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whiskeyswifty · 5 months

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Sometimes I can’t tell what is genius and what is accident with Taylor, genuinely like I’m not diminishing what she does. For instance, the recent album phenomenon where almost right away, every single person, critics included, made their own “TTPD Edit” if you will. A trimmed down selection of the 31 songs that either they think made a tighter album, fit into a narrative they liked, created a new narrative, or whatever compelled them. Obviously I don’t think Taylor wants anyone to cut any of her songs off an album she herself made, of course. So here is where I err on the side of accident. But then… I think about how the number one thing all artists, even Taylor sized ones, are tasked with is creating engagement around a product. Taylor for this album tried to start the “fortnight challenge” which went absolutely nowhere. However, the fact that everyone, haters and lovers of ttpd alike, have made their own edits, which is an incredibly active form of engagement and stream booster, is an astoundingly brilliant stroke of….. luck? Genius? I can’t tell. I can’t fucking tell!!! Maybe it wasn’t accidental and she was intentionally clever to drop an obscene amount of songs that resemble more of a sketchbook than a solid story or even sonic cohesion (again not a knock just a pretty objective observation compared to previously more cohesive works of hers and others). An album almost… stay with me here, almost too messy that it begs you to finish it up, clean it up. Engagement that was so compulsive and universally experienced by everyone that its unreal to me how that’s unintentional. And she’s especially intuitive in this arena, finger on the pulse, mirrorball woman that she is. The data dump release format feels almost like a strategy in that way. But I can’t quite believe she would ask of us to pluck our own apples from her abundant but still carefully cultivated tree and make our own pies. She encourages us to incorporate the songs into our lives yes but don’t tell her how to do her job, surely not! So I guess even if it was accidental, I suppose that’s still somehow a form of genius to me, that even her impulses are in tune with how to best engage a modern audience. Having been in this business, and on this end of it, for so long that she can just sense when to drip feed us and when to stuff us like foie gras geese. Does she fundamentally understand that audiences hate being told what to do, as she feels the same way herself, and knows how to guide engagement without forcing it? Is that also insane? Giving her TOO much credit? Idk I can’t decide but it’s a stone I turn over and over in my brain. She figured out that the house always wins and so she became the house. Astounding.

#idk what this is I’m just musing on main here after my afternoon coffee #and before you come in here and say BLAH BLAH I NEVER MADE MY OWN EDIT IS PERFFCT YOU JUST DONT GET IT PEA BRAIN IDIOT #Know you’re in the very very small minority and nobody cares #do what you want but your evangelizing will fall on deaf ears #it’s ok to love an album and also engage with it in a critical way I promise. two thoughts can exist in one brain #my silly little essays

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soullessjack · 3 months

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"tell me on anon what you wouldn’t off anon"

i think dean was straight up abusive towards jack and while there is room for redemption to be explored, in canon, the show did not give him any sort of redemption. in other words in my eyes "canon" dean winchester is an abuser (but canon is unimportant anyways so whatever)

im scared of saying this and getting stoned to death

no need to comment you can just post this without saying anything if you want

- 🏴‍☠️

no no you’re right and you should say it, however I disagree that Dean was completely abusive and that there was never any canon redemption.

firstly I think there’s a slight difference in someone being abusive vs being an abuser;

abuse (or abusive behavior/tendencies) can happen accidentally, unintentionally, especially if it’s resulted from trauma (like Dean’s). you can be completely unaware that something you’ve done or said is abusive, especially because being abusive can be as simple as yelling or hitting someone, or treating them unfairly (like jack). people who have abusive tendencies or behaviors are capable of regretting it and wanting/trying to change…whereas an abuser is wholly aware, intentional and remorseless about their actions. they know what they are doing, they know it’s immoral/inhumane and they just don’t care—either because they feel entitled or justified in some way, or even if they don’t.

Dean has repeatedly shown plenty of regret, guilt and blatant self hatred for his abusive tendencies and how they affect the people around him. It’s one of the most important parts of his character, being the crux of his self worth and why he can’t accept that people (Cas) genuinely care about him or consider him a good person. When he refers to himself as “daddy’s blunt instrument” or “poison,” it isn’t just about being a hunter whose life constantly risks other peoples inescapably, it’s also about the violent nature that’s instilled into Dean constantly by John and how both of those things either isolates him from getting close to anyone else, or drives away people who do get close. That’s why there’s no light at the end of the tunnel for Dean, why he’s so resigned to dying bloody. It’s all he thinks he can ever have or really deserve.

When Jack is dying in 14x07, Dean physically cannot stand to see it. He’s angry that Jack is dying so young and so out of nowhere; he thinks it’s unfair and wrong, point blank. But above all else, (as Sam says) Dean canonically has never forgotten or forgiven himself for how he had treated Jack, even though by this point in time they’ve already had a good relationship for the past two years. He’s angry and upset that Jack is dying, but he’s also upset because he still thinks, after all this time, that he’s never been able to fully make up for what he did, and now he’s lost any chance to with Jack’s limited time. That’s why Dean decides to take him on the road trip; that’s why he says “Who would’ve thought being around me (the person who treated you terribly at one point) would make you (the person who didn’t deserve it) sentimental?”

When Dean leaves Jack’s room for the last time and wounds up being absent for his death, he’s even more upset about it, and later brings it up to take a dig at Sam for thinking he didn’t do enough for Jack because, by Dean’s own admission, Sam had always been the one to do more. “At least you were there for him [because I wasn’t, and I see that as another failure on top of everything else I did to him before].” And then, after the three of them get hammered in Jack’s memory, Dean turns to Cas and asks, “we did everything we could, right?” There’s a lot more in 14x07 but I’ll leave it alone for now, and move onto the redemption part of what you said.

