#to give him a reason to be weird. it’s a Dean fic essentially so it revolves a lot around how he relates to dean which works well because | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

norestwithoutlove · 3 years

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Hi, I just finished reading to build a home (quite literally just then) and it was one of the best stories I’ve ever read. everything was so cohesive and beautifully done and has inspired me to do some writing of my own. How did you manage to keep track of minor details and plots throughout the book continuity wise, with such a large word count, thats something most authours cant do and it made it feel so much more personal and immersive. this fic was a wild ride, sorry if this sounds weird btw i dont usually do this.

Hey !! sorry this one took me a while to reply to ! thanks so much for this message it made me beam - i’m glad the fic made you want to use your own voice as well! writing is such a balm especially in times like these, so i hope you’re loving it.

holy shit i’ve just gone over this and this is a LONG answer so i’m very sorry for the essay in advance. regarding continuity and minor details:

from like very early days (essentially day one of writing) i had a very clear vision of where i wanted the fic to go, and what the major plot points were (the night of the fight aged 18 and everything which caused it, even that it would take place on the roof, sam’s overdose happening in the middle of dean’s drunk love confession, the chapter 59 love confession which leads to them FINALLY getting together happening in front of the fire and cas giving dean his poetry book, the dedication saying ‘to dean, i still do, and always will’. all of that was just sitting rotting all other thoughts in my mind and so i had to type it all out at the bottom of the word document to get it down and make sure i didn’t forget. here’s an excerpt of that very early days plan (the scene where dean comes out to sam in the hospital!!! one of my absolute favourites):

other things came later, like the wedding + concussion scene, and the scene where dean waits out in the treehouse all night, which honestly was SO cruel of me and really added to the tragedy of the chapter 38, 40, 42 arc. but yeah as with the above they sat in my brain just waiting for me to reach the appropriate part of the fic to type them up from VERY early days of the fic. opinions on this vary but i don’t like typing out the scenes that i really want to type out if i haven’t actually reached them in the fic’s construction, (does that make sense? i’ve phrased it badly) because knowing i’m gonna get to write those scenes is what motivates me to actually write the scenes inbetween. i should probably switch this up a bit as everyone advises against this form of writing but also yeah changing routine is effort.

other things plotted in the fic came about in light of the events of the show. mary wasn’t originally gonna be such a distant mother but, as spn pushed that narrative of distance and withdrawal, i thought it would be weird for readers to read a fic which pushed the deified mary mother figure like early seasons spn. especially weird for the readers to read a deified mary fic when the mary they were watching on screen seemed to differ so drastically from the one in the story. so the mary-dean relationship (which was fortunately pretty ambiguous and stilted because of dean’s grief-brain in early chapters) had to change in tbah into the really complicated entity it became. honestly the formulation of that relationship is one of the things i was most proud of in the fic because it was so thorny and hard and felt tragically real for that reason.

other things the progression of the show impacted: dean’s relationship with jack. obviously he couldnt be a nephilim in the tbah universe(!) so i had to consider another angle which would stilt his relationship with dean in the fic. considering the fact that in the show dean’s aversion to him came from a knot of grief, anger and dean’s own upbringing, i transplanted that idea onto the fic and said okay, but here it’s not about cas, it’s about john. dean untangles much of his own trauma with john through his relationship with jack in the symbols of his father he can find in his life: driving, fishing, and building. but also in the symbols of jimmy: cooking, talking, teaching. dean gets to choose between being a john or a jimmy to his son, but the question isn’t so simple, because people aren’t just symbols, and actually dean ends up being a dean to jack, which is perfect.

weirdly, i also think music helped with continuity. i had a few songs in my head at the beginning of the fic and they became like thematic seeds which could grow and make threads to be picked up throughout. i’d listen to these as i wrote, especially as i wrote the scenes i deemed the most significant. same thing with literature.

also thinking about the fic just became really comforting to me ! so i’d play major plot points in my head like a movie before i went to sleep, which meant by the time i got to writing them they’d had a lot of time to develop and pick up earlier themes of the fic. essentially all of the fic was written in light of the future of the fic, which really helped continuity and direction but also the weird tangled traumatised nature of time in the story. this figuring of time became really important because i think tangled traumatised time is essentially just the reality of grief-time.

subconsciously i’m sure a lot of stuff bled through which was unintentional, the framing of events which repeat location (dean waiting in the treehouse all night as a teenager to say goodbye to cas before he leaves for university vs dean and cas going to the treehouse as adults and finding teens there who are saying goodbye to each other before leaving for university. confession 3 takes place a literal 10 years after confession 1. confession 1 comes from cas and happens on the roof just before he leaves for the uk, confession 2 comes from dean and happens drunken in the living room after dean has had an intense and ambiguous conversation/fight with his mother, confession 3 happens in the living room after dean has come out to his mother, confession 4 happens on the roof as castiel returns from the uk and repairing every sense of the rift confession 1 caused because this last confession ends in their engagement.)

once i realised this was happening i went back and combed through those scenes for lines to be repeated. an easy example of this is chapter 38//chapter 59. here’s a scene from chapter 38 as they enter the big white house:

and here’s them entering the house in chapter 59:

i think it’s about trauma and repetition (freud has a theory about this, see Remembering, Repeating, and Working Through) in that we return to sites of trauma; trauma is reiterated in memory and in the material, but in every reiteration, we grow and heal and understand the trauma and ourselves better. it’s like an upward spiral: the first confession goes so badly, the second goes better but not good, the third good, the fourth goes wonderfully (dean’s narrative frames it as paradise: “maybe this is the sound of the trumpets on the other side”). so yeah, part of the ‘continuity’ of tbah is just a traumatised cycle of reiteration, and i say this in the nicest possible way, because these cycles of repetition are how we heal. deep down, i think that’s what the fic is all about.

tl;dr: i had a scrawl of a plan at the bottom of the word document i wrote tbah on, i thought about it a lot because it made me happy, i had a pretty clear vision of where things were going from the very opening chapter, and i was a very gay english lit student.

anyway thanks for the ask lovely i am SO sorry it resulted in the borderline novel of an answer.

#anon #answered #LONG post sorry #to build a home #tbah #deancas

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destielplayshockey · 3 years

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Islanders roster and a brief explanation of the reasoning behind why which characters are in which spots

First Line: Lee Webb, Victor Henriksen, Cole Trenton

Victor is the center and also an assistant captain; I chose him and Cole to be forwards (Cole is a winger) because they’re introduced to SPN as actively chasing another character.

Lee Webb is the other winger and I put him there so that there’d be at least one player on this line that won’t occasionally butt heads with Dean.

Second Line: Tim Janklow, Max Banes, Bucky Sims

The LW here is a random name I picked off the list of hunters from the SPN wiki, I know nothing about him and he’s not a character so much as a filled slot who gets mentioned occasionally and has no lines.

Max in the show is a witch, and witch powers generally seem very offensive to me, so I chose him for the center position on this line.

Bucky isn’t much of a character either, and later they trade him for Gabriel.

Checking Line: Harry Spangler, Ed Zeddermore, Kenny Spruce

These three from the Ghostfacers episodes of SPN felt like kind of an ideal checking line, not totally inexperienced but far from being veterans and it seemed best to keep them all as a set. They also barely have any lines in the fic.

Fourth Line: Cas, Crowley, Kevin Tran

Cas is one of the assistant captains, which is important because it gives him a little bit of leeway to cause problems and start revolts against their head coach. I made him a LW because that’s the position I play irl so it makes hockey from his perspective stupidly easy to write.

