#breaking point is my breaking point

[which-hospital]

I will pay someone to be nice to Teddy. Not even talk about it, just… sit with him and have a cup of tea or something. Why does it feel like the entire world is out to get him? (Edit: for icky, ‘he’s so alone’ drama, I know this but I can still question it.)

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

"consuming media" is such an overstatement. at best I'm sipping it

[zeropro]

It's a canon event.

[Follow up to this post.]

[secretmellowblog]

People who try to analyze what happened on Tumblr on November 5th, 2020, often really overstate how much it was actually “about” Supernatural. As someone who has never been in the supernatural fandom ever but dID join in on the hysterical destielposting—it was really more about the stress of the pandemic and the 2020 presidential election.

The two biggest Youtubers I’ve seen try to dissect “what happened that November 5th” in video essays both weren’t American—- and I think that explains why they both tried to explain the hysteria primarily via analyzing the Supernatural fandom/the original show, rather than through the lens of the election. And while those videos are cool, valid, informational, and make lots of really well-considered interesting points— I can tell you that me and almost all my mutuals had literally no knowledge or interest in the fact that “oh supernatural had made nods at the ship in the past but the creators were adamant that I wouldn’t be canon” or etc etc etc etc. the first time I learned about any of that context was way later, watching videos where people claimed that fandom history context (that I did not know anything about) was the actual reason for the hysteria.

But the reality is that people latched on to the Destiel stuff because it was a piece of big useless inane zero-stakes fandom news in a time when we were desperately waiting for serious high stakes election news. We were latching onto a “positive “ piece of inane stupid fandom news in a time of great stress, with all the desperation of a drowning man who latches onto whatever piece of wood will keep him afloat.

The core of the hysteria was that Americans (who make up a huge chunk of tumblr’s userbase) were currently glued to their laptops watching the live presidential election vote counts come in. These vote counts were taking an extended amount of time due to the pandemic causing high numbers of mail-in ballots, resulting in a constant state of Election Day Stress for multiple days straight.

This was also during the height of the Pandemic. People had predicted Trump’s presidency would be bad; no one had predicted it would be this apocalyptically bad. No one had predicted pandemics and lockdowns and hospitals overflowing with bodybags. remember Trump spreading Covid lies and conspiracies?? There were so many Qanon conspiracies about democrats being Satanic child traffickers who had to be put to death, and coup threats were mounting from the right wing side. It seemed like this election was a choice between ‘centrist democrat’ and “apocalyptic right wing conspiracy theory authoritarianism,” in the midst of pandemic conditions that people feared would never ever improve— and it seemed like a close election.

Another major point was that Trump voters were more likely to be antimaskers/Covid deniers, while Biden voters were more likely to take the pandemic seriously— so Biden voters were more likely to send in mail-in ballots instead of risking the in-person voting crowds, which meant their ballots would take much longer to count. And so, in many state electoral vote counts, it would initially seem like Trump was very far in the lead— only for Biden to slooooowly build up an agonizingly small lead as the mail in ballots came in, and then defeat Trump at the very end.

So you’re just watching these news sites giving live election updates, refreshing the page every 2 minutes to see if you’re going to live under a spineless centrist democrat or a literal Qanon Dictatorship. And then you go on tumblr to distract yourself, and there’s more election posting, and more agonizing over the votes, and more stress and despair—-

And then it’s been days and we’re right at the crucial tipping point where it’s anyone’s game and the next few hours will determine whether Trump will win, so you need to keep your eye on the vote count, because the next hours will determine the future of the pandemic and your country and your plans for your entire life—

And then stupid Destiel becomes canon! And it becomes canon in the silliest way possible!

If Destiel had become canon at any other time, it would have been a big goofy tumblr celebration? But we wouldn’t have gotten the insane explosion of hysterical interaction.

The entire core of it was the contrast between the inane meaningless stupidity of fandom news vs the actual stressful election news you wanted to hear! It really is best conveyed in that meme where Castiel says “I love you” and Dean indifferently responds with a piece of important election news.

It’s about the contrast between the low-stakes inanity of fandom and the massive life-destroying stakes of a terrifying election. There really was no reason it had be Supernatural specifically, except that Supernatural was a thing everyone knew basic things about from dashboard osmosis— it could’ve been any other equally huge silly fandom ship news about a ship everyone *knew of* but might not necessarily be invested in (ex. Stucky becoming canon, Johnlock becoming canon, Kirk/Spock becoming more canon somehow, etc etc etc.)

I think it’s true that people who weren’t paying agonizingly close attention to the American election news got swept up in it, and that non American Supernatural fans also were extremely excited for purely fandom reasons — but the entire reason it blew up to an unprecedented degree was because of that core of stressed out terrified Americans glued to their computers watching election results and suddenly receiving stupid fandom news instead, and deciding to just hysterically parodically hyper-celebrate this absurd useless zero-stakes news.

I think it was also all elevated by the fact that, as I said before, this happened at the crucial “tipping point” of the election where the next few hours would determine the winner. The fact that Biden began to slowly develop a lead in the hours after made it feel, hysterically, as if the hours after Destiel became canon was somehow the turning point where he began to win; so celebrating Destiel felt like celebrating that slow turn towards victory.

The tl,dr is that it’s so important to Remember the Fifth of November …..in preparation the inevitable hysteria that will happen in the presidential election on November 5th of next year. XD. Personally I’m rooting for Johnlock or Frodo/Sam to somehow become canon in the eleventh hour right before the democrats win

[akanemnon]

Well, someone just pushed all of Kris' buttons at once

FIRST - PREVIOUS - NEXT

MASTERPOST (for the full series / FAQ / reference sheets)

[1alchemistart]

...with human soul and parts!

[wanderer-clarisse]

early morning sunlight at Bag End

[eyes-of-nine]

hey mq your rival is kinda cute tbh😌👉👈

[zorangezest]

3/3

i've been getting a couple asks if redraws were allowed and yes! i love seeing how my art is interpreted in different styles, go for it!

previous laserbeak

phew! that's a lot of drawing...i'm going into hibernation now...

ive been working on this project for close to a month and i have to ask: what was your favourite moment?

[solshii]

i was gonna post this with my other (unrelated) animation but im really sleepy i might post that one tmr

[which-hospital]

Teddy’s life for the past year has been like watching a car crash and thinking “it can’t get worse!” and then another car drives into the pile up and you think “it can’t get worse!” again and then it happens again. And it keeps happening, for a whole year.

The Casualty writers said “IT CAN ABSOLUTELY GET WORSE” and then set out to prove it.

[iwasbored777]

They asked Lee Majdoub what he thinks of Stobotnik vs what Stone thinks of it and this man chose violence omg the more I read the more painful it gets

[heartorbit]

searching for a star that's still unknown to anyone!

[te4k3ttle]

Is this loss

[captain-astors]

"For You." (redraw of that one manga panel from chapter 29)

[smalltownrobin]

Something so painful about Robin's coming out scene is when she says, "if he did know her, like really know her, I don't think he'd even want to be her friend."

She doesn't word her rejection like ‘I don’t like you because I like girls’, she words it as ‘you won’t like me because I like girls’.

She was so prepared to lose Steve's friendship, even after everything they'd been through together, not because she didn't like him in the way he did her and was about to make things uncomfortable between them, but purely because her queerness could erase their entire friendship in an instant.