#and that's where our ability to really speculate ends because obviously they don't go on the record about this

[walleeli]

Matchup Exchange with @frostfall-matches (2/2)

I match you with… Sampo Koski

Hear me out! (my reasoning)

we'll get the obvious out of the way, you align yourself with the Masked Fools, you get the fool himself LMAOOO 

No, I'm having involved and elaborate ideas of plots and circumstances as per usual, don't worry. (Or worry a lot <3)

I'm going to be real with you. There is a distinct-and perhaps thematically appropriate?-lack of reasoning for this match on my end. I'm seeing tail ends of frayed threads instead of any spooled source BUT THERE IS A VISION!! 

To avoid sounding… entirely delusional I will provide what little I've got connecting the dots wise.

It's an unstoppable force (Sampo) vs immovable object (you) dynamic with this one. It's about the space created between the similarities and the differences in your character. Meeting on a crossroads of unknowns and the aspects of yourselves that are reflected in the other. 

For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. 

Your senses of humor, quick wit, teasing and mischievous natures, and inclination towards self service is shared. Along with your luck when it comes to finding or in your counterpart's case, creating trouble and ability to keep it cool under pressure and light in general. 

Blase. Is a word that comes to mind. Devil-may-care, for an idiom, if that suits you. 

As viewers our knowledge of Sampo is pretty limited, to say the least, but there are things that can be gathered from the persona he puts on and the little bits we HAVE gotten.

I think it is safe to say that he does not share your introversion. And the ways in which he is logical, unsentimental, and apathetic strike me as more performative than anything. (But that is obviously just speculation on my part.) He also does not share your comfort with confrontation and blatant challenging of authority, and would much prefer to avoid it all together. You couldn't get him to be straight with you with a gun to his head and he is, generally, much more interested in acquainting himself with others than you are. I'm choosing to believe it is equally because of the nature of his work and his own general disposition (again, we're just gonna have to roll with my theories, as hsr's writers have decided it is not for us to know at present.) He's a risk taker, like you, but much more calculated in comparison to your lean toward impulsivity.

I am… not inclined to call what the two of you have "balanced" or "imbalanced". You aren't two sides of the same coin or two opposites attracting. It's some secret third thing. (Where's that one post that's like "are they lovers?" "worse." Basically that.) Your relationship is the truth beneath the joke. The familiar thing that brings the laughter out. 

"I don't have a lot of reasoning!" she says. 450 words later… I think I just love to lie. GJKFSJFSDJJFDFJSJF ANYWAYS.

Headcanons - How It Starts

You meet Sampo twice before you meet him. I mean that exactly how it sounds.

You are on an assignment, and shifting between disguises, less out of necessity and more for a general love of the game. (Getting into character really helps you settle into the right headspace for these sorts of things.) Sampo is also on an assignment. You will later find out that the assignment he's on just so happens to be yours. 

Three times your paths cross, and three times your attempts to complete your work are thwarted. 

The first encounter has you making an exchange with a woman you were told would be. a lot shorter and a lot less broad than she appears before you. This is fine, relatively speaking, and not an uncommon occurrence given the company you keep. This should be fine. (You leave the exchange with an almost-what-you-came-for item. At least at first glance. Later, upon closer inspection, you will find that it is a shoddily constructed imitation of an imitation. And you are a little insulted, honestly, and perhaps a little irritated you didn't catch on sooner.)

On the second, you arrive at the described meeting location, at the decided time… only for your contacts to never show. Odd, incredibly so, but people are fickle… THEY surely understand that much. (And are honestly probably enjoying the show.) You laugh it off and get on your way. Your determination to succeed in the next step of your mission makes the guy you see climbing out of a garbage can, looking entirely like a deer caught in the headlights when your eyes briefly meet, register as mere static. 

To put it delicately. Nothing about your mission goes well. At any point of the operation. You come back empty handed and with no intel. Your performance reduced to an idiot plot. Thankfully, in the service of The Elation this matters very little. So long as someone is amused. 

You aren't there yet. Honestly, you're pretty irritated about the whole ordeal. You're playing every misstep back in your head, looking for any connecting thread as you go to report to your employer that the mission was a bust… only to find them in conversation with someone you don't know but feel a sense of… vague familiarity toward? Something about the hair or the posture or-

A piece in a puzzle you didn't know you were solving clicks into place. The full picture is made clear to you. The woman at the exchange… the guy in the trash can… 

Every step of the way the same shadow has followed you. And here he stands, jovially conversing with your employer, taking all of the credit for your work. 

To make matters worse (for just himself really) after closing the deal with YOUR employer he immediately turns around and tries to sell you something. Like you didn't just see what happened here. Like you aren't smart enough to have put two and two together.

Oh. Ok. 

You're going to end this clown's whole career.

If it helps (it doesn't) it really, truly, was nothing personal. It's just that his most recent assignment sucked and didn't serve him in any way so he, entrepreneur that he is, decided that it makes much more sense to… step into another fool's limelight, as it were. To demonstrate where his skills are best used and perhaps, avoid receiving such tedious requests in the future. (Is he in any way swayed by the substantial payout for the mission you're running? Well, it isn't exactly polite to discuss money in such blunt terms, but he wouldn't say it's a deterrent.)

To be frank, you are one of very few Masked Fools he hasn't already pissed off. And from what little he's been able to gather about you you seem slow to anger. Besides, he's always subscribed to the "better to ask for forgiveness than permission" mentality. He just hopes you aren't someone who holds a grudge. 

In this case you decide to just let it go, he apologized, explained a version of the situation to you from his side (Do you believe him? No. Not really, but you also don't see a point in picking a fight beyond the initial confrontation. What else could you expect from a Masked Fool?) He swears to make it up to you and you wave him off. Rightly deducing that anything he'll do will be more trouble than it's worth, and that he probably has some sort of ulterior motive. What that motive is exactly, you may never know.