Crowley is the center on this line because in the show you can’t help paying attention to him, for better or for worse. He’s massively talented but incredibly unprofessional at the same time, because he’s aware of how talented he is and that makes him arrogant.

Kevin is a rookie RW and I was tempted to make him a D-man but the fourth line is basically the Islanders’ Chaos Squad TM in this fic and he didn’t get along particularly well with Cas or especially Crowley, so this is an excuse for needless drama :D

FIrst Defensive Pair: Dean Winchester, Benny Lafitte

Dean was named team captain against his will before the start of the current season, which causes him all kinds of stress. I decided on him being a D-man because ultimately hunting as seen in SPN is technically a defensive action in and of itself, almost every job he goes on is in reaction to something that’s already happened. Note: his hockey scenes are super hard to write, because I’m a forward and know nothing about playing defense.

Benny just felt like a really good fit to go with Dean, not only because they’re friends but also because once he gets topside again at the beginning of s8 he generally minds his own business and doesn’t stir up trouble outside of going after his former nest.

Second Defensive Pair: Alan Corbett, Daniel Elkins

Alan is the other rookie on the Isles’ roster for the season, but he’s largely inconsequential to the fic and has no lines - another name filling a roster spot.

Daniel Elkins is possibly their most veteran player because when he was introduced in s1 just to be immediately killed he was a grizzled old hunter and hunters, again, are mostly reacting to what the monsters are already doing.

Third Defensive Pair: Lee Chambers, Jesse Cuevas

These two were picked to also be veteran players and Jesse is the third assistant captain on the roster. They aren’t focused on much aside from being noted as essentially the backbone of the team’s defense.

Goalies: Garth, Frank Devereaux

So goalies are weird. This is a universally acknowledged fact in the world of hockey, whether amateur or professional. Garth is super quirky and laid back, and Frank is a complete lunatic. Besides this, goalies don’t typically get into fistfights, so since Garth is chill and Frank is mostly an intel guy on the show, this seemed fitting for both of them.

Head Coach: John Winchester

The true villain of SPN, his number was retired after a car crash ended his career as a player early and ultimately he became head coach because he knows the sport inside and out. That does not mean he’s particularly good at inspiring his players, because he’s overly-critical and never offers any constructive comments to balance it out. Additionally, he’s made demands of Dean to also get his number retired and probably had a lot to do with Dean being named captain no matter how Dean felt about it.

#writer things #destiel hockey fic #long post

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mittensmorgul · 4 years

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i've been seeing speculation that michael was lying to castiel and dean, so if that's true, is it possible he is only pretending to care for adam too?

Hi there! You’re probably hoping for a short, direct answer here, but congratulations! You’ve won today’s “imma turn this into an essay about 9 other things that are all directly related to the thing you thought was a simple question” essay prompt contest!

I will give you a tl;dr right up front, though, in case you’re already rolling your eyes at me (sorry, I can’t help who I am as a person... but I do try to be helpful).

I think they made it pretty clear in the diner scene that Adam and Michael have a really interesting relationship. You spend a decade locked inside your own mind with a guy, and you either start getting along or you kill each other, you know? So no, I don’t think he’s pretending to care about Adam. I think Michael and Adam have-- as Adam told Dean-- come to an agreement. Rather than spiraling into hatred and mutual torture, they chose to understand one another (to the degree that a human is capable of understanding an archangel and vice versa). I can’t imagine sharing that sort of companionship with someone for a decade and NOT at least feeling some sort of care for the other.

I wrote something about this the other day, about what Michael’s choices showed us about his feelings for Adam, here:

https://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/189648100025/why-didnt-michael-go-to-chuck-after-lilith-came

They’re freed from the cage after a decade, and Michael could’ve just... left, you know? Nothing’s tying him to Adam at this point. And he’s indulging Adam’s human needs for food and comfort, and Adam’s assumptions that they will continue to live together in some weird little curtain fic of a domestic scenario despite Michael being a freaking archangel who could pull the whole “chained to a comet” thing we’ve seen so many other angels pull and do whatever he wants... (including AU!Michael and what he did to Dean... the arrangement Adam and Michael have more closely resembles what Dean was trying to negotiate for himself with AU!Michael, which just makes it hurt so much more when Dean sees Adam and Michael’s arrangement).

That said, like so much of s15, do we really know what Michael’s motivations are now? I don’t feel comfortable saying for sure that Adam actually knows, either. The show has just reminded us vividly of the long con that was s4 with the odd return of Lilith as a narrative device to manipulate Sam and Dean (and now Michael). And the struggle against destiny that was s5. Michael was a major agent in BOTH of those seasons (and Adam was the unwitting “clammy scrap of bait” that Heaven used to unsuccessfully trap Dean in 5.18). We don’t know what Michael wants, because his entire purpose for being was foiled in 5.22, and he’s been living with the consequences of that ever since. But more importantly, I don’t think *Michael* knows what he wants anymore, in a world where his entire purpose was rendered moot.

Imagine living for BILLIONS of years knowing that someday you will enact a specific series of events to prove your love and devotion to God, with the belief that will win God’s favor and earn yourself an eternal reward, only to be foiled literally on the brink of success and then return to a world where God had never actually left at all and had just been using you as an actor for his own entertainment. Not only that, you weren’t even unique... just one of countless iterations of the same being across a vast number of universes, and that you hadn’t actually been cast in the starring role at all, but had merely been a bit player in one act of the Grand Performance?

Can he really accept that his entire existence had been a lie? As God’s first and favorite creation, does he even trust what Cas has shown him, or would he doubt and go directly to Chuck to confront him about the truth?

I’ve been meaning to compile a list of all the scenes and references in the montage Cas showed to Michael, but that will take some doing. :’D

I think my main question right now is whether Michael has already confronted Chuck via prayer, or whether he set the whole “Leviathan blossom hunt” up as a means to earn his freedom from Dean and Cas while not tipping his hand about his doubts yet. The minor earthquake he set off... was that due to his frustration at accepting what Cas showed him as the truth, or his frustration at not being able to communicate with Chuck (Enochian handcuffs, you know? block powers like that), or his frustration at having questioned Chuck directly via prayer or some other magical means and his renewed belief that he was being lied to or manipulated by TFW? We truly do not know yet.

That’s the beauty of s15. That’s the main theme of s15, actually-- what is REAL, and what’s Chuck’s story?

I think the thing that’s bothered me the most about this season so far is the assumption that we know anything plot-related is absolute fact and exactly what it appears to be on the surface. Because the entire season is built on the revelation that we literally know nothing about what is real and what is performance and what is manipulation.

Remember Ruby? How many of us at least cautiously believed her back in s3 and s4, before we began to be shown reasons to doubt her? And all along, Ruby had been an agent of Lilith, the only one who’d known the whole plan from the start. Which is ironic when you compare it with Lilith’s role in s15... with the whole “I can’t fail him.” They’re all layers of plot devices like manipulative little nesting dolls, and I’m incredibly wary of trusting anything in a world where Chuck can send innocent souls to Hell on a whim (Eileen, Kevin....) for plot reasons.

Chuck long ago stopped interacting with his creation by his own rules, you know? In contrast to Billie and her Rules, which she’ll bend on occasion but never outright violate. Chuck’s story went so far off the rails after 5.22 that the new “rules” of his plot often directly contradicted the old rules-- especially after 11.23, when he reunited with Amara. I don’t think he ever accounted for that, and it shows in his ongoing narrative after their reunification.

