgame speculation #castiel's endgame #pr is not showrunning #SO different #wank adjacent #i am relatively new to this fandom (2015) #but I am a Fandom Old #from other shows #be kind to yourselves #good vibes

[spneveryseason]

Top 5 unpopular Supernatural opinions

Ready for some hot takes y’all?

5. I think the S12 British Men of Letters concept has real promise and could’ve worked really really well. One ongoing problem I have with Supernatural is its pretty bad at having the boys be connected to the world at large, even with other hunters. They’d always lived off the grid, and tbf are not themselves regular hunters at all, but I feel like if they were more keyed in to a specific community that mostly understood them, it would help with some of their personal issues and hardships. That’s something that could’ve been incorporated as they grew older, and honestly something that the men of letters could’ve given them. Instead, the bmol got taken in a super weird direction and did not enrich the greater world outside the characters we know and love.

4. Some episodes that are good have terrible rewatch value. I’m thinking of things like Mystery Spot, the early half of season 8, and most of seasons 9 and 4. There are some great episodes in there in terms of storytelling and I can appreciate what they did for the show at large. But man, are they difficult to rewatch. Sometimes this show can get really really dark and depressing, and some eps lean into that hard and make it difficult for me to willingly go back and watch them just for the sake of enjoying them. Season 4, for example, is really hard, seeing Sam struggling with an addiction and Dean with PTSD and knowing there’s basically no going up from here for a long long time. So, some episodes are excellent but are ones that I probably won’t go back to, if that makes sense.

3. I’m a little surprised ships take up so much fandom focus. Don’t get me wrong: I’m known to enjoy ships here and there very much. There are even ships I like a lot and dislike a lot on the show, with emotional investment involved. And I’m aware lots of fandom activity generally leans towards ships. But some stories lend themselves better to shipping culture than others, and I don’t know if Supernatural is one such show. Yes, the characters are put into great focus, as are their connections, but I always felt like a core message of this show was that platonic/familial relationships are more important to some people than romantic ones (hence why most romantic relationships on this show are discarded for the sake of those other relationships). Furthermore, the show is so plot and lore heavy that there’s a lot there to talk about and discuss and pick apart. A lot of those discussions do happen, but go on any general tag of the show on any social media, and it’ll be mostly shipping. It’s an interesting phenomenon for sure.

2. Swan Song had some significant flaws for a series ending. I think it’s a great episode and season finale generally and it’s a lot of people’s favorites for a very good reason. And justifiably so. However, it plays a little too cynical for a series finale for two main reasons. A) Sam would’ve ended up in the cage, presumably suffering for eternity. This may be questioned by his appearance outside of Dean and Lisa’s house at the end, but generally the message would’ve been that his penance would’ve been earned and maintained. I don’t think he deserved to end his story like that. And B) Based on what we know about Chuck now, his involvement in all of it feels much more sinister than it was, altering the implications of this episode for me now. The ideas of fate and free will are a little too nebulous and entertwined based on what we know now. As a five year long story, yes it does work. However, I don’t know if this ending would’ve been as satisfying as I would’ve wanted it to be.

1. I’m not the biggest fan of the meta episodes 😅 And by meta episodes, I mean The Monster at the End of this Book, The French Mistake, Fan Fiction, and Scoobynatural. Basically, the way I see it, “meta-ness” and narrative self-awareness on this show is broken up into two categories. The first, represented by the aforementioned episodes, is an awareness born more or less out of the idea that Sam and Dean are aware that their lives are being consumed as stories by a general public out there. I don’t love this idea: I think it alienates them even further from the other people in their world, and it’s a way for the show runners to make commentary on fandom culture which is always...questionable. They also give me a lot of secondhand embarrassment for some reason and I can’t really watch them without feeling that way. The second way the show does narrative self awareness is one I actually think works really well is what they’re doing now: fighting back against the story/God/the audience and writers, but in a way that makes sense in universe. I actually really love that direction and that message and I think it was done really cleverly and without being cringy.

Ask game

#spn #supernatural #sam winchester #dean winchester #unpopular opinions #ask game #asks #speaks #long post #sorry i ramble a bit in this one hshsh

[spngeorg]

Episode 55: 3.11 Mystery Spot

Aah, the one where Doris the average human waitress kills Dean Winchester at least twice! A pig in a poke. Yet another mirror for Chuck's Process encapsulated in a single episode... A message appropriately delivered by God's own little messenger, Gabriel. Heck, there’s just too much in this episode to tidily sum it up in one little blurb paragraph, yes?

So many memes have come from this one little episode, too. Clowns or midgets? Yesterday was Tuesday, but today is Tuesday, too! Heat of the Moment (I still feel like checking the calendar every time I hear this song, just in case). Do these tacos taste funny to you? You mean we can’t even go out for breakfast? Sam Winchester cries his way through sex, etc. You think you’re being funny but you’re being really, really childish. Dingo ate my baby crazy. What do you want, a Pulitzer? 

I think my main takeaway is that the fandom lore states that Tuesday is Sam’s least favorite day after this, but I’m nominating Wednesday for Worst Day for him... that was the day he didn’t get a do-over for, you know? At least not until suffering through six months of Robo Sam hunting the Trickster in scary Travis Bickle fashion...

This week’s supplemental reading:

The Superwiki page for this episode

My tag for this episode

With a special focus on these posts:

s12 meta rewatch from April 2017

Lizbob’s thoughts on Dean’s role in this episode

s15 meta rewatch from October 2019

a small cabbage sums up why the series finale is so unsatisfying after reflecting on this episode and its message

since I mention it in the podcast, my Sam vs Reality tag

a brief homage to Doris

a brief visual demonstration of the color washing out of Sam’s world 

Listen now on AnchorFM, or wherever you enjoy podcasts!