The fact of the matter is, Sampo sees you as an opportunity to expand his business. You walk the world so differently from him and he sees your differences in personality as a great asset! …If he can get on good enough terms with you to get you on board, that is. Ideally without you asking about your profit share.

This is the start of your troubles. His efforts to "make it up to you" see him not leaving your orbit for quite some time. It doesn't take you long to sort out his modus operandi. 

Sampo is a notorious button pusher and you are not exempt from his behaviors. In fact, with your general laxness and ability to keep so level headed he finds himself much more inclined to poke at you in particular. He sees understanding what makes a person tick as an essential step in the process of getting to know someone. In the early days of knowing each other, while you are still irked at his usurpation of your work, this habit drives a huge wedge between you two.

He's just such a hassle to be around! And somehow he always seems to be around like some sort of wretched leech. 

In one of many attempts to shake him you find yourself running into trouble-your bad luck of course choosing to strike at the most inopportune moment-you've become an accidental witness to a very under the table IPC deal. The kind of thing that would stain their public image if it got out and if the guns trained on you are anything to go by they don't seem willing to talk it out. 

Thankfully (unfortunately?), you know a guy who happens to know a thing or two about smoke bombs, and he happens to be right behind you. 

That incident is the start of something beautiful. As you run from the IPC grunts-yourself, tripping, and Sampo, squealing-you realize you are… somehow… despite yourself and against ALL odds… having… fun?

Absolute worst case scenario: Your living nightmare is actually kind of entertaining.

Any relationship with Sampo is going to start on the wrong foot, what with his favorite hobby, intentional or otherwise, being to step on toes. And it will take quite a bit of unraveling to get to the center of this particular ball of yarn. By the time you find yourself completely entangled it will be too late to do anything about it.

Headcanons - Assorted

Your relationship sustains itself on you mutually finding amusement in each other's habits, behaviors, successes, and missteps. Sampo's company, especially early on, is not always welcome, but your heart does always kick up when he's around. (It's not even based on affection. It's literally your body preparing to run. Pavlovian response. Sampo = trouble. with haste.) You'd be lying if you said the adrenaline junkie in you didn't get a sick sort of thrill from it. You find yourself increasingly quick to encourage his bad ideas, if only because you want to see the inevitable fall out. 

Sampo is always bringing you gifts gained from unscrupulous dealings. Originally in the service of his vain attempts to "apologize" and gain your favor, but it grows into a sort of ritual. Some people give their partner flowers every week, yours gives you an unending list of troubles. And trust that there are always troubles. Generally many more than the gift itself is worth. There have been some really great hits though, the out of print limited edition color-shifting holographic cover of a favorite manga series of yours still sits proudly on a shelf in your room. You really don't want to know what he did to get a hold of that. 

Sampo is a very casually touchy person. It's wildly annoying when you are first getting to know each other, you reserve physical affection for the people you are closest to. The casual way he will throw an arm over your shoulders or pat at your head does make you twitch a bit. To his credit, he does back off if you vocalize any discomfort, it isn't something he's really putting conscious thought into. But when he starts to grow on you it is something you find largely comforting.

It would make sense to me for Sampo to also have studied multiple languages. It's just good business. The two of you can practice on and with each other and often find yourself using other languages to talk in the relative secrecy your work often demands in public places. Eventually the two of you will use your collective knowledge of languages and their structure to make a language of your own. A spoken code known only by the pair of you. 

You help each other pick out, prep, and get into disguises for missions. Often coming up with and explaining the unnecessarily intricate lore you've crafted for whatever one night character you are about to play. Whoever comes up with the most insane, but plausible backstory gets to take the 60 of your 60/40 cut for the job. Competition is fierce.

The two of you trade gossip like a knitting circle. And you do that thing where you will exchange a specific, quick look when you are together and someone says something you plan to debrief on later. Sampo is messy and ALWAYS has something he's absolutely desperate to pass on to you. He is forever saying "you didn't hear this from me but-" and "don't look now-" and "you aren't going to believe what I just heard… you have to guess!"

You subject his stupid hip windows to your freezing hands constantly and completely unprovoked. If he didn't want to get sneak attacked he wouldn't make himself such an easy and exploitable target. You can hardly take the blame for this. And in fact you adamantly refuse to. 

You will never feel limited or restricted by Sampo, your independence is always respected and encouraged. The nature of your work and pursuits means you frequently spend time apart. You are both comfortable and content when left to your own devices. But you never struggle to fall back into step with each other. Which step exactly is always a mystery until you are already locked into the dance. But that is the fun of your dynamic, with the two of you absolutely anything can happen.

Headcanons - How It's Going

There is a lot of back and forth. Both in the literal, bantering sense and the more abstract emotional sense. You're never bored and what more can two people in pursuit of elation ask for, really?

You spend a lot of time together and a lot of time apart. You have yet to learn all of the other's secrets, all of your history, but you've come to cherish the relationship for what it is. More firework than slow burn. More kaleidoscope than still image. Everything about your dynamic is subject to change and as it stands you would not have it another way. Perhaps there is a hypothetical future where things settle down for the both of you, perhaps not. Either way it's not a thought you feel the need to entertain at present. There's laughter to be had, a universe to explore, and trouble to be caused and/or tripped into.

Playlist - Fool Proof

Hellbent by Mystery Skulls

High Hopes in Velvet by The Cab

Anybody Else by Dom Fera

Fear & Delight by The Correspondents

From The Gallows by I DONT KNOW HOW BUT THEY FOUND ME

I have once again written way too much in the how you meet section. Brevity mission failed. (This is AFTER I wrote and deleted a different set of like 800 words because I realized I was not writing a matchup but a fanfiction. I am TERRIBLE at this lmaooooo) HOWEVER COMMA  I had a blast and went way over word count even worse than last time! Classic shwoopsie scenario. I'm insane. I hope you enjoy reading and that Sampo isn't a hard miss of a character pick. I feel like he is one that is… difficult to have a neutral stance on? So if you can't stand his vibe I am so so sorry and will find some way to make up for my treachery. <3 (also this wasn't proofread I have to get to bed for work tomorrow fjjkgfjgjskfjdfsjkf so hopefully there's nothing egregious.)