Chuck’s story didn’t change. He still kept trying to write to the same themes, to the same narrative end-- one sibling sacrificing the other for the good of creation, because Sam and Dean had as yet refused to let that ending stick, you know? Over and over, TFW has proven that narrative can’t stand, right up to Dean talking Chuck and Amara through exactly WHY it couldn’t stand. Love.

Chuck refuses to change-- as Becky told him, as Amara told him, as EVERYONE is telling him. He doesn’t love his creation, he wants it to be a reflection of his own issues, as some sort of moral justification of his essential “rightness.” He wants to feel “big.” He’s been unmasked, and knows he can’t carry on the charade of Benevolent and Caring Creator anymore. His characters have confronted him, FINALLY, as the Actual Author, and not the proxy/puppet that “Chuck the Prophet” had been back in 4.18.

But it’s been, so far in s15, impossible to know at a glance what elements of creation are nothing more than Chuck’s sock puppets (though Lilith lampshaded herself as a sock puppet almost immediately, within the span of a single episode). What are Chuck’s plot contrivances? What are his “traps?”

Was the hunter Sue-- Eileen’s friend that she trusted without hesitation in 15.08 and who would lure her and Sam to a hunt, only to unmask herself as Chuck-- the only sock puppet in that scene? Or is this like 4.18, where there are layers upon layers of sock puppets acting out one of Chuck’s tests? Where it appeared that Zachariah had manipulated Chuck’s “visions” to control the narrative, but later revelations would prove it was all Chuck’s bigger game? Even by 4.22 we’d see Zachariah for the puppet he was, even if he wouldn’t be defeated until 5.18.

But the context the show has now given us with Chuck’s manipulation of the entire story opens the possibility that-- even as we’ve seen through the chaotic spiral of his own twisted narrative-- he’s still exerting far more control over the story than we can see yet.

ISN’T IT THRILLING?!

#spn 15.08 #spn s15 spoilers #spn 4.18 #spn 4.22 #spn 5.18 #chuck's process #that's what free will is #Anonymous

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no-te-lo-voy-a-dar · 5 years

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Sibling Jealousy - Chapter 2

Fic’s Summary: Reader has known the Winchesters for a long time, almost two years before Cas entered their lives. After that, since Reader was the only one actually teaching the angel about humanity customs and stuff like that, properly, they developed a closer relationship, on the parent-kid way. But it was never verbally acknowledged. Now, with Lucifer’s child on the way, life stabs some sense and realizations onto Reader, but there’s no time for feelings in this house.

Author’s Note: This is mainly a fic with the purpose of developing a family relationship with the characters, of mutual support, and I don’t plan on adding romance for Reader, because that’s not my final goal.

Pairings(?): Castiel/Reader (Parental like), Jack Kline/Reader (Platonic/Sibling like), Dean and Sam Winchester/Reader (Platonic/Friends)

Warnings: Usual canon violence and conflicts, as well as injuries and blood mentions, emotional struggles such as feeling unloved, like an outcast, low self-esteem issues and if you think something else should be mentioned let me know.

<<Last Chapter — Next Chapter>>

Chapter’s Author’s Note: The first chapter (or prologue?) already has more than 20 notes and that’s more than I expected tbh. Within less than a day, @thewnchstrs added my fic to their September Fics Recommendation List, and I can’t be more flattered that even with just one part out, they decided to add me. Thank you so much.

Chapter Two: Such a Rush

Word Count: 1,327

For the next few months, you were sent the address where Cas was staying with Kelly, and you would send him some pictures and stuff “a normal kid” might use or want. You also got on the phone with both Kelly and Cas when the brothers left to do the FBI work and you stayed in the motel to do research or went for food.

Not a lot of words were exchanged, in your opinion, but hearing Castiel’s voice and encouraging words about The Men of Letters issue did relaxed you, and Kelly said it was a good thing for the baby to hear to his family’s voices.

Not sure how you felt about that yet.

Time passed, you found the microphone hidden in The Bunker, you were almost buried alive, then you and Sam went to raid the British Men of Letters base, using how stealthy and small you were as your bargain excuse as to why you should go (which did come in handy, thank you very much), went back to The Bunker to find Mary was on her right mind again and Ketch dead on the floor and then head all the way up north because the brothers had finally found where Cas and Kelly were AND you all learned Lucifer was out there walking on his old vessel.

You didn’t know if warn Cas or not, but with the Impala filled with the Winchester’s family you couldn’t, and praying to Cas might not be wise since angel radio could get hire wired. That’s not how it works, but yes, essentially. You could hear him tell you.

After hours on the road and Sam convincing Dean onto letting him drive for some of those because of his leg, you arrived at the small house you knew those two, three?, were staying in.

You hesitated into entering the house, looking up to see the windows’ lights on. Something didn’t feel right about this.

When you got in, Castiel seemed to already have talked to the Winchesters and Mary was making her way up the stairs to check on Kelly.

You went straight to him and hugged him, hoping he was getting the message on how much you missed him just from the strength of your hug. Apparently he did, because he was quick onto caressing your head and rubbing small circles on your back, all while you felt his grace heal the injuries you had earned on the raid against the British.

You stepped yourself away from him, and noticed Dean was no longer limping, meaning Castiel had already healed him.

“There’s something you need to see.”

—

After the tear on the time and space that led you to an alternative universe issue and Crowley joining you, a plan was made to trap Lucifer, and not much to your surprise, you were told to wait inside the house with both Kelly and Mary.

“So just you veterans can risk yourselves and have fun?” you really wanted to help, something about the whole situation made you uneasy.

“(Y/N) you know is not like that, but we can’t keep risking people into this, keep putting you on the fire line.” Sam tried to reason with you, his voice soft but nervous about whatever was about to happen, and you had to repress a snarky remark about how just living with them put you in said line by itself.

You sent Cas a look, but his eyes were sad and…a silent request was there, but you weren’t sure what was it. You didn’t like it.

Before they went outside and you upstairs, Castiel handed you an angel blade.

“Cas, you need this, as little protection against an archangel as it can give, you need it.” You tried pushing it back to him. “Besides, I already have my own from Ishim. The most recent one at least I mean.” talking about whom you had gotten an angel blade always seemed to be a sensitive topic.

“This one is not mine. I mean it is, but is a different one. I engraved some stuff in it, for extra protection. No demon can grab it and if any other angel besides the ones I allowed to touch it does, they are going to be slightly burned by it.” Now that you were looking at the blade, you could see enochian symbols written in the blade and handle. At the bottom of it, was an enochian symbol you became familiar with while doing research: Castiel’s angel symbol.

You looked at him and wanted to say something, but Dean was already calling for him.

He patted your head and signaled you to go upstairs. And so you did.

Births were always one of the things that made you more nervous about medical stuff, so much stuff could go wrong.

Kelly smiled at you when you got to the bedroom, and started rubbing at her belly while talking to it, to him.

“Look Jack, your sibling is here already. You are gonna be just fine.” The whole idea of Mrs. Kline wanting you to be some kind of guardian yet not exactly to Jack was kind of surreal.

You weren’t as young as Claire, yet you weren’t near your 40’s as Dean was, so they treating you like a kid always weirded you out, yet it made sense. You were closer to Claire’s age though.

You were bringing water to her lips as she kept having contractions and pushing, and suddenly, during one of her pushes, she whispered an ‘I love you’ before a bright light engulfed the room and you just felt energy soaring the entire house.

