#The Duality of Man/Sam

[whysamwhy123]

Ugh. I’m struggling to make any real progress on my various WIPs and I’m pretty pissed off about it. So, I’m gonna do The Thing again. Send me a word and if it pops up in any of the monstrosities I’m currently trying to get off the ground, I’ll post a snippet here and maybe that’ll help me get the creative juices flowing again?? *shrugs*

[deathdefyinggarlic]

[tsams-and-co-memes]

Something that I don't think gets talked about enough:

The fact that Ruin is good with kids

Yeah, it kinda comes with the territory of being a daycare attendant, but still. Before he got his current body and was still broken, while pretending to be cured, he was in the daycare’s ballpit as the resident "ballpit shark." He was entertaining the kids and playing with them, and despite how he looked, the kids would've had to like him a decent amount, since he was never asked to leave the daycare at any point during that window of time

I read something before about how, in Ruin's dimension, there's a chance that he (as a carrier of the virus and not someone who was affected by it) may or may not have had to go against his childcare programming and kill kids to blend in with the affected glamrocks, so they wouldn't get suspicious and try to dismantle him or anything

The bit about what he did in his dimension is just a thought that someone had that really stuck with me, and I don't remember who came up with it, unfortunately, but it's still at least relatively legit that despite whatever he had to do or go through in the past, it doesn't affect him anymore, and he's still someone the kids liked being around

Which. Considering some of the things he's said and done, is pretty cool to me

[devilat-thedoor]

sweetest darling boy but also prettiest princess angel.

[completelymindfucked]

[thefalling-sky]

No because there’s no way this is the same guy

[joshsindigostreak]

This is the same person.

[tappedthedavidsassonce]

One of my toxic traits is not only fully believing Sam Winchester has suffered more than Jesus Christo himself, but also Sam Winchester has suffered enough.

An example, his birth flower being lily of the valley.. WHY! It’s pretty but poisonous, are you trying to tell me that not only was he demon blood poisoned but his birth flower is literally poisonous on the inside as well? HAS HE NOT. SUFFERED. ENOUGH?? CAN HE NOT GO ONE DAY WITHOUT BEING REMINDED—

[pollutionbylimpbizkit]

[bottomvalerius]

Donna “Oh wow, your hands are so big, can I compare them to mine?” Ortega

[alina-beana]

the duality of supernatural

supernatural is so funny. sometimes they'll look for God and say things like "try new mexico, I hear he's on a tortilla" "no, he's not on any flatbread" and then you get bangers like "freedom is a length of rope and God wants you to hang yourself with it".

[mercsandmonsters]

Tag Dump #3: Male Muses

Let's get these guys tagged.

[theglamorousferal]

Things I want in one fic:

Redeemed Vlad, Good Fenton Parents, Fentons/Vlad polycule

Liminal Amity Park

Redeemed Dark Danny, weird cousin?

Ellie as part of the family, sorta step sibling?

Defect quartet

The Class as a team deferring to Team Phantom

Jazz is Big Sister

Amity Park knows the secret

The Class moving to Gotham for college

Vlad giving them enough money to purchase Drake Manor

Tim has closed off the tunnel between the Manor and the Batcave

Tim was the one to hand the keys over to Danny, whose name was on the deed, courtesy of his new step-dad

They end up keeping in touch and Tim is a frequent visitor at the manor and befriends the majority of the Class

They all still keep up with their training, Sam and Valerie put together an obstacle course with the help of the jocks and every Saturday is a free-for-all battle royale with ecto guns set to their lowest setting across all of the grounds.

The last one standing gets to pick what restaurant dinner is from that night and the movie for movie night.

Tim does find all of this rather unusual, but mostly he finds that they remind him of all his hero friends.

This, more than anything else they do, makes him very concerned.

Why do these random midwesterners train like heroes? Why do they have a camaraderie he’s only seen forged on the same battlefield? He’s noticed they mostly defer to a group of five individuals. The pair of siblings who now own the Manor and the partners of one of said siblings. More than that, they all defer to Danny, the one he gave the keys to.

Luckily for him, Two Face happened to attack the bank that Danny was at and Danny did something he’d only ever seen Bruce manage to do and talked the villain down from the attack.

