#Notp: rapey demon ship

[mad-as-a-box-of-frogs]

In the secret good finale of supernatural, Cas having enough self-worth to leave the bunker in 15x03 is echoed again with Cas leaving the Empty. Dean’s speaking his truth and his reciprocated love is the catalyst, but it is Cas that must make the finale step. He must be able to look the Empty in the eye (symbol of Cas’s depression and self-loathing, the enemy of queer love), as it deliberately wears the face of Meg, and say, You have no claim over me. I am not yours.

I deserve better. I am not your tool. I deserve to live. I love and am loved in return, and do not need to remain in your shadows any longer.

Take my grace, it was the only part of me you were ever actually interested in. Be satisfied. I claim the humanity you despise.

Our deal is off. Stay here and sleep. Find peace

[littlemismatchedteacup]

Complaints against 8x17 that didn’t make it into the final cut of the sexual assault series. Mostly for my own venting benefit :p Just completely shredding the episode line by line.

Warnings: You probably should skip this if you like Meg.

Under a cut because this is insanely long

My beef with Goodbye Stranger can be broken down into three parts:

1) The narrative’s unwillingness to depict Meg as remorseful of her past crimes, therefore allowing her to continue acting like the ‘sassy, unrepentant asshole’ she always has been, yet still playing her story up as a redemption arc. Essentially, they’re asking us to care and even sympathize with her, to see her a someone to root for, while at the same time minimizing the damage and trauma she inflicted on the main heroes in a way that I see as a disservice to Cas, Sam, and even Dean.

2) The ambiguity of Cas’s feelings regarding Meg. Is he fully aware of how she ‘guarded’ him only for her own self-interest? Does he harbor any romantic feelings for her, does he consider her a friend, does he even actually care about her beyond paying a supposed debt? The narrative doesn’t want you to know and isn’t telling you (in order to support multiple readings and appeal to as wide a range of audience as possible), despite Meg’s more or less explicit canon feelings. So forever more it’ll be one of those things fandom will never agree on, just because, again, SPN wants to support both readings (even though one is stronger than the other).

3) Yeah, sure, the rapist who murders humans for funsies can be ‘redeemed’ with a love interest she exploited when he was most vulnerable and his ability to consent was compromised. It should totally be the kind, virgin, possibly asexual guy that loves the humans she thoughtlessly murders! Nothing toxic about that, right??

Naomi: No hesitation. Quick. Brutal. Everything’s back in order.

Right from the get-go, it’s established that Cas is now completely under Naomi’s control, to the point where he can murder a copy of Dean without flinching (a stark contrast to earlier this season, where Castiel spent possibly a year avoiding Dean in Purgatory just so he wouldn’t draw the monsters to him). Even Sam notices he’s “definitely off.” Unlike in 8x08, he’s gone full Bad Cop. So why would anything that comes out of Cas’s mouth this episode be taken as 100% truth, that everything he says isn’t in some way designed to get him closer to the angel tablet while keeping his secret agenda hidden?? How can people take an episode with a brainwashed Cas and say, “Ah yes, this completely confirms he has romantic feelings for Meg, no other interpretations are valid”? Because of certain lines, I strongly feel that everything Cas says while under Naomi’s influence needs to be taken with a grain of salt. For the purposes of this rant, however, I’ll work under the assumption that Robbie didn’t intend for every word out of Cas’s mouth this episode to be interpreted as either a lie or a misdirection (although, again, just so we’re clear, it’s not explicitly clear that everything Cas says /isn’t/ a lie, neither, not until Dean breaks the connection :) ).

Sam: Wait, so, a bunch of innocent people died so you could buy yourself time?

Meg: Hi, I’m Meg, I’m a demon.

That’s right! She is! The very demon, in fact, who sexually assaulted Sam, Dean, and Cas, and nearly raped Jo using Sam’s body! The demon that personally murdered many of the Winchesters friends in s1! The demon that sicced hellhounds on the boys and laughed as they tore into Jo, then begged Lucifer to allow her to finish the job! And she never felt she never apologized or expressed regret for her actions, not goddamn once. Reluctant ally though she was in s7 (a position she only held because she no longer had stronger allies other than the Winchesters to keep her safe from Crowley’s reach) Meg is still a terrible person morally, as she herself confirms multiple times throughout this episode. And that’s okay!!!!!!!!!!! Female villains are allowed to be as unrepentantly evil as their male counterparts! Because here’s the thing: Meg didn’t need a redemption arc going into 8x17. She didn’t need to be given a so-called softer side to still be seen as a strong, independent female character that could have managed a badass exit without the condition that it was only for some idea of romantic love. Being a great female character isn’t dependent on romantic attachments to male characters, or having a moral compass, and frankly it’s insulting that Robbie thought the only way Meg could have a suitable exit was with a last-minute about-heel.

And that’s where things get so frustrating, because in the same episode that Robbie has that little ‘Haha same old Meg,’ chuckle, the rest of the episode arc becomes incredibly soppy and rose-tinted, asking for us to care for her as a person (one capable of softer feelings) despite never showing her as repentant. She whines, and condescends, she belittles Sam and Cas, but she never shows remorse or desire for redemption. Why would I sympathize with someone like that when she’s hurt the characters I care about so much, in so many ways?

This episode could have done so well if they had actually had the balls to make Meg confront her evilness, to have her actively reach for redemption, make her a somewhat suitable ally to Sam, Dean, and Cas instead of serving us up the wishy-washy mess of pandering we got served instead.

Castiel: She’s gonna tell them the truth. Do I have to kill her?

Naomi: She does know the location of the crypt. But working with a demon is... unclean.

Castiel: Well, we could use her, as Crowley did.

Naomi: Agreed.

*Shakes fist at Robbie and his goddamn trademark ambiguity*

There’s two ways to read this scene: 1) Castiel’s prime focus is still on the tablet, as the opening of dialogue suggests, and his question is merely clarification, or 2)  Castiel carefully manipulated Naomi into sparing Meg in order to protect her (either out of love, friendship, sentimentality or a more pragmatic reason). His ‘Do I have to kill her?’ line can be interpreted as hesitance to kill her (As opposed to “Do you want me to kill her?”), but that’s about all the emotion we get from Castiel in his scene. None of Misha’s acting cues or any of the camera angles indicate any implicit relief on Cas’s part for having (temporarily) saved Meg (neither does he protest or flinch when Naomi calls Meg unclean, a contrast to him defending Dean as ‘a good man. I can reason with him.’). All we have is Castiel later snapping (perhaps protectively) at Meg when she protests his order for Sam to protect her.