While you tried to rub the blindness from your eyes, you heard Mary leaving the room and going down the stairs.

When you opened your eyes, you saw Kelly wasn’t moving yet she was…clean. All the sweat and fluids that were covering her mere seconds ago were gone, and she looked peaceful. You arranged her laying form and covered her with the blankets, before starting to follow the shining foot marks on the floor.

They were directed towards what was supposed to be his room, if you took the giant paint on the wall with his name on it as a clue.

Everything was pitch black and when you looked at the floor and followed with your sight the path upwards, you saw golden shiny eyes looking at you.

Part of you was scared, well, more like on edge, and the other was confused, because you weren’t looking at a baby, nor a little kid.

“Hey Jack. That’s your name, you know?” you said as you reached half of the bedroom, as close as your instincts allowed you to go.

“…Father?” Now with your eyes a little more adjusted to the shadows, you were able of seeing how he hugged himself and titled his head a little. Heh, must be an angel thing.

“Uh, no, I’m not your father. My name’s (Y/N) (Y/L/N).” Without noticing, you were sitting on the floor.

“(Y/N)? Mom said (Y/N) would be my big sibling. Are you my big sibling?” oh boy…

You looked at him, and saw…not a trace of a threat, just pure curiosity and he seemed a little afraid.

“Yes Jack, I’m your big sibling. I’m, going to take care of you, as best as I can.” You saw him smile a little, but when you both heard foots inside the house, Jack went serious again, and you pulled your new gifted angel blade out and got on your feet.

It was Sam.

You wanted to relax a little, but you weren’t sure what he was about to do. He noticed, putting his gun away and his hands in the air, which led you to sheath your blade again.

“Father?” there was Jack again, asking the same thing he asked to you some minutes ago but this time addressed to Sam.

When was Castiel gonna show up?

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elizabethrobertajones · 7 years

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13x02 watching notes

i'm on a train. choo choo.

expectations: helpfully wrote them out last time for the season as a whole which this ep is introducing all the plot stuff for since last episode advanced the plot a single day of angst, but this episode especially has a few SUPER low bars to pass. Last time out BL failed spectacularly to not kill Eileen. now we have "don't assault mary, over-sexualise the day old guy, or flub introing the new characters, or reintroducing the returning ones"

our train was like 10 minutes late out the station because there was no driver. is this a metaphor.

i also had to eat krispy kreme doughnuts before I could dig into the episode.

oh jeeze Drexel survived season 12... no one really has a fanclub for the random minions, probably because around Simmons we realised there was no point getting attached. and he was in some of the worst scenes of last season just because of the context. which is a shame. also he's a lucifer fan and that's not really a worthwhile position. anyway hope springs eternal that colonel sanders is such a charismatic character he makes the demon scenes worth watching... and Drexel gets to be interesting. And stop saying lines like 'make hell great again' which is so not a good thing to put in his mouth - at least the other demons who were going around saying it it was the white demon who said it and got the stink eye from the other demon.

One of the other demons says "can you even hear yourself" but idk if BL would crit their own writing unlike competent writers whose first port of call is stressing that they are bad writers and mock their corny dialogue

this also raises the semi perpetual question since season 11 that if Crowley's throne room is here why would any of the pretenders to the throne even want it. they seriously need to justify it. We know devil's gates are a pain and not usually open so smuggling minions out to work topside is an issue but there are other workarounds than establishing a campy hell set that's not even in hell, then getting confused about if it's hell or not, and never really explaining why Lucifer would stick around in it except for the fact Crowley is really good at setting up a system and it would be a shame not to use the pre-established set up.

but eh

I really sincerely hope Asmodeus is just here because Crowley's ex-minions are here and will relocate post-haste to his plantation.

He hung up his coat. Drexel survived though. I guess being a named character has its perks. the sun shone in my eyes the entire time so i was quite amused when the train turned a bit and i saw demons dropping with burned out eyes, angel-style. like Dagon being super duper powerful, I guess they're giving him extra powers - because this is just a few steps up from how Sam was exploding demons with his head at one point and he got his powers from a YED... though in 5x10 when Lucifer killed all those demons he also didn't burn the eyes out. it's probs a stylistic choice. in character and out.

Nougat!!! he's so cute. he's sleeping at an angle to be behind Sam in the convo. The camera points at Sam from the dash and at Dean from Sam's POV, and Jack is in his background. methinks this is about Sam.

He's trying to make Dean sleep and calling out how he hasn't had any, which is nice because I was worried about that earlier.

Dean is calling Jack "it" which I think was in some people's pre-season fic, or else if it weren't it was in the one i didn't write :P Blatant convo is blatant but does at least have an actual honest to god lead into the next scene via the mom is dead conversation. Again we get the super zoom close up on sam being sad and questioning dean's thoughts. assert yourself, sammy! i believe in u

(totally on your side too Dean but the sun is too bright to examine your micro expressions and the camera isn't favouring you anywho so you're a rewatch flavour today)

Satan wants to trade Mary for Jack. Well if Dean knew he'd sell Jack for a corn chip anyway (is that Crowley's phrase from the original weird dog episode?) so that's just a great big victory. methinks the choice will fall on Sam or fall on Dean after he's had a chance to bond with Jack some more - that's the other side to the tension about Dean liking jack that i was talking about earlier whensomeone asked me why everyone wants dean to adopt jack.

ideally mary saves herself or it never comes to it but for now i'll assume whatever else happens between here and there, some version of this plan will at least be floated, even if it's random circumstances and not lucifer's hand any more or something

makes sense anyway to tie mary back into the main arc in a way like how she mirrored cas the entire time last season - if her fate and jack's are connected even tenuously it gives her a connect back into the main thing

oh good the woman next to me has finished her dangerously over-full cup of Pimms because I was terrified it would be bye bye laptop

nnnoooo as I type she refilled it

the train is swaying back and forth so much

anyway Mary asks Lucifer why he wants to be a parent and he hints several times in a row that he has hidden depths without actually showing any of them. i don't want him to have a redemption anyway and i really super duper don't want him to have one written entirely by BL

Colonel Sanders continues to try and liven up the story while giving us surface level exposition

I'll be honest, 'write that down' is the first good line... must be whichever of BL is quippy currently writing. I think they just introduced a monster taht lucifer is scared of but I couldn't catch what it was and for some reason another demon is listening in so is he getting ideas? I mean why to what end? also what exactly was the thing that was locked up because it sounded like a cut price Leviathan expo dump but obvs not that because a leviathan would eat Lucifer

i mean i don't think we pay enough attention to the fact that dick roman would just gobble lucifer up and end of story. bring back dick.

*Pimms lady sways dangerously close to my laptop*

I think Sam accused Dean of hallucinating "shit" on the road because it's too noisy to hear him say "sheep". I just assume that is what he actually said in the non-censored version

pls drink your Pimms fast enough to end this danger but not so fast you're sloshed and throw it on my laptop before it's all gone

Cashing in on that new Scooby Doo partnership! Some bank like Halifax is currently using Scooby Doo to sell stuff so I see that dog on telly all the time and the fact they exist in the same fictional universe as Sam and Dean is kiiiilling me. I think we have all been assuming Jack takes us to Scooby World so plonking him in front of the telly to watch some is how it all begins. Dean, like every fan fic between 13x01 and now hates Jack unreservedly for having childlike enthusiasm about the telly because Cas used to do that, while (semi)unaware that Jack is mirroring HIMSELF from 12x11 most closely right now. I think that's an interesting parallel I don't know how much work has gone into but pls poke me to write about Jack's 1 day old child-like wonder compared to sweetie pie no memory Dean if no one else has done it because they're essentially the same character from completely different angles, and we're about to hit Jack mirroring Dean excessively.