When asked, Dent just said that he saw a kinship in the kid, said he’d understood duality in a way that resonated with him.

Later that night Red Robin reopened the tunnels and paid one Daniel Fenton a visit. Tim found him in his father’s old study, using a brand new telescope through the window. He knocked and waited before entering.

“Ah, I expected one of you to show up. It’s why I decided to stay up tonight actually. We have a lot to talk about if you’ll take a seat? I’ll get us some energy drinks. You’ll be able to confirm they’re sealed and not poisoned that way. What’s your favorite flavor? Between the fifteen of us we’ve got to have the right flavor.”

Red Robin stood there for a moment, processing before following the man to his pantry. Once there he opened a new package of his favorite energy drink and opened it himself; not once did Danny make a fuss about him opening a whole new package. He grabbed a second one to bring with him back to the office. Danny grabbed a couple himself.

Once back in the office, they sat in two chairs across from each other. Danny leaned on his elbows with his fingers steepled. “What I am about to tell you is an incredible risk to everyone in this house, and likely yourself included. I need you to promise me to listen to everything I tell you before you start asking questions. I will answer them to the best of my ability after I have gone over the basics. What I am about to tell you is going to sound unbelievable, but I’m banking on the fact that you have likely frequently experienced impossible things and therefore may take me seriously.” Danny stared at the mask. “Now, what do you know about ghosts?”

Tim’s hair trigger was of disbelief, but then he paused and considered. Clark’s an alien, Diana’s a god, Conner’s a clone, at least half the family has come back to life. Why couldn’t ghosts exist? “Not much besides fairy tales.” He braced himself for what was to come.

Danny narrowed his eyes appraisingly. “Hmm. Well. They are, in fact, real. I’ll show evidence in a little bit. A Ghost as we know them is generally formed when a person’s emotions during death produce enough ectoplasm to give their sentience form. They then become residents of a place known by two names; the Ghost Zone, or the Infinite Realms. The Ghost Zone is what it’s known as on Earth, and the residents of the place itself call it the Infinite Realms.” Danny pauses here for a moment and then claps his hands. “Now, all ghosts are members of the Infinite Realms, but not all beings of the Infinite Realms are ghosts. The Realms is a dimension mirroring our own that is entirely made of ectoplasm. It’s where the residue from the emotions of all beings in our universe go and then are given form. There are beings there that are basically gods and are aspects given form. I can go on and on about the Realms later. What’s important is that throughout history there have been unstable naturally occurring portals between the two dimensions, but around five years ago, a pair of scientists managed to open a stable portal to this dimension. A few months later, a former college friend of theirs made a second stable portal, but I’ll get to him in a minute. Once this portal was established, it made it so that ghosts could now freely come into our world. A young hero took up protecting the city, but his first few attempts had quite a bit of misunderstanding to them and so he was villainized for a while. This resulted in the government establishing an agency to combat these threats. All well and good, right?” He raised an eyebrow at Tim. “You would think so. However, the laws passed to make this agency had some clauses that are questionable. I’ll just hand you a copy of the documentation so that you can read it.”

He handed Tim a folder labeled “Anti-Ecto Acts”. He began to peruse them and came upon the clause that declared any being that can process or contains ectoplasm is considered non-sentient or sapient and called for the capture, eradication, or experimentation of all such “ecto-beings”. “This, can’t be right. This is a blatant contradiction to the Meta Protection Acts.”

Danny smirked a sad smile. “You’d think, right?” He gave him a moment to process that. “You can read up more on that later. I have other things to say.” Tim set aside the folder and took a deep chug of his energy drink.

“Alright, hit me.” he said as he leaned forward to put his elbows on his knees, giving Danny his full attention.

“Kay, so, you notice the ‘any being that can process ectoplasm’ bit? Yeah, well that can apply to some humans too. Humans that are considered death-touched or Liminal. People who have been surrounded by death, have died even if momentarily on the operating table, but especially people who have been exposed to high levels of ectoplasm. Here’s the thing about living in a town with a stable portal to effectively the afterlife: it kinda does some stuff to you.” He flashed his eyes a Lazerus green as he set his right palm on the desk. He’s quiet for a moment before he leaned back with a sigh, then closed his eyes so they returned to their normal blue. 