[rebeccalouisaferguson]

One unanswered question from the first season relates to the very bottom of the silo. Juliette has a crippling fear of water, and very nearly ends up in what looks like a reservoir at the base. But surely that will come into play again? Chekhov's water, if you like. To that question, Ferguson was quick to tease:

"Oh, buddy, you're gonna have to see. That is such a good question. If I tell you, I'm gonna have to kill you. So, you know, we're stuck in that. There's a big door down there. I know we haven't activated the door without wanting to explore what the door might be. I’m just gonna leave it right there."

How Long Could Silo Run? 

The series is adapted from the writings of Hugh Howey. The series started in 2011 with the short story "Wool," which was later published together with four sequel novellas as a novel with the same name. Along with "Wool," the series consists of Shift, Dust, three short stories, and Wool: The Graphic Novel. This means that the series could quite easily be a straight three-season run, or could be expanded, depending on how the creative team—and of course, Apple TV+—feel about the show.

For Ferguson, she's signed her contract, and she's locked in for "two, three years" going forward. As for speculating about how many seasons it could run for, Ferguson would prefer to focus on number two and see where it takes them, with her plan being to shoot Silo for the foreseeable future—SAG-AFTRA strike pending, that is. She went to say:

"I'm a businesswoman. I go in with my head screwed on. I sign a contract and make a deal. I'm not gonna tell you what that deal is. [Laughs] I very much know what I want. It's down to my wonderful team at Apple, as well, to see what they wanna do. You know, we all save our backs. We see what works for the future. At my age and with what I've done, you don't get to a point where you go, “Let's see what happens,” you know? I'm already blocking off November for another shoot."

Ferguson continued, "I think two, three years ahead. Right now, sir, it’s one fantastic fucking show, and we’ve green-lit number two. Apple is extremely happy, and I'm happier. That's where I'm gonna leave it. We started filming Season 2 quite recently, so we are chockablock, smack back in the beginning of the shoot. I am doing this for some time in the future."

Ferguson is a Fan of Silo's Production and Apple TV+

Where Ferguson was happy to elaborate, however, was her praise of both Apple and the production of the series. Lauding their ability to combine techniques and styles, bringing in directors and seeing what works and what doesn't was an aspect of Season 1 that was widely praised. Ferguson expects that process to be further streamlined as the show evolves into its sophomore year.

"We work with different units and different directors, and it's something I really love because everyone has their style and their technique," she said. "So what we've seen in Season 1 is not a smash of what worked and what didn't work, it's an ongoing change because we have new directors dedicated to new episodes. And they will themselves see what they like or didn't like, or where they want to take it, and what feeling they want. Do they want, you know, Wes Anderson? Do they want David Lynch? Where do they want to take it?" She went on to say:

"And that's what I love. It's the creative individual, right for their episodes. And then, obviously, there is a thread going through, you can't sort of wing it in every direction, but there is a lot to be learned. But we all learn different things, and we all love different things. But what's really amazing is—and once again, I can throw it back to Apple, but I am one of their biggest fans—their trust in this process, their trust in Graham and in the directors and in us, gives us such freedom to actually feel free to create. It's not a common thing for studios to be like that as a buff. So it's a playground. It's a fantastic playground."

She continued on to say, "I feel like a sponsor for them, but I really love them. And take away the fact that we're doing Silo, the shows are so meticulously thought through of what they make, why they make it. You can see a thread of the quality that they make, so I feel so bloody honored that we are making it for Apple."

A key component of that creative process is the writing on the show, with Graham Yost playing a major part in it. During a writers' strike, the work of those behind the screenplays becomes more magnified—it always should be—but Ferguson adores the way the show sets up ideas and then pays them off. She's a fan of how it doesn't need to answer every question, but answers them enough to have you come back for more. Ferguson went on to say:

"What I feel with the writers—and I'm referring to Season 2, seeing it further on—things that I have questioned before and things that I was wondering about really ties up. If Graham is very good at something, it is tying knots together. It might not give you a complete answer to things, but enough to satisfy your urge of the huge questions. Then you have emotional feelings, or why or how did that happen? And you know, we might not want to answer all of those questions, down to character, as well, and our own little secrets we sit on as actors. But the way things are linked together, it's brilliantly written. Absolutely brilliant."

Ferguson Shares Her Biggest Challenge

One might think playing Juliette could end up being a career-defining role for Ferguson. The lead in an acclaimed series—particularly when she's already become such a star through the likes of Mission: Impossible—certainly puts you on a certain trajectory, but the chance to tell a story over a prolonged period of time gets you out there more, and it allows you to reflect on what aspects of the character require more nuance and get more of yourself into that performance.

In the case of Juliette, however, she's so closed off from everybody else that Ferguson almost had to fight to keep from putting too much of her own personality into it, which was her biggest challenge.

"I think I was having so much fun… For me, Rebecca, I am a person, I'm curious, I lean in, I'm so sure in work or interviews or promotions. I speak a lot. I'm not loud, but I'm not scared of making a fool out of myself. Privately home, I'm quite quiet and I'm very calm. I have two very separate identities. Juliette is awkward, and I am not socially awkward. I mean, I am maybe because I'm very blunt [laughs], and people might find it uncomfortable, but I'm not Juliette in the sense that she's very socially awkward and she doesn't like people. She doesn't like being close to them, she doesn't like their energy. She walks around people. And sometimes, when I was comfortable in the scene, I forgot about it, and I moved into my own character. So I had little tricks that I had to do for myself to kick myself into Juliette. The way that she holds herself and the shrug or she leans back when people lean forward, and I found that quite hard."