Me: don't excessively sexualise the kid

BL: "here read a book" *chucks the Bible at him* *he opens it to the Song of Solomon* We're NOT having this chat right now.

I suppose some people just meta-gasmed all over this. I don't know much about the Bible but I do know that's the sexy bit.

the "I can take the couch" conversation probably put the exact same thought process in Jack's head as mine when my very lanky brother looked at the lil brick hard bed set up in the corner of our hotel while we were stranded in Glasgow, and looked at me, princess and the pea-syndrome sufferer, and nobly offered to take a bed that *my* feet stuck 3 inches over.

No.

Thanks but no.

aw man we're only at Carlisle.

It's the promo scene as well, which mostly just drove home how much Jack is mirroring Dean... We've had basically no character interaction in the missing day, although we can assume it's mostly gone like this... Dean annoyed, Sam forgiving Jack for being adorable, and Jack being adorable. He's getting better at sarcasm as well, which can't be making Dean feel any better about him.

And that means that the "Castiel is my father" revelation happened off-screen and we're not being given any room for a reaction about it, which is the most annoying part of this. I knew 13x01 was an anomaly and going into a BL ep so soon after would deprive us of some of the emotional depth, but it's like having a bucket of cold water dumped on us :P

I think Dean's 'sometimes' about family being good is going to be a criminally underrated line and I don't even know if I can bring myself to remember it all the time in discussions about how Dean feels about family going forwards but this is a note that i heard him say it and acknowledged it means he has some issues with blood family ongoing.

Jack being adorably human blah blah, Dean aggravates the issue by being really mean about insisting Lucifer is his father and asking if he reached out to Jack and now Jack's remembering him doing that. Hey leave the kid alone, Dean, his blank slate was slightly messed up by waning to be like Cas which is obviously an excellent exemption to having a blank slate.

Maybe there's a metaphor in him agitating the bad father sitation over here.

I don't know if Jack should have asked for clarification there so let's pretend there was a hesitation and a "Ca -" "*Lucifer.* Your father." exchange. Or something.

And now Nougat is lying about emotional strife, like's been agitated into being a Winchester from his great blank slate

GAH Stop gesturing by the STILL FULL glass of Pimms

they keep topping it up and it's not good for my stress levels

I think I just missed basically everything that happened because all I could see was my own reflection but then they were like *rising tension music* *scuffle* *donatello* so I assume he jumped out on them. Mental note to go back and see who was defensive of Jack and what he did.

*casually mopping up my neighbour's Pimms as it splashes dangerously close to my laptop while listening to Donatello's exposition*

the good thing about BL episodes is that you can often just kinda chill and listen to the exposition if it's just a chunk o dialogue and nothing offensive is going on so we're making progress through the ep

*dean is super bitter about who does and doesn't have a direct line to god for some reason*

Awww Sam says they're brothers and it's a family crest when he is saying Jack should get the tattoo <3

*completely* robbed of Dean's reaction

WHY DID THEY NOT TELL JACK IT WOULD HURT

I went to the loo and came back to them wiping Pimms off their phone

Well Jack just completely put Dean in his place RE: pain, when he told him to man up about it and Jack was like right we accept pain as a sign of maturity... this is absolutely not what Dean meant but it is probably a healthier approach to it minus all the toxic masculinity

can we get to 13x03 and an ep written by Berens soon :P

Jack accidentally absorbs his warding. Oops. I guess that angel warding was a WEE bit OTT I mean I'm no expert but that looks like a total pain to be dealing with all the time for the makeup department :P

Also must have taken friggin ages

I still don't get why Donnatello is here except to use as a chip in their arguments... Ah well. Dean arguing intent doesn't matter freaky powers are freaky powers because he's still pissed about what happened to Cas and can't see the much more basic thing that Jack didn't mean to get Cas killed and OBVIOUSLY didn't intend it if he was waiting for Cas to be there for him when he popped out of the womb. I think for all the random avenues this took in fandom this is probably about as deep as the show will go if this is how BL are spelling it all out for us... And the answer is all there on the page already but we're just using Dean as the alternate side of the argument to show his own character stuff going on where he can't deal with Jack because he's upset about Cas. And he was always more concerned about Cas than the philosophy of whatever else was going on

Train going through the Lake District... I am enchanted. It's a grey day w/ very low clouds and water on the ground and all the trees are autumnal. Sue me, this is more interesting than Donatello being unhelpful. He backed up Sam's argument earlier w/ saying Lucifer felt toxic and Jack is somewhat more like his grandfather, but then once he starts talking he's like hurr blurr as a scientist nature wins and he's a monster and then Sam's like I thought you were on my side dude and then Dean angsts about Cas some more and calls Jack the devil and he decides he better start teleporting now because leave me alone not-dad and get off my case

I hope we see his wings. Dean asks in 13x01 if he had wings and equated it to teleporting and I suppose we don't know how demons do it but the assumption is if he's half-angel adn can teleport then he has wings

Oh no it is KILLING me how Jack's thing is sitting cross legged. PROTECT HIM.

Sam finds him, thankfully, after the Sad Kelly Montage. There's a very Northern man behind me talking loudly on the phone so I'm gonna concentrate SUPER HARD now

The hotel is called the Black Hat which I think is western coding for the bad guy. There was a house in the prairie art on the wall, and the single isolated house is how Jack came into the world... He's dealing with towns now.

Exposition Mooose! Telling us Dean gets some wires crossed about getting angry whe nhe's frustrated and scared like yes good expose dean for us some more... explaining him to jack is like hey so um he's an acquired taste... trying to make this about protecting everyone instead of pointing out the obvious that he blames jack for what happened to cas

Jack is a winchester because he's like maybe i'm not worth it

help

and them Sam brings up w/o knowing it was on jack's mind that kelly thought so but also is a blatant link to how they used dead!mary to guide their lives right up until she came back...

... and then so would Cas and so would I. Sam aligning himself with Jack's parents to show he has emotional guardianship of him right now

has dean gone down to the bar because it's called th eblack spur and obvs not the same one but i'm like 100% sure that's the bar from 10x01 where he was hanging with Crowley and I'm not gonna fact check that. it's "black" again aka more nature stuff, more coded evil stuff I guess? I don't know anything about Westerns I admit

And hey look a blonde bartender is chatting to him - there's a Jack ale sign on one side... and hahahahahaaaa no there's a Kingdom Beer sign behind Dean over his shoulder because the director wants to kill me

So far this is the weirdest BL episode Ive seen in a long time because they're trying so so hard to be all nuanced and deep and to explore character stuff and carry on the mood from the first episode, while being direly under-equipped to handle it, so everyone's just blurting exposition all over the place in a series of awkward exchanges. The overtness of the dialogue is actually helping in a weird way to rush through the tick boxes because Dean just admitted to seeking his neglectful father's approval from a standing start which is a sign of progress for him to just leap right into admitting his issues with John. I don't have a frame of reference for this because tired and white noise and noting we're pulling into Lancaster and it looks like rain now and there's a guy travelling with an enormous silver mirror with an ornate frame as tall as he is on the other platform and more pimms is on the table... but yeah when DID he last talk about John? Is this the increased openness since 12x22 we were hoping for? Is my backpack okay because it's in a luggage rack I can't see and if someone nicks it they're only stealing all my laundry but I like some of those t-shirts so it would be a bummer...

