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mlobsters · 3 months

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supernatural s15e1 back and to the future (w. andrew dabb)

find it a little weird that they're using the bob seger famous final scene song for the season premiere big recap thing, they used this song in an episode - for kevin's funeral pyre in 9x10. maybe they've reused a song like that (poignant moment within an ep and then a recap, they reuse recap songs certainly) before and i just didn't notice, did this time because that song is in my main playlist from when i watched that s9 episode. typing all that up, what a pointless thing to care about. not sure i vibe with the clips and music selection but they're really hit or miss for me in general. music thematically, yes. anything else, ehh

also been thinking like. i don't see why s13-14 (and 15 remains to be seen, obviously) are said to be so much worse than say, s7-12 (though 11 had bright spots for me not seen since way, way back - or hey, better than *gasp* s1-5 at times because it occasionally focused on good feelings in a way that was just not happening before.) and i'm sure i'm in the minority yet again but i just haven't particularly liked the main plots for most of the seasons. and while i had some big issues with s6, it didn't go campy-ridiculous for me until the leviathans. and again, for me, pretty much everything since has gone that direction. some not campy, but all pretty ridiculous. i tolerate, not delight :S but i'm here for the characters and relationships, so i keep on keeping on.

anyway. dark and jittery longer than i deem necessary battle in the graveyard which somehow became not a death sentence in between the season break

DEAN Great. So we go outside, we get ripped apart. We stay in here, w-what, starve to death?! CAS Well, I wouldn't starve. DEAN Well, good for you.

LOL good one, cas

CAS He's an abomination! BELPHEGOR You're an abomination with that stupid, dumb trench coat.

ooh burn. and so true

BELPHEGOR I mean, the last time I was on Earth, I mean, I was human. Ah, it was a while ago. I mean, but, you know, we were all worshipping this giant rock that looked like a huge penis, and... Anyway, folks back then, you know? Had a lot of humps. I mean, a lot. Look at 'em now. I mean, look at you. I mean, you're, uh, you know, gorgeous. DEAN What? Okay. When are you gonna get out of that body? BELPHEGOR Eh, when I find another one. I mean, I would've jumped at the cemetery, but all those meat suits were a little too, uh, you know, wormy. Difficult to blend, if you will

giving me leonardo dicaprio accent/cadence there with the wormy bit. weird. also mentioned dicaprio way back when he was in that nougat scene in 13x01. anyway, i mean this is something. can't resist the whole new character for the same actor thing. but seems like a more fun role for calvert

music they've got playing while sam and cas search the houses is pretty unique. i like it. this really muffled deep fast percussion. miracle. and jay gruska?? okay, i see you!! look at you, sir!!! finally coming up with a win

the killer clown makeup, good!

the blood mary wig and makeup, HORRENDOUS. reminds me of the knockoff ringu girl in 7x18. called it party city costume and makeup 🤪

spn s7e18 party on, garth

handy that the spell that needs a human heart, there's an abundance of freshly dead people around. i don't have the energy to even ponder what this demon's agenda is

BELPHEGOR What? Oh. No. I-I mean, uh... – I'm a fan. DEAN Excuse me? BELPHEGOR Yeah, I-I didn't want to say it in front of the other guys, but when you were in Hell, with Alastair, I, uh... I got a chance to watch you work. And, I mean, the things you did to those people, I mean, it wasn't torture. It was, um... It was art. DEAN Yeah, but that was a long time ago. BELPHEGOR Depends how you look at it.

dean surprisingly chill about this conversation. far more chill than i am. maybe he's been doing some work

so every door in hell opened, including the cage. ok. so is that how they finally address adam?

stupid god weapon which i assumed was lethal no matter what, well. festering at least.

and some sort of hallucination flashback vision who knows what i don't know what with evil!sam and dean begging sammy. great, visions 3.0?

lol, seen the gag reel gif from this scene where misha calls him dean instead of sam

it's fun that they're doing new spellwork magic stuff with a character, but. clearly it's gonna be some big Thing, what with how useful and powerful it is

not remembering why dean's being snippy with cas. i guess because he doesn't want to talk about jack dying? they've pretty well glossed over it

little more fester-y. needed some gooey bits to dab off with the gauze

DEAN Okay. Hey, do you remember when we were little? What I would do to distract you whenever I'd rip off a Band-Aid or something like that? SAM Yeah. You'd tell some stupid joke. DEAN Yeah. Knock, knock. Come on. Knock, knock. SAM Who's... DEAN Still got it.

cute cute. i don't care if it's pandering i will take any and all pre-series anecdotes

SAM Yeah. So, when Chuck… God… said "This is the End," I guess this is what he meant. DEAN Yeah, well. Screw him. He's been playing us this entire time. Just when we thought we had a choice. You know, whenever we thought we had free will. We were just rats in a maze. Sure, we could go left. Sure, we could go right. But we were still in the damn maze. Just makes you think, if all of it… you know, everything that we've done… What did it even mean? SAM It meant a lot. We still saved people. DEAN Yeah, but what for? You know? Just so he could throw another End of the World at us and then sit back and chug popcorn? SAM Maybe. Yeah, maybe. But… now he's gone. DEAN You think? SAM That's what he does. He gets bored and… and… and… and pulls the ripcord. I mean, that's what he did with Apocalypse World and… and probably with all of them. He moves on, starts another story. But you know what? Good. 'Cause if he bailed, it's just us. For the first time. It's just us. DEAN And about three billion ghosts. SAM Yeah, well, what's one more Apocalypse, right? But, seriously, if we win… When we win this, God's gone. Hm. There's no one to screw with us. There's no more maze. It's just us. And we're free. DEAN So you and me versus every soul in Hell? I like those odds. SAM Yeah, me too. DEAN Well, you know what that means. We got work to do.

also will always accept sam and dean vs the world

i'm not totally understanding this jumping to the conclusion that chuck is gone-gone. what with his repeated stated desire last episode that they're his favorite show. would presume he's just orchestrating his big farewell season arc

jay, it was too much to ask for good music throughout, i know. the music backing sam and dean's conversation at the end made me roll my eyes lol

#supernatural #spnwatch #spn 15x01 #spn musical score #jay gruska #andrew dabb #lukewarm takes

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curioussubjects · 4 years

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come be a season 12 truther with me; or what if dean and cas got together offscreen

Originally, I wrote this post to celebrate “Galaxy Brain” airing as Berens & Glynn gave us “The Future.” It’s been a while since that episode aired, and some things have changed about this meta. As such, there are multiple versions of this post floating around, so make sure to go back to the source for the most up to date version. For all intents and purposes, this post functions as a meta manifesto not unlike shipping manifestos from days of LJ past. In keeping with that tradition, this post is a close reading of Dabb Era Destiel in which I argue that by using narrative gaps, queer coding, and romance tropes, Dean and Cas are shown to be in an established relationship. Although beyond the scope of this post, it’s worth pointing out that keeping Destiel mostly off screen was a way for the creatives to bypass network censorship while still remaining true to the characters.

This post is divided into three sections. Section I focuses on giving an overview of why earlier seasons of Supernatural aren’t as compelling as season 12 as a turning point for Dean and Cas’s relationship. That said, special consideration is given to 09.06 “Heaven Can’t Wait” as a potential rest stop in our journey due to it’s significantly placed narrative gap as well as themes in the episode. However, this post isn’t going to examine season 9 trutherism in depth, though it does coexist with and allow for it. Section II analyses season 12 and proposes a timeline and justification for the shifting Destiel dynamic. Finally, Section III will offer an analysis of how Dean and Cas’s relationship has changed dramatically from previous seasons in a way that is most like the shift from a “will they or won’t they” pairing to an established one.