I know I said I disagreed, but really it’s only partially; instead I believe that the show simply didn’t give enough time for a complete redemption (save me spn revival wish fulfillments, spn revival wish fulfillments save me). The end of S14 is basically the destruction of the Team Free Will 2.0 found family unit, not just between Dean and Cas, but also between Dean and Sam, and Jack and the three of them. And I think the reason there’s so much more emphasis on Dean’s relationship with Jack (+ why the family unit falling apart is specifically centered on it) is specifically because of how they started; Dean was initially the only one to be distrustful of Jack and mistreat him as a result, whereas Sam and Cas were willing to see Jack with more humanity and goodness, and when Jack proved that he was good that was the crux of Dean’s guilt going forward; his distrust was wrong and misguided, and the abuse he put Jack through because of it was even more wrong and undeserved.

But then after Mary’s death, the three of them have no idea what to think. They’re more reluctant than Bobby is to admit that Jack could have simply had his evil bone activated after losing his soul/eating Michael’s grace, but they aren’t excluding the idea either. The question up in the air now is: “Was Dean right all along? Were we wrong for trusting Jack and thinking he was good? Is all of this our fault?” (and going back to 14x07, the basic ‘framework’ of Dean’s dynamic with Jack is basically ‘I was wrong about you being evil and now that I love you I want to be keep being wrong about you being evil’ and ‘I want you to be wrong about me being evil too, especially now that you love me and I love you’).

Sam, Dean, Cas and Jack are all presented with the worst case scenario that had always been hanging over Jack’s entire existence. None of them want to believe it after growing so close to him (and vice versa), but they’re not given much else to consider. Mary’s death was one thing, one horrible tragic wound reopening, but they knew it was an accident and they knew Jack had tried to fix it. It isn’t until Duma got her claws into Jack and ordered him to kill nonbelievers that TFW finally decides they have to do something final about Jack, and Dean resumes his militant Kill All Monsters behavior. He’s dissociating into the blunt instrument mindset to protect himself from the grief of losing his mother and potentially losing his son. He can’t even bear to consider Jack his son anymore, both because of Mary and the task of killing him, so Jack becomes “just another monster,” in his dissociative mind. His son wouldn’t have killed Mary or tortured Nick or murdered people randomly because his son was a good person, and his son does not deserve to die, but whatever identical monster has inexplicably replaced Jack would certainly do that and certainly does deserve to die.

Dean’s “poison” is rooted in the fact that his coping mechanisms are intertwined with abusive tendencies and behaviors. He pushes people away if he thinks he doesn’t deserve their respect or love, and he buries any emotional attachment to them because he knows it’s his greatest weakness. That’s why he couldn’t bring himself to shoot Jack, regardless of the grief he felt for Mary or how much he tried to see Jack as a monster that wasn’t really his son. When Jack knelt down, said “I understand. I know what I’ve done. And you were right all along. I am a monster,” and then waited for the gun to go off, that’s what snapped Dean out of it. That’s what got him to see that this was still his son—that and the road trip from 14x07 flashing before his eyes. The grief he feels for Mary’s death is still painful and will be for a long time, but he won’t let it cloud him from seeing that his son is still there and still a good person who deserves the chance to make it right and be forgiven.

That militant dissociation comes back again following Jack’s death and Chuck’s retaliation/reveal that they’ve been nothing but a bunch of lowbrow Truman Burbanks to an unfeeling deity their entire lives. The most recent Destivorce is because Dean has constantly been pushing Cas away and severing their ties to cope with the situation. It’s bad throughout all of S15, but it’s especially worse towards the end when Dean is rampant on Jack’s suicide bomb plan happening for a chance at freedom. I’ve seen a LOT of people say that Dean’s love is conditional because of this, but it really…isn’t.

If Dean never cared about Jack, he’d never take time out of his life to spend some final moments with him, or share a specific father/son memory with him to indirectly communicate that he does see Jack as a son, but ultimately doesn’t feel like he deserves to be a father. If he truly felt that Jack “wasn’t family,” he wouldn’t have shown any of the concern for Jack that he did after Jack detonated in the Empty (frantically demanding to know if he’s alive and to bring him back); he wouldn’t have tried to apologize to Jack for hearing it, and he wouldn’t have *checks transcript* reacted in mild horror at Jack agreeing with what he said (and personally, if I’m insulting someone, I would want them to feel the same way that I feel).

Additionally, If Dean’s love is conditional, particularly on the basis of how useful someone is to him, then he wouldn’t have been expecting Jack to come back home with them or considering buying him actual gifts (a flat screen TV and a recliner, specifically for his room in the Bunker I might add) for saving the world.

Out of all the problems S15 had, I think the pacing was the absolute worst. Too many plots and one-off characters and plot devices squeezed into a short amount of episodes; too much focus put into filler instead of plot progression, etc etc. But what it absolutely missed out on was granting any of the characters any proper closure. I think that’s why Dean’s conflict with Jack feels so unresolved and unredeemed. Dean gets mean -> Dean feels bad -> Dean gets nice again, but that’s about it. For now I tend to view his dynamic with Jack as them being two sides of the same coin: Dean feels like he doesn’t deserve to be a father figure to Jack after everything he did, and Jack feels like he doesn’t deserve to be a part of their family as a son after everything he did.

#holdthypeace.txt #spn #supernatural #jack kline #dean winchester #dean and jack #tfw2.0 #spn meta #jack meta #spn analysis #I know I’ve spiraled into a lot of other topics here but the forefront of it is that abusers don’t regret their actions #and dean literally refused to be healed once because he felt so guilty and deserving of his pain #dean studies #<- my minor #also anon I hope this doesn’t come off as rude or mean !! genuinely not where I’m going with it at all

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