[garrothromeave]

i would actually argue that making shad the big bad of mystreet would be less impactful for his character than the ending he got!

i WOULD agree that micheal is kinda... boring, but at least it makes sense. the demon warlock was defeated easily in mcd - he still has pent up rage, desires for power, etc.

i think that making shad the villain again would be a bit disregardful of the character behind his villainy. shad is a tragic character; he was dealt an unfair set of cards. he's already the main "bad guy" of mcd, even while not being the main antagonist until season 3. s3 was clearly building up for this big fight with shad, especially with how focused it was on him as a character & the divine. shad was outcasted as a young adult. he was a magicks user in a time where it was still not understood, and all he was seen was was as a monster. it's all he knew. and then he met irene, was given a chance, shown that he could do good, and he did his best to do that.

and then he was given the relic of the destroyer. and then his daughter was killed. and then his friends try to kill him. and then he loses his mind. and then is stripped of his body, his humanity by the one person who had once extended that hand, and due to the nature of the relics' promise of immortality, was forced to rot in hell with no physical form for centuries. did he deserve that?

now, this could seem like an argument as to why he should have been the villain of mystreet - that's a lot of anger, why can't it carry on for centuries after mcd - but to that, i ask of you, look to the ending that was given to him in mystreet.

at this point, ""shad"" no longer exists. when we see him, it's upon irene/mcd aphmau's death, and he is known as "judgement." he is still shad, but he has a much different role.

there's issue in the fact that we don't get to see the inbetweens. we don't get to see how shad got here, how he was able to let go of this rage that fueled him from centuries, we dont know what happened. but it did, and he's here. i speculate we would have seen the beginning of this or at least the seeds planted had mcd season 3 ended, because it's clear by mystreet that this is the story that jess wants to tell.

had shad been the big villain of mystreet, he would be deemed as - well, irredeemable, and would likely get the same fate micheal got. obliteration. the bad guy was killed! woop!

but that would not be satisfying for shad. such a tragic villain, seemingly never able to crawl out of the hellhole that he was imprisoned within. doomed to forever hold hate. doomed to never change. doomed to be trapped in the box irene forced him into.

by the time we meet judgement, he now has the ability to fully separate irene & aphmau. this in itself is important - he doesn't really get there in mcd, but this distinction is one of the most important. i think that's because aphmau did have an impact on shad. not as irene, but as aphmau. they're seperate beings to him by this point - imagine that, irene was the one who imprisoned him, and aphmau being the one to help set him free.

obviously, we don't know what actually happened or if she actually had any hand in it, but if shad can move up to such an important role such as JUDGEMENT itself - this means something changed. he was given a chance and he took it. just like he once had - but he's not the same. he doesn't hold the same resentment. this is truly the perfect role for a reformed shad, someone who would understand the nuance of ALL the actions we make in our lives. sure, it remains unsatisfying that we don't know HOW he got to this point, but at least its an ending to his story! i would kill to see how it happened too, goodness.

but that isn't it either. he's not just forced to immortality in a different light, trapped to be judging those in purgatory forever - at the end of irene's life, the daughter he was never able to see grow up takes him by the hand and brings him through the doors. "we can be with mommy now," she says. irene has died. shad, going through those doors, dies. his time is over. the episode is called "the end of a lifetime" - this is the end of BOTH of them, not just irene. shad, irene - they're through, and they can finally die, despite their curses of immortality. with all of these relics being destroyed & their separations from them, finally unbound, they can move on. shad was given the mercy he deserved.

if jess wrote ANYTHING right in mystreet about mcd, it was this. shad's death. i'm so so happy he wasn't the villain. he was given an ending that subverts expectation and is equally as compelling. i love him mwah

(that being said shadow knights would be cool. i think it coulda been utilized had they been not directly tied to shad as a puppeteer/creator of sorts

As much as I enjoy the lore the later seasons of mystreet provide, I would have much rather Shad be the antagonist that came back, rather than Michael. I already feel like Shad is a way more interesting character (Having a fairly good reason why he is the way that he is.) and with his return, you could have access to the shadow knights, easily one of the coolest parts of MCD.

You don’t even have to use the same characters you used as Shadow knights in MCD. Like for example, what if Gene accidentally got Dante killed somehow and he came back as a shadow knight. That could be a really cool parallel to what happened in MCD.

Or maybe some of the immortal shadow knights could be brought to mystreet, like Vincent, and try to aid Aphmau and friends to defeat Shad.

You could also use this as a way to tell the audience what happened to Shads character and more of his backstory and motivations (considering that MCD s3 was cut short.)

There are so many ways you could take it, and I have so many ideas, I might make this it’s own au or something.

[elizabethrobertajones]

Hi! Do you think the bar to canon destiel is Mr Robert Singer or the money people or the historical intention/momentum of the show keeping it subtext or....?

As a fan I am not qualified to answer that, nor is anyone else in fandom and we shouldn’t throw around blame or hysteria there. In the sense of creating a boogeyman to blame for this.

And, I think a serious factor is just un-malicious ignorance of its presence/narrative possibility/their ability to write it. That however romantic the subtextual narrative, the writers have never considered that they were actually creating a going-canon-this-year arc and while I feel like the entire writers’ room, buckleming included, would be positive towards it, the reason it hasn’t happened yet is purely because it hasn’t actually been pitched as a proper arc and written as one, where you get all the blatant on screen tropes of something building up, vs the subtextual wallowing of extremely tense emotional arcs with buckets of innuendo or romantic tension, but no path into the main text re: we’re actually going there tropes that you start to see in romances which are, you know, actually being knowingly written as romances in stories overtly pitched as a romance, for the point of teasing us with get together romantic tropes rather than subtextual pining romantic tropes. 

Like. I think we as a fandom don’t seem to think very much about what I assume should be taken for granted, which is to say, that however it’s being written, they still aren’t doing will-they-won’t-they stolen glances and near-miss-kisses and the like that rapidly escalate romantic tension in a proper romance arc where that’s the main objective, and this means that as long as the writers can keep playing innocent in the main text, for all intents and purposes it’s like no one is talking about it. 

