#and they should have saved Cas

[strawlessandbraless]

The divorce arc was really something else

[angelsdean]

imagine cas annoys the empty so much again it spits him back out except...it spits him out into the wrong universe (and time) and that's how *our* cas ends up in the winchesters universe. and at first he doesn't realize it's not the right time or universe and he goes looking for dean and instead finds the Lebanon bunker closed off and eventually finds john + mary and he thinks it's his universe's past john and mary and he tells them he needs help to get back to his time (bc his grace is still too low). he tells them he's from the future and needs to get back to someone and he pulls out his wallet and shows them a picture of dean and they're like "whoa whoa we know that guy!!!!" and cas is like, "that's impossible. he hasn't been born yet." and they're like "no no he was here. he helped save our universe. he's from another universe and he came here from heaven because he's dead and there was this young guy with him, jack? and an older guy, robby or bobby or something...." and cas is just slowly losing his mind, all the color draining from his face because first of all what do you mean he's dead?!!! and then all the other universe stuff and then jack? and bobby??? and yea anyways they team up to help get cas to dean and along the way hmmm what if jack pops in again....only this time he's acting even weirder than before, because chuck / the god power are gaining more control / corrupting him more. and jack becomes the big bad, thwarting their attempts to get cas to dean, and wreaking havoc on their universe, so the winchesters squad help them save jack and then dean and cas can eventually get their proper reunion (which everyone in the winchesters squad is now nvested in, especially carlos, number one deangirl and destiel stan) oh and the whole time they also do not know dean is mary and john's AU kid because cas never gives a last name just keeps calling him dean. and so john also grows invested in seeing these two people get their happy ending and BOY would it be cathartic for dean to see a version of his father who is so happy to see dean happy with a man-shaped person<3

[s0fter-sin]

sometimes i think about how much of a waste it was to just have cas ignoring sam’s prayers in s6 instead of him actually not being able to hear him bc he was soulless and his prayers didn’t work

[flowerflamestars]

Effloresce Snippet

[soulthesimmer]

but there's something about your aura.

[perilegs]

i thought i can't have same face syndrome in ts4 since i usually make my sims by randomizing until i find a face that inspires me and then tweaking it but uuuhhh

[gatsbydyke]

aaaaough its so hard having like. a specific version of a character in mind and None of the mvoeis will do it for me. where smy guy whos a square and Not White who the FUCK si that

[quietwingsinthesky]

I guess I can't really get behind cas saving dean from hell as a destiel win, or lines like 'you don't think you deserve to be saved', because. this is not a point at which cas is doing because he believes dean is good and loves him or anything but. he saves dean because that's heaven's will. when he reminds dean that cas, and heaven, are who saved him in early s4, it's not him really saying 'you're a good man', it's a debt that he is using, pretty explicitly, to get dean to do what heaven wants. even the handprint reads like... ownership, in a way.

cas is complicit in heaven's manipulation of dean after he's pulled out of hell. that's what makes his rebellion later powerful, because this is an angel who believes in heaven so strongly that he will look into the eyes of the righteous man he saved and tell him that if he doesn't do what he's told, he will throw dean back into hell.

[victorluvsalice]

Another Smiler Outfit Post For You All

Because back on May 31st, I played around with putting one of my Smiler Sims in a few new outfit possibilities for their birthday, and, well, I like sharing my attempts to make my Sims into fashion icons with you. XD So here is the latest selection of Potential Smiler Outfits:

First up, we have what I believe is an all-Vampires formal look, featuring a lovely fancy tailed tux with a bright yellow patterned vest; a black top hat; and a pair black shoes with white spats. Plus some lovely dramatic purple eye makeup and yellow eyeliner. I genuinely didn’t realize this tux had this swatch – I will have to keep it in mind for future save files where I use Smiler and need a formal outfit for them!

Next, we have another formal look that, as you might imagine, was at least partially inspired by me seeing that sparkly yellow jacket and going “Felix E. Lated Vibes!” XD But yes, Smiler here is sporting a sparkly yellow jacket and off-white shirt combo from High School Years; a pair of black base game pants with a belt (I have decided I like Smiler in belts); a pair of yellow shoes from Luxury Party Stuff (which are maybe not QUITE the right shade of yellow, but they still felt them); and some dramatic yellow Get To Work eye makeup paired with some winged black Luxury Party Stuff eyeliner. I liked the combo and felt it suited the look!