Lol surprise Asmodeus, no wonder she pushed all the father stuff... Was he talking about Lucifer then? It's everyone has father issues season. He's fitting in as another mirror in it all. Like the great big shiny mirror the dude at Lancaster station had. I'd honestly not be surprised if John came back in some way just cuz we had the Mary season where motherhood was a theme, and now we're doing this. I don't think John would come back for good liek Mary but they could scrounge up a more direct way of confronting his memory at least.

This also is so unsubtle bcos Dean had no idea what the bartender looked like so he coulda just tended the bar and chatted to Dean b4 he knew who Asmodues was, and we could have had some cool tension like we all know that Colonel Sanders is the bad guy and Dean's just chatting him up a bit. But then when do we ever get such things in a BL ep?

Sam just goes and spells it out about Jack being molded and the ambiguity of his father figures aka the dual nature battle they think Jack should have, with a deciding vote already thrown in there by Kelly and of course that Jack has free will and choice

So Mary just nearly got assaulted, tho not by Lucifer, which was not exactly a pleasant surprise. >.> idk what that guy's problem was but he seems to be implying women can't fight and something something I didn't catch but clearly he doesn't see a whole bunch of women. This is literally the antithesis of the show's handling of female hunters since the start so I'm going to have to assume that this is an AU thing like, total worst timeline, and everyone's sexist to boot. Not really a fan of doing this at all because why are humans made out to be just as bad as meeting angels and demons in this world - Mary being at risk from ALL of them (where is BOBBY I wanna see wtf was going on between him and AU mary and our mary and our bobby) - and it being disappointing that Mary's at risk BECAUSE she's female and might get assaulted.

Lucifer continues to try and act like a good guy by saving Mary and then of course the Nice Guy twist that always comes - if you won't give me what I want that I'm pretending is mutually beneficial then I will just hurt you.

They're chilling by that church from 8x23 now so I guess Mikey will be along soon.

Preston Station looks like a hellscape as well - it's packed and there's no ticket barriers. I'm so glad we were only passing through

Dean comes in and sits down with Sam with the shadows of the blinds falling over them - prison imagery I missed you! We're trapped in these mindsets...

Sam wants to get them on the same page and Dean is like F U and Sam's like lemme do exposition while you sit with the shadow over your eyes.

I wish there was a shadow falling over my eyes... We've passed back through to hazy sunlight south of Preston.

Sam says people who we love, and who have been in our lives for a long time, in such a way I bet some asshole is excluding Cas from one category bcos Mary doesn't count in the long time category so maybe one is for her and one is for Cas

obviously that's the real donatello because he only cares about breakfast and is an object of ridicule while Asmodeus was presumably the other and actually talking plot.

this is an idiot ball moment tbh because Jack hasn't been in any hotel scenes for a while and somehow we've shuffled through all the characters here and not had any of them with Jack or checking where he is despite him being the most precious cargo, and it was bugging me earlier that dontatello and sam talking meant jack was alone because he wouldn't be w/ dean so where was he but Sam didn't ask? they just chatted? And obvs that was asmodeus but yeah... no one's keeping an eye on him and D. wasn't even supposed to be taking Jack to get breakfast or what? If that wasn't him then what exactly did Sam think Jack was up to?

Also Sam tanking the mytharc Dean tanking the personal arc - he talks to both of them w/o them knowing and guess what each's conversation is

And also Dean came in with food as well like there's major miscommunication going on here if the real donatello was getting breakfst and so was Dean but is that the point or is that just a plothole where this doesn't add up properly if you actually try and map who knew what and - was Dean the one SUPPOSED to be watching Jack? But Sam didn't ask him either.

Anyway here's the demon that Dean's entire fight scene is about straddling to death.

I also loved his march down to the room where he was all in shadows

The last shot of that fight though where Dean's cowering away from the demon on a bed while it advances on him with a knife

like wow that was a good fight scene for the dynamics going on there. Dean as a victim being absolutely dominated by that demon and all the associated knife and weirdass positions imagery. Dean on that table with his legs around the demon is like an entire meta on its own as well

okay it was too bright when I saw the scene where Asmodeus was talking about that whatever it was he let out but I THINK that was the same demon I thought I saw overhearing it and now I am wondering what on earth that was about because Dean just killed him :P

Awww Jack out in nature. I love the flowers and the buzz of insects and life all around him. And Asmodeus is testing him.

Okay it's been like one episode how can he have character inconsistency with himself from earlier in the episode - he now wants to unleash the things he got in trouble for unleashing before? I mean unless he's decided that Lucifer really isn't coming back so might as well just throw a party while there's no adult supervision, and get back to all that chaos and destruction he loves. If he thought there was remotely a chance Lucifer would come back he wouldn't do it, but then is he just doing it now out of spite that Lucifer told him no before, and instead of whatever nonsense he said about family dynamics back then is not really true at all because he wants to rebel now instead.

If Jack unleashes the thing because he was tricked then it will be the biggest Sam and Cas mirror thing ever and will set him up with some angst and guilt for the rest of the season.

One of the downsides of Dean not getting along with him is that Jack doesn't know how much scepticism about God is a healthy amount in this universe. He basically just knows that God is his grandfather and family is usually good. But God is suuuch a bad concept to rally behind here, it's not even like God wouldn't ask him to do it because God never tells anyone what to do about anything (which is like the first thing Dean would have told Jack if he hadn't still been sulking God wouldn't lift a finger to help him over the whole dead Cas issue), God would also just never have any positive reinforcement for anyone or get excited about having a grandson, at least in a way to get actively involved :P

I mean Chuck probs thought that Donatello making his way to Jack was about as useful as he could be and that immediately went sour when no one kept 2 pairs of eyes on each other at all times.

Wyoming has some pretty nasty stuff under it :P

I wonder if Hell maps exactly to earth but just kinda deeper.

Also point to me for rambling about hell gates earlier and then Asmodeus actually listening to my suggestion box for once. Maybe he will be the one character who can actually hear me in this show.

Hey you, you're an asshole

Is Lucifer aware he literally just lead them in a circle because I am so not telling him that, because it's too funny.

I hope Jack didn't inherit his sense of direction but this is Dabb era, as soon as that kid gets a car, trouble starts.

The midlands are so bleak.

These angels are wearing heavy tactical gear and yet more kneepads. The human had them too. This is just kneepad world. I don't see the necklaces of baby ears so maybe that design thing got ditched or maybe Bobby was being metaphorical. The important thing is they don't look like Cas. The weird thing is we know Mikey's costume sort of does look like a ragged Cas.

Anyway Lucifer is so offended to hear Michael killed him even though it was literally the most obvious thing ever the entire time we've known about them and since 12x12 we've had extra info to prove it :P

Omg why are you opening champagne on a traaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaain

MIKEY

He wanders in like hey I'm awesome but also I need to immediately open with super obvious exposition lines

Lucifer accuses him of being dressed like he came from a western too which goes with the thematics back in the Earth part of the story and also makes me think maybe the costuming choice was supposed to kinda mirror Frontierland Dean's 2nd costume because why the fuck not this is Dabb era, rules are for suckers :P

I can't see it w/o the hat but maybe he has a hat elsewhere.

this hole down into the centre of the earth looks REMARKABLY like the one the 2nd season of Shadowhunters had in the season finale, so I need Magnus to just wander over the rise and close it now. Also his eyes glow gold and cat like. Is his power literally equivalent to Jack's? He's like ridiculously OP in that show. I guess all that hiatus watching was research.