Which is why after 9x03, you know, a time AFTER season 8, packed to the brim with romantic tropes and an emotional arc of extreme drama, a higher up said it had never been pitched but they wouldn’t outright reject it if it was, and this caused an enormous amount of wank, despite stating the bloody obvious, which was, Dean n Cas didn’t get together in season 8, which means it hadn’t been written with the intention to get them together, which means that hearing it had never been pitched is barely surprising because it hadn’t happened and there was no particular reason after season 7 why they would start fresh with that pitch. 

I remember the letter the showrunner of Korra put out after the finale, confirming that we had been meant to see Korrasami going canon, and one of the things he said was he hadn’t thought they could even do it, and then when they thought they might be able to do it, still weren’t very brave to see what they could do, largely on the assumption they couldn’t. It seems to be very much a we can do better but we forget that culture that to people not actively invested in creating a queer narrative it doesn’t always seem obvious from the sort of heterosexual POV that a story should be queer, and that means that it’s always borderline surprising to realise, oh, we have the power to do that. Even when a showrunner might actually really LIKE a ship on their show, if they passively do not consider it, as a sort of ambient cultural homophobia that these stories just don’t exist and it doesn’t occur to people to write them, even when they have all the resources at hand.

Honestly I feel like the show has only really been in a position where they’d legitimately think about it and consider it in the last few years, because of the increased awareness. Making Chuck canonically bi is the turning point for me, and that shows that they have the mental resources, and the ability to think about this sort of thing, in a bigger picture way, and an awareness that they can even do this. Like, it was a brave move even for a throwaway line, especially as it’s their depiction of God, but it’s a power move in the sense of showing they know they can do this. Which also therefore means that we’ve only had the 2 seasons of Dabb era for this to even be a potential conversation and there we hit that brick wall of where I do not have the inside knowledge to assign blame of why nothing has happened yet, or why nothing may happen. But it does explain to me very very easily how we might get to season 12 without this even remotely being a storyline that would be dreamed of among the writers for full canon.

(And yeah I’ve been in fandom dreaming of canon longer than that but this is called character growth and understanding more :P) 

[copperbadge]

If you don't want to open this jar of annelids, I won't blame you at all, but... As a professional fundraiser, do you have any opinions about Jane Sanders' legal troubles? Particularly, I'm thinking about the concerns about how donor funds and bequests were handled. That was a big deal in the local media around the time that she originally resigned, but got swallowed up later in squabbles about personality clashes and the relative value of real estate.

Well, just a reminder, I am not technically a professional fundraiser – I don’t meet donors or deal directly with solicitations, so I’m less knowledgeable about this kind of thing than, say, a gift officer (who meets with high-net-worth prospective donors and helps structure large gifts). I work with gift officers to target and triage possible new donors. 

That said, I do know a few things about large structured gifts and how they are stored as data, so I have, if not opinions, then at the very least information.

And some opinions, I guess. I’m only human. :D 

(There is a readmore below, read more!)

It’s tough to know without seeing the school’s actual facts financials – which normally might not be that difficult, schools do make that kind of thing public in a limited way. But with Burlington closed and the records in the hands of law enforcement and financial institutions, that’s a no go. From following the story, without being a local or actually involved, it certainly looks like at the very least Jane Sanders mismanaged the school’s existing finances and made some poor decisions. Criminally negligently poor? Harder to say. 

I will say that the poor decisions she made are extremely common poor decisions in higher education. A lot of schools turn to what’s called a “capital campaign” when they want to raise a lot of money fast: they start building on campus, or buying new land for campus extensions, either during the fundraising for the buildings using a line of credit or shortly after raising the funds. In the case of Burlington this was a hugely risky step to take because Burlington had no endowment (basically a savings account earning interest, with the interest as spendable income) on which to rely if things went south, as they obviously did. At a guess I’d say she wanted to start attracting a much wealthier class of student, and the way she went about it was by trying to make Burlington seem much more Ivy League and much less Hippie Haven. 

If I had been in her place, my number one priority would have been an aggressive campaign to build an endowment – though possibly Burlington was the sort of place that aggressively did not want an endowment, it was a very unusual school and endowments come with a lot of issues. A lot of schools currently are under pressure from students, in my opinion rightly so, to divest their endowments from funds that support companies involved or implicated in genocide, ecologically unfriendly activities, weapons manufacture, etc. School administration tends to push back hard because unfortunately those are often the most lucrative investments.

Capitalism. Yum. 

Despite knowing that Burlington’s kind of weird, I would be willing to bet that the board that brought her on hoped she would create an endowment; with her connections and an aggressive team and a little luck, she probably could have built a $100M endowment (respectable for a small college) within ten years. Though, reading some of the articles, they were talking in the $6M range for a campaign, which even for a small university with a minimal fundraising shop seems like a very low bar to set themselves. So it looks like she may have sought the easier road there. I think the board’s hopes for an endowment and her refusal to work on creating one is borne out by the fact that the board claims she wasn’t “attending to fundraising”, but that’s just speculation.  

There’s a lot of talk of how she may have misrepresented pledges made by donors who did give. I don’t know what to make of those, because the wording surrounding those misrepresentations in the news is pretty vague. The problem is that fundraising bodies keep their books in such a way that it often looks to outsiders like they’re misrepresenting income or saying they raised more than they did. This is both for tax purposes on the part of the donor and also for certain methods of tracking that the organization employs. 

For example, a donor pledges $1M, structured to pay out over five years, with perhaps twice-yearly payments of $100K. So the school is, in fact, only getting $100K every January and July. But the pledge was put into a contract and notarized, so it’s a legally binding document (technically, we don’t generally sue people who don’t pay, we just revoke their gift and wish them luck). So the donor can claim the $1M all at once, can get credit in the news by us for the $1M, and we say in our records that they gave $1M “with X outstanding” (X being a number that drops every time they give us $100K). We also get to claim we have that $1M even when we don’t. 