Before I move to Section I, I’d like to note something this post takes for granted: Dean and Cas are the main romantic subplot of Supernatural, and, in fact, their relationship is elevated to main plot for both characters in season 15. This post won’t argue about the canonicity of Dean and Cas’s feelings for each other, therefore, and so won’t spend time looking at many Destiel defining moments. I’d also like to make clear that this post also takes for granted that Destiel is being intentionally developed by the writers starting with Carver’s Era, and more so in Dabb’s.

I. Why Seasons 4 through 11 May Not be It

The tl;dr. here is that while there are many moments throughout these seasons that Dean and Cas could potentially get together, none of those moments are ideal for a bunch of reasons that can be summed up as really bad timing. I also think the narrative is actively pushing them towards a moment that works. We get plenty of stepping stones, especially once we hit seasons 8 through 11 (and 11 most of all).

Seasons 4 & 5:

I know there’s been a lot of get together fics over the years set in this time period, but I just don’t see it. Do I see them being intrigued and drawn to each other? Yes. Do I think either Cas or Dean would act on it? Nope. I’m not arguing anything re: Dean’s feelings, but with everything going at the time I find it hard to believe he’d pursue anything with his angel friend. Most importantly here, though, is that during this time Cas was still very alien and other. There was too much angel in him, and while he obviously came to care about Dean (and Sam) very much, I just can’t see him navigating the realm of human relationships. That said, seeing human!Cas in “The End” is the first we see of potential developments for how Cas could behave without his angelness interfering. Being human changes Cas a lot, beyond even his experience existing among humans, though that of course matters too. This development will be important later /wink.

Seasons 6 & 7:

Before anything else let me just recognize that if we could see some sexual tension in seasons 4 & 5, these two seasons come with our first taste of romantic tension. The pining! Also note the difference between season 4 Cas and season 6 Cas in terms of behaviour. He is much less the angel we saw in that barn in “Lazarus Rising.” In season 6, we have a Cas making misguided decisions guided entirely by his emotions – namely, not wanting to involve Dean with the war in heaven – which is peak human, honestly. Put a pin on how sad Dean is in both seasons with Cas’s absence. Finally, put a pin on this being our first moment of Cas doing things on his own to spare Dean and it not ending well (soulless!Sam, Cas “dying” after Leviathan) because this is *the* hurdle in their relationship (along with Dean’s lashing out and self-worth issues). With all this said, the marked distance between Dean and Cas in these seasons negates the possibility of them entering into any kind of relationship. Much like seasons 4 and 5, there’s too much going on.

Season 8:

Ah, yes, the summer of purgatory. If you thought we had pining before…! I think we’re all very clear on season 8 being a turning point for the show, not only because new showrunner, but we also get the bunker. TFW now has an HQ, which pretty soon becomes home. Yes, Baby will always be home, but the bunker becomes the *unmovable* safe haven that Baby couldn’t be. The bunker is a place to coalesce, and for all the amazing things Baby is, she is not that. The acquisition of the bunker marks a shift in the psychology of the show: with the stable home space we can start to imagine domesticity, a place to come home to, the stuff of ordinary living. Most of all, the bunker is emblematic of security, of safety –keep this in mind, as we go forward.

This season also continues to see Cas go down the path of independently solving his problems instead of asking for help from Sam and Dean (his family in a way heaven never was) – note that the better together issue is at play in different ways with Sam and Dean also, but I digress. I also want to point out disastrous instance #2 of Cas’s insistence on figuring it out on his own: he loses his grace, and the angels fall. As for Dean, season 8’s focus for him has much to do with Sam, and them coming face to face with their issues with codependency, which hit catastrophic levels with the gates of hell and Gadreel plots.

So despite all the deliciously angsty get together purgatory fics and spec, there’s too much distance between Dean and Cas on Cas’s part due to his guilt over betraying the Winchesters in s6 plus slaughtering angels plus unleashing Leviathan. We do see Dean being more emotionally open with Cas and continue to voicing his wish that Cas would just stay with him and Sam, and let them help. It’s clear as day how much Dean cares. The timing is still bad, though.

Before moving on to next season, let’s take a moment to appreciate that this is the season Dean admits being kinda done with one night stands because “always with the adios.” Remember the bunker as a sign of stability? Yeah. I wouldn’t say Dean is craving a relationship, exactly, but I think we can see that he does want something more (ahem also I’m nodding to Cas refusing to stay put just cause).

Seasons 9 & 10:

The most important thing to happen between this two seasons is Cas’s stint as a human for an extended period of time. There’s been plenty of spec and meta written over the years about the effects of being human on Cas’s grace (a proto-soul now maybe?). What we can say for sure, regardless, is that Cas is much more humanized once he becomes an angel again. The understanding he gets from being human doesn’t go away once he regains his angel powers. You’ll notice that while we still see some of season 4’s characterization, Cas is not the same as he was – he is alien to angels now and is more intelligible to humans. Additionally, in an interesting reversal from previous seasons, we now get to see the depth of Cas’s feelings for Dean (thanks, Metatron) as well as seeing him be more open emotionally, while Dean does most of the pushing away (first because of Gadreel, then because of the Mark of Cain). In short, the timing is still bad as Dean and Cas are largely kept apart both physically and emotionally.

9.06 Heaven Can’t Wait

This episode is my white whale, friends. While I’ve come to fully subscribe to the idea that something did happen between Dean and Cas during the fanfic gap, I don’t actually think it’s feasible that it marked the start of a relationship -- be it sexual or romantic. My reasoning here is quite simple: the timing is bad. Were it not for external events (Cas regaining his Grace and Dean taking on the MoC), the course would have likely differed. Furthermore, Dean’s guilt over making Cas leave the bunker as well as Cas’s own hurt and self-loathing pose a significant and as yet insurmountable obstacle, which is easily seen with how Dean and Cas’s character trajectories go separate ways.

YMMV on what exactly happened between them in that Motel, but something definitely did. Perhaps one day I’ll have a proper s9 trutherism post to link to here for more details (likely won’t be written by me, though).

10.16 Paint It Black

From the point Dean gets the MoC until the end of season 10, anything between him and Cas is quite impossible due to distancing, to say the least. Again, yes, the fic is really good, but alas. One of the reasons I’m bringing up this episode in particular is because of the confession scene. One, it’s a rare bit of explicit emotional honesty from Dean, and two, it tells me that while he and Cas may be well aware of the Thing™ between them, it’s still uncharted waters. It’s scary, and murky, and they’re unsure how to navigated it or if they should even try. Makes sense, too, there’s been A LOT going on since s6. Anyway, he’s the full confession:

You know, the life I live, the work I do…I pretty much just figured that that was all there was to me, you know? Tear around and jam the key in the ignition and haul ass until I ran out of gas. I guess I just thought sooner or later, I’d go out the same way that I live – pedal to the metal, and that would be it. […] Now, um… recent events, uh… make me think I might be closer to that than I really thought. And…I don’t know. I mean, you know, there’s – there’s things, there’s…people, feelings that I-I-I want to experience differently than I have before, or maybe even for the first time. […] Yeah, I’m just starting to think that… maybe there’s more to it all than I thought.

Can I just say, first, that this confession keeps me up at night because we never actually see anything done with it explicitly? I mean, obviously, I think we do in fact see the effects of this confession in the show, otherwise I wouldn’t be writing this behemoth, but still, like. Damn. Ok, so, remember when I brought up that thing in season 7 about Dean being kinda done with hook-ups? Here’s where that led us. We’re seeing a Dean here who wants more than what he has convinced himself he gets to have. He wants more than dying bloody. And when he talks about wanting to experience people and feelings differently, well, that says a lot not just on the queer coding front or the romantic front. I mean, jfc, Dean is accepting the idea that he can have more in life than just hunt until he drops, and he’s specifically talking about experiences at the interpersonal level.

