eatenbywooves

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Whyyy did they change the name to Despair…. The symmetry of The Rupture The Trap The Truth would’ve been so hot

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Otters will forever be the most dramatic creatures on the planet🦦

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crazy how every time you go on a walk it’s like ohh that’s why i’m alive

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X

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i think the greatest visual irony spn ever pulled off was gradually increasing the lighting and saturation levels with each consecutive season after season 5 and ending up with almost the same colour palette as gabriel’s sitcom world in changing channels 

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Since joining Tumblr, I’ve met a lot of young queer people. Look, I’m a bisexual man in a gay relationship, and I’m approaching 30. I was still a kid when Matthew Shepard’s story was being covered on the news. I remember thinking, “I better keep my mouth shut about these feelings I’m having.”

And then I met Dominic when I was 12, and people could see how in love we were. And we got the shit beat out of us. The year I met him, some kids in the grade above me held me down against the bleachers in our gym and stomped on my hand until my fingers broke. Instead of sending me to the nurse, the teacher sent me to the assistant principal to explain the situation. She asked why the kids had beat me up. I said, “They were calling me gay.”

Her response was, “Well, are you?”

My, “I don’t know,” earned a call to my parents, and I was outed. Efforts were made to keep me from seeing Dom. Throughout high school, Dom’s stepmother intensified these efforts. He slept in the basement of the house. Although he was an incredibly talented student, he was prohibited from participating in any extracurriculars. He suffered a lot of physical abuse during those years.

The day he turned 18, he packed up everything he had and walked to my house, and we’ve lived together ever since. Things are better, but they’re not perfect. I’ve had trucks pull up next to me at stoplights and, seeing the pride sticker on my car, through old drinks and garbage into my window. I no longer speak to my dad’s side of the family. I haven’t been to see them for Christmas or Thanksgiving in years. One of my uncles had cornered me at Thanksgiving when I was 17 and said, “I’m not going to judge you, but I’d be happy to break your neck so God can do the judging a little sooner.”

I joined a support group for trans and intersex people. When I joined, 40 people attended regularly. Within the year, the group was half the size it had been. Some couldn’t make it anymore, because they were staying at the shelter, where their stay hinged on them agreeing to instead to attend homophobic sermons. Some were put in correctional therapy. Five of them died. Three of those, I didn’t know, but I knew Alex, the 19 year old who was fag-dragged in Kentucky and died a day later in the hospital, and I knew Stephanie, who went home to Alabama to care for her mom in hospice and was beaten to death with a baseball bat by her mom’s boyfriend.

Tumblr is not reality. The dynamic here does not reflect the dynamic out there. Here’s the part where I finally make a point, and it might be extremely unpopular - but guys, value your allies. Value each other. We are met with enough hate in our daily lives to enter an online safe-space and meet more hate from our own, over petty things. Don’t go after one another over every little thing you find problematic.

Learn to see nuance. Maybe the word “queer” bothers you, and you see a gay man using it as an umbrella term. Maybe someone called a trans man a trans woman because they’re confused about terminology, but the post where they did it was voicing support for the trans community. Maybe someone is just asking a question, wanting to learn more. Stop. Attacking. These. People.

Allies are being driven away. Members of our own community are being ostracized. Others are feeling nervous and estranged, and it’s largely because of places like Tumblr, where the social justice movement is quickly becoming violent and radical. I am begging you, stop nitpicking “problematic” things and start directing your efforts to create real change. When it comes to comes to your allies, forget the “social justice warrior” mentality and put down your torch. Educate calmly. Be respectful. Be understanding. Be forgiving. And I’m certainly not saying that your anger doesn’t have a good place - when you are met with bigots on the street, congress members who want to pass hateful laws, violent protesters, abusive parents, prejudiced teachers, that is when you need to be a warrior. That’s when it counts. In the real world. When you have the opportunity to protect people from real harm. Attacking your would-be allies via anonymous asks is just going to lose us ground in the long run. And we don’t have time for that, not when trans women of color are being murdered every day, not when states are still fighting against marriage equality, not when there are politicians in office who believe that trans people are possessed by demons, not when we’ve just lost 50 brothers and sisters to one gunman, not when the media won’t even admit that the attack was homophobic.