This does occasionally lead to “ghost gifts” – I found one the other day where a guy pledged $10M and then never gave us a dime. In 1982. It even had a note attached to it from 1992, “We think this may be a ghost gift. The paperwork has gone missing sometime in the last ten years.” Presumably that $10M has been wiped off our books. I certainly hope so, anyway.  

We also have what’s called “gift expectations” where we can record what we expect to get from the donor the next time we solicit. That’s not legally our money, naturally, but it is a field in the database, and at a small school like Burlington it’s entirely possible that a gift expectation just…went into the wrong data field. So they said “we expect this person will give us a million dollars next time we ask” and somehow that million got put in the “definitely they said they’d give us this” field instead. I mean it looks like the damn thing was kept on a spreadsheet, so it’s not like it would even be hard for that screwup to happen – our databases generally have failsafes that prevent this kind of error. 

It is entirely possible that Sanders falsified information about giving, or that the information was mistaken, but it’s also possible that what we see as falsification of pledges is really just counting chickens before they’re hatched, and that may have been how the bank read it (and that may also have been how Sanders intended the bank to read it, which circles back around to whether this was intentional). Donors say that they didn’t pledge the amounts that Sanders says they pledged, but donors have been known to abandon sinking ships before now, especially since if a donor said they’d give the school a million and then never gave it, they could be on the hook with the bank for that $700K the bank says Burlington still owes, I’m not sure of the legal situation there. That also depends on whether or not they signed the paperwork and, if so, for what amount (which again, all this is either in the hands of the feds or the bank at this point). 

To be clear, I’m not defending her. I’m just saying, for context, that fundraising book-keeping is fucking weird.

It doesn’t seem as though the land deal itself benefited Sanders personally (I may not have all the info) so while obviously she was well paid in her time at Burlington, I don’t think she threw the college to the wolves to get hers. So it doesn’t appear to be malicious. 

I think in the end it’s evident that Burlington College was in trouble before Sanders got there. She was hired in the hopes it could get out of trouble. It failed because Sanders made spectacularly poor decisions and was backed by a board that was either too weak to protest, too inexperienced to understand what was happening, or too uninvested to care – these things don’t happen in a vacuum and the board should also have put a stop to what she was doing long before it did. 

But I think, most of all, this highlights the plight of small, weird schools like Burlington. With no endowment, with a lowered ability to fundraise because of it, without an elite reputation to attract wealthy students and with a weird student body who probably aren’t making the kind of bank a big school with a business school attached to it is, Burlington was primed for failure in this century. And with universities becoming more monolithic as college degrees become more and more requisite, we will probably see more small schools fail – especially small schools with no endowments or small endowments. It’s like trying to climb out of poverty in a minimum wage job. There’s just no way to get a foothold, and one bad move can close it down for good. 

So I guess uh the moral of the story is, everyone needs an endowment, and if someone tells you they have a Catholic orphanage to sell you, make sure you can cover your debts before you buy it. 

[amwritingmeta]

Since Sam and Dean don't exist in au, Michael and Lucifer definitely skipped the true vessel bs then went to war with angels and demons in their true forms (angel blades sticking out of the ground proves it). That means au Cas is in his true form and Jimmy Novak is probably dead in a ditch somewhere. I hate the idea of Jack resurrecting Cas cause that'd be too easy and basically turns him into god. So when Misha comes back, how can they bring Cas back with him?

Nonny 1: i saw the ask in which the Anon is wondering if they would make Misha play AU Cas, but i don’t believe they would do that, in fact it really wouldn’t make a lick of sense, because Cas in that AU aint Cas, what made Cas the angel we know and love is that he was the one who pulled Dean out of hell, Dean who changed him and taught him free will, and in that AU dean was never born to begin with, so AU Cas would be just an angel.

Nonny 2: Hello! I was wondering about the possibilities and any possible theories on the bizzaro-Narnia AU-where-Dean-and-Sam were never born world. Do you think that it could be explored, or that we might see AU! Cas? Not as in an outright replacement, but maybe 1 or 2 episodes with him as a commander of a garrison of angels? You’re by far one of the most optimistic meta writers I’ve met and I really need some happy speculation to get me through hellatus. Sorry if you’ve covered this before. Thanks!

Hello, lovelies!

So, three wonderful asks that all have to do with this AU World that’s been so suddenly thrown into the mix. I’m glad I get to tackle this topic! Thanks fawert and Nonnies! (and forgive my reply taking sooo long!)

The basis for the following speculation is that I believe the narrative is closing as the writers are moving it towards endgame. Everything in S11-S12 is telling me this because S11 began the movement by forcing Dean Winchester to admit to himself that he is properly, truly, madly and deeply in love with Cas. Read more on my thoughts about this here.

In short:

Dean Winchester is our Protagonist

His character growth is what informs the narrative

He wouldn’t have been set on this particular path of character growth if he hadn’t met Cas

Dean’s growth is what is allowing him to let go of Sam, ending the brodependency, and granting him the insight to find his true self-worth, through self-acceptance

His self-acceptance has a whole lot to do with letting go of his toxic masculinity spiel

His letting go of this will be most clearly demonstrated by him fully embracing the fact that he’s in love with a man

Happiness with the man he loves is Dean’s reward for completing his character growth, reaching the internal goal of his character arc: which is self-acceptance

(yeah) (he knows)

Now, I don’t know that this is where they’re taking the narrative, okay? Let me be perfectly clear about that. No one knows exactly what they’re planning (except the fuckers themselves) and they might go absolutely crazy in order to drag the narrative out for six more seasons.

However - and this is a big however, you guys - the writers have consistently, and with extreme due diligence, built a slow-burning love story between Dean and Cas that is beginning to peak - that’s what S12 gave us - meaning that going absolutely crazy to drag this love story out will jar with everything that’s come before.