Here we have a party-ready Smiler wearing one of the base game full-body party outfits – loving the sparkly dark yellow jacket and black pants, but I’m not a big fan of the red undershirt or, honestly, the tie. If I could get a version of this that ditched the tie and had like a black or yellow (or even purple) undershirt, this would be fantastic. *shrug* But you work with what you’re given. Anyway, the dark yellow Discover University shoes actually pair really well with this outfit (the texture goes well with the sparkly cloth), and I found some sparkly yellow eye makeup from Luxury Party Stuff to pull it all together! Which doesn’t show up well in the full-body shot, so here’s a close-up:

Yes, so I caught them at an awkward moment mid-blink, what can you do. XD Anyway, yeah, isn’t that a good match for the jacket? I love the glittery effect. Discovered this while working on their OTHER party outfit and realizing I got a LOT more makeup options when I took off the “masculine” filter! Speaking of which –

Almost forgot to get a picture of this particular outfit when I first played through this CAS makeover session! XD Anyway, this one was a result of me playing around with the color filters, looking for stuff in purple and yellow, which led to me stumbling across this High School Years top and going “YES.” I mean, I would have gone “YES” even harder if the overshirt was yellow instead of purple, but this is still VERY The Smiler-ish, I think. Plus I feel it’s good for Smiler to have some purple-themed outfits – breaks up all the yellow and black! But yes, here we have Smiler in a black-and-white-checked long-sleeved undershirt with purple short-sleeved overshirt (not QUITE a fan of the high collar on the undershirt, but still), black belted base game pants (of course), white and black Get Famous shoes (to go with the shirt), and some purple-with-the-brightness-adjusted-to-better-match-the-overshirt Luxury Party Stuff eye makeup! *nods* I mean, I think it looks good. :P

Here’s a quick “hot weather wear” fit I whipped up because, well, it was the Unofficial Start Of Summer when I originally did this. Featuring a Get Together hat that has a plant symbol on the front because that was the only design that had the right yellow brim (again, I need the help of modders to get me a plain version...or a version with The Smiler Logo on the front instead XD); a Perfect Patio Stuff light yellow overshirt/white undershirt combo; those base game yellow-and-black shorts I found and decided had to be Smiler’s from when I did the “SDX Swimwear” looks; a pair of yellow-and-black Get Famous sandals; and a yellow-and-black base game bracelet for their – guess it would be right arm, since they’re facing us – that I stumbled across looking at some of the bracelet options. I like the chevron one on their other wrist best, but this is still good!

And finally, Smiler in goofy heart-print boxers. Because they would. XD And because they were originally wearing flame-print boxers, and I was like “uh, way too Wickerman.” XD

[wherethestoriesare]

i think the reasons the spn fandom got 6 episodes of mick davies & immediately paired him off with cas are many & complex & include:

mick literally took one (1) look at cas & said out loud i reckon you could finish me off without breaking a sweat & then gave him his number

mick's character plays out one of the earlier planned arcs for castiel: getting killed for breaking from the ranks. mick is prime tfw material. we were robbed.

cas deserves good things

[terraos]

I feel like 90% of my sims would be so much easier to be attached to if I could make my own cc for them. Instead of cc shopping all day for one specific thing that makes or breaks a character

[mazeyphaedra]

3, 12, and 6 for the ask game

ask game!

3. Favourite food?

this stumped me i like a lotta food!! but i’ll say tocino. any and every day ive gotten to eat tocino has been a good day bc tocino had made it so

12. Your favourite music genres?

oh im so glad this got asked again. i also enjoy alt rock!! and rap, r&b, and gay pop (but only when chappell roan does it)

6. Do you have pets?

no :/ i begged and begged for a dog and then a cat but never actually wanted pets enough to be willing to clean after them lol

[shallowrambles]

I actually think the Benny in Dean's Werther Project hallucination was truer than Dean's idealized recollection/memory of him.