Do you ever see a character having an epiphany and find yourself wanting to cry because this is it right here. Dean is just blatantly admitting he wants more and maybe he can make himself be open to that (!!!), which all culminates in season 11, so…

Season 11:

The pining is still here, but it’s worse now since it’s the whole plot? It’s been *checks calendar* 5 years of this. How are any of us still kicking I don’t know. Your slow burns could never. Cool worth noting points: Cas says yes to Lucifer (bad decision #2.5, lots of mitigating effects_I don’t actually hold it against him that much but Dean is another story & not entirely rational at this point); for the first time since the early days, Dean and Cas are on equal grounds: they’ve both fucked up a lot and have hurt each other. The issues this season are outside their dynamic. Amara and Lucifer here serve as externalizing forces for Dean and Cas’s problems: Cas checks out with Lucifer because he thinks it’s the only way he can help, Dean is caught up in the turmoil of Amara, the emblem of absence and avoidance of struggle. We do get something like an affirmation from the two of them to each other via Dean calling Cas his brother (and I want y’all to consider the historical queering of that statement, and Cas’s “I could go with you.” It feels like we’re headed to them being on the same page. By the end of the season, though, it feels like we’re getting a clean slate: Mary is back, nobody died, no end-of-the-world in sight, no interpersonal crisis. We’re also getting a new showrunner, so. No wonder. We’re gearing up for something, but I’m getting ahead of myself. What this season does that is super important is that it sets up the stage for the possibility of an actual relationship between Dean and Cas, something that has, up until this point, been pretty much impossible.

11.04 Baby

Y’all know what I’m about to quote here, right? That conversation between Dean and Sam about having something with someone who understands the life. Here we still have Dean reverting to the idea that it’s impossible, which is a direct contrast to the openness in 10.16. It’s understandable, though, considering there’s been little reason to think anything like that would be possible (see all the mess and poor timing from seasons past). The quote in question, though, marks a continuing development regarding the issues Dean is struggling with this season:

DEAN: Piper? That’s awesome. Heather. One-night wonders, man. Shoot, we’re lucky we still get that at all. SAM: Really? You don’t … Ever want something more? DEAN: I’m sorry, have you met us? We’re batting a whopping zero in domestic life, man. Goose eggs. SAM: You don’t ever think about something? Not marriage or whatever. But … Something? You know, with a hunter? Somebody who understands the life?

We wouldn’t be talking about this stuff all these years after Sam and Dean had a serious relationship if it wasn’t important, right? Also who else do we meet this season? That’s right! Eileen! And doesn’t that hit different with season 15 hindsight? And who does Dean have that understands the life? Whose stories have been intricately connected to his? Right now, this is all conjecture. A pipe dream Sam is revisiting, and Dean is skeptical about. Except, well. Look at what we get in “Into the Mystic” and “The Chitters.”

11.11 Into The Mystic

I’m bringing up this episode as a cross reference to “Paint It Black” as well as to complement the talk from “Baby,” and to show, again, that, for all the closeness between Dean and Cas, there’s still a marked distance they haven’t yet bridged. There’s still truths they haven’t told each other. Thanks Mildred for the delicious exposition:

Darlin’…If there’s one thing I’ve learned in all my years on the road, it’s when somebody’s pining for somebody else. […] Oh, don’t try and hide it now. Follow your heart. Remember?

11.19 The Chitters

And here we see some validation to Sam’s imagining of a possible future with someone else. We actually see hunters who not only are married, but they both make it out alive. Jesse and Cesar get their happy ending. They make the dream come true. And the reality of it important not just for Dean to see, but Sam too.

Dean: [with realization] Oh, so … [points back and forth to Jesse and Cesar] Cesar: Yeah. Dean: Okay, that’s… Cesar puts his beer bottle on the table and looks at Dean, while Jesse is being silent. Dean: What’s it like, settling down with a hunter? Cesar: Smelly, dirty. [turns to Jesse] Twice the worrying about getting ganked.

I’d like to point out, too, that the fear of getting ganked is thematic when it comes to the tension between Dean and Cas. More on this when we hit s13.

Alright, now, having said that, let’s take a look at season 12. Bear in mind, this is the official start of Dabb’s era, even if he kinda began taking over in season 11, and the change in vibes is obvious. In fact, 12 jumped out at me as a turning point, in hindsight, after getting smacked by the domesticity of seasons 13 and 14.

II. Why Season 12

[Out of date section. Update coming soon when spoons. After significant debate, I’ve altered the definitive start of Dean and Cas’s friend-with-benefits-with-mutual-pining relationship to between 12.02 and 12.03. I briefly explained why here, and yes it’s a shitpost--still true tho.]

Finally, the promise land, y’all. Getting right to it: what s11 was for Dean in terms of setting up the relationship stage, s12 was for Cas. In its initial beats, any way. That is, until the Kelly debacle, this was the longest Cas has been around the bunker and with the exception of seasons 13 and 14, it’s one of the first times we get to see how Cas might actually fit into the bunker-as-home. Things seem remarkably chill. Of course, we’ll notice that there’s still a lot of baggage hanging around because despite Dean and Cas being in a more stable place, they haven’t actually dealt with their interpersonal problems. I didn’t single out directly this episode, but do keep in mind Cas’s declaration in 12.09 First Blood as far as how much the Winchesters matter to Cas & how we also see Dean and Cas be particularly singled out with them seating together in the backseat of the Impala. What we also see this season is Cas trying to prove he is worthy of this family, his family. He’s not fighting for heaven or to right some grievous wrong (a la s8). No, this season he’s fighting to spare the Winchester, to bring them a win. To bring Dean a win. The major disconnect is that Dean (and Sam & Mary) already sees Cas that way, he doesn’t think Cas has anything to prove. And just maybe, Cas starts believing that too – or, at least, believing it enough.

12.10 Lily Sunders Has Some Regrets

This episode, oh my god, the goodness. In the wake of 12.09 we have Dean and Cas in a tiff because Cas mistake #3 (killing Billie and “cosmic consequences”), this is a pattern. Twice the worry of getting ganked, etc etc. But where this episode really shines is through the contrast between Ishim’s obsession with Lily and Cas & Dean’s mutual affection for each other. Ishim sees no difference here and, to him, Cas’s feelings for Dean are a human weakness. Returning to my point about human!Cas, this episode underscores that Cas’s increasing humanity is what puts him in the place where he can want what Dean wants instead of either being too alien to get it (see s4 & 5) or unable to experience it properly (Ishim).

12.12 Stuck in the Middle (With You)

Cas’s trajectory culminates here with the whole I love you (@ Dean), I love all of you (@ Winchesters). Let’s note too that Cas is dying here, in a way that is much more human than going up in light. This declaration of different types of love is entirely human. It’s also a definitive step wrt to Cas and Dean’s relationship because of what happens in 12.19. This. is. it. Oh, and, of course, let’s not forget to point to Dean’s face when Cas says that “I love you,” and how terrified he is that Cas is dying. Might make one rethink some things, hm?

12.19 The Future

This episode is simply hella suspicious, and all the kudos to Berens and Glynn for writing it. It’ll haunt me forever. Consider watching it again and just questioning everything. So. Weird things:

1. Dean’s reaction to Cas no getting in touch as opposed to Sam’s. Dean is pissed, which is Dean-speak for worried out of his mind. Sam is very worried, too, and puzzled, but he’s mostly expressing his relief that Cas is back. But Cas has gone awol before, but this time Dean is much more worked up about it; Sam takes note of this, too. Now, let’s imagine that maybe the events of 12.12 led to something happening between Dean and Cas. Then Cas decided to leave to find a lead on Kelly, but eventually Cas decides to work with Heaven and goes radio silent. For days. Having taken a chance, and something having happened between them, how would Dean react to Cas just going poof and not contacting him – despite Dean having called Cas multiple times.

2. Cas knows about the Colt. Ok, nothing off there. But when he goes to Dean’s room to talk, right after Dean leaves we see Cas looking around briefly. Like he know Dean would keep it in there. Maybe Cas had looked other places already. Who knows. What we do know is that eventually he does find the Colt not only in Dean’s room, but under Dean’s pillow. Sam didn’t even know the Colt wasn’t in the safe. So how did Cas know?