“Every individual in my hometown is ecto-contaminated.” He said quietly, like, Tim supposes, he was telling a secret. Tim guesses he was. “Every person there is death-touched. Every person there is Liminal. Every person pings as an ecto-entity to the GIW. We’re all at risk. I wouldn’t be surprised if most of the heroes would ping too. I need your help.” Danny turned begging eyes upon Red Robin. “I need your help, and you need this too because I noticed it when we first met, Tim, that you are too.”

Tim reeled, he stood and knocked his chair over. “Wh-what do you mean?” 

“How many times have you been near-death? How many times have you been around the dying? That sort of stuff leaves a mark on people. They begin to metabolize ectoplasm. I reckon that the majority of the Justice League apply. I’d argue that soldiers who have seen active combat would register on some sensors. According to those laws, you can be captured and experimented on. They’re luckily focusing on ghosts and have been ignoring people, but it’s only a matter of time. I need you to bring this to Batman, to the League. I need these Acts removed. They call for the eradication of my People” His eyes flashed a green again as the word resonated. “This calls for the eradication of an entire dimension, they’ve already tried it once, and if they had, it would have torn this universe apart. Luckily the nuke they had was a dud.” 

Tim swallowed at that. “Nuke? They tried to nuke an entire dimension?” Tim picked up the chair and sat heavily in it. “I’m going to guess that this somehow gets worse?”

Danny nodded solemnly. “You see, the Infinite Realms has a council and a king. A good majority of the council rightfully believes that these Acts are calling for the genocide of our people. The king has kept them at bay for now, but they’re calling for war.” 

Tim put his head in his hands and groaned. “And the king?” Danny looked at him, debating something for a moment. Then he stood and there was a flash of bright light. Stood in front of Red Robin could only be the King. Danny now had bright white hair and eyes that glowed with a familiar Lazarus green. He wore a cloak of stars and his crown looked like the Northern Lights. He wore armor that seemed to be a combination of the ancient Norse and Greeks. “I just want my people safe.”

[utilitycaster]

Hope I can phrase this in a way that makes sense but—

What well-known actual-play cast member is your favorite for each of the core D&D class? Not necessarily a specific characters, but I’m interested in which players you think brings the most to each class.

This is a very interesting question! It's a hard one to answer for some classes and very easy for others so bear with me; also there are a couple where I could not pick just one.

I'm sticking to the PHB 12 for, as you said, core classes:

Barbarian: While Travis did give us "I would like to rage," I think Ashley and Taliesin get to share this one for me. I think they both really explore what rage means to someone and while I love a good "I'm a tank because I can take the hits and that's what I do and what I'm good at" story, I also think Yasha's messy relationship with her feelings of guilt and grief, and Ashton's chronic pain, are both incredible ways to play with the barbarian archetype.

Bard: much easier. Sam Riegel and Krystina Arielle. I'm a sucker for someone who actually sings even as I don't think you have to (and have played bard without doing so). It's both clearly a class they each love dearly and it shows, and they're incredibly musically talented performers to boot.

Cleric: Lou Wilson. Especially since I didn't like Fantasy High season 1 Fabian until the end of the season Kingston blew me away. I would love to see him explore cleric again, though it's exciting to see him as a paladin on WBN.

Druid: Emily Axford as Moonshine. Emily as a rule understands D&D classes very well anyway, but I think the culture of the crick and the ways that Moonshine must grow as a character while being a druid take it to the next level. (Also I prefer a caster-heavy druid to a shapechanger-heavy one; that's just me).

Fighter: Back to NADDPod because literally who could I say other than Jake Hurwitz, the man who only plays fighters. People who are new to D&D when they start actual play can be hit or miss imo; some pick it up and some lean harder on being showy to make up for it and it doesn't play well for me personally, but Jake is the greatest hit.

Monk: Marisha Ray; Beau is just generally a great character, and I think Marisha's own experience with martial arts informs the way she plays her; monks can be kind of repetitive in combat even with strong players and she manages to avoid this through her description.