Ah, Asmodeus has learned the "Oh shit it's the Winchesters" moment already, especially recognising the car. Them driving right onto the scene has the oddest shades of 5x22 without anything being remotely like it except it's a field, hole in the earth, and car.

Okay why did Donatello yell "that's not Donatello"

this is like the reverse of the best version of this scene I've ever heard which is the one from the end of Here Be Gerblins in the Adventure Zone which I will not spoil for you except to say this is the worst and also it doesn't take too much listening to get to that point and I nearly cried laughing so you should probably go listen. More hiatus watching research!

The other option is D is having a total crisis of self w/o a soul or the evil D is actually the real thing and Asmodeus is helping them for some reason.

LOL he's like hi I'm Crowley's replacement so the line now is "howdy boys" intead of hello boys

As soon as Jack knows what's up and sees his new peeps getting hurt he stops because he is precious and he did nothing wrong and I love him

AWW HE THINKS THEY'RE HIS FRIENDS I LOVE YOU NOUGAT

Deal with that, Dean.

Mary like "... should I be shuffling backwards?" "I SHOULD BE SHUFFLING BACKWARDS, BYE"

Lucifer said he needed Mary, Mikey says he needs Lucifer... I think that phrase is being turned over and ruined now. The necessary step of Dean having said it to Cas that one time when he shoulda said I love you... They had a brief critique of "need and want" and some stuff about i and we, which was what last season was doing, but Cas feels bad bcos he feels needed but not wanted, and this is as much as Dean has said to him - from the depths of his heart - but it's not enough because that was season 8 and he hasn't felt like he belongs and he needs that I love you. Uh but w/o using "need" - look, they're gesticulating with champagne again, I have 1 eye on this at best as we roll through the midlands for an eternity :P Anyway I guess it is time to put "need" in the firing line as the Wrong Word that means that you're USING someone.

WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING??? DEAN DOES NOT SIT AT THE TABLE LIKE THAT. OH MY POOR, POOR BROKEN CHILD LET ME HOLD YOU IN MY ARMS

I know it's probably for that wonderful shot of them through the door but Dean fundamentally does not sit up against the wall - he and Sam have their places at that table when they have their chats and it's a serious thing since the entire time theyve been using the kitchen for important plot chats.

Anyway he super not okay bcos that's his seat he sits at when he's in his proper place in the dynamic - or improper one but the point is the dynamic is the dynamic when they sit opposite each other and Dean's opted out and flopped back against the wall instead of sitting where he normally does when he and Sam are in balance. Sam's connection to his seat has some other flavours of his side of the codependency issues but largely about his lack of assertiveness or getting too messed up about saving Dean, so we'll see

AAAH Sam is sitting one seat over as well.

I know it's a free table but there's 8 seats and REMARKABLY little flexibility about it.

Dean's wearing a black henley which is also baaad news. *pats him on the head and follows with a blanket*

Sam stands (or sits) his ground

Dean, gosh, I don't like when the camera follows you because this is probably going to be awful for my heart.

We also have not really had his POV much this ep except the Asmodeus chat up scene

He's mostly reacted. Like he thinks Jack is only reacting.

I DON'T LIKE THIS SCENE

PROTECT JACK FROM HIMSELF TOO

I hope he was just being curious like a super amped up version of how Kira on Orphan Black found out she has super healing powers so sliced her own arm open while being scared and fascinated with what she was and pissed off the adults wouldn't tell her anything but this was gross and violent and pls protect Jack because that was awful.

Dean's suitably horrified though because he has to contemplate Jack is just as freaked out and lost as he is about this whole thing because this is a gross and horrifying way to show that Jack is as fucked up and lost as the rest of them. I don't think he was actually trying to kill himself esp. because he knew the angel blade already stabbed him and did nothing and even if he doesn't know what it is and why that's signficant he knows he didn't die of something that should have killed him... I hope it's just childlike curiosity mixed with bleak existential horror as he comes to understand how much he doesn't understand himself even in the context of the world he's in...

OH NO

but also good lines of dialogue they acted super well. Jack is starting to think he can't be saved if Dean doesn't think it and is silently asking him to do it because he doesn't want to hurt people and oh gosh this isn't 10x09 at all where Deran asked Cas to do it to him... But completely different emotional landscape where Dean WOULD do it and wants to and Jack is only just starting to doubt himself and wonder if he would hurt people and the important thing is not like Dean thinking there was a line he would cross and half-tricking Cas into saying he'd do it by asking him for a favour first, but Cas not being able to oblige him in 10x22... This is Jack being such a good pure piece of nougat that he's SCARED of what he is and what he can do and beginning to think that he might need to be killed esp. because Dean thinks so and this has been a bad day for him... even though again his nature shone through, Dean thinks it was a "sneeze" and Jack still doesn't have a developed enough moral compass to understand what he did except that we can see it was a good thing.

And final shot Jack reflected in the mirror all bloody and sad and I need to zoom in on that later to see his face because like magic the sun is out again when I want to look at the screen.

End episode here. Good. That means Dean angstily listening to music is in 13x03 almost for sure because I want it to be (uh, sorry that's not science :P) but it would be a great Berens to Berens chat with self about 9x14 and Dean angstily listening to music there.

I am not actually where were we are any more except powering towards London, but I'm gonna put my laptop away because they're still topping up the champagne and I just survived a BL episode where nothing so awful happened that I can see the fandom outrage from a million miles away and the worst I can say is that they are an exposition machine and I wish they had more nuanced dialogue because in someone else's hands that character stuff would have been delivered well rather than just delivered :P

#13x02 #my stuff #season 13 spoilers #I actually got some of this answered by Tink & co on whatsapp later #but then I had to explain my #look at this effin table #tag to them and me vs typos while texting and no signal in the bleak wilderness #yeah I hope they even have half a clue what I was on about :D #tomorrow I will have to make a post about wtf is going on with that table but tl:dr I flipped out about it completely #and regret that the last time i was drawn to make a Big Post about it it was from the Destiel perspective #with just a handful of codependency chat #because now I really really wish I had a big post about the codependency stuff there #with just a sprinkle of the Destiel stuff on the side #NOT PROOF READ HOLY SHIT LIKE NOT AT ALL WHO AM I WHERE AM I #I am lucky this entire post isn't soaked in a glaswegian's prosecco

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elizabethrobertajones · 7 years

Note

if destiel became canon i hope no destiel fan go around saying 'I TOLD U SO' to other ships and telling other ships their ship is meaningless. :((((

Wow, thanks for blessing my inbox with such a fantastically awful leading statement. What, you want me to say Destiel shippers won’t do that? I mean, there’s a bazillionity of them and a lot of them think Destiel is going canon or should do or at least would take canon as utter vindication of everything they’ve read in the text, which is a quantifiable, serious amount of storytelling and tropes which all directly imply Destiel. If people throw a street party because it happened, that’s their street party, you know?

I am not very well qualified to talk about wider shipping culture but Destiel fans who see it in canon have a certain axe to grind with the show because of the feeling that it’s textually present and many (myself included) would not have thought to ship it until something in the text flipped them and sheer incredulity about the depth of this story brought them to fandom and interacting with others to analyse and understand the story better.