3.“He came into my room and he played me.” So, this quote right there, makes it seem like some seduction for personal gain, right? But can you see Cas actually doing that if they hadn’t gone there previously? For Dean not to suspect anything and go with it? There’s plenty of plausible deniability here, but the gaps in time in the narrative make me question what is there in those spaces. The scene where Cas tried to give Dean the mixtape back doesn’t read like “playing,” so it’s about a different interaction. Hm. Hmmm.

4. Dean and Cas’s brief conversation in Dean’s room is clearly Dean just wanting Cas to stay, so they can work (and be) together – because they’re better that way. Which, yeah, truth, but also ow.

5.And most importantly: When did Dean give Cas that mixtape??? How did that happen?

Sequence of events: Cas tells Dean he loves him – Dean is clearly shook by it – Dean gives Cas a mixtape (romantic gesture, often a declaration of feelings; in true Dean speak too lolsobs) – Cas goes awol - Dean acts like he got ghosted by his new bf -?????- Cas somehow knows the Colt is under Dean’s pillow – "He went into my room and he played me."

What am I supposed to do with that, hm? Like. Y’all realize they probably had some emotionally constipated getting together moment, right? Something that Dean clearly initially thought meant things were gonna change, now. Something that Cas couldn’t allow to happen until he could give Dean a win. Y’all are seeing this, yeah? I’m not saying they slept together and were full of feelings, except that’s kind of what I’m saying. But YMMV, there are other possibilities beyond sex. The full of feelings isn’t up for debate, though, even if the whole thing is informed by ridiculous amounts of miscommunication.

III. Seasons 13 through 15 As Established Relationship

Regardless of what happened in season 12, exactly, I can’t shake the feeling that something did happen, and something did change. My reasoning here is actually really simple: in comparison to previous seasons, Dean and Cas’s dynamic shifts significantly come season 13. I know some folks have been disappointed with some of season 13 and then season 14 for having dialed back on the destiel side of things. And, hey, maybe there’s truth to that in terms of backstage stuff, but I also want to point out that...well, the dialing back isn’t quite dialing back is it? Let’s look at 13 a little more closely:

Season 13:

So I said the deancas dynamic changed, right? I also think that change caught us unaware because the pivotal turning point that would cue us in never happened on screen as well as being subsumed by Cas’s death and Jack’s birth. But if I ask you about deancas in season 13 what would come to mind? Grief arc? Brokebacknatural? How domestic Dean and Cas are? There’s just something easy about their relationship after Cas returns from the Empty. The tension we’d grown so familiar with over the years is gone. Actually, it feels like we skipped the getting together bit of their relationship and went straight to established relationship and parenting. Some of the most peak married deancas moments we see circulating? Season 13, (and 12.10). It’s a lot, and it’s different, and it’s amazing.

13.01-13.05

Dean’s grief mini-arc. He was acting like a widower. Here’s me vaguely gesturing towards the mapping of Jonh, Mary, Dean, and Sam onto Dean, Cas, Sam, and Jack. And the reunion? I can’t help but be giddy at the song choice: “it’s never too late to start all over again.” To. Start. All. Over. Again. I’m just saying.

13.06 Tombstone & 13.16 Scoobynatural

I’m not going at length about these episodes, I just want to point out that they reveal that Dean and Cas have a whole thing going on off screen: they watch movies together, Cas knows about Dean being an angry sleeper, Cas seems to have been aware of the Dean-cave before Sam was. It’s little things like this that are examples of the narrative gaps surrounding Dean and Cas that have cropped up over the years. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to wonder what else could be hiding there. And when did the movie nights alluded in “Tombstone” happen? Maybe in season 12 when Cas in hanging around the bunker? The same period when Dean and Cas seem to be coalescing into something safer and more stable? Something that we never see come to a head because plot happens and Cas dies? Something that is immediately taken back up once Cas is alive again?

Season 14:

Overall, this season is more of what we got during 13, but it had two high notes I wanted to single out before ending this already too long post.

14.15 Peace of Mind

Look me in the eye and tell me Dean and Cas talking in the kitchen about Jack doesn’t read like husbands talking about their child. Look me in the eye and tell me Cas just texting Dean to gossip about Sam isn’t couple-y as hell.

14.18-14.20

Ah, yes, the divorce arc. Awful. Terrible. The culmination of Dean’s problem in all this: he lashes out, he pushes Cas away, his anger is alienating. Cue all of us suffering. But while Dean is clearly in the wrong in how the deals with his feelings, let’s not pretend some of his anger doesn’t come from a long established, and unaddressed, rift between him and Cas, which had its last traumatic turn when Cas died in s12. Dean isn’t being rational here: he saw Cas doing something on his own, and he saw that his mother is dead. What else could happen? Why won’t Cas just trust they can work as a team? What if Cas died again? And why should Cas put up with Dean’s behavior without knowing the cause? How can any relationship work this way? But notice how caught in the middle Sam was during all this. Notice how Jack is running off and acting out. The whole family is falling apart. Divorce arc, indeed.

Season 15:

But what about what we’re building up in 15? That seems like it could be a getting together plot, too, right? Well, yeah. It could very well be. But I’d argue the tension we’re seeing isn’t a will-they-or-won’t-they because they already have. We’re are watching a getting back together plot! The tension is, instead, will-they-or -won’t-they use their words to talk about the baggage that has kept them from truly being confident about their relationship. That’s the crucial step in their togetherness that they’re still missing, which is also the bedrock of the divorce arc that spanned twelve fucking episodes -- y’all, that’s half a season.

And technically? We’re not even done with yet because Cas never let Dean finish his prayer/confession in purgatory. What’s more, Cas hasn’t grappled with his role in the breakdown of their relationship, either: that he keeps going off on his own and getting hurt (and getting other people hurt), and Dean has to deal with the fallout. The deep emotional understanding, the truly being on the same page is what we’re on the edge of our seats for. We’re waiting to see what else Dean had to say, and what will happen when Cas’s deal with the Empty comes to light.

Finally, could we still have this plot without Dean and Cas having gotten together off screen? Sure, but I think the stakes are higher if they already did have something between them. If they actually have an established romantic relationship going on. Something real and tangible and as of yet much too fragile.

"...you asked what about all this is real. We are."

#destiel #deancas #supernatural #spn #spn meta #this thing is gargantuan yikes #anyway enjoy? let's chat #my writing #this thing is half meta half my adhd unleashed

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norahastuff · 3 years

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I agree with you that there were ways to work around the bi Dean thing. But I’ve noticed a pattern. This always happens when things get too gay. They regress to old bibro ways. They get scared and go back to the one thing they can always count on. Sam Dean & impala. The great gay s8 was followed by no homo (you can’t stay because of *Sam*). The s12-13 escalation made Deans feelings so loud. Then again they regressed to bibroness and in s14 we had Dean bullying Cas just to hammer it in.

I mean I understand your frustration post-finale because Dean and Cas didn’t get a satisfying conclusion to their arc, in whatever form that may be but I guess I just don’t agree with the rest of it.

All that stuff you pointed to, those were all story arcs. Dean didn’t send Cas away in s9 to put a halt to any relationship developments between them, he did it because the story was how Sam and Dean’s desire to save each other at whatever cost was toxic to the people around them and the other relationships in their lives. That’s the whole point of the Carver era. We go from Benny and Amelia to Cas, to Kevin to Charlie (which is a whole different conversation) to eventually the whole world. Hell, the whole “Dean having to leave Cas for Sam’s sake even though that’s not what he wants at all” thing in 9x06 is immediately followed by 9x07, an episode where we see flashbacks to where he has to leave his first love Robin and a happy home because Sammy needs him.

You can argue about the execution, on my first watch I was very frustrated that they never showed us the reason Dean gave Cas for why he had to leave - though I now suppose the point was Dean didn’t really have a good reason and newly human Cas was supposed to be confused and upset about the whole thing and not understand why this was happening, but your mileage may vary.