#spn podcasts #spn 3.11 #spiders georg of the tnt loop

[mittensmorgul]

9.11:  "Why must the Winchesters run toward death," Cas tells Sam while Dean is busy running toward death.

Oh, Cas... Since you’re a Winchester, too, maybe you have an answer now.

Dean takes on the Mark of Cain because he believes it’s the only way to defeat Abaddon (and it very well might be, but the cure could be worse than the disease here... just like Cas’s Purgatory soul plan in s6...)

Was Cas taking on the purgatory souls in s6 the “right” thing to do? Well, it did solve the Raphael problem, but it created a problem 10000 times worse-- the Leviathan. Was taking on the Mark of Cain the “right thing to do? Well, it did solve the Abaddon problem, but it created a problem 10000 times worse-- and eventually led to the release of the Darkness.

Which brings us to where we stand in s12. Neither in s6 nor in s9 did Cas or Dean believe they had any other choice. Cas taking on the Purgatory souls effectively obliterated his free will. Dean taking on the Mark of Cain was more insidious, but eventually it became clear that the Mark had power of HIM in a way similar to how the Leviathan had power over Cas. It took him over.

Dean spent much of s10 trying to “control himself,” while the Mark slowly swallowed him up, becoming more and more insistent that he capitulate to its wants and needs.

So was Sam “right” in removing the Mark and releasing the Darkness into the world in order to save Dean from that fate?

Well, in the long run things worked out okay, but honestly that’s pretty much the first time in SPN history that things DID work out okay after one of their morally questionable actions (and all of this can be traced back to Sam and Dean insisting that closing the gates of Hell might be a good idea back in s8. Hubris has consequences).

This is why I sincerely doubt that Cas is “right” about the nephilim being “good” in s12. Like Dean in early s11 struggling with the strange compulsion/attraction that Amara inflicted on him, like Sam struggling with the illusion that God was sending him messages when it was actually Lucifer, this is Cas’s turn at one last struggle with what is real and WHO HE IS.

What the nephilim is (good or bad) IS ENTIRELY IRRELEVANT. This isn’t ABOUT the nephilim, it’s about CAS.

Dean was desperate for a win when he took on the Mark (and ended up a servant to its will). Sam was desperate for a win when he removed the Mark (and ended up misled into serving Lucifer’s will). Heck even MARY was desperate for a win when she signed on with the MoL (and has now had her will erased).

And now Cas is desperate for a win.

If he truly is acting under his own free will here, and if the vision of the future the nephilim showed him is’t just a manipulative lie, then I honestly have no idea what the show is trying to tell us. It up-ends the entire original message of the series, that Free Will will triumph over destiny. I don’t even see HOW the nephilim showing Cas a vision of the future-- which implies a DESTINY, which is the antithesis of free will-- even if it’s entirely positive and good, I don’t even see how Cas COULD be acting under his own free will anymore, you know?

It’s a bit of a strange loop of logic, which I think is the entire point. Because if you start thinking that maybe the nephilim is “good,” and the vision of the future it showed Cas was positive... it’s already lured him from the path of his own free will with that dream of the future. I prefer to think that Cas isn’t THAT gullible or stupid to just believe a single vision at face value. That he wouldn’t go from extremely doubtful of what the “right” course of action was regarding the nephilim to ABSOLUTE DEVOUT CERTAINTY unless there was at least SOME subtle manipulation going on there.

And absolute devout certainty about ANYTHING on this show will always set the Kill Bill sirens off in my head.

Just like Dean’s absolute certainty that he should take on the Mark of Cain. Just like Sam’s absolute certainty that it must be removed. Just like Cas’s absolute certainty that he was right to take on the Purgatory souls.

ALL OF THEM HAVE SINCE REGRETTED THESE ACTIONS, but they were all made of their own free will. WHAT CAME AFTER, THOUGH... definitely not of their own free will.

Cas has spent the last six years trying to atone for that mistake, trying to make all the consequences of that action right. He spent a year in Purgatory for it. He was an unwitting participant in the Angel Fall Spell because of it. He lost his grace because of it. He freed Lucifer from the cage because of it. And now... now he’s at the mercy of the nephilim because of it. He needs a win, yes... but voluntarily throwing in with the nephilim’s idea of the future ain’t it.

Cas’s biggest story arc has ALWAYS been his journey to truly understand humanity. To understand free will and choice. Whatever the nephilim is doing to him now is like his final boss battle in that journey.

Because I honestly do not believe that Cas could’ve left Dean by that portal unconscious and run off with Kelly if he’d possessed even an ounce of his own free will. And if he could, if he truly CHOSE that course of action... it doesn’t say anything good about his feelings for the Winchesters, who he feels are his family, and who he loves...

So yeah, as far as I can see it, if Cas isn’t being controlled by the nephilim now, it really makes me question ALL of his character growth in s12. And I honestly do not think that’s what Dabb is suggesting here...

#spn 9.11 #s12 meta rewatch #spn 12.19 #spn 12.21 #that's what free will is #castiel winchester #nephilim #i have no idea what happened here but heck i apparently have some pretty strong feelings about all of this :P

[curioussubjects]

oh......OOHH!! ouch that stung. i always assumed their first night together was in 9x06 but nothing happened after that. after reading about s12 i gotta go back and actually pay attention. i'm still learning, but damn you're good.

skdfajkds thank you 😅

Idk if you read my s12 trutherism manifesto (it’s linked in my writing page under the meta tab), but I also explain why I don’t think anything happened in 9.06. 

It’s all cursed, getting more cursed, and rewatches are ~fun lolsobs khsdfaksjhfals

Glad you’re having fun on this journey *finger guns*

#questions and answers #destiel