Please step back. Look at the big picture. Look at where we are, globally. Don’t just log on to your safe space and attack your allies over small missteps. That’s like washing the dishes in a house that’s on fire, kids. Let’s fight on the battlefield, and when we come home to each other, let’s just focus on bandaging up our wounds so we can go out and win the war.

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welcome to the super hellsite (derogatory)

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too many people prayed for the world to NOT end in 2012 and god panicked and started pulling out rough drafts. bonus years. side quests and horror stories. he dug up his flop era and started posting it for all to see. you fangirled too hard and now earth is running ten seasons past a perfectly written ending using unlikeable background characters and resurrecting terrible plot lines. congratulations you’ve supernaural’d the earth.

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the holy trinity

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“Look, I played a character for 15 years who in my opinion, was able to show affection, who was able to hug and to cry with his brother, with the people that he loved (…) So I would encourage you to tell your son that it’s okay to be emotional, men do cry, men do get hurt, men can do love, men do show affection.”

Jensen Ackles | Nashville Convention, December 12, 2021 [x] 

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[x]

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til dabb and loflin's first episode caused enough drama that kripke himself released a public statement about it. can you imagine showing up on your first day and faceplanting so hard your boss needs to make a public apology. eight years later you get to be in charge of the show. good god.

full quote:

"I've never before responded directly to the fandom's comments about an episode, and I don't plan to make a habit of it, but I couldn't resist dropping in a thought about 'Yellow Fever.' Which is this: Dean is not a dick. None of the writers, or anyone on the creative team of Supernatural, think Dean's ever been a dick, past, present, or future. He's a hero. Dean did not contract the ghost sickness because he's a dick. Victims contract the illness because they use "fear as a weapon." Dean asks Lilith at the episode's end, "Why did I get infected?" And she cryptically responds, "You know why. Listen to your heart." We, as the writers, probably should have emphasized this mystery more, I take responsibility for that omission. But the point is: the reason he was infected is because of a secret he's keeping. A dark secret that will be revealed in Episode 10. And not at all because of any dickishness, implied or otherwise. Thanks, gang."

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Genre and the "Main Character"

When I first watched Supernatural without any input from the fandom, one of my favorite things about it was the dynamic between Dean and Sam, not in the sense of some transcendent “brotherly bond”—because, honestly, they resent each other at least as much as they love each other—but in terms of their differing positions in the narrative.

So when I saw all the Dean hate and Sam hate here on Tumblr, I can admit that I had serious trouble understanding it at first. I was baffled. How can you watch the show and hate either of the main characters? But I think, now, that I’m starting to understand why it happens—and actually find the reasons for it fascinating—even if I don’t particularly like that it does happen.

For me, personally, Dean has always been the more interesting character. This, however, does not mean I like him more than Sam. I like them both equally. But the root of this is, I think, not simple character preference, but genre preference. Sam and Dean, I think we can agree, are both the “heroes” of the story. However, they are heroes in regards to different genres, and are therefore more or less heroic depending on the frame of reference through which the show is interpreted.

Now, genre is a sticky concept. It requires us to put thousands upon thousands of diverse stories into a handful of categories and judge them accordingly. However, though genre distinctions can be more than a little ingenuous, we are nevertheless conditioned to make them, and they influence our interpretation and subjective valuation of the narrative to an extent that we aren’t always even fully aware of. For this reason, when a narrative—whether it be novelistic, filmic, theatrical or otherwise—refuses to entirely conform to one set of genre expectations, conflict arises in interpretation that can produce wildly divergent estimations of what a story is about and how its heroes should behave.

Supernatural, fascinatingly, bridges a number of genres. Sometimes it’s horror, sometimes sci-fi, sometimes fantasy, sometimes allegory, sometimes adventure, sometimes romance, sometimes psychological, sometimes superhero, sometimes bildungsroman—and many of these genre distinctions share elements between them, allowing us to interpret different events, actions, and characters against different standards.

For a show with only two main characters, then, Supernatural needs to place an enormous amount of narrative weight in an incredibly compact character space, and, because many of its genres are somewhat at odds with each other in terms of what they require of their characters—(the superhero genre, for example, usually doesn’t merge very well with the bildungsroman)—different elements need to be split up in order to create cohesive characterizations.

For this reason, Sam and Dean are not only very different characters (as people), but very different heroes (in terms of genre).