In regards to the s12-13 thing...I guess I just don’t get that one? Dean’s feelings for Cas were given a long extended focus, especially how differently he felt for him than Sam did. Cas coming back and Dean getting his faith back, that was huge for him, but the point wasn’t just that Dean just needs Cas and then everything’s going to be ok. It was a very important turning point for him and highlighted just how central a role Cas played in his life, but Dean has other issues. His self-worth, his guilt when he thinks he can’t save the people he loves, his father’s conditioning that made him feel like he was just a blunt instrument, all that doesn’t just go away because he got Cas back. That’s what the second half of s13 was building to - Dean being pushed to his lowest by losing all the people he loves and getting them all back (Cas, Mary, Sam, Jack), and then just when he thinks he’s ok, losing them again. So he does what he thinks he’s good for and says yes to Michael.

And boy do I absolutely not think s14 was in any way trying to erase Dean and Cas’ relationship. The whole Michael arc was to highlight all of Dean’s repressed insecurities and issues. Facing John and putting that ghost to rest, letting go of some of the trauma that John had inflicted on him and choosing not to allow it to poison who he was now and the family he built acknowledging that he was good with his life...that was all really important stuff for Dean to go through. And then of course everything blows up with Mary, Jack, and God and Free Will, because you’re watching Supernatural and that’s how it works.

As for Dean “bullying” Cas...Ummm what? That arc you were talking about in s12-13 after which you said they regressed the Dean and Cas story, this was the follow up to that. Because yeah we learned a lot about Dean and Cas and how they felt during that time. Then Cas returned and it seemed like everything was business as usual. Except it wasn’t. Dean being angry at Cas about the whole Mary thing wasn’t about Mary. This was a setup for them finally having to address their issues for real, issues that always got swept under the rug because there was bigger life or death stuff that was more important than their feelings. But then Cas said enough. He wasn’t going to play that game anymore. Dean needed to face up to himself. Ever since s8, their dynamic has been Dean thinking Cas doesn’t want to stay with him because he doesn’t care, and Cas leaving because he thinks Dean doesn’t care enough to ask him to stay. 14x18-15x09 was another arc heavily focused on this whole thing, eventually culminating in their trip to Purgatory and Dean’s prayer.

And then don’t even get me started on how 15x18 and Cas’ confession takes essentially all the above elements and uses them to show just how well Cas knows and understands Dean and how important he is for Dean’s journey to self-acceptance and peace (the well-constructed arc of their relationship hits a wall for me at the whole Dean refusing to kill Chuck part of 15x19 so that’s as far as I’m talking about when I’m saying all this.)

I’m not making any of this up. This isn’t me reading into something that wasn’t there. That’s the narrative and what has happened between them over the course of the show. It’s not all that’s happened. There were a lot of detours and other plots etc that maybe sometimes weren’t all that good. There have been over 300 episodes, 15 seasons with most seasons having more than 20+ episodes. This show is not known for speeding through emotional growth or rapidly advancing relationship developments. It was long-running. These things unspooled slowly - sometimes too slowly and at times to the point where it wasn’t particularly fun or interesting to watch (s10 I’m looking at you.)

Look this show is not just about Dean and Cas. Yes their relationship is a vital and core element both for each other and the show, but ultimately the central relationship in this show was Sam and Dean, and looking at any time the show wasn’t solely focused on just Dean and Cas’ romantic feelings for each other and saying it was just a “no homo” is just not the way I ever looked at it. And also some of the times that there were low points or lulls in their relationship it made sense in relation to the greater story, and again your mileage may vary on how well they handled it, this show was certainly not always good with pacing or execution and no matter what else was going on, it was always going to stay beholden to the “two brothers in a car hunting monsters” formula, so their refusal/inability to separate Sam and Dean for more than 2 episodes at a time was always going to put a crimp in certain plots. You can like that or not (I personally was often frustrated by this) but it is what it is.

Like I’m on s5 in my rewatch right now and it’s crazy how differently Dean and Cas’ relationship was written back then as opposed to in s8. He consistently became coded as a different figure in Dean’s life than he was before and he’s important in a whole different way. It’s when they start leaning properly into the whole concept of Dean needing Cas on an emotional level, not just to help fight or to save them or whatever, but rather just because he cares deeply about him and needs him by his side. (There’s also a whole other post about the whole Dean and love interests thing in s1-6 vs s8/9-15 and how narratively that completely changed and how often Cas was slotted into that position or pointed to as potential for that but that’s a longer conversation and involves a discussion about subtext vs text, and since this is long enough I’ll just leave it at that for now.)

I’m not going to sit here and defend the finale. Personally, my issues with how Dean and Cas’ relationship were handled in that episode aren’t even about the “no homo” of it all but if you think that’s what it was and that’s what they were doing, that’s completely valid and I’m certainly not going to argue with you. But there’s a reason I liked this show, there’s a reason it was so interesting to follow the trajectory of these characters and relationships and all of that doesn’t suddenly get erased because the end didn’t satisfyingly conclude their arc. All of the rest of it still happened. It’s still there.

#asks #you don't have to agree with me anon #but that's how i always saw it #destiel #my spn thoughts #Anonymous

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mittensmorgul · 5 years

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FYI everyone, there... is just too much meta to this episode.

This is chuck actively manipulating the ENTIRE story and slapdashing elements from pretty much the ENTIRE history of the show together until he hits on a combination of events and themes that “works” to get the ending he wants.

It’s horrifying, and manic, and BRILLIANT on the part of *our* writers, but Chuck-As-Author... is desperate, and his entire story is falling down around him. He’s been pushed to “write an ending,” instead of just being able to fly off to create another universe to bother, because he CAN’T fly off or create another universe.

He’s stuck here, going through every failed draft he’s ever written, because he can’t let go of the “one brother kills the other” ending he thinks is the best ending to his story. This is why every since draft he’d ever written before was doomed to fail. The one “successful” draft? The one where Sam and Dean chose to save each other. Over and over again.

(well, with a LOT of help along the way from Cas.)

This episode started out looking exactly like an inversion of 1.02, Wendigo. Friends camping in the woods, two doomed to die at the hands of a pair of brother werewolves who’d sworn off eating humans, after one of the brothers decided he was a monster and would never stop hunting humans or being a monster. And this pinged... SO many other episodes.

The entire werewolf plot sounded so much like Cain in 10.14 when he told Dean he would never stop killing, when Dean was begging to know if he even COULD stop, before executing him. And also, Cain in 9.11 when he asked Dean why he’d saved his own brother instead of killing him. Because this had been Chuck’s recurring story, over and over again. Kill the sibling (ostensibly to save them from monstrousness), kill the lover (while trying to save them from monstrousness), live in misery forever.

CHARMING!

But then we had Lilith show up, as a MASSIVE inversion of the entire plot of 4.18. All of that was Chuck’s story, too. This entire episode not only stood all of 4.18 on its head, it gave Lilith license to critique Chuck’s entire body of work. And even HER critique was scathing.

SHE WAS A PLOT DEVICE. She couldn’t act outside of the lines that Chuck had written for her, though she could hate those lines, and actively say so. Regardless of if this was OG Lilith or Chuck having “remade” her to serve this function within this episode, she still was able to comment on the metanarrative of the entire episode.

My head is spinning, in the best possible way.

There were callbacks to s5 and Lucifer-possessed Sam killing Dean (with FIRE this time! which also felt like a direct callback to s6 and s7 and Sam’s Halluciferations), to s9 and s10 with MoC Dean killing Sam (with the first blade this time!).

Then there was the melting of the Equalizer gun, as if that would actually solve any of Chuck’s problems. He’s already been shot, you know? The damage has been done. Granted, Sam and Dean don’t have it as a last resort weapon anymore, but would either of them WANT to use it, knowing full well how it works? One of them would’ve still had to die to fire it at Chuck. And the whole POINT of all of this is that NEITHER of them should have to die for Chuck’s dumbass, nonsensical story.

