#cas john comparison is not one-to-one!

[shallowrambles]

Ok I think some wires are getting crossed here. When I say that I like characters like Lucifer and John to be complex, I don’t necessarily mean subtle or “nuanced,” I mean simply: talk about the parts that make them interesting without fear of being labelled a stan.

I like the crunchy bad parts, of course. But it’s also feels good to note when they get scapegoated unfairly or have glimmers of goodness. Or when our faves echo their/actions and behavior, like grace cannibalism. That’s the tension.

Example: In order for Sam and Dean, and especially Dean (disorganized, insecurely attached), to grow as he did, John had to be unpredictable, and that’s what’s I find interesting. He likely had moments of extreme neglect followed by almost inexplicable warmth (like their New York trip referenced in season 10).

Example: Lucifer gets blamed for things Lucifer didn’t do. That’s not controversial. We saw Chuck abuse and discard Lucifer in real-time on our screens, and Chuck posited it as an “inevitability,” not a consequence of his own actions.

[chibsandchill]

See me

Fandom: Saltburn 

Pairing: Felix x AFAB!Reader 

Summary: Each room in Saltburn is bursting at the seam with memories with you, and Felix remembers some of his favorite moments as he makes his way to his prize. 

Warnings: Felix, Mentions and descriptions of acts of violence and murder, NSFW content, MDNI, 18+, unreliable narrator (Felix), toxic relationship, obsessive tendencies, grammatical and spelling errors, p in v sex, oral sex (m receiving), Felix is a creep, themes of violence - self-harm and equivalent themes are prevalent through the imagine, some parts of their dynamic takes inspiration from Hannigram but with my spin on obsession

I am not responsible for your media consumption. Read the tags. 

MDNI

Masterlist

:-:-:-:-:-:-:

It’s a cloudy day when Felix first saw you,

but with you came the sun, 

warmth, empathy, love. 

Oh, how he loved your heart. But, oh, how careless you were with it. It was a gift, 

one meant for him, 

from you. 

Then why did you waste it on those beneath you? You chipped away at it to mend sobbing students, tore at it until it bled and thick scars rose like mountains. You took on their pain with a blindingly bright smile, 

only Felix saw how their burdens weighed you down. 

The sun was meant to warm, to burn from far away, 

but they tore you down from your place in the sky so that they might leech your warmth until you are left barren. Their sorrows were cold as ice against you. 

They stole you from him. Piece by piece they ripped at you with filthy nails. You became known on campus as someone who’d listen. Who wouldn’t judge. How could you when you felt their problems as if they were your own? The more they spoke those words dripping with poison, the more they tainted the very blood in your veins with their darkness. 

‘Walk in their shoes’. 

You didn’t need to. You could walk in their skin, feel their emotions as if they were yours. Heartbreak plagued you, sorrow fell on you like an ever present shadow. The death of a family not yours turned your face gray and your eyes misty.

Until Felix put a stop to it all. How could he stand by and watch it happen? The slow destruction of a bright star, who burned so bright that all envied it. 

Jenny from history of art, Carl from math, Robert from physics, Matilda from psychology, Caroline, Jeremy, Han, Thomas, Harry, Derek, Henry, Linda, Nico, Mark, John, Hans, William, Frederic. All turned away at your door. 

“Yes, I’ll tell her.”

“I’ll let her know.”

“Sure thing, buddy.”

Oh, how they believed his lies. Sweet, sweet, Felix Catton wouldn’t lie to them. Surely not. 

But lie, he did. It spewed from his lips like honey. All to have his sun beam at him again. To wash away the taint of the others from your skin, your heart, your eyes. He would have you look at him with soft, relaxed eyes. 

Him. Him. Him. Him.

Your protector. Even if you didn’t know it yet. 

“Felix.” 

He hummed. 

Your eyes are heavy with sleep when you look up at him, but the affection is hard to miss. It makes you glow. Felix curled his arm further around you, bringing you closer to him. But even then it is not close enough. He aches. It’s a want deeper than skin, deeper than bones or even his soul. It was as if his very being was made of want, of longing so intense he was blinded by it. If God was indeed real then he had created Felix with a thread laced with obsession, with love transcending all else. 

Even thinking about you made his heart race, pound. 

“Can I braid your hair?” 

“‘Course.” He said against your skin. 

As if you needed to ask. All of him was yours. 

You try to sit up but Felix isn’t ready to break the contact yet. He feels like a battery, no matter how bizarre a comparison it is, constantly needing to be recharged so that he might survive when you part. He’s constantly cold without you, he feels empty; hollow. His hands are too light with the lack of you, he breathes too easy without the weight of you on his chest. If he could he’d carve his heart out so that you could carry it with you, for that was how he felt anyway. He’d gouge himself hollow so that he could fit you inside. Never to be parted again, joined together by shared blood, flesh and bone. 

It’s not easy with his hold on you, but you manage to shift so that you sit in his lap instead. It’s not ideal if you mean to truly braid his hair but Felix won’t complain. He pushed his head into your touch when your fingers hover over him. 

“Patience.” You half-heartedly scold him. 

Your fingers weave through his hair, nails scratching just right against his scalp. With deft hands you untangle the mess you’d created during the night. There’s not much to braid but more than enough for you to wrap around your fingers and tug. The action pulls a low groan from his throat. 

He grabs your hips. Felix wonders if you’ve noticed how he’s caged you in. You probably don’t, as sweet and trusting a being as you surely wouldn’t peel back his layers to gasp at the thriving darkness beneath. With you he was his truest self. Could you see him? Would you run if he were to cast off the layers? Let you see him? 

Maybe you already could. You had seen the others. Even the empty ones, the ones who had gouged themselves hollow and shoved the essence of what they thought he wanted until it spilled from every hole in their body. 