Sam is the hero, primarily, of the adventure/fantasy genre. He’s an eminently good person coming to grips with an inner darkness and a fate he never asked for. He has inhuman powers and has to struggle to find the best way to contain and direct them for the good of humanity. We see this trope again and again in these genres—Harry Potter comes to mind—and it makes sense that people who like these genres (and therefore interpret Supernatural in terms of these genres), would prefer Sam’s storyline.

Dean, on the other hand, is the hero of the psychological/horror genre. He’s not an unambiguously good person; in fact, he’s a rather emotional individual who forcibly suppresses his emotionality, and he fashions himself a hero while barely keeping his deep-rooted anger—and even sadistic tendencies—in check. His struggle is, just like Sam’s, a struggle with inner darkness, but the genre though which his darkness needs to be understood is wholly different. It is not an embodied fantasy darkness, but a formless psychological darkness.

Of course, these aren’t hard and fast distinctions. Sam isn’t unambiguously good either; he proves himself time and again, for example, to be remarkably stubborn and obsessive, and he’s often just as convinced of his moral superiority as Dean is of his. (We don’t notice this with Sam, interestingly, because his moral superiority often coincides more easily with ours—but, then, that’s a whole other can of worms.) At the same time, Dean isn’t just an emotionally-stunted bucket of anger issues; he’s genuinely driven to save people and protect those he cares about, an unrepentant nurturer who often can’t help but let his strong emotionality show through, despite his best efforts to keep it at bay.

Of course, this same inner antagonism of otherwise discrete genres can be seen, also, in Sam’s more typical association with various myth arcs—in his capacity as the epic hero—whereas Dean’s story usually focuses more on his coping with the actions and fates of those closest to him—in accordance with the role of the psychological hero. (This dynamic too, nevertheless, often finds itself somewhat challenged, for instance, when Dean is constantly being dragged back and forth through different planes of existence while Sam would, for his part, do anything to avoid getting caught up in any more myth arcs.) Just as Dean is the psychological hero struggling to be an epic hero, then, Sam is the epic hero ready to give it all up and learn how to deal with a “normal” life.

It’s no wonder, then, that the Winchesters ceaselessly project their fears and desires onto each other. The show, in its tendency to muddle genres and focus on its two more or less generically distinct heroes, creates a dynamic in which the Winchesters’ tension is often, first and foremost, genre tension. Not only are the brothers attempting to cultivate a personal relationship balance, but also, on a narrative level, they need to find a way to balance out their roles as characters in order to coexist in the same narrative space.

For Supernatural, then, as a show which straddles various genre distinctions—and is, for that reason, widely appealing to people with diverse genre preferences—unusual interpretive issues are bound to arise. Although both boys’ narrative weight is, of course, essential to creating the narrative complexity which keeps me, personally, interested in this show, it is also completely understandable that someone with a preference for fantasy heroes might think Dean’s an asshole, or that someone who likes the fucked-up antiheroes of the psychological novel would find Sam a little boring. This is fine, it’s a matter of preference, and Supernatural is great precisely because it does appeal both to those who want to see good triumph over evil and those who want to watch broken individuals stew in their own Oedipal issues. Sam and Dean are like Yin and Yang, but with even more dimensions, a solid gray mass that never lets the viewer forget that gray is in fact a mixture of blacks and whites, even if we’re fated to never be able to separate them. Sam and Dean are thus both heroes, but they are heroes in completely different worlds with starkly different rules.

For me, then, the “brotherly bond” is indeed fascinating, but not in terms of their actual, apparent relationship, but for the way that it bridges and destroys genre boundaries. Sam’s and Dean’s characters technically shouldn’t share narrative space, let alone love each other. But Supernatural is fascinating precisely because they do. So, while there’s no accounting for taste and I’ll never tell anyone they can’t hate Sam or can’t hate Dean, I do challenge everyone who watches the show to take a step back and take a look at how their characters interact—both in where they differ and in where they bleed into one another—and to consider just how necessary those interactions are for crafting a complex story.

Sometimes I like one Winchester more than the other, and sometimes I like neither of them, but I’m always invested in both of their stories, because one without the other isn’t the full story, and the full story is as beautifully complex as the best literature has given us—and literature at its best isn’t about confirming our biases or making us happy or making us love or hate characters as if they’re real people, but about making us think about why and whether or not we should love and hate the things we do.