And deep down, even though he rejected it for self-preservation, Dean knew it. That's why his anxiety manifested the way it did in the first place. TLDR: It's alllll about Andrea.

A lot of this is redundant, but here ya go.

Benny was acquiescing of the execution of corrupt loved ones. Blood Brothers is a crucial Benny episode. It's illuminating...and unflattering.

Reality check? Benny was mostly okay with "a sacred executioner (Dean)" doing the painful dirty work so he didn't have to. Benny might also be particularly sympathetic to monster-suicide, as that's what he chose for himself.

Benny directly showed us in-canon that he was resolved to kill even his most beloved "corrupt family members"--like Andrea Kormos. She was quickly deemed too far-gone and corrupt, nevermind that their conversation was too short, too condescending, and too aggressive on Benny's part to explore meaningful change and solutions.

So yeah.

I think the real Benny might be totally game for Dean killing himself so his loved ones didn't have to. Especially if Dean himself posed a risk of doing harm/attacking said loved ones, as Andrea Kormos did when she attacked Benny.

That was the "real" Benny all along. And that hurts.

///

Benny didn't try to convince Andrea. He instantly judged her, offering no validation of the emotional struggle with addiction or alternative way forward.

Benny believes in sparing loved ones the task of killing their corrupted loved ones. He was part of practicing it with regards to Andrea. See below:

ANDREA takes his hand, but stays where she is. ANDREA: Where, Benny? BENNY: What are you talking about? Anywhere. [ANDREA looks down.] You're not leaving here, are you? And you never were.

So, yeah. Okay. He's clocking her intentions here, but he's also doing a lot of heavy lifting assuming her thoughts, ascribing the most uncharitable mode to her motivations. (Using an always-and-never statement to boot.)

It comes off so condescending. It's an accusatory mode of communication.

He jumps straight to the vibe of, "you never wanted to leave here, you're corrupted!" whereas her "Where, Benny?" speaks more of desperation and fear. (It reads to me more like: "How, Benny? Why should I fight what I am, Benny? I can't do this, Benny. Can't fight this. It's too hard.")

But he...doesn't seem interested in helping her rediscover herself. He doesn't validate her feelings or illuminate a path to redemption using his own past sins to help pave the way.

He doesn't even talk about another way forward. (Nevermind that he himself did some pretty awful crimes on the high seas for decades before "redeeming" himself. (Rules for thee, but grace for me?)

ANDREA: We have everything we need right here. The operation is still perfect. We can ride the high seas, plunder together. We can have the life we always wanted. BENNY: What I wanted was to leave a burning crater behind. I wanted to put your memory to rest. ANDREA: But I'm not a memory. Benny, I'm right here. BENNY: What I loved – it ain't here anymore. It was snuffed out a long time ago by monsters like me... like what you've become.

I just want to emphasize how this conversation is barely a conversation. It's an attack on Andrea before a real conversation can even begin to take place.

The mere act of being afraid of leaving, of having Stockholm Syndrome and losing her "father," of feeling connected to the Easy Mode of vampiric hunting is met with an over-the-top attack on her character.

(You're not you. You're corrupt. You've become like me, because of me, and I don't want you anymore. You're dead to me if you're like me. You can't be redeemed...even though *I* was.)

It's a flagrant dehumanization.

///

What could he have said? Is this a tonal argument?

I guess it could be if you squint, but he directly insulted her, denying her existence to her face. That's why she reacts with a desperate, "Benny, I'm right here."

She's not a memory. She's monstered.

He could start with acknowledging how hard it is to be a 'human-ethics-centered’ vampire. He could share his own struggles. Show some empathy, or at least some sympathy! At bare minimum, he could discuss a new way forward. ("Anywhere," isn't a discussion.) Instead, we get...zilch.

He's much too busy being horrified by the apparent corruption of The Perfect Woman.

He goes straight to the vibe of: "you're an irredeemable monster."

///

Is it worse to go too far...or not to try at all?

And here's where the Sam-Bobby-Dean triad of demon detox takes on a more positive light. Their methods may have been cruel and harsh. (Detox is an ugly, horrific, twisting, screaming-and-lying thing. Detox tells you that drug dependence is who you are. It tells you you like the disease. That you perhaps ARE the drug/disease).