I don’t believe other ships including ones involving Cas and Dean elsewhere have anywhere near the same textual level of storytelling and tropes to give them a shadow of what Dean and Cas have. I posted last night about how early Destiel was ship teasing without storytelling intent, and other prominent ships never moved beyond ship teasing and one of them certainly never will and can’t. But for YEARS Destiel has been running on the rails of a narrative between and about the characters which can be taken romantically. If it went canon it would not be the show just randomly picking one of 12 out of a hat and giving it their blessing.

Like, yes I suppose it does make the shippers look entitled if you ship on different means, e.g. chemistry, blurred lines between actor and character, which ones are hot and you think would look good fucking each other, and all the reasons which are great for shipping characters (and I’m not judging - I like ships which are completely implausible, not implied in canon, or are otherwise deeply unsuitable for shipping like Destiel. 3 of my coda fics this season were Mary/Charlie, Mary/Ketch and Cas/Benjamin instead of Destiel, and of those only Mary/Ketch was actually based on canon, and Mary/Charlie was hauling out a dead character who I thought would be great to ship Mary with from the realms of implausibility. And I can understand if you have all or a main ship which is in these sort of brackets instead of rooting for the canon storyline and waiting for it to provide you with all your material, then it’s different and feels different.)

But I don’t think Destiel shippers enjoying the idea of it going canon (because this is what’s upsetting you RIGHT NOW, not the idea that it POTENTIALLY goes canon and everyone’s a dick, you obviously feel like people enjoying it IN canon are being dicks RIGHT NOW) is offensive to other shippers, or that if you meet us on the grounds of fanon where all the shipping goes on, we’re anything more than more well-fed by canon than other shippers who don’t ship off of canon, because we get a lot of material for our ship from canon.

But great transformative works always add to the experience, and there’s so many interpretations of the characters in fanon which have moved 1000 miles from canon, in every possible way, which really just end up on what people LIKE to read, if they like D/s or AUs where they’re socially awkward hipsters or tentacle porn or canonverse but huge drastic changes. EVERY ship in every fandom has variations and fanon lives of the characters and if the fandoms are large enough, sub-fandoms within them that specifically enjoy certain dynamics. Canon HELPS but it does not define Destiel shippers in what we write about and how we enjoy the ship, and some people enjoy it only in fanon because they think canon Dean is a dick or they hate what’s happened to Cas since whenever or they just like an old dynamic which is easier to wallow in in increasingly AU settings and end up just reading coffee shop romances where the mains happen to be called Dean and Cas, and some people can probably only get into it if it’s so gritty and canon they can still taste the last episode on their tongue when they read the coda fic.

As a cumulative experience of what fandom is, Destiel going canon is ONLY vindication, because we can enjoy it in fanon as is, but the issues around the canon debate and representation and what have you are an entirely other thing and on THAT playing field canon is the only vindication.

But in that world, it’s not about other ships at all. I’m sorry, but something like Sastiel is just not part of the argument because in canon it’s not teased, not laid down in the depths of the show’s foundations as important, and it’s not part of the massive metatextual, media and fandom and show dance about the show sucking it up and making Dean bi and Destiel canon because that is only the MEDIUM in which the show needs to deal with the representation problem. If the thing had been swirling around Sam n Cas the entire time, then the debate would be about Sam and Cas. But it’s not. It’s about Dean and Cas.

Like, I’m sorry if other shippers want in on the idea of ship going canon vindication but on this show there’s such an entrenched, weird battle about Destiel’s place in the narrative, it’s 9 years too late on this one for it to be any other ship in any other way on this show.

I mean I’d say to other shippers, don’t go out and be a dick to people if it DOES go canon, just enjoy it and try not to be too horrible even if you do get involved in ship wars, like, just take the win and be the bigger person, but that comment isn’t exactly going to do much because I’m not the queen of this ship issuing decrees which seems to be the only positive outcome you’d ever think you could get out of asking me this ridiculous question. Like. What the heck were you expecting me to say? Oh no boo hoo we’re so nice, we’d never do that? It’s a gazillion shippers and a lot of them feel bitter and disenfranchised and they’re not going to consider that they are somehow being rude to other ships, because this is not the side of fandom where you ought to be respectful to people’s fanon practices, but essentially a conflict and we all walked into it where the battle lines were already drawn and it’s this ship and it’s inherently political to ship it if you do so from canon rather than politely excusing yourself to fanon.

If you feel threatened by the ship’s presence in canon because you can see as well as everyone else and are just pretending there’s an equivalence between Destiel and other fanon ships, as if the fanon stage and the canon battle are the same thing, then you’re just being deliberately obtuse as a troll. I mean, I don’t even fucking fight the canon thing that hard, I am a chill shipper who enjoys watching it unfold in canon and don’t make strong demands of canon, but I still know my ship is politicised on this stage about being canon or not and we have to think abou that all the time and if I HAVE to I will wade in as fight hard that it has full right to go canon and should, and that is NOT disrespecting other ships, it’s working with what I already have in my hands immediately from the moment I went “shit, there really is something to all this lovelorn staring they do at each other, isn’t there?”

Anyway YOUR SHIPS, DESTIEL INCLUDED, ARE SUPER DUPER IMPORTANT IN FANON AS MUCH AS EACH OTHER AND BECAUSE THEY MEAN SO MUCH TO WHOEVER IS SHIPPING THEM. END OF.

But fanon is fanon and you’re making a ridiculous argument equating “meaning” aka what fans draw from shipping and what makes them feel good about it into creating transformative works about their ship, to the idea of Destiel going canon as if it’s somehow going to do ANYTHING to the fanon.

Like, people with radically different from canon ideas ABOUT DESTIEL can cope with the show consistently not actually being what they really dig but use it just as a jumping off point to their personal interests in what they use fanon for - whether it’s kink or emotional healing or personal empowerment or just for writing and imagination like the fic writers who mostly just enjoy creating stories and like using fanworks rather than original works to hone their craft and feel confident and comfortable with what they’re doing. I mean, fan artists do the same. They might have the faces of the characters but they’re being depicted in a million different ways nothing LIKE the show.

Fanon is not threatened by canon. Even when canon trounces fanon, fanon rolls its eyes and carries on. And mostly fanon is so far beyond the realm of canon that it’s fairly untouchable anyway. The show can’t do much to fuck up my Cas works in a diner and Dean comes and hangs with him there AU because Cas does not work in a diner and Dean is not exactly up to flirting with a dude across a diner counter all day every day while Sam is literally sitting in the corner the entire time rolling his eyes. If Destiel still goes canon, I still hold the means of production here - I get to decide on my own terms if and when one of them snaps and asks the other to marry them. I would have the luxury to put off making them canon in my fanon even though in real canon they already were together. It’s a fearsome power :P

And I mean, something like Sabriel has enough little connections to canon that its fans can at least show them in the same room interacting and draw from that, but 99.99999999% of that ship is built out of tropes and fun and reading each other’s works and building off of that and creating a ship pretty much out of nowhere for their own amusement and gratification. Canon Destiel’s going to have a hard job doing anything to upset that boat, you know? If you’re offended you WANT to be offended.

Anyway I have now finished my cup of tea so that’s enough grumbling from me but seriously what the heck did you even send me this for? It’s such a petty, miserable view about fandom. If you enjoy your ships you enjoy your fucking ships and nothing can upset that and everyone should leave each others’ fanon fun the hell alone.

#Asks #wank for ts #AND the canon battle is NOT A SHIP BATTLE #it's between is it canon or is it not #no other ships is actually involved in that you know #it's just between people who think Destiel should be canon #and wishing the show would do something about it and that's it #fandom problems

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