Let’s not forget that our story is about love, and sacrifice, and love.

Love is mentioned twice by Metatron because our story has always been foremost about love.

The love between the brothers and the love between Dean and Cas. Without all that love - no sacrifice. (or manpain) (oh the manpain)

The fact of the matter is that the love between the brothers was set up from season one to evolve beyond their brodependency, and it would never have done that if it hadn’t been for Cas affecting Dean’s character growth. 

I know I’ve said it before, but hell, let’s say it again: 

the Destiel love story is integral to the narrative because it informs Dean’s character arc. 

And Dean is our Protagonist. 

His character arc informs the entire narrative and every single secondary character arc within it. Including Sam’s. It’s true!

Here’s a very recent example that proves it:

Dean shooting off that grenade launcher, and tearing down that first symbolic wall in 12x22, is what set off the amazing steps away from the brodependency that both brothers had managed by the end of 12x23. 

Dean shooting off the grenade launcher:

a) injured Dean, which brought him tob) telling Sam to go lead the attack on the BMoL without him

I could meta about the symbolism here until my fingers go numb, but this is not the post for that, safe to say: Dean tearing down walls is what led to him letting go of parenting!Dean, finally seeing Sam as the adult he is and being able to place his full faith in his little brother’s ability to manage by himself, and to lead, without Dean there to watch over him or guide him.

Fuck. Yes.

But to surmise: it was Dean the Protagonist who had to let Sam go - Sam couldn’t break free from Dean on his own.

Because Dean is the one who, primarily, needs to learn the big lessons that the narrative have been setting up for him through his character arc.

So my point is:

if they hurt the Destiel love story 

this love story, which is the very cornerstone of Dean’s character growth

by turning the tables and stalling said love story by, oh, I don’t know

bringing Cas back, but as a different character 

a character that doesn’t actually know Dean or have the shared history with him that our Cas does

->then they hurt the entire narrative they have built

And I cannot for the life of me believe that they would ever do that.

Not after nine years of carefully keeping this love story burning, removing a few coals now and again so that it wouldn’t flame up and singe the more delicate viewers, but still allowing it enough air to spread a lovely, warm glow, and (okay, enough of that now) (fine)

But you get my meaning here? Let’s boil my meaning down even further:

AU!Cas would effectively kill the love story

which would severely damage the overall narrative

would rob Dean and, by extension, Cas of their endgame rewards

which would cancel out the deeper purpose for all of Dean and Cas’ character growth

And so the mere thought makes absolutely no sense anywhere at all.

There will absolutely NOT be an AU!Cas to replace our Cas.

And I could slap Misha Collins for even hinting at the possibility of it, because he must know that all he’s doing is setting the speculation ball careening through the fandom. And it’s sadistic. (you are a sadist Misha Collins)

(see???)

fawert: I’ve already told you in a different post how much I loved your observations regarding the probable rules and circumstances of the AU World - eye-opening and I’m bound to agree with you because it looks the most plausible and, also, it’s gorgeous! And feeds my brain with all types of scenarios for Mary trying to survive that dystopian, war ridden place. *crackle*

Now, as for how they can bring Cas back, I’m speculating on what so many have already pointed to and speculated about (props to those who mentioned this first, I don’t know exactly who you are, sorry):

Spec 1 - Jack’s grace still lingering in Cas and reviving him

Though I sincerely don’t know how likely this is, I still feel the writers left themselves a loophole, because that grace can clearly perform fucking miracles and it was so obviously shown to us in 12x23 that Cas still possessed some of it, even if he couldn’t use it to ice Lucifer.

There should be a reason for it planted as a visual when he heals Dean. That visual didn’t need to be there: Cas tells Dean in dialogue that he can’t use the nephilim’s power anymore because killing Dagon took both him and Jack, so why the visual? If the lingering nephilim grace is useless anyway, why have Cas use it in order to heal Dean at all? Why not have Cas simply use his own powers, as he has all season? Hmmmmmm. *brow in deep creases*

So I strongly speculate that what we have been shown is to set up that Castiel the angel of the Lord is dead. Him dying an angel death for the first time ever was not for nothing. Dean’s angel is truly gone, and should be mourned.

But also because of this angel death, and thanks to the lingering nephilim grace, Cas is about to finally get the full human experience. *crossing fingers*

Spec 2 - Jack reviving Cas

Personally, I don’t think this is likely. I was convinced Kelly would survive the birth, that Jack would end up healing her or saving her rather than killing her, and her “I love you” right before Jack bright-light shone his way into the world makes me feel slightly vindicated. Because Kelly is the Good Mother who loved her son and willingly sacrificed her life to ensure he was born with all of his powers.

So, to my mind, baby Nephi was Good.

But Jack, in the form he is in now, leaving smouldering footprints on the floor, scaring the bejesus out of Sam: this Jack is most likely not going to simply touch Cas and bring him back to life. 

Firstly (and to me, most importantly): because Jack reviving Cas immediately and somehow brainwashing or controlling him or convincing him to stay as his Protector cancels out Cas’ dramatic death, and the effect it should have on our Protagonist. 

Cas died to further Dean’s character growth (and ultimately his own as well, of course) but if Jack revives Cas now, there’s no growth to be had for Dean.

We have seen Dean bereaved of Cas: Dean drinking himself into a near year long stupor

We have seen Dean pine for and wait for Cas: he kept Cas’ coat in the boot of his many, many different cars, expecting his return

We have seen Dean fight for Cas: he spent a year in Purgatory, keeping himself alive with the one aim to bring Cas home

We have yet to see Dean Winchester grieve for Cas without getting stuck in one of the 5 stages (and yes, everyone grieves differently, but for the sake of my argument, I’m assigning Dean the need to move through all 5 stages)

We have never seen him truly, deeply believing there is no hope for Cas to ever come back to him and accept this as a fact that is entirely out of his power of control.