Given how Cas canonically shows no concern for Meg once he breaks free of Naomi’s control and flees with the tablet, I’ve always interpreted Cas ‘’’protecting’’’ Meg in 8x17 as him making sure he fulfills his supposed debt to her for being his caretaker in s7. (”He owes me, his words” - Meg, 7x21). If he had killed her with his own hands, however it may have been an accident, then Cas would have failed to repay his debt, another burden of guilt to add to his heavy shoulders. However, if one of Crowley’s demons ended up killing her, as he must have known was a possibility once Crowley discovered she was missing, well, then that would be unfortunate, but ultimately not Castiel’s problem (Maybe I’m reaching, but I’ve yet to see a better interpretation for why Castiel hasn’t shown a bit of concern for Meg past 8x17, or even at the end of the episode).

As an aside, this bit of dialogue is originally why I didn’t have much of a problem with 8x17 until fandom really started running with the Megstiel stuff. Because at the end of the day, this episode is ultimately about one thing: Destiel > Megstiel. To me, by directly having Cas be faced with his possible murder of Meg (hesitant, maybe) to his possible murder of Dean (absolutely freak the fuck out, Kill Bill sirens flaring) so we can compare and contrast, this is Robbie’s way of sneakily saying that if push came to shove, Castiel would have killed Meg. Oh, he probably would have felt bad about it, sure, but her ‘’’love’’’ would not have been enough to stop him, whereas as Dean’s love not only did, it broke (at least partially, the angel tablet breaking it fully) Naomi’s control and freeing Cas.

[I don’t understand the set up for this scene with Meg revealing the location of the crypt in the basement - what happened to Mr. Morton? Did the Winchesters break in, does Mr. Morton know a demon is bleeding on his couch and stealing his booze? Has this guy not suffered enough? Robbie ‘I hate continuity errors’ Thompson, get your act together!]

The infamous cough scene. *Crackles knuckles in resignation* Let’s do this.

Meg: You really do know how to make a girl’s nethers quiver, don’t you?

Castiel: I am aware of how to do that. Although it doesn’t usually involve cleaning wounds.

Man, usually I don’t like to throw the ‘ooc’ card down, but, Robbie, my dude, my guy, my main man - what the fuck? Has Castiel secretly been sexing up women off-camera this entire time? Dean would be so proud. Seriously, though, when has Cas ever responded ‘normally’ to a sexual situation, let alone with any degree of proficiency before or after this moment (6x10 being the one exemption, with Castiel mimicking the pizza man to punish Meg). Honestly, this line makes it seem like Robbie hadn’t gotten the hang of writing for Cas yet at this point (he’s SUPER literal in this scene to the point of cliche-ness), what with this being his first episode with our angel.

Or, to give him the benefit of the doubt, is this Robbie’s way of writing asexual!Cas? Is Castiel missing (deliberately or obliviously) Meg’s innuendo and merely stating, to put it bluntly, that he is aware of the sexual arousal he gives nearly every woman he comes across, and that none of it is his fault? *shakes Robbie until he explains honestly*

Also, Meg’s line strongly reminds me of ‘Makes my meatsuit all dewey’ which in turn forcibly reminds me that, as far as we know, Meg is still using a stolen body with its original owner still trapped inside (not that Robbie once directly acknowledges this :-/). Those ‘quivering nethers’ aren’t your own, asshole, no matter that you’ve claimed them as such.

So, yeah. We’re off to a great start.

Meg: Why are you so sweet on me, Clarence?

Castiel: I don’t know. And I still don’t know who Clarence is.

Like with Noami and Castiel debating over Meg’s fate, we’ve got more of that damned ambiguity. Cas is acknowledging that yes, he is being ‘sweet’ on Meg - he is bandaging her wounds without asking, after all - but we get no clarification on what being ‘sweet on’ someone means to Cas, if it means the same to him as it does Meg, or even why he isn’t being mean to her in the first place.

But we already have our answer, it’s because he luvs her! Look, in an episode we don’t know if Cas still holds the same regard for Meg as he did when he was crazy and dependent on her in s7, (Comparing ‘Leave her alone’ in s7 to ‘Do I have to kill her?’ makes it seem like his regard has lessened to a significant degree), if he realizes she was only using him for her own means. I don’t think it’s too much to ask for a little fucking clarification.

Some days I almost wish Robbie had made Castiel clarify, just so we had some frame of reference for how Castiel viewed his complicated relationship with Meg. This doesn’t even clarify if Cas thought of her as a friend, just that he’s nicer to her than he is to the average demon! They could have done this so many better ways, ways that might have even allowed me to accept platonic Meg/Cas, but nope, we get this ambiguous mess, even as half of fandom accepts Cas’s supposed romantic feelings as canon despite no explicit, textual evidence. But heteronormativity is a bitch like that.

Casitel: A movie, no. But a book with the proper spells - yeah, theoretically, it could kill me.

Meg: You know you’re much cuter when you’re shutting up.

Because condescending insults are so ~romantic.~ Again, like with ‘Put up or shut up,’ in s7, Meg doesn’t seem to have much actual patience for Cas’s eccentricities and doesn’t indulge them, despite the various fandom headcanons that argue the contrary (But man, oh, man, will people get mad at Dean everything thing he fails to do for Cas, or God forbid gives him a beer when he said he didn’t want one).

And Cas does shut up, which as a Cas girl, why would I ever want my favorite character to be in a relationship, platonic or romantic, where he’s put down so easily and, most importantly, constantly? Do people think this shit is cute in real life? Also notice how Castiel never compliments her in this scene - doesn’t put any tagging identifier on Meg - doesn’t say really anything positive this entire scene or episode other than the vague “It was a good memory.” Most of the scene is just Meg talking at Castiel, not really with him, carrying the scene along entirely on her shoulders, with only minimal participation from Cas. It’s just . . .  such an incredibly odd way to write a scene that’s supposed to be intimate, their final moment that’s supposed to give context to how they view each other.

*Grumbles loudly about this gorgeous shot being wasted in this episode*

Meg: So which Cas are you now? Original make and model or crazy town?

Castiel: I’m just me.

Meg: So your noodle’s back in order?

Castiel: Yeah, my … noodle remembers everything. I think it’s a pretty good noodle.

EXCEPT WE ALL LITERALLY KNOW FOR A FACT THAT CAS’S NOODLE IS VERY MUCH NOT IN WORKING ORDER, THAT THE ENTIRE PLOT OF THIS EPISODE REVOLVES AROUND CAS’S BRAINWASHED NOODLE. LAST EPISODE WE SAW HIM, HE WAS BLEEDING OUT OF HIS EYEBALL AFTER BEING DRILLED IN THE EYE SOCKET!!! So either 1) Robbie deliberately included this line to remind everyone that Cas is only using Meg and/or to not to take everything he says at face value, or the more regrettable option 2) he was too busy tripping over himself getting to the shippy lines that he forgot how dumb this line sounds if it’s only intended to refer to Cas vs. s7!Cas.