So, before you decide you hate Sam and Dean, examine why you do, what they do that bothers you so much, and look at those qualities and actions, not as you would if you saw them in your acquaintances, but in terms of their meaning in the narrative and the effects they produce. Maybe the show wants you to criticize their actions. Maybe it wants you to see their hypocrisy. Maybe—just maybe—a show can’t deal with issues effectively without its characters actually having some.

I’d suggest, then, that not only does Supernatural start to make more sense and become easier to deal with when you look at the ways in which Sam and Dean are framed against each other and against the narrative as a whole (without simply putting value judgments on their actions), but that it’s also a way more relaxing and enjoyable way to watch the show.

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Ships

POV: You’re looking at a list with a mere 24% of m/f pairings. 

Destiel +9 Dean Winchester & Castiel, Supernatural 

Lumity +5 Luz Noceda & Amity Blight, The Owl House

Sambucky Sam Wilson & Bucky Barnes, the Marvel universe

Bakudeku +11 Bakugou Katsuki & Midoriya Izuku, Boku no Hero Academia

Dreamnotfound Dreamwastaken & GeorgeNotFound, Streamers

Lokius Loki Laufeyson & Mobius M. Mobius, Loki

Supercorp +1 Kara Danvers & Lena Luthor, Supergirl

Buddie +18 Evan Buckley & Edmundo Diaz, 9-1-1

Catradora -7 Catra & Adora, She-Ra and the Princesses of Power

Hannigram +27 Hannibal Lecter & Will Graham, Hannibal

Stucky +7 Steve Rogers & Bucky Barnes, the Marvel universe

Beauyasha Beauregard Lionett & Yasha Nydoorin, Critical Role

Renga Reki Kyan & Langa Hasegawa, SK8 the Infinity

Wangxian -1 Lan Wangji & Wei Wuxian, Mo Dao Zu Shi

Jikook -6 Park Jimin & Jeon Jungkook, BTS

Zukka -10 Zuko & Sokka, Avatar: The Last Airbender

Bumbleby -5 Yang Xiao Long & Blake Belladonna, RWBY

Jonmartin -4 Jonathan Sims & Martin Blackwood, The Magnus Archives

Gallavich -2 Ian Gallagher & Mickey Milkovich, Shameless

Geraskier -16 Geralt of Rivia & Jaskier, The Witcher

Wolfstar +18 Remus Lupin & Sirius Black, the Harry Potter universe

Drarry -6 Draco Malfoy & Harry Potter, the Harry Potter universe

Ladynoir +24 Ladybug & Chat Noir, Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir

Dinluke Din Djarin & Luke Skywalker, the Star Wars universe

Kiribaku -14 Kirishima Eijirou & Bakugou Katsuki, Boku no Hero Academia

Ineffable Husbands -21 Aziraphale & Crowley, Good Omens

Cockles Misha Collins & Jensen Ackles, Actors

Zutara -9 Zuko & Katara, Avatar: The Last Airbender

Bubbline Princess Bubblegum & Marceline, Adventure Time

Adrienette +16 Adrien Agreste & Marinette Dupain-Cheng, Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir

Symbrock Venom (symbiote) & Eddie Brock, the Marvel universe

Korrasami -10 Korra & Asami Sato, The Legend of Korra

Marichat +17 Marinette Dupain-Cheng & Chat Noir, Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir

Kanej Kaz Brekker & Inej Ghafa, Shadow and Bone

Shadowgast Caleb Widogast & Essek Thelyss, Critical Role

Merthur +6 Merlin & Arthur Pendragon, Merlin

Zelink +48 Zelda & Link, The Legend of Zelda

Tarlos +50 TK Strand & Carlos Reyes, 9-1-1: Lone Star

Klance -19 Keith & Lance, Voltron: Legendary Defender

Darklina The Darkling & Alina Starkov, Shadow and Bone

Solangelo +51 Will Solace & Nico di Angelo, the Percy Jackson universe

Narumitsu +21 Phoenix Wright & Miles Edgeworth, Ace Attorney

Tododeku -16 Todoroki Shouto & Midoriya Izuku, Boku no Hero Academia

Sterek +5 Stiles Stilinski & Derek Hale, Teen Wolf

Dramione +23 Draco Malfoy & Hermione Granger, the Harry Potter universe

Levihan Levi Ackerman & Hange Zoë, Attack on Titan

Erasermic -12 Aizawa Shouta & Yamada Hizashi, Boku no Hero Academia

Reylo -47 Rey & Kylo Ren, the Star Wars universe

Kagehina -16 Kageyama Tobio & Hinata Shouyou, Haikyuu!!