For us to watch him, for the first time, go through each of the 5 Stages of Grief, he is first going to have to bury Cas’ body, put it in the ground, and yes, deny, bargain, get angry, get depressed over Cas’ death - he needs to go through all of this - but once he reaches acceptance for the first time in his entire character arc, then I would love it if this is the moment Cas is revived and finds his way back to the brothers. I would absolutely fall to pieces with happiness.

Especially if it’s human!Cas who’s finding his way back. I mean, just imagine the possibilities for character growth, for the joint love story to evolve and deepen into something undeniable.

It would do such wonders for both Dean and Cas’ character arcs if Cas came back as a human and came back early in the season, so that we get to watch him do all that character growth, finding his place, finally, in himself, and through it, with the brothers, within the world at large and, ultimately, taking up the space next to Dean in the Impala. 

(Because Sam will be MoLing)

Secondly: because Jack reviving Cas immediately and somehow brainwashing or controlling him or convincing him to stay as his Protector only works if Jack indeed chose Cas as his Protector, but, to my mind, based on how I read the narrative of 12x19 and baby Nephi being good, Jack didn’t chose Cas: baby Nephi chose Cas.

The nephilim’s angelic side chose Cas.

Jack, as I see it, is the Opposite of the nephilim’s angelic side, and so I would put forward the possibility that this Newborn Jack will not feel tied to Cas in any way.

Newborn Jack could, absolutely, be the spitting image of Daddy Devil. Newborn Jack could be the Corruptor and Deceiver, and I believe this is the whole point for the Opposites, shown to us in how baby Nephi was presented through the 12x19 narrative rejecting Evil at every turn, and how we are presented to Newborn Jack through Sam finding him, smiling, in the corner of the darkened nursery.

(first impressions will hopefully not last)

Now, here’s what I’d like, because my brain *crackles* with the dramatic conflict:

Rather than Newborn Jack darting off - which is one of the possibilities at the back of my head - I think they’ll choose to keep Newborn Jack with the brothers, keep his actual intentions ambiguous, and leave us wondering whether he’s an angel or a demon or a little bit of both, but mostly demon, it seems, or is he actually good? Hmmmmm? We just won’t be able to properly tell.

I can see them playing with a Dexter sense of danger around Newborn Jack, where he’s observing them all like they’re lab rats, but where, ultimately, their behaviour and TFW placing true faith in him making the right choices will lead to him connecting with his inherent Humanity.

Spec 3 - Regarding the bizzaro-Narnia AU-where-Dean-and-Sam were never born world

(Would love for this to be the official fandom denomination, btw - let’s throw it in the hat!)

Do I believe they’ll explore this world?

Yes: if the question is with regards to Mary being trapped in it.

They may choose to build it as part of Mary’s self-acceptance arc, where she gets to see what the world would be like without her boys and what her choices actually did for the world. Namely: save the hell out of it. It could be poignant that Luci is stuck over there as well, but more for the plot than his character arc, I should think. He’ll come back all threatening and badass, I’m sure.

No: if the question is regarding expanding the SPN Universe to now include this other dimension, and possibly more of them, spinning the series into a time-traveling multidimensional party cracker of narrative possibility that will last for years and years to come.

No.

I sincerely doubt it.

Because of the aforementioned reasons of Dean as our Protagonist and his character arc and growth and endgame and building the narrative around this for twelve years. (more or less for twelve years) (I know Sam started out as the Protagonist) (though I would like to call bullshit on this for reasons) (whatever)

Spec 4 - Do I believe the bizarro-Narnia AU-where-Dean-and-Sam were never born world will affect the SPN reality we’ve come to know and love?

Possibly.

I can see something slipping through the cracks. Or Mary and Lucifer both returning with new information and it becomes a race to outwit the other, find the key to the universe first (or is that what Jack is supposed to be) or something crazy and huge like that.

But I am of the impression that the AU World is nothing more than a plot device, used to show us - the audience - what our world would be if it weren’t for the Winchesters.

As the narrative has entered the final act, as they are tying it up, looping it back to the beginning with callback after callback, this underlining of how all the misery, and heartbreak, and manpain that the brothers Winchester have been put through, has all been worth it makes perfect sense, and underpins the validity of the narrative as a whole. Which I like.

I truly can’t see the AU World serving any further purpose than that of the pure plot device that was Purgatory, which the writers cleverly used to show us exactly how much Cas means to Dean, and vice versa, and to grant Cas the chance to repent, so that he’d be able to believably move on from the severe error in judgment he was guilty of when he let the Leviathan into the world. This time it’s Mary’s turn to repent and to forgive herself, which goes nicely with her and Cas paralleling each other’s arcs for all of S12.

Spec 5 - Will we see an AU!Cas in any shape or form?

Possibly through Mary, yes, but I sincerely doubt they’d bring AU!Cas into the middle of the heartbreak that will be grieving!Dean. I mean, they could. They might very well do that. But it’d be fucked up. And I agree with both fawert and our other Nonny who pointed out that Castiel would, most likely, not even be possessing Jimmy Novak anymore. (aka Misha Collins) (…the sadist) 

So what would be the point of bringing Castiel the angel of the Lord into the mix?

Castiel in our reality is dead. He has died. 

We need to feel his death with Dean. 

We want to feel it with him, not be distracted by some Cas wannabe stomping onto the scene, taking up our Cas’ vacant space. No, thank you. Right?

I think the writers will want to torment us (they are sadists along with Misha the sadist Collins) (all writers are) (yours truly included) (so, you know, stones thrown at glass and all that) Anyway, they won’t just revive Cas within minutes or even within the first episode. I believe he’ll be put in the ground. Or, to be honest, I would like for him to be put in the ground. Obviously they won’t burn him.

So, to point to the most important sentence on offer in this post:

There will not be an AU!Cas to replace our Cas.

Ever.

(also Misha Collins is a sadist)