Meg: Really? You remember everything?

Castiel: If you’re referring to the pizza man… Yes, I remember the pizza man. And it’s a good memory.

The first and only Meg-positive Cas says in a conversation nearly completely led by Meg. And yeah, I’m gonna quibble over this one, too, because unless you mean to say it’s a good memory because Cas got the upper hand on Meg and beat her at her own game, this sounds like a retcon. 6x10 wasn’t supposed to be read as romantic. Titillating for the audience, perhaps, but ultimately not a good thing, especially in a season where it would later be revealed Castiel was metaphorically cheating on Dean with another demon. It was literally Castiel ‘punishing’ Meg, like the pizza man punished the baby sitter. And when Dean asked if he wanted to spend more time with her, Cas replied with, “Why would I want that?” This wasn’t him experimenting - he had won, gotten her back for taunting him, and now he was done with her. Cas calling the memory good is like in 9x09 when Castiel referred to reaper!April as nice and ‘kinda hot,’ even though she had raped (through uninformed consent) and killed him.

It’s more vagueness romanticized by heteronormativity, normalizing sexual assault.

Dean: You think we can trust Meg-stiel?

Dean’s seething jealousy over Meg/Cas gives me life, as is him giving Sam Ruby’s demon-killing knife while meeting Meg’s gaze head on. He’s really on the one who’s got his head on straight this ep, keeping in line with how, historically, when Dean doesn’t trust someone, they turn out to be rotten.

Meg: Do you ever miss the Apocalypse?

Castiel: No, why would I miss the end of times?

Meg: I miss the simplicity. I was bad, you were good. Life was easier. Now it’s all so messy. I’m kind of good, which sucks. And you’re kind of bad, which is actually all manner of hot.

1) Meg admitting that she misses the apocalypse, a nearly-cataclysmic event that canonically killed hundreds of people off-screen, and would have killed billions if she and her buddy Lucifer had gotten their way (had already killed the entire town of Catharge together) really saps the profoundness of her claim that ‘now it’s all so messy.’ It really isn’t… Meg isn’t here because she’s having an attack of conscious, neither is she an adjacent member of team free will. She’s one of the show’s biggest baddies depowered and defanged, with the heroes as her only allies, helping them because screwing over their mutual arch nemesis is her only option right now. The ‘enemy of my enemy is my friend’ trope isn’t exactly some newfangled concept.

‘Messy’ would be bringing back Azazel or Lucifer and having Meg disobeying orders to kill Cas (and/or the Winchesters). At the very fucking least have Meg be aware that Lucifer had never cared for her or other demons, just like Castiel had warned her in 5x10. But again, Meg never gives any indication she isn’t still, in her heart of hearts, as loyal to Lucifer as she was in season 5.

2) I know lots of people don’t get this, but just because a character says something, doesn’t make it concrete canon fact. If Meg was ‘kinda good,’ she wouldn’t miss the apocalypse, she wouldn’t miss having power, she wouldn’t miss the ‘simplicity’ of being evil. If anything, this implies she wouldn’t be tagging along with the Winchesters if she was backed by a bigger school yard bully. But to say Meg is ‘kinda good’ is horribly inaccurate, and I resent Robbie using it as some sort of canon indicator of Meg’s current moral standing (again, she admitted to sending demons after innocent people to save her own hide just 10 minutes ago - that’s not my definition of kinda good). She’s not kinda good (anymore than Crowley was ‘kinda good’ in s12) so much as ‘not as evil as the Big Bads of the season.’ A more accurate description of Meg’s current moral standing would be to say she moved from Chaotic evil to Neutral evil.

3) Calling Cas ‘kinda bad’? Yeah, because that’s exactly what he wants to hear in the same season he admitted to Dean he was suicidal over his crimes against heaven, shortly before being forced to kill another angel that Castiel had deemed good. At his core, all Castiel wants to do is be good, to fix the things he broke. He tried being kinda bad, and it nearly destroyed him and everything he had worked for. All this does is prove how little Meg actually knows Cas, and how little she wants to make any effort to change that. She wanted him as her weapon in s7, and now she’s settled for him being her shield/sex toy, projecting onto him as a Lucifer stand-in. Hell, unlike Dean and Sam, who noticed right off the bat, Meg’s the only one that doesn’t notice something’s off with Cas, but why would she? She clearly doesn’t know the real him.

Back when 8x17 aired, a lot of people used this scene and bit of dialogue as proof that Meg and Cas had a ‘caught in the foxhole, two soldiers from the opposite sides weary of war and the causes they use to fight for’ dynamic, and I’m like, that’s great, but that’s not what’s happening here (again, Meg isn’t denouncing her cause, she’s still loyal to Lucifer, she’s only on the oust with Hell because Crowley is in charge and she doesn’t have the power to fight him like she did in s6; Cas shares absolutely nothing on his thoughts on Heaven, and it’ll still be seasons yet before he starts to give up on helping the angels). Castiel doesn’t contradict nor confirm her statements, so people feel in the blanks as they feel like, despite little textual support.

This was, however, the show’s one chance to explain why Castiel wasn’t smiting Meg on the spot, if he was aware how blatantly she had used and manipulated him in s7, how he felt about her ditching him at the end of 7x21, for them to discuss any possible common ground they had. To build an actual rapport between them. Instead, all we got was Meg talking at Cas and making sexualized comments that really shouldn’t be romanticized when she’s a sexual predator that assaulted and preyed upon Cas, while all Cas does it answer with mostly vague, noncommittal responses, with close-ups that give the scene a false sense of intimacy that the dialogue severely lacks. Compare this scene to 8x08′s Destiel motel room scene, and Cas is just so much more willing to open up to Dean, because Dean is much more willing to listen. Instead of “You’re much cuter when you’re shutting up,” Dean simply says, “Talk to me.”

What we should have gotten was a conversation akin to Rowena and Dean in 12x12 - something honest and in-character that actually makes Cas sympathetic to Meg for plausible reasons - better yet, we should have gotten a sit-down conversation in s7, when there was plenty of opportunities, instead of just shoving Meg/Cas in our faces and saying ‘Well, they’re friends now! Deal with it!” Maybe then I could have given a platonic friendship between these two a shot, just like how I enjoy Cas and Hannah’s complicated friendship while vehemently hating the idea of a romantic reading of Hannastiel. Guess we’ll never know.