Which Lilith critiques REPEATEDLY.

Hold that thought for a second. The melting of the Equalizer looked an AWFUL lot like Dagon melting the Colt. Flashback to 12.19 for that one. Chuck doesn’t want them to have too much power. It makes things too easy for them, and gives them a way to keep saving each other instead of one of them killing the other. Okay, back to where we were.

I mean, even going back to 4.18, I’ve written A LOT about this episode, and specifically about how in hindsight from a post s11 universe it all looks like a test of Chuck’s Personal Emergency Broadcasting Network. Like Chuck wanted to see just how much power and control he had over the story, by specifically engineering this outlandish sequence of events from writing himself into the story as a “prophet” to the ridiculous “Dean seeing stars and having cartoon bandaids on his face.” He wanted to test his own power to manipulate events to his own liking.

But here’s the kicker... Lilith has come back into the story in s15 despite all logic, despite all ability to predict her arrival, WITH THE EXACT SAME STUPID PRETENCE. This time it was to “seduce Dean,” when last time it was to seduce Sam.

AND YET! BOTH TIMES SHE COMPLETELY FAILED TO DO THAT.

Dean brought Chuck to the assignation at gunpoint to draw down the Archangel protecting him to drive Lilith off. Prophecy the First averted. This time, Dean... just had to be himself. Not the kind of person who would take advantage of a terrified and wounded recent college grad. I mean, if Lilith’s “performance” was really Chuck’s attempt at “seduction” it tells us SO MUCH about who Chuck THINKS Dean is, versus who Dean actually is, you know? And this is exactly why Chuck’s story has failed over and over again.

Chuck... has no idea what the fuck he’s writing.

And it’s fucking glorious.

And now? Sam and Dean are 100% aware of the fact.

Of course, Dean’s despondent over the fact. He just wanted to be free. He wanted to think his life was finally his own. But it hadn’t been, all this time he’s still be under Chuck’s thumb. And now he’s so broken he doesn’t know if it’s even possible to win against Chuck, with all his terrible storytelling directly influencing their lives in perpetuity. How do you win against God? How do you win your way free of his terrible story? When every time you think you’ve won, he just keeps writing a new, worse scenario for you?

(and honestly, even when they DO die, he just brings them back and makes them start again! there’s no escape! It could go on forever!)

I wonder what terrible thing he’ll write into their lives next week!

Oh, wait, one of the witches in the promo for 15.06 was the actress who played Sera Siege in 4.18, aka Chuck’s agent! Aka the woman who grilled Sam and Dean about facts from the books and gave them Chuck’s address! Whose name was a conglomeration of Sera Gamble and Julie Siege-- two writers of Supernatural!

So Chuck really is the monster at the end of this book, and Dabb’s final act will be dismantling his entire reign of terror over the lives of Team Free Will.

I... am entirely here for this ride.

#spn s15 spoilers #spn 15.05

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s-cornelius · 7 years

Text

12x18-12x20 Scorecards!

12x18 The Memory Remains: B+

12x19 The Future: A

12x20 Twigs & Twine & Tasha Banes: A

I thought about watching and scoring a few more episodes for this batch, but I think these three are a great examination of the idea of legacy and family (legacy goes all the way back to the introduction of the MoL, and family has been an important theme so far, but it explodes in these three episodes). These episodes ask the questions: who is your family? what are you willing to do for them? and what is your legacy?

Characters make “bad” decisions. The brothers in 12x18 continue a dark family legacy of killing for a god that provides them with prosperity. Cas hurts and betrays the Winchesters to help the Angels; then to help the nephilim. Max Banes takes up the dark burden to create a simulacrum (?) of his sister, bringing her back to life (permanently?) and damning himself. But they are all decisions made for the sake of family or legacy--these are characters doing what they think they have to do. I think it’s very satisfying in this part of the season to see characters making choices, and making bad choices--even if they are unintended bad choices--and having to deal with the consequences. Max didn’t know he was making a bad choice when he was being flippant about his mother missing (even though she was already dead), but that guilt about his behavior drove him to take up the witch’s burden. (Going back a few episodes, Eileen didn’t know she was making a bad decision when she tried to kill Dagon and hit the BMoL dude instead, but the dude is still dead and the BMoL still have a code.)

And this has been the Winchesters M.O. from the start--a bad choice is justified if it protects the family. They are willing to risk death, damnation, loss of bodily autonomy, etc. if it will save the other brother. It has been frustrating in past seasons when that has been framed as a good thing. In this season, it is explicitly in the text, as well as in narrative mirrors, a bad thing.

Individual scorecards under the cut!

12x18 The Memory Remains

(Written by: John Bring, Directed by: Phil Sgriccia)

THE BAD:

I don’t know if it’s the actor or if it’s directing choices, but the sheriff's line readings are odd.

The cold breath effect while Dean’s in the freezer looks so fake haha

THE GOOD:

That’s a damn fine shot from Daryn in the freezer to Sam and Dean walking by with the sounds of the factory drowning out Daryn’s shouting.

It’s nice having the colt back from a purely aesthetic perspective because the boys sure look good holding it :D (it’s very stylish)

I like the uptempo jazzy music while the BMoL are in the bunker. It’s the first time I’ve been interested in a scene they’re in.

“Hunting people. Killing them. The family business.”

It’s nice to get an overt conversation about legacy since I’ve talked a lot about it in the past (see here)

SCORE: B+

STRAY THOUGHTS: More fucked up families for this season of fucked up families. And uh oh Ketch is getting creepy (well, creepier).

12x19 The Future

(Written by: Robert Berens and Meredith Glynn, Directed by: Amanda Tapping)

THE BAD:

Joshua’s now a boring ass white dude? Well at least he didn’t last long

THE GOOD:

AMANDA TAPPING!!!!

This is a good scene with Dean and Cas. It’s been so long since they’ve had a scene together that I’d forgotten how good they are together.

Kelly’s faith in her baby reminds me of s4 Castiel a little, so it makes sense that Castiel would get on the nephilim bandwagon.

SCORE: A STRAY THOUGHTS: A very well-done myth arc plot episode. Cas stealing the colt and making Dean go unconscious (as Dean says “don’t!”) hurt, but the good kind of this-is-written-well kind of hurt.

(Tho apparently no one watched it according to SuperWiki haha. It has the lowest rating of any episode of spn)

12x20 Twigs & Twine & Tasha Banes

(Written by: Steve Yockey, Directed by: Richard Speight)

THE BAD:

I don’t really have anything. This wasn’t an episode that made me the most excited (which is why it’s not an A+), but it is very good.

THE GOOD:

I love Max and Alicia :D

I love the colors in this episode. There’s a lot of purple and green and it looks really great. I know people miss the desaturated palate of the earlier seasons, but this is a good argument for color)

SCORE: A STRAY THOUGHTS: This might be another “I’m getting old” thing, but the actress who plays Tasha doesn’t look old enough to have children who are in their 20s …

More fucked up/tragic families :(

I know a lot of people were upset with this episode when it came out but holy shit, I thought it was great. I think Supernatural has a genre problem sometimes--it has horror roots, but it’s hard to sustain a horror story across a whole season, so you get a sort of action-adventure arc with occult themes. But on an episode to episode basis, the genre can be straight up horror, thriller, adventure, mystery, sci-fi, southern gothic, etc., and that sometimes works really well, and sometimes not so much. I think the best episodes often know what their genre is, and know what the genre conventions are. This was a horror story--not in the jump-out-and-scare-you sense--but in the slow march of inevitability sense. Tasha Banes is dead very shortly after the episode begins, and even though Supernatural likes to bring people back, that is not this story. She’s dead, and it’s just a matter of time before her children find out.