But anyway, Bobby-Dean-Cas did not give up on "corrupted/addicted/overly righteous" Sam.

Likewise in season 10, the methods of Sam-Cas-Charlie were evil, but they did not give up on "corrupted/disinhibited/unfeeling" Dean. Although Sam and Cas started out being resolved to kill Dean, they realized they couldn't. Wouldn't. (In season 10, perhaps Sam is in his mind resolving not to trigger the abandonment Dean got so unhinged about in season 8.)

So I guess the question is, what's more evil? In SPN, is it worse to go too far...or to barely try at all? They're both bad, perhaps, but one is driven by hope, and the other by nihilism: "we're all damned."

Benny’s arc is rooted in nihilism from start (Andrea, revenge) to finish (torn apart in Purgatory, as he probably intended to go out).

///

I think Andrea's feelings were obviously hurt; she was insulted...and with very good reason.

I mean, it's no wonder she attacks him. She cries, "You think you're better than me now?" He says he thinks they're all damned, and that certainly enrages her.

She senses, perhaps correctly, that it's really just lip service.

His actions imply that he really does think he's better than her. He did crimes and got redeemed. She's not even gonna get that chance. Not really.

(She has the "chance," I suppose. Technically. Sorta. But he purposely agitates her with his nihilistic lamentation of man-woe, spending much of his time judging her, not trying to convince her.)

You see, even when he messes up, Benny still "gets to be" himself. Even if that's a corrupted vampiric self. He's still "Benny." Not Andrea. When Andrea is a struggling addict, a vampire, Andrea "just is a memory."

Andrea is immediately disallowed her own identity simply for voicing that it might be easier to stick to the vampiric ways of hunting to live. It's black-and-white, abruptly cruel judgement, even before Dean gives the killing blow.

///

Later in the season, via deleted scene, Benny completely falls off the wagon, insisting "Dean doesn't wanna know (about his feeding off innocents)."

Benny is a symbolic perfectionist here. (As Dean himself can be when it comes to hero-worship and people.) Benny wants to remain idealized, just like he wanted Andrea to remain idealized. They're eaten alive by the symbolic, cooing Empty: "Wouldn't you rather remain a fond memory than a constant, festering disappointment?"

Benny's okay with that. And in the end, Dean's okay with that, too. That's why both Amelia and Benny feel like mirages. If Benny is "away," Dean can fantasize that maybe Benny got to be “King of purgatory,” and most importantly, Benny gets to live in the idealized space Sam could never live up to: "brother who never let me down."

(Dean is struggling to cope with life in this season. I think his hero worship of people is something he tends to do to help combat the abandonment he feels is inevitable. And yes, as I've said before, I think this is because John was a hot-and-cold caretaker!)

The deleted scene implies that Dean could perhaps be content not knowing all the ways Benny fails to live up to the cartoon of Benny he's drawn in his head (as a means to cope with the disappointments of living). Benny was good because he was at arm's length, not close enough to wound, hurt, or disappoint. And as Benny's organ donor/blood donor/drug dealer, there's a comfortable dependance Dean can fall back on, giving him control and feeding into his specific brand of abandonment-neuroses.

Benny never clawed his way back the way other characters did, because the writers decided to strip away his complexity and cut out the meat of him. Give me the guy who fell off the wagon. Give me the guy in The Werther Project. That's the real Benny, and he's great. He's, to quote Amara, better than the false ideal. He's real and complicated.

//

As for Andrea's redemption, perhaps in Benny's mind, if Benny's not *immediately* enough on his own to change her behavior by *checks notes* coming at her with the least charitable assumption and denying her personhood, then she's a Lost Cause (TM). If Benny's not enough for her to change, as she was enough for Benny to change, then "no one/nothing is."

So, he goads her with harsh, black-and-white words. "It was snuffed out a long time ago by monsters like me... like what you've become." I.e. I'm a monster reformed, but you're a monster that deserves to die before we even validate your pain or talk about the chance of recovery/healing. (You were ruined/corrupted by my father in our game of war. Ouch.)