Sasusaku -21 Uchiha Sasuke & Haruno Sakura, Naruto

Johnlock +43 John Watson & Sherlock Holmes, Sherlock

Larry Stylinson -9 Harry Styles & Louis Tomlinson, Singers

Wayhaught -23 Waverly Earp & Nicole Haught, Wynonna Earp

Nessian Nesta Archeron & Cassian, the A Court of Thorns and Roses series

Hualian Hua Cheng & Xie Lian, Tian Guan Ci Fu

Dani x Jamie Dani Clayton & Jamie, The Haunting of Bly Manor

Thanzag Thanatos & Zagreus, Hades

Joe x Nicky -24 Joe & Nicky, The Old Guard

Eremika Eren Jaeger & Mikasa Ackerman, Attack on Titan

Percabeth -3 Percy Jackson & Annabeth Chase, the Percy Jackson universe

Reddie -58 Richie Tozier & Eddie Kaspbrak, It

Phan -21 Daniel Howell & Phil Lester, YouTubers

Preath -42 Christen Press & Tobin Heath, Athletes

Eruri Eren Jaeger & Levi Ackerman, Attack on Titan

Sylki Sylvie & Loki Laufeyson, Loki

Komahina Komaeda Nagito & Hinata Hajime, Danganronpa

Fjorester Fjord & Jester Lavorre, Critical Role

Harringrove -36 Steve Harrington & Billy Hargrove, Stranger Things

Harlivy -29 Harley Quinn & Poison Ivy, the DC Universe

Willex Will & Alex Mercer, Julie and the Phantoms

Spirk +2 Spock & James Kirk, Star Trek

Stony -21 Steve Rogers & Tony Stark, the Marvel universe

Matcha Blossom Joe & Cherry Blossom, SK8 the Infinity

Itafushi Itadori Yuuji & Fushiguro Megumi, Jujustu Kaisen

Taekook -17 Kim Taehyung & Jeon Jungkook, BTS

Maribat -40 Marinette Dupain-Cheng & Damien Wayne, Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir x The DC Universe

Raeda Raine Whispers & Eda Clawthorne, The Owl House

Sasunaru Uchiha Sasuke & Uzumaki Naruto, Naruto

Bokuaka -8 Bokuto Kotarou & Akaashi Keiji, Haikyuu!!

Malex -35 Michael Guerin & Alex Manes, Roswell, New Mexico

Ishimondo Ishimaru Kiyotaka & Owada Mondo, Danganronpa

Upstead Hailey Upton & Jay Halstead, Chicago P.D.

Wincest Dean Winchester & Sam Winchester, Supernatural

Codywan Commander Cody & Obi-Wan Kenobi, Star Wars: The Clone Wars

Dabihawks -33 Dabi & Hawks, Boku no Hero Academia

Nalu -21 Natsu Dragneel & Lucy Heartfilia, Fairy Tail

Widojest +3 Caleb Widogast & Jester Lavorre, Critical Role

Jily James Potter & Lily Evans, the Harry Potter universe

Deckerstar -19 Chloe Decker & Lucifer Morningstar, Lucifer

Satosugu Gojo Satoru & Geto Suguru, Jujutsu Kaisen

Iwaoi +2 Iwaizumi Hajime & Oikawa Tooru, Haikyuu!!

Sessrin Sesshomaru & Rin, Hanyō no Yashahime

Ladrien Ladybug & Adrien Agreste, Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir

Ironstrange -39 Tony Stark & Dr. Steven Strange, the Marvel universe

Luberto Luca & Alberto, Luca

Wenzhou Wen Kexing & Zhou Zishu, Word of Honor

Vmin -13 Kim Taehyung & Park Jimin, BTS

Whiterose -17 Weiss Schnee & Ruby Rose, RWBY

Chenford Lucy Chen & Tim Bradford, The Rookie

Obikin Obi-Wan Kenobi & Anakin Skywalker, the Star Wars universe

The number in italics indicates how many spots a ship moved up or down from the previous year. The ones in bold weren’t on the list last year.