This is a story about witches, but more than that, human choices, and that makes for the best kind of horror. What would you do for your family? What exceptions would you make? It’s something that’s been kicking around in the past few episodes of this season (since at least 12x13 where I picked up watching again), and Max makes the bad decision. Max essentially makes the decision Dean made at the beginning of s9, but with extra damnation added on top.

#meta saloon #spn #s12 scorecard #spn meta #adjacent #12x18 #12x19 #12x20

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elizabethrobertajones · 7 years

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Hey you, during the course of this season i Have seen more and more people leave the fandom or grow disinterested in spn, and im confused why that it. I get why maybe s12 wouldnt be a fave season but if I look at the wank and bads of the previous ones (destiel fiasco in/out the show s9, charlies death Dean cruelty to Cas in s10, Dean/baby love interest s11) s12 didnt really do much that would drive people away en masse I feel? Yet it seems like more people left it :(

Heya! :D

Idk, maybe it was that more vocal people drifted off? I always feel like people’s attention spans are usually only a few years or so. I mean, I feel like I’ve been in the fandom a Long Time and I’ve only been here since the end of season 9, so really this is only my 3rd hiatus, and coming up to 4th year watching with fandom, on a 12 year show I’ve been watching for nearly 10 years, for the most part as a moderately casual viewer… I think I clock up about 5 years major interest and then drift, based on me vs several other things like how invested I was in LotR or Harry Potter or Animorphs, or whatever (to go back in time to my pre-teen interests :P) and it’s not a bad thing and I still love 2 of those franchises and have engagement in them but back to being a casual fan (if “religiously watches LotR at Christmas” is casual allowing for cultural/social stuff, but I’m not composing Legolas/Aragon smut in my teenage journal in secret code any more :P)

Anyway the season 8 bubble of fandom could be deflating about now - that’s long enough for people to feel they’ve given the show their full attention and it’s still going so it’s getting tiring. That’s the major feeling I get - people are exhausted and we had a baby boomer fandom around season 8 so that ~generation~ of fans is now reaching the natural end of its attention span in a very human natural way. But there’s a ton of new or newer fans who are still enjoying the heck out of it, and the fandom’s still huge and full of people with a commitment to the show or ships. And some people don’t work like that and are loyal from start to finish or commit to TV shows fully to see them to their end. I would dump a show I was getting bored of but come back to watch the end later in a big marathon to find out what happened, but Supernatural hasn’t given me a reason to get totally un-invested until that time… I suspect a lot of people will watch the entire show ONE DAY but don’t want to do fandom and give it all their leisure time any more either.

[under a cut for meandering rambling]

But yeah I think you’ve named some pretty big mass exodus moments (I would like to clarify “Dean/baby” is “Dean/Amara-as-an-infant” right? Because Dean/Baby totally was a thing in 11x04 and it was GLORIOUS :P) and I feel like I DID lose people from my dash all through the time I’ve been watching. Heck, I hit up fandom right after 9x18, and started following people, and that was the JIB of “we don’t play it that way” so I immediately was following several abandoned blogs and I’d barely even started to get to know the landscape :P I feel like people HAVE been jumping ship the entire time and I remember most of those instances as sadly clearing several favourite people off my dash or turning them into different fandom blogs that I eventually unfollowed out of confusion…

I don’t know, I think people leave when they want to leave because as long as you like the core of a thing and it holds your interest, you can forgive or ignore or scowl at but hold out for better the bad bits and problematic parts. I’m sort of weary of them killing all the women and PoC but I’m still at the stage where I identify it sucks, but I still care too much about the main characters that I’m sort of stuck on this ride with them.

(I have 2x21 paused on the screen next to me right as Sam meets all the special children, aka introducing Lily the lesbian who dies horribly as a disposable red shirt to show how awful this situation is, and Jake, a black guy whose power is being super strong and to fall to Azazel’s manipulation, kill Sam, and then get killed with extreme overkill by Sam. In the same season he set the cops on Gordon, also a black man who was really aggro and cruel, but in the next season becomes a monster and Sam kills him also one of the most brutal kills he has up there with Jake. Basically, the show’s always had some issues and if we carried on watching all the way to season 12, well, apply self-reflection, but at this point if you’ve been watching as long as I have, you just kind of accept the show sucks at certain things, and for ME personally it’s not kicking off the sort of weariness that others felt about Billie and Alicia and Eileen being killed off this season)

… I don’t really have a point, expect about the demographics of fandom during season 8 getting to the end of their interest now. I don’t think EVERYONE who did will leave, and we’re getting fresh blood all the time, but I think that’s just part of the nature of being in fandom. I don’t think season 12 is particularly bad from my experience, although some pretty high profile bloggers have gotten exhausted - again, they’ve been maintaining blogs and producing content since single digit seasons so they’ve contributed a LOT to the fandom and there’s a fatigue about contribution as well…

That’s partially why I meta and gif and write fic and occasionally make random shitposts… I don’t want to burn out because any one of those things on its own can get pretty boring, even writing fic. Or especially, idk, as a writer I tend to bounce around projects, so this is keeping me weirdly focused on writing my original fiction on one side of my brain and fan fic on the other and it seems to be a better way of splitting my attention… But I digress. :P

I know how to manage my own brain to some degree but I have a lot of time to contemplate and self-reflect on why I’m in fandom and what I get out of it, and mostly I just conclude I’m bored and house-bound and I’ve found a few tried and tested things that get me some positive attention in a non-weird rat with a pleasure button way like people running hate blogs or something… But I know my own head and that I can get bored of stuff so I marathon a lot of other shows and think about other things than fandom stuff as much as possible and just let this be the gutter my brain drains into when my attention span is too shot to hell to do anything else and I just want to slump over a keyboard and do the easiest activity I know bar playing Animal Crossing for hours.

Other people with busier lives and actual jobs and energy and limbs that don’t just randomly stop working when they do anything for more than 5 minutes and so on might not be casual fans but they make a certain space in their life for fandom and get out of it what they need but it’s a high quality demand thing so if their carefully allocated me-time isn’t rewarding them like it should it’s totally their right to go find another OTP to amuse themselves with a fandom producing stuff they want to see and a media source that’s giving them what they want immediately and in a way they don’t have to “look for scraps” as some people were saying about Destiel in season 9, 10 and 11 while things were thinner on the ground.

And as one of the too-much-free-time fandom contributors, I’ve got an enormous luxury to stick out things people who don’t have time for being jerked around or over-analysing to find what they want to see have… Although I’ll try and pass on my thoughts for the people with less time to think them to try and help them enjoy themselves as much as possible :P Anyway I think a whole range of reasons happen that people might get fatigued of the show especially as lives change and people blogging enthusiastically one day might get a job or a new relationship or a dog or SOMETHING and just not spend quite so much time online and then discover they don’t NEED to spend so much time on fandom, and drift naturally… Then try and find some reason on the show they’ve stopped watching, but often it’s just that things look worse after time away when the spark has started to fade because it’s not being nurtured in the same way any more.

And 12 years is a LONG ASS TIME to be invested in something, so I think in general the fatigue or changing interests is all over the place and we might see it more and more as people drift… People who might watch it all as a catch up one day maybe a year or two after the show ends, but just don’t have the patience to stay in fandom and put in that energy over and over and over.