Anyways, instead of challenging Meg’s statement or in anyway actually being involved in this conversation, Cas gives Meg the ‘lmfao are you serious?’ side-eye, which is everything to me.

Meg: We survive this, I’m gonna order some pizza and we’re gonna move some furniture around. You understand?

Castiel: No, I-I … wait, actually yes I -  

If there’s one thing I want people to take away from this rant, just one thing, it’s this: This is not Castiel accepting Meg’s proposal. Castiel never answers yes or no on Meg’s offer, this is just him replying that he understood her innuendo! Dean interrupts before we get clarification, before we even get a significant pause to read into Castiel’s expression. This is just more of the ambiguity we’ve already seen regarding their ‘’’relationship,’’’ Carver and Robbie forever refusing to answer canonically whether Cas was interested in Meg sexually or romantically (Robbie is notorious for doing this - like how in 9x18!Gabriel never answered Cas on whether he was alive or not, just winked, leaving the interpretation up to the viewer). And yet so many people who I find to be rather intelligent 99.99% of the time still blithely misremember such an important distinction, taking ‘It was a good memory’ as confirmation that Cas would say yes to Meg (which, wow, what a fucking leap to make). This isn’t Cas experimenting with sexual desire, because we have no canon confirmation he would want to have sex with Meg. Kissing is not a guarantee for sex, and all the people who advocate so hard for a bisexual!Dean reading, should push just as hard for an Ace!Cas one.

And no, there’s no way to tell for sure whether Cas was truly considering it or not, thanks to the perfect poker face Misha gives here (I love him), neither disgusted nor strictly interested.

There’s no telling sign, no indication that Cas was giving her a ‘we’ll talk about this later’ gesture. There’s no doubt in my mind that Robbie meant for this scene to be read however the viewer wanted (although, man, is sure says something about this particular group of shippers taking Cas’s non-answer as a ‘yes’). To say that it’s canon that Cas was going to have sex with Meg is just untrue - simply, there’s no canon answer at all, only your interpretation (interpretations that many have colored by shipping goggles or heteronormativity - or whatever the asexual erasure equivalent is).

(That being said, given that the only time Cas has ever not been disinterested in sex was when he was human retroactively suggests that, no, he wouldn’t have taken Meg up on her offer. 9x03 might be absolute garbage, but in this respect, this is it’s one silver lining. Post-human, Cas has never once explicitly shown interest in sex, or to explore any supposed curiosity he could have, even when he’s had ample opportunity (Hannah, the waitress in 12x12 are the best examples). And when it comes to porn, like with the Casa Erotica and Busty Asian Beauties, in 9x18 and 11x03, it’s met with bemusement and irritation, but not a lick of interest. Facts - I got them :P ).

You know what? Up until this point, I think I could have made it out of this episode with relatively little emotional scaring. Meg flirts at Cas, Cas doesn’t reciprocate but allows it - it’s still gross (because Meg. Is. A. Fucking. Sexual. Predator), but at least it wouldn’t have thrown Cas’s characterization under the bus for the sake of pandering to an abusive ship with rape overtones. Does Robbie really want me to believe that there’s even the slimmest possibility that Castiel, “He’s in love with humanity,” the same angel that sits serenely with comatose psychics in nursing homes and heals babies of ear infections in his spare time, would ever entertain the idea of having sex with a demon that feels no remorse over murdering those same humans he loves, no matter how ~~friendly~~ she was towards him???

Really?

This isn’t even touching on the fact that Meg has sexually assaulted both Dean and Sam (not that Robbie seems to recognize Meg as a rapist once this episode), that there’s most likely a living person inside of her that can’t consent (s4 with Sam and Ruby canonically established that having sex with demons in souled meatsuits is noncon), that this makes Castiel seem uncaring that she killed two humans he was getting to know and like (Jo and Ellen). This entire scene just takes a giant dump on Castiel’s characterization for the sake of ship pandering, and it’s so incredibly gross I would have thought bucklemming wrote this scene. As much as I respect Robbie and love every other episode of his, I’ll never forgive him for this one (nor will I for Carver neither).

Dean is me :-/

*Takes a deep breath* Fuck, how are we only halfway through?

Castiel, to Sam: Dean’s right. You should stay out here and protect Meg.

Meg: Since when do I need protecting?

Castiel, angrily: Since you were captured and tortured for over a year.    

So yeah, at first glance, it does seem like Castiel is being protective of Meg here. But at the end of the day, it’s a crumb on the already measly pile of evidence for Cas having positive (let alone romantic) feelings for Meg. I mentioned my theory of Cas sneakily maneuvering Meg away from him so he specifically couldn’t hurt her, but not entirely out of harm’s way. What does it say when he all too easily dumps her with Sam literally seconds after he just announced Sam was too hurt to come with Dean to get the tablet, damaged in ways even Castiel couldn’t heal. Not exactly a top-tier protector. What’s going on in Cas’s head here? Does he think there’s no risk of Crowley’s demons showing up? Does he think he can persuade Dean to give him the tablet and then he’ll zap them all away?

Also, assuming Cas has been back from Purgatory for months now and has had at least a modicum of free will during that time, not once did he question what happened to Meg after he and Dean went to Purgatory, or show that her well-being was on her mind, so his concern now is too little too late.

This is arguably the most emotion Cas shows towards Meg this episode - and the last. Once inside the crypt, he’s back to Terminator!Cas (if he ever left), his focus switching from the tablet, to saving Dean, back to the tablet (though sans Naomi’s control). So again, Cas’s ‘concern’ here means very little in the grand scheme of the episode.

If the Cas/Meg couch scene is the one that most makes me want to tear my hair out in frustration, then Sam and Meg’s ‘heart-to-heart’ outside of the crypt is a close second. I get it, Robbie wanted Meg to come full circle and end with Sam, who she first had a violent obsession with in the early seasons very similar to the one she now has for Cas, minus the unicorn bit but with even more sexual assault. By now, Robbie has almost completely dropped any pretense of  “Hi, I’m Meg, a demon” and has gone full rose-tinted glasses with Meg’s remaining few minutes of life, throwing every writing trick to induce audience sympathy for her.

Meg: Wait, so I took how many bullets for you guys, and you didn’t even look for me? Like, once? [Scoffs.] My hero.

Oh, boohoo, shouldn’t we feel bad that, like Kevin, Sam didn’t search for her after she ~risked her neck~ for them last season? Like her being the incredibly reluctant ally - mostly because she forced her company on them save for when Cas dragged her back for the boss fight - makes up for all the shitty things she’s done to them and their friends over the years? At least Meg never lost her inflated sense of self-worth.