Paladin: This is actually super hard because people don't play straight paladin a lot. This is incorrect of them, but it is an intense class. I think Luis Carazo and Zac Oyama are like...the duality of paladin (and indeed, redemption paladin). The tragedy and the comedy.

Ranger: Laura Bailey, natch; it's funny because Vex is in many ways not the archetypal ranger due to having high charisma, but she is simply my favorite and that's that on that. Sorry the mechanics were so bad; I would love to see more rangers in D&D even though Vex will be hard to dethrone. I promise Tasha's fixed them!

Rogue: I think I'm actually going Murph on this one. I like when rogues are more of the detective/spy type than the assassin/criminal type [obligatory "of course that's what you'd say you stupid paladin stan"] and inquisitive and arcane trickster are probably my two top rogue classes so Riz it is.

Sorcerer: I do consider PF1e cheating here because it's technically a different system that also imo addresses a lot of the weaknesses of sorcerer/makes it way better, but Bryn Monroe of RQG did play a great sorcerer. In D&D? Giving Emily Axford a second spot here for Saccharina. I'm going to talk about this for warlock, but I think sorcerer is a class you don't have to justify but if you don't it's a little unsatisfying. Sorcerer really shines in the Crown of Candy setting, and metamagic often doesn't live up to its reputation but Emily makes it work for her.

Warlock: Travis Willingham. I think there are classes that are kind of self-explanatory, for lack of a better term; you can play a fighter or rogue or even a bard or druid without going super deep into why the character is this class and still be an incredible character (though a good backstory never hurts). But there are others where you really need to be engaging with the class at all times to make it work, and warlock is one of them, and Fjord explores the warlock pact and what it means like few others.

Wizard: Aabria Iyengar. NO ONE gets wizard hubris as a player like Aabria. Knowledge is power and boy do wizards love knowledge. I especially like that most people in 5e play wizards as genuine adventurers because it feels very easy to play them as old guy in robes swept up in events beyond them; Aabria plays wizards who are combat ready with the humanity and backstory to make the difficult decisions sympathetic and meaningful, and I think that's how you have to play it.

Note: I want to specifically call out Liam O'Brien and Siobhan Thompson as "people I trust in basically any class or system and just didn't happen to hit a favorite here due to sky-high competition/personal preferences". They are both very close seconds for wizard.

[wellofdean]

Re: Dean, the MoC, Amara & Mary (Part 1)

Post 1 of ? (I'll go back and make this navigable later, because it's going to be long.)

I've been reading about Mary on my dash again today, and readers of my blog probably already know: I LOVE HER, and her resurrection is probably one of my favorite things that happens on Supernatural. What I want to address here, is what Mary is FOR, narratively, and why Amara gave her back to Dean, because IMO, I don't think the issue Amara was addressing by bringing Mary back was Dean having a whole perfect mother fantasy about Mary that involved white nightgowns and saintly home-making, that he actually in any real way WANTED that, or that anyone could deny that his life would certainly have been easier and softer if Sam hadn't been targeted by Azazel, she had lived, and John hadn't gone berserk, because that is obvious. It wasn't about these external things. It was about Dean.

Amara's point wasn't (imo) that Dean needs to correct his wrong ideas about his mother, it's that if everything that happened to Dean hadn't, Dean wouldn't BE Dean. He would not be the person he is, and the Dean Amara sees is the man whose soul is a bomb, and who was unflinchingly willing to sacrifice himself for all of humanity, and who, in the end, brokered peace and healing between elemental cosmic dualities with the power of his empathy and his innate understanding of what it means to love, and suffer with love.

I mean... Dean DID THAT.

The fact is, Dean is, in the context of the story, remarkable. He is deeply, deeply human and humane. He is an undeniable force for good and for love, no matter how many mistakes he makes, or how imperfect he may be because love is his constant guiding star. And importantly, HE IS WHAT HE IS. He can't be other than he is, as much as he may wish for it. Unfortunately, Dean does not recognize himself as these things. He does not see in himself what Amara sees. It's not that Dean can't accept Mary, it's that his immense, self-castigating guilt obscures him from himself, and means that he is not the full owner of himself.