Also the show is in a really weird place where it has some of the best writers it’s ever had in Berens and the newbie writers, and Dabb’s doing some fascinating things with the plot, but Buckleming are the executors of the story, in several interpretations of that phrase :P And there are people who skip MotW and find them unimportant or would judge the season on the plot, not the heart of the story… It’s a pretty precarious place, quality-wise. I think season 11 and 12 are a proper like, silver age revival of the MotW (with Nancy Won and Robbie giving last season a massive boost) where I think those episodes are really innovative and interesting, and the writers are being allowed a lot of freedom to play on THOSE canvases, but while the character development and *reasons* for the story have been fascinating and important, obviously 5 of the plot episodes this latest season were Buckleming and crucial to watch to know wtf was going on, even though the writers of those episodes seem to have such a terrible problem with hating the audience (literally, it’s in their scripts and off-screen comments), the genre, second drafts, common human decency towards characters and understanding why they’re important, pacing, you name it… :P So the show literally has 2 faces these days and depending on which one you see when you think of season 12, probably defines how you feel about the show as a whole and all that. I treat the plot episodes these days as a necessary evil between episodes written by people who actually like the show and care about it and its characters (see also: my non-stop sobbing about 12x22 since it aired)… But seeing the other face can really cast a cloud over the show and I’ve seen it make people wonder why the other writers even try. (I mean Perez did an incredible salvage job on Crowley in 12x15 only for it to immediately get yanked away again the next time BL wrote him and I think only they really got to play with him for the rest of the season, meaning all that work to make it seem important and thematically relevant that Perez had set up in 12x12 and messed with in 12x15 ended up being for nothing and Dabb had no time to do anything deep with Crowley, because 12x13 turns out to be the big Crowley & Rowena farewell episode, except for how it flubbed the entire premise of Grand Send Off Episode a la 7x10 or something despite all the ingredients being there…)

I am just rambling now so… Gonna hit post. Hope this makes sense :P This is just my interpretation of how people are feeling/how fandom as an entity seems to work, so it’s pretty subjective and others might feel very differently especially people who have been in negative echo chambers while I’ve built myself a reasonably positive one plus SENSIBLE and CONSTRUCTIVE wanky criticism that doesn’t go off the deep end :P

#Asks #fandom problems #dabb vs cars

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mittensmorgul · 5 years

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I was watching the ep where they got Cas back after Lucifer stabbed him and I couldn't help but think "dang, it's a shame all this is still subtext." And then it dawned on me that it's not subtext. That if Cas were a woman, there'd be no doubt that her coming back was the pivotal moment for Dean that season. But they didn't outright confirm it because they don't think they had to. It's not subtext just because they don't spell it out. But we're conditioned to think that way with same sex ships.

hrrrrmmmmm... see I waffle back and forth between feeling like this is a postulation that could be useful for people who claim they don’t see it, and feeling like I need to douse myself with purell for even having to consider it, you know?

I tend to file this information under “things that make me slightly uncomfortable while also being a useful tool for people who are open-minded but just might need a little nudge into understanding what being bisexual feels like sometimes...”

I mean, dig back through my pages of posts in my “casual viewer stories with mr mittens” tag and somewhere there’s a post from like s9 (it was years ago) where he said “if Cas had been in a female vessel, he and Dean would’ve been married by now.” And somewhere else where he said, “too bad Dean’s straight.” And just... when he said these things (out of the blue, randomly) I’d been so caught off guard I kinda just blinked and stared at him like... who said Dean’s straight? but unfortunately didn’t actually say it out loud.

I was just... so dang flummoxed that anyone could look at Dean and not think he was a repressed, closeted bi. But then I remember straight people exist, and I’m married to one, and realize that yes, this CAN be a helpful tool to explain the dynamic we see constantly between Dean and Cas.

Because bisexual people exist. *waves hello* And sometimes bisexual people NEVER jump out of the closet. Sometimes we just think it’s easier to stick to what’s more socially acceptable (especially for someone like Dean who lived most of his life on the road with no attachments... strange small town where he’ll be for a few days at a time? Usually easier to draw less attention to himself by hooking up with a woman than DOUBLY putting himself at risk when he’s trying to maintain a cover id for a case and not getting himself run out of town for hitting on the wrong dude...). Not to mention the generation Dean was raised in, the lifestyle he has led (hunting seemed to be SUPER heavy on the dudebro types until their more recent reintroduction to the community through Jody’s hunder connections, the Witch Twins, etc.), and the transience of his life for years and years, believing he would never be able to actually HAVE any sort of long-term relationship at all. For a one-night stand? Sometimes it’s easier to play straight, especially in a lot of the sorts of towns we’ve seen them visit on the show (yes it’s 2019 and people need to wake up to the fact that bisexuality is real, but hooooooboy there’s still a lot of homophobia out there, and I get it).

SO! All that said... yeah, if someone REALLY just doesn’t understand where we’re seeing all this destiel subtext (and text tbh), then asking that simple question and inviting them to ponder the ENTIRE series again under that What If scenario... well, if that person STILL thinks Dean and Cas would just be pals, then I don’t think there’s any hope for them at all.

If their ONLY objection remains, “Well, but Cas is STILL in a dudesuit, and Dean is STILL straight, so...”, then I invite them to remember that bisexuality is a real thing, and that some bisexual people NEVER actually come out of the closet (which is TOTALLY FINE and A PERSONAL CHOICE and it’s always best to do what’s safest and most comfortable for yourself), and some only admit it to themselves later in life when they DO feel safe and comfortable enough to settle down that way... or until they discover they’ve fallen in love with their best friend and to their eternal wonder they discover their friend has also fallen in love with them...

Sometimes that’s just how things happen.

But I like to tell people to consider this bearing in mind that from the pilot episode, I completely identified with Dean Winchester... as someone who only came out as bi later in life, because when I was a teenager, literally did not even understand that was a thing someone could be. I was just really, REALLY confused for a long time. (and I’m five years older than Dean, and can completely understand the isolated way he was raised, his entire life one giant ball of intensely managed secrecy, that it’s absolutely something he would’ve believed best kept well squashed down and buried right alongside his memory of his mother and his own self-worth).

But just ponder for a moment, if Cas had always been in a female-presenting vessel-- which we have seen him in TWICE now (Claire Novak and the woman he possessed in the flashback scenes in 12.10)-- would he still have used male pronouns? Because he always did use male pronouns, independent of having a male-presenting vessel. (and yes, this opens a whole other can of worms which I already made one long post about: https://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/174088047410/do-you-think-at-this-point-in-time-cas-thinks-of )

And all things considered, there was STILL the barrier Dean felt between them, clearly illustrated by his “last night on Earth” with Anna. It wasn’t her GENDER that kept him from being with her, but one she was an angel again... she pretty much instantly shut him down. She was also the one who explained to him what angels feel versus what humans feel, specifically listing the experience of sex as one of the reasons she chose the painful act of tearing out her grace, specifically to become human in order to feel that. So... what has Dean been left with regarding Cas’s OWN feelings about human intimacy in general?

Even after 5.03, when a female-presenting person was willing to have sex with him, Cas... didn’t even REMOTELY get it. In fact, he didn’t get it until he WAS human (which... 9.03 is its own horrific can of worms here, but this was the first time Dean realized that Cas MIGHT in some way at ALL be interested in human intimacy). And then almost as soon as he became human, Dean was forced to make the horrific choice (let Sam die on the spot, or kick Cas out). He gets ONE CHANCE to even SEE Cas during this time, and it’s a situation where Cas nearly DIES, bringing on a ton of guilt and making Dean feel like he made the right decision keeping Cas out of all the supernatural nonsense for his own safety. *cue rending of garments and gnashing of teeth*

And then the next time he sees Cas, Cas... isn’t human anymore... and Dean’s... resigned to that fact.

It’s always SOMETHING standing between them, you know? It’s not JUST the apparent physical gender of Cas’s vessel. But if playing a round of “what if” helps folks jump that hurdle for themselves, then I don’t see anything wrong with it. As long as the conclusion they draw isn’t “well then that’s the eternal barrier standing between them and we can’t do anything about that,” then refer them back to the above essay on bisexual people repressing the hell out of that until they feel safe enough or comfortable enough or just have REASON enough to step out of the closet. Okay. I guess that’s enough for that. :P

#dean winchester is bilingual #destiel #the scheherazade of supernatural #spn 13.05 #spn 13.06 #spn 13.03 #spn 13.01 #spn 12.10 #spn 4.20 #spn 5.03 #spn 4.10 #spn 5.13 #angels and souls #on the nature of angel grace #spn 9.03 #castiel winchester #you learned it from the goats #Anonymous

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