(Also, those literal bullets couldn’t harm her, so what’s she complaining about?)

Sam: Look, no disrespect, but you haven’t exactly been the most, uh, trustworthy person in our lives, Meg.

Meg: You’re not gonna tell me? Seriously? How am I not Team Sam?

Sam’s understatement is annoyingly vague, and conveniently glosses over the nastier parts of Meg’s history with the Winchesters as though she were just another run-of-the-mill smart-mouthed antagonist (Shining up those rose-tinted glasses real good there, Robbie). That she could have the gall to demand Sam open himself up to her when she has historically attacked him with sexual violence multiple times when he was at him most vulnerable…it really cheapens Sam’s past trauma for the sake of Meg’s ‘’’redemption arc’ and is all around just terrible writing, especially because the narrative doesn’t give Sam the option of defending himself (13x12 has spoiled me for characters voicing the trauma they can’t get past).

I bet Lucifer thinks of himself as ‘Team Sam,’ too :-/

Meg: You don’t want to say, fine. But remember, I spent time in that walking corpse of yours. I know your sad, little thoughts and feelings.

Sam: That’s creepy.

Meg: Here’s what I remember. Deep down, in parts you never let see the light of day, you want to live a long, normal life away from creepy old things like me.

Now that Meg isn’t currently hitting Cas up for sex, it’s safe to remind the audience that she and Sam have their own creepily personal history together. In a truly tasteless choice of conversation, Meg pointedly reminds Sam of the time she possessed him in s2 so she can have this really awkward ‘I know you better than you think I do’ moment. It’s supposed to make her seem empathetic I guess, someone that Sam could open up to because she already knows some of his ~darkest secrets,~ but this scene doesn’t hold water when you actually take the five seconds to remember the actual context of Meg’s possession of Sam, how it was just as traumatic as any other time Sam has been possessed. This wasn’t Meg taking her daddy’s wheels for an illicit joyride - this was Meg while in full-on vengeance mode, determined to destroy the Winchesters by having them do it themselves, meanwhile killing at least one hunter with Sam’s own hands and attacking Jo Harvelle in a very distinct, sexually charged manner that could have turned into rape had Supernatural been on HBO. This was traumatic for Sam, and he has canonically stated as much, and good writing would have been for Sam to acknowledge this and tell her off, instead of keeping it vague so Meg can get the empathy points she doesn’t really deserve. Unfortunately, Carver’s era only acknowledged their characters’ trauma when it was convenient, (Gadreel also had Sam killed people next season, just like Meg, and Sam canonically acknowledged his possession- related trauma, yet Dean’s purgatory PTSD lasted, what, 7 eps? Castiel only got 08x08, and his suicide wasn’t textually revisited until early s11, just in time for him to be depressed enough to say yes to Lucifer).

Sam: I do. (Scoffs.) You know, I spent last year with… someone, and, um… …now I know that’s actually possible.

Meg: Wait - that’s how you spent your last year? With a chick? Lame.

Meanwhile, let’s throw in some cheap shots at the Amelia arc (which Robbie knew a majority of fandom had hated) so Meg can return to her usual in-character, unempathetic self, while somehow still scoring some more points with the audience as the in-show voice-of-the-audience.

Although why Sam would ever confide into Meg I’ll never understand, this isn’t like in 12x12 where he and Rowena shared common ground via trauma. This scene makes about as much sense as Sam having a heart-to-heart with Lucifer

Meg: What was her name? You don’t even trust me with a name? Cut me, do I not bleed, Sam?

And then we’re right back to Meg demanding sympathy right after belittling Sam, as though she has any right to be overly familiar with him after all the ways she violated him over the years before her attention switched to Cas. This is more of the “Cut it with the ‘demons are second-hand citizens’ crap” all over again, a cheap ploy to make the audience feel sympathetic on Meg’s behalf as we gear up for her final stand against Crowley.  I know it’s fandom taboo to call a female character annoying and whiny when they’re terms used constantly in a sexist context, but seriously, I’m finding a difficult time finding more appropriate terms to describe Meg right now. I don’t care about Meg’s inner depths any more than I care about Lucifer’s now in s13. Meg’s an unapologetic murderer and a rapist! She should be thankful they didn’t kill her the second she revealed the location of the demon tablet, not badgering Sam for dishy gossip like they’re old chums. She doesn’t get to demand people consider her feelings when she’s never treated people as anything other than objects to break or hand over to her boss of the week. Spending four episodes on the same side as the good guys (NOT the same as being an actual good guy) isn’t enough to change any of this.

(Again, so there’s absolutely no confusion, let me be clear: I’m not Anti Redemption for Meg, I’m Anti Poorly Written Redemption For Meg that Centers around Romantic Love When Sexual Assault has Always Been Her MO. Time and time again Supernatural has shown that sometimes love isn’t enough to win the day or be the good guy, whether it’s John Winchester fucking up his children emotionally and mentally, Sam and Dean’s toxic codependency, or Lucifer rebelling because, as he claimed, he loved God too much. Meg revealing she can emphasize with Sam because she’s discovered feelings akin to romantic love shouldn’t have been used as her Get out of Jail Free card. Instead, this scene should have been about Meg claiming some sort of responsibility for her past deeds, for everything she did in Azazel’s, in Alistair’s, in Lucifer’s name. If she can’t muster up a smidge of regret, then her falling in love isn’t sweet. It’s selfish, and should be framed as such.)

*sighs* At least the crypt scene is worth at least some of this utter nonsense. It’s bullshit that the emotional showdown we’ve been waiting all season, hyped up by the subtexual mirrors for several episodes now, has to get bogged down by Meg as a fake romantic interest, but here we finally get to see where Castiel’s real priorities are.

Castiel: I can reason with Dean. He’s a good man. […] I won’t hurt Dean.

Already, Cas is more panicky over the possibility of killing Dean than he was with Meg. Instead of using Dean’s usefulness to appeal to Naomi’s mercy, he uses Dean’s value as a person.

Lined up shortly after is Meg and Sam’s conversation about Amelia and unicorns and Meg kinda getting it, confirming she’s ‘’’’in love with Castiel,’’’’ and implying that a part of her changed for Castiel, the same Castiel that is currently focused 100% on fighting to defy Naomi’s orders and save Dean. In this moment, nothing about Castiel’s scene connects her to Meg, only to Dean. Coincidence? I think not :P  

(Sidenote: ‘You hit a dog and stopped. Why?’ Fandom loves to make Meg a dog-lover in au’s because of her connection to hellhounds, but between her complete lack of empathy here, and her killing Bobby’s dog in s1, this makes about in-character sense as her actually being a caring nurse.)