Felix wasn’t hollow. He was bursting at the seams with life, same as you. And yet you stayed. Surely you knew. You had to. You and he were one. Two pieces of a whole finally reunited. 

He breaths in your scent, noses along your throat before allowing his head to rest in the crook of your neck. There’s a bruise there hidden on your shoulder blade. Late one night when you’d already fallen asleep he mouthed it into your skin with the moon as his witness, 

only, 

it had started to fade. 

He’d have to do it again. Closer. Marking you under the cover of darkness wasn’t enough anymore. An unspoken claim didn’t satisfy him anymore. It wasn’t enough. He was beginning to think it never would be. He could bruise every inch of your skin with his love and his skin would still itch to do more – to prove himself more to you.  

Just as his hands slide down to rest on the curve of your ass the scene slips through his fingers like sand. 

He blinks it away. He’s standing in the driveway of Saltburn. Your favorite statue is left in shambles on the gravel with his blood splattered across the white marble. 

“What the fuck.” Felix’s hand shakes and burns with pain. His knuckles are split open. 

It had been a slip of a thought he had once when you first came to Saltburn and you’d taken to leaning on the statues, the furniture, walls, pillars. He’d wanted them all gone. He’d be your pillar. He wouldn’t crumble with age, would never make you think they stood strong only for the core to be riddled with holes from pests.

Felix was whole and strong, had made himself such, 

for you. 

He’d burnt the tendrils of influence his mother had dug into him since childhood. Torn the threads of her darkness right out of the tapestry. Oh, how she cried when she noticed. ‘Felix,’ she’d whispered, a rare show of emotion plastered across her face, ‘what have you done?’. 

She shouldn’t have worried about what he had done. No, she should’ve worried about what he was going to do. 

He watched you for weeks before approaching you. He noticed what made you laugh, what made you smile, frown, scowl. And so he took that too. Cut out the parts of himself that would drop the smile from your face and sewed on the parts that he lacked until he was left a patch-work version of perfecting befitting a Mary Shelley novel. Pus and blood seeped from the stitches. The sight was unseemly. So he waited until he’d perfected himself, until the stolen was assimilated, until it was like another Felix had never existed. 

Felix throws the heavy doors open and the maids scurry away from his sight. 

Duncan emerges from the pack. Even after all he’d seen, his adoration for Felix remained. “Welcome back, Felix.” 

He nods. 

And then he’s off. 

The route he takes is reminiscent of your first tour of the mansion. He’s even nodding along as if hearing himself introduce it all. The staircase where he “fingered” his cousin. As if. Your face had reddened with equal parts jealousy and sheer disbelief of ‘what the fuck’. 

One of the smaller sitting rooms. The green one. He fucking hates that room. But you love it. He went down on you for the first time there. Right on the couch with his granny’s ghost knocking down a shelf of antique plates over his head. The blood had driven you crazy. 

The thought alone made him hard. 

But this was also the first room you’d held him properly in. He’d been crying. 

“What's wrong?” You ask when he threw the door open. 

You’d been doing some summer reading for uni, but your fingers clutched the opening pages with strength that betrayed your pounding headache. 

“Fucking Ollie.” 

Your brows furrow “Oliver?”

Felix lay down on the couch with his head in your lap. You smell good. And you’re soft. 

“Yeah.” He sigh. “He was lying to us this whole time. Turns out poor Oliver Quick has both a dad and mum who loves him. Even siblings! They live in a lovely house in a picture perfect neighborhood.”

‘I just need you to understand how much I fucking love you!’

As if there was even a sliver of Felix that didn’t belong to you, that didn’t scream out for you every second you were apart. Had Oliver not been paying attention? Could he not see the need that permated him? It ran so deep, was so all-consuming that he couldn’t contain it all. He breathed desire, cried longing, even fucking pissed envy. Envy even over the very air you breathed, the clothing that hugged you, the sheets for the audacity to imply he wasn’t enough to keep you warm. 

You hum as your fingers drift down to cup his face. 

“He was in love with me.” 

“Isn’t everyone?” You joke. 

Felix’s eyes opened (he hadn’t realized he closed them). “You love me?”

“Of course.” You trace a scar on his cheekbone. 

“Say it.” 

“I love you, Felix.”

Even that memory fades, but your words linger. 

I love you, Felix. 

You always linger. Your kisses burn his skin and he wishes it left a scar so that he could look upon it and relive it all. 

The green room is abandoned quickly, and he’s off. 

“A blue room!” You exclaim, and to Felix’s displeasure you let go of him to take it all in. 

“Yeah. It’s… blue.” 

“What? No ghosts? No artifacts?”

Felix shakes his head. “Nope. Just blue.”

Felix sees himself leaning against the door while you spin around the room. It’s like a movie, almost. Only it’s his memories and he can remember every second he’s ever spent in your presence. Including this one. And the next one. 

The one where you’re on your knees.

You’re pressing soft kisses to the tip of his cock, pressing your love into every inch of skin you can find as if you wanted to stay there, to have your love replace the tar that ran through his veins. 

It’s odd. He can almost feel the tingles left by your touch, but he’s untouched. Felix’s hands form fists at the sight. Was it possible to be jealous even of himself? The envy boiling in his stomach certainly said so. He would not share you even with himself. 

Felix strides forward and sinks into the place his past self sits. He unbuckles his jeans and frees his cock from his underwear. If he were not so deep in madness he might’ve felt the cold of the room, but he was, and so he felt the warmth of your hands, the wetness of your mouth as you wrap your lips around his tip. 

He moans. He didn’t know what he liked the most about it. The vulnerability, the act itself, your presence, or that it left you with a part of him inside you. You’d kneel in front of