She is hurt and ofc attacks, and the sacred executioner (Dean) strikes her down (so Benny doesn't have to).

It's also potentially a kind of family annihilation/self-nihilism. That in Benny's mind both he and Andrea deserve to die for being "damned." (Indeed, Benny will submit to his own murder with nary a complaint.) I think this latter one is perhaps more charitable, that Benny was always in a bad place--suicidal.

Again, Benny’s dependence on Dean as drug dealer was comfortable for Dean, allowing him to both keep Benny at arms’ length/not let him close enough to be de-idealized and hurt him the way his family and loved ones have, while at the same time being forever on the hook of blood donor/organ dependency (the symbol of the in 8x03 cooler). Benny’s life on the show was like Benny’s death: a figurative open door that you never intended to open. And Season 8 is all about surreal, idealized figments.

ANDREA: You think you're better than me now? BENNY: No. I think we're all damned. ANDREA snarls and her fangs descend. DEAN stabs her from behind and then cuts off her head. BENNY and DEAN look at each other before BENNY looks down at ANDREA’s body.

Anyway, that's why I wanted Andreas Kormos for Purgatory II. I still do.

I was also so partial Andrea's rage, disappointment, and confusion. I wanted to see Andrea versus Benny. At minimum, I wanted Andrea back as The Stockholm bookend to the Nihilism, even if Benny was ripped to pieces (as his nihilism would predict). Andrea still had a will to live, even if it was evil/vampiric, and that's far more interesting to me.

///

All in all, it would be completely in-character for the nihilistic Benny we got to know to be comfortable seeing Dean go the way of a corrupted Andrea. We didn't see Benny’s nihilistic worldview develop or shift in a meaningful way during the course of the show. Indeed, his nihilism actually became more severe the longer he drifted.

If "one friend" (Dean) abandoning him and some hunters tailing him is enough to get him to fall off the wagon, he had a very tenuous grasp on resilience indeed. We should all support one another and not seek to violently undermine (Hi, Sam), but at the same time we are not responsible for another person’s addictions.

Benny can be an off-key parallel like how Sam sometimes shifts the burden of his "wellness responsibility" to others? (The Benny-as-idealized-surreal-brother and Sam-as-real-imperfect brother hits hard. Benny’s addiction is excused and enabled as necessary; Sam’s is framed wholly as a choice, which...addiction is complicated. We're much less kind to family about it.)

All in all, I think it's foolish for Dean (and the audience) to think that Benny would treat Mark of Cain!Dean in any way meaningfully different than he treated Andrea Kormos.

Dean's hallucination in Purgatory was more in-keeping with what we saw out of the real Benny. The box knew that Benny was in fact the most likely of Dean's friends to argue for suicide, and it was probably uncomfortably right about that because Benny did not arc towards growth on any occasion. Dean's self-soothing narrative was the false one. Hopeful, maybe. But false.

Makes you wonder if the killing of Andrea was something that was subconsciously actually haunting Dean in a very real, gloriously complicated way. (The way I think Cas's taking of a human vessel subconsciously haunts in him 14x10 Nihilism).

I think Andrea haunts him especially in light of his own newly devolved disinhibition/loss of free will/corruption.

(The real Benny wouldn’t encourage a friend to die? We saw him do just that: tell someone they were too gone…and then watched Dean kill her so he didn’t have to.) Deep down, I think this is an example of Dean’s anxiety over the reality of what happened with Benny and Andrea. Charitably, he’s not seeing through an illusion so much as choosing to live for himself in this moment! Which is fine. We all need our fictions.

Disclaimer: I like Benny. I think all of this makes him crunchy and interesting. And it makes him make SO MUCH SENSE. He, like so many many characters in SPN...fell to nihilism. :(

[verytendou]

Idek what to say anymore if you cant be normal abt black people you genuinely need to die atp

[yaminerua]

Genuinely looking into the idea of trying to throw together a budget Rimmer cosplay for September now asdfhhjjdssfhk

[castielmacleod]

Something spn could have done which I think would have been equally cool and horrifying is that after the angels fall they bring back recognisable characters or one-episode wonders from previous seasons, except now they’re possessed angel vessels and not themselves.