Dean: Cas, fight this. This isn’t you! Fight it! This isn’t you … this isn’t you.

Unlike Meg, who claimed Castiel was now ‘a little bad’ and didn’t once recognize there was something up with Castiel’s noodle, Dean knows that Castiel is good, straight to his very core (a nice preview to Castiel returning the favor and  unfailingly standing by Dean in s9 and s10). Right from the beginning of the episode, Dean knew something was amiss. That’s not to say, Dean doesn’t still have seasons to go before he (and Sam) stop treating Cas like a tool rather than a family member and assuming he’ll always be okay, but he’s already lightyears ahead of Meg when it comes to loving Cas for the person he is, not what he can be.

If I could just cut out all the Meg stuff and watched the crypt scene uninterrupted, that’d be great, thanks.

Dean: Cas. I know you’re in there. I know you can hear me. Cas … it’s me. We need you, I need you.

However begrudgingly, I agree with Jensen that at this point it’s not in-character for Dean to say I love you, especially when he can’t even say it to Sam of all people, but goddamn it’s frustrating when people fight tooth and nail against a romantic interpretation of Destiel (whose gotten romantic mirrors all season) while clinging to their meg/cas crumbs, especially because an ‘I love you’ wouldn’t have made this look platonic on the surface text (again, goddamn heteronormativity).  

Dean: What broke the connection?

Castiel: I don’t know.

Don’t @ me with ‘It was the tablet, duh.’ The tablet was what reset Castiel back to his pre-Naomi settings, as we can clearly see Castiel come back to himself after he picks up the tablet, but it was Dean that broke Naomi’s connection, Dean that broke through and helped influence Castiel drop the angel blade even when he was under direct order from Naomi to murder Dean.

Meg: Go save your brother … and my unicorn.

So by calling Cas her unicorn, Meg is essentially giving up on the idea of her and Cas, acknowledging that he’s too rare, too good a creature for a ‘creep thing’ like her to ever catch, just like Sam didn’t keep Amelia on the end. But the joke’s on Meg: Amelia, Sam’s unicorn, came back for Sam in the end, even if he wasn’t there to see it. Cas didn’t come back for Meg, even when he was completely freed of Meg’s control, because while he might be Meg’s unicorn, she is most certainly not Cas’s. And like the unanswered “What broke the connection?” that we all know the answer to, having watch it with our very eyes play out not 5 minutes ago, we are similarly, but not textually, asked the question: who is Castiel’s unicorn? Who makes Castiel willing to turn his back on the interests of Heaven time and time again? Who made him chose us vs them?

Why it’s Dean, of course.

Tldr:

So as the episode rolls to a close, where does this leave us? Meg, murderer and rapist, ultimately died for nothing, her nemesis since s5 walking away with barely a scratch, the angel she died for and supposedly loved not showing an ounce of concern for her, her allies Sam and Dean escaping and barely mentioning her once in the next 5 years (although her death did seem to make an impression on Sam). She never denounced her ties to Lucifer or Azazel, but she did put her thirst for getting back at Crowley, no matter how futile her sacrifice, over the best interests of Hell, so I suppose that’s something.  Neither Good or Kinda Good as she claimed, but with specks of gray on her black demon soul. (Five years later, the same demon she sacrificed herself fighting against sacrifices himself in a similar way for the Winchesters, retroactively devaluing her sacrifice)The nameless girl, the actress, inside her died without a burial, recognition, or any answers for possible friends or family.

As for Cas, he rides off into the great unknown to a song that’s literally called ‘Goodbye Stranger,’ and if that isn’t the perfect bookend to his relationship with Meg, I don’t know what is.

Feel no sorrow, feel no shame Come tomorrow, feel no pain

For all of Meg’s unicorn declarations, Meg’s presence is very noticeably absent from Castiel’s bus scene (really his last 15 minutes). He never brings her up again, not once in five years, just like Cas never brough up Daphne again, his wife (and other caretaker) from s7. Hmm, what a coincidence. 

Robbie could have written this episode anyway he wanted, and he chose for Meg’s death to have no apparent effect on Cas. Robbie ‘I love to tie up loose ends’ Thompson never had Castiel bring her up again in any of her other episodes, and might have even thrown shade at her in 9x18 with connecting her to Metatron (”Would it kill you to read a book?”) another baddie more concerned with Cas playing his role other than the person Castiel actually is. Carver could have any other the writers have the Winchesters bring up her death to Cas sometime in the next six episodes of s8 - instead, Castiel’s greatest concern after being reunited with the Winchesters is getting Dean apology pie. Meg who?

And I never want Castiel to find out about Meg’s death (although, really how could he not know?) because there’s no point. Destiel, queerbaiting or not, is ticking right along and tptb have done nothing to change that; he benefits in no way from acknowledging Meg at this point, and he doesn’t need to do it for her benefit because she deserves anything from Cas in return. She sexually assaulted him in s6, she manipulated him when he was vulnerable in s7 - her death was justice, and her story it over. Let it die.

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Society if Goodbye Stranger had been in Dabb era, or preferably, if Carver era hadn’t been obsessed with shoving pseudo-love interests in Dean and Cas’s paths, and the destiel arc of season 8 had been allowed its climax episode without having to fight for a textual reading against a m/f pairing.

Saw a post about how the husband/possessed wife in the beginning of the ep were a parallel to Dean worrying over Cas throughout the episode and yes!!! But also consider how Meg never once commented that there was something wrong with Cas (him no longer being ‘useless’ Crazy season 7 Cas was good enough for her), while Dean immediately clocked there being something wrong with Cas. Meg calls Cas ‘kinda bad’ like it’s supposed to be a compliment, even though that’s never been Cas’s arc, that we know from 8x08 that Cas is horrified with his actions from s6 and s7 to the point of being suicidal. And then there’s Dean, screaming ‘This isn’t you!’ at Cas in the crypt, because Dean’s understanding of Castiel and who he is goes beyond a shallow reading - Dean knows Cas is fundamentally GOOD to his core. In the script he even says ‘I forgive you’ because he knows his death at Cas’s hand would tear Cas apart, so he tries to spare him the pain even as Cas beats him.

Even with the changes, it remains one of the most emotionally charged moments of Cas and Dean’s relationship, and it’s so very very frustrating that for years that same episode was used to beat down destiel shippers, using a character we never saw again.