But before I go on, I think it's important to think about the lead up to Amara and to think about who and what Amara is, because from the time Dean takes the Mark of Cain and contends with his shadow self via a curse that amplifies the parts of him that are angry, id-driven, uncompromising and violent, it kind of became gloves-off-obvious that Supernatural is telling a Jungian individuation story with Dean at its center.

"The aim of individuation," Carl Jung says "is nothing less than to divest the self of the false wrappings of the persona on the one hand, and the suggestive power of the primordial images on the other." It's a psycho/spiritual process that involves divesting oneself of the ill-fitting social mask/persona constructed by the ego in the formative years, and in the early stages of becoming a self (Stanford Dean, anyone), and also of unconscious influences of collective archetypes (Chuck? Amara? Mother? Father?). By doing this, a person becomes their authentic, individuated, and fully integrated self.

(Now, you can think that it's all bullshit as a concept, that's fine! Take it up with Uncle Carl! But, what I would argue about the text of Supernatural is that it's nigh on impossible to argue that these are not very transparently the bones this narrative is very intentionally hanging on from the MoC on, and that analyzing the relationships between characters that are central to that facet of the narrative without acknowledging their symbolic content results in frustrating and partial understandings. It's fine if you don't like it, in other words, but I think it's useful to at least acknowledge what the text is actually doing.)

So, a speedrun intro? For Jung, individuation has three phases:

Coming to understand and integrating The Shadow (or, contending with the personal unconscious)

Understanding and integrating Anima/Animus (contending with the archetypes of the collective unconscious)

Integrated, realised, individuated holistic Selfhood.

So MoC Dean lives with his shadow as a brand on his arm, which is also, it's important to note, humanity's shadow - Cain is the father of violence and murder. Jung said the shadow is the disowned self that is pressed into unconsciousness and unknowining, and disavowed in childhood when we create a social persona trying by to be 'good' and in so doing, subsume everything -- impulses, desires, truths, behaviors -- that we learn are are unacceptable or wrong and then suppress them. Elements of the Shadow can be both destructive or constructive -- a person who is brutal may have gentleness in his shadow, for example. As children and young adults, it goes, we suppress these things without fully understanding them in a desperate bid to be what is required of us, but all of those things are still part of us. Unacknowledged, they fester and make us suffer, and most importantly, must later be encountered, understood and reintegrated into the personality.

The MoC brings Dean's shadow to the fore, and under the influence of it, Dean is still himself, still guided by love, but when the shadow is controlling him, he is selfish, vengeful and punitive, angry, excessive in his violence, and straightforward but unfeeling about his desires.

At the same time, it's not an accident that when he is aware of it, but not being controlled by it, we find him making conscious, avowed peace with some of his own truths:

And making some informed and deliberate choices about who he is:

(Oh my god that second gif. It is so devastatingly intimate and expresses something so significant that it almost feels voyeuristic to even look at it. Anyway. Fuck, I love Supernatural!)

Finally, after a relapse to the control of the Mark/Dean's shadow self, in which he indiscriminately kills all the Stynes, comes very close to killing Cas and is pushed to kill Sam to save himself, Dean refuses that influence. And, just for the record, it's particularly brilliant that so much of Dean's shadow violence is so gendered -- he responds LIKE A MAN to protect vulnerable women, but he goes too far. He dominates other men gleefully. He preens about how he's too sexy! He tears apart motel rooms in fits of rage and misery! He hurts himself to his very soul by not letting Cas love him.

It's just...SO LOUD that Supernatural is saying something very pointed about patriarchal roles and how damaging and unconsidered they are.

Anyway, it's in the moment of Dean's refusal to kill Sam and save himself that Rowena casts the spell that frees him from the Mark, and from then Amara is born OF DEAN, and presents the even greater challenge of facing and integrating Anima, which is what Amara personifies.

(...to be continued. Sorry, if I carry on here, the posts will be too long!)

GO TO PART 2

[anexistingexistence]

The duality of man when talking about characters showering together:

Orange character: Angel, Darlin', Asher, Freelancer, Elliott, Guy, Starlight

Cyan character: David, Sam, Baabe, Gavin, Sunshine, Honey, Avior

The two people talking about this: Milo & Sweetheart, Vincent & Lovely, Doc & Hush