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I agree with your tags re megstiel so much thank you for saying that. There's 0 evidence for meg being gay anyway. Megstiel happened whether we like it or not. Obviously Dean is Cas' love of his life but he definitely had a canon attraction to meg too. As much as I'm disgusted by it.

Thank you very much for the message, anon :) And yeah, lesbian!meg drives me up the wall for so many reasons (she absolutely /did/ proposition Cas in 8x17 that’s not teasing literally what are ppl on about, like at least go with bi, although I think that’s shady for a variety of mostly-Jo-Harvelle-related reasons too >.>)

That being said ..................... I do quibble over Cas having a canon attraction to her (sorry, sorry, I’m a pain that way). When Dean said he would have let him have a few minutes with her at the end of 6x10, Cas said ‘Why would I want that?” And while it’s possible to chalk that up to Cas not understanding what Dean’s getting at, when Meg propositions him directly in 8x17, Cas makes it clear he understands her meaning (“You understand?” she asks, to which he responds, “No, I - wait, actually, yes, I-“ before he’s interrupted by Dean.)

And that’s it. That’s all we get. Yes, Castiel confirms that he understands her innuendo (at least, that’s how I interpret his words), but after that we get nothing else from Cas. For all intents and purposes, Meg’s on her narrative death bed, the writers easily could have had Cas say yes to a tryst they had no intention of ever happening, just to throw shippers a bone Even have a scene where they exit a closet together. But they don’t. They deliberately have Meg ask Cas, and they deliberately keep Cas’s response firmly ambiguous (a running theme regarding Cas’s feelings towards Meg in 8x17, mostly because 8x17 is about destiel, at the end of the day).

I mean, I say ambiguous. . . but the fact that Cas’s expression is pokerface smooth when the camera pans away from Meg’s come-hither expression speaks volumes to me. (screencap from homeofthenutty)

I’m dying to ask Misha about his acting choices here (not that I expect to ever get a straight answer), because if this was supposed to be leading up to the first time Cas would ever canonically have sex, I’d expect /something/ more in Cas’s expression here. I mean, I wouldn’t even call that smiling. And then he leaves her with Sam, doesn’t mention her ever again, doesn’t save her from Crowley, shows more emotion trying to get Dean pie than he does over her death, and that’s the end of that. If this is really the person Cas might have had sex for the first time with, that sure is a hell of a way to act the second she’s gone.

Of course, I’m assuming you have a different interpretation of the scene, anon, maybe even an explanation for Cas’s expression here, but that’s just mine and how I’ve always read the scene. Whatever Cas’s feelings are towards Meg (of which I tend to find overexaggerated in fandom), I believe 8x17 gives enough wiggle room to say that Cas wasn’t interested in Meg sexually (unless you mean attracted in another way?). The canon isn’t concrete, isn’t explicit, like so many things about supernatural canon.

I mean, if you are disgusted by it, maybe this reading gives you some comfort?

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¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Interpreting Cas as asexual series [7 / ?]

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Wow that episode was such a sloppy mess I don’t know where to start.

Got one more Ruby scene than I thought we would, and with Cas, the original demon and angel mirrors, so yay, although buckleming kinda ruins it (and Anael’s character arc) by having the whole ‘they were lying all along bit.’ Which is dumb because since when has Ruby chosen revenge over saving her own skin? I guess it could have been worse.

‘okay Samwitch’ but no Rowena, and no Rowena in the foreseeable future. Is . .  Sam even going to get any emotional arcs this year? Because there wasn’t much going on with him and Eileen, especially when they locked her in a closet for a whole ep. Like we get it, no romance for the boys, but ... this isn’t a good strategy. 

I’m assuming connecting Dean with the pizzaman stuff was another M*gstiel vibe check. Cas had no interest in rescuing Meg from the empty or looking for her, there was no unicorn talk, only pre s7 catchphrases. It wasn’t really used like it was in Goodbye Stranger as a way to smokescreen the gay subtext. So I guess it was the best possible outcome from a scenario that I’ve been dreading for years. All these years and it wasn’t even the real Meg.  But it kills me that we can point to everything about destiel this season, and for the GA they’ll still be best friends, and Meg will be Cas’s ‘only true love’ because he didn’t attack her, because they’re cishet-appearing.

the destiel was good. 

Jack’s got a soul back? I didn’t even realize that was supposed to be the point of the ep. 

The return of BBA was gross as hell too.

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Continuously romanticizing Meg no matter how abusive she was to TFW but also saying Mary was just as bad as Lucifer was apparently the best twitter had to offer tonight.

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So Meg is a queer sexual predator now? Got it.

I mean, what a fucking nifty loophole to work around, because yeah, being queer means more than being in a m/m or f/f relationship, but between Meg/Cas and destiel, one got one-sided text and the other is still subtext/implicit canon, is brought up at cons without people shrieking ‘think of the actors’ feelings’, and it’s not the male-presenting/male-presenting one. M/f ships get treated differently than m/m ships, as we’ve seen on spn, on Voltron, on the magicians. That’s just the way it is, and it sucks, and I honesty find it incredibly suspect when someone is willing to take their m/f ship and say ‘yeah it’s queer’ while continuing to ignore the other bigger, m/m ship, that boatloads of queer fans support. If you claim that ship and let ship is your thing, then support fans off the opposite ship, instead of staying quiet like it’s a dirty little secret.

...Demons on spn aren’t even the same thing as demons in good omens either!!! Demons on spn were born human while angels are an entire separate species altogether, they really aren’t equal, she was born with a gender and seemed to have a preference for being female. The only time on screen Meg was a male? Oh yeah, the time she possessed Sam to kill and sexually assault Jo.

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People trying to claim Me**tiel should be endgame over Destiel because it’ll be disability representation and there’s already been enough queer couples on Spn, and that not liking Me**tiel automatically means you hate disabled people?

That’s gonna be a Big Yikes from me, bro.

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Whomp

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When Meg propositioned him on her narrative death bed and Cas still wouldn’t have sex with her.

Good gay ass times

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Oh fuck oh fuck I’m really angry. I couldn’t stop myself from reading about the Misha/Rachel panel and I’m so frustrated that Misha apparently said pro-m*gstiel stuff. Do you want me to say what it is? I kinda wish I had time to watch the full panel and see what actually happened, but I don’t want to torture myself more.

2/he was probably just being funny but I still feel kinda betrayed. The shippers are talking about how much they feel validated and it bothers me tbh.

3/I love misha so much and I’m not mad at him or anything. I’m just mad at the situation and need to let my feelings out. It reminds me a bit of how bronlies use J2’s misha jokes as “proof” that they don’t like him.

Ahh, I’m sorry, Anon *hugs*

Well, I did a quick twitter search of the accounts I sometimes stalk, and no one mentioned anything specific other than something about a reunion, (which, yeah, I can’t see Misha answering negatively to that :-/), so until I see otherwise on my dash I’m going to assume it’s nothing worse than things he’s said in the past. I mean if you need to vent you can tell me, but otherwise I’m okay living in blissful ignorance, at least for a little while longer :P

I wish I had better words of comfort, anon, but yeah, this situation just sucks. It sucks that the show didn’t treat Meg as a sexual predator in s7/8 to begin with, it sucks that someone wanted a ~titillating~ Meg/Cas kiss in the first place and then they decided to run with it (even as their relationship continued to make less and less sense), it sucks the show left it ambiguous even though it was clear they had no intention of confirming Cas’s feelings towards Meg one way or the other, it sucks non-shippers and some shippers lose their minds every time a destiel question is asked at a con but then you don’t hear a peep when it’s a het ship, and it sucks balls that, even in these #MeToo times, the majority of people still have trouble recognizing acts of sexual assault in television when it’s anything less than full on rape. To be perfectly frank, it’s akin to the frustration of arguing for queer subtext when you can see it so clearly on your television screen, and yet some people still can’t remove their heteronormativity googles. 

It’s okay to be frustrated with Misha, too, I think, just like it’s okay to be frustrated with Jensen when he inexplicably decides to get cagey and say Dean/cas are platonic, so long as that frustration doesn’t spill over. Misha isn’t perfect, and at the end of the day, he isn’t looking to get into a debate with fans, he’s just trying to make everyone happy and leave with a smile. I wish he understood better, but I wish the same for a lot of people. But this is where it becomes really important to remember the ‘Actor’s opinions aren’t showrunning’ hashtag, because whatever comes out of Misha’s mouth doesn’t affect canon, doesn’t affect the current story, and doesn’t affect that in less than three weeks time, we’re going to being kicking off Cas’s grief arc, the narrative structure once again having Dean and Cas mirror each other’s stories, just like they did last season.  Meg/Cas simply don’t have that, even when they did share screen time.

As for the shippers, all you can do is ignore them, the same way you learn to ignore fans that swear~ J2 hate Misha because they tease him, or that Dean doesn’t care about Cas. I mean, they’ve already convinced themselves Cas must have been in love with Meg even though he ditched her completely in 8x17, never inquiring about her fate on screen once...actors’ headcanons are really all they have at this point. 

Anyhoo, this is why I have my The Cast Ships Destiel tag. It helps to remember that Misha generally seems more open to talking about destiel even without being prompted, and that he acknowledges it’s a current theme of the show. You’ll never be able to convince me he doesn’t currently play Cas as in love with Dean.  

Here’s Misha from 5 days ago when he voluntarily brought up destiel during the Bert/Ernie stuff

Here’s Misha going buckwild in Dencon and talking about how he would be the Impala so Dean could ride him and

him talking about how he thinks it’s great the writers can openly talk about it

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I don't understand 6x10's popularity in the fandom. It left a bad taste in my mouth and I felt disgusted and uncomfortable after the first watch and some of the occurences just felt really out of pocket to me, so I never watched again. It felt pretty Bucklemming and when I looked up who wrote the episode I was surprised it was someone else entirely. Why is it that people love quoting it all the time and make gifsets of it?

Because people* don’t see the gross stuff sprinkled throughout the episode, they just see the ‘fun stuff,’

-“Will you? /Boy?/“ which, yeah, I’m guilty of being trash for dom!Cas too

-“Most of the time, I’d rather be here” Cas looking directly at Dean, classic destiel in a season where they’re mostly snipping at each other

-The entire porn watching scene, which has a handful of lines that have become so popular, they frequently appear on merchandise.

- ‘I learned that from the pizza man’ This scene is shot so that it’s meant to be hot and sexy for the audience, it’s objectively a good kiss if you ignore who Meg is and that Cas is doing this to punish her, not for mutual attraction (to be fair, there are people that enjoy it as a ‘haha Cas showed her’), and Misha and Rachel are hot people. If you don’t have a problem with Meg, that’s what most people see because that’s what the show wants you too see.

-Most people like Meg even if they don’t like meg/Cas, so they enjoy her parts in the ep, her snarky lines, the shot where she looks good for the camera (lots of her fan art is pulled directly from this episode. They enjoy her teaming up with the boys as an entertaining villain-ally.

So yeah, fan-fave Meg is probably enough for most people to overlook the really icky parts of this ep, if I had to guess) All the aforementioned stuff is entertaining enough for most people that they’ll enjoy this ep without complaint.🤷‍♀️ I never liked Meg enough to be entertained and always felt her appearance in s6 was forced and she only survived because of fan favorite armor, but it is what it is.

As for Brett Mathews and Jenny Klein being Bucklemming esque, the only other eps this guy wrote were 6x05 (lots of sexual assault in there too) and the dull, plodding ‘…And then were None’ that killed off Rufus, so I wonder if it isn’t too much wishful thinking to think he got fired. As for Jenny Klein, not a whole lot of people were sad to see her go at the end of s11 >.> 9x08 is…so gross.

(And let me be clear, I’m not even really criticizing fandom this time, rape culture is a hell of a thing, and it teaches people to either overlook or dismiss a lot of the gross stuff that happens in this episode ie Meg isn’t acting rapey, she’s just in charge of her sexuality. It’s blah blah feminist!~ I’ve gotten a surprising number of people say that hadn’t even thought to consider how this ep is problematic until they saw my stuff).

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Do you know any other pro Ruby and/or anti Meg blogs?

Hey there, anon!

Unfortunately, nearly every person/mutual that came to mind that I would have tagged pre-finale doesn't really have a supernatural blog anymore or only posts once in a blue moon :( it's slim pickings these days.

Although I don't know their opinion on Meg, the best way to find Ruby content nowadays is to take a look at the Samruby blogs that have popped up recently. If the tendency to engage in Deancrit isn't a turnoff for you like it is for me, it might be worthwhile to take a scroll through the Samruby tag and check out the popular blogs that show up.

With his permission, I am recommending @disabledcas , although it's worth mentioning that although he does enjoy and post Ruby content, he generally avoids bringing up Meg due to understandably being uncomfortable regarding her character. Feel free to keep an eye on the people I reblog from as 80% of the people I follow tend to work along the lines of 'I like Meg but I dislike M*gstiel'. Maybe you'll find someone there.

That being said, if there's anyone that considers themselves Pro-Ruby/Anti-Meg and wants their name attached to this post, feel free to either add your name in the comments or replies!

So sorry I couldn't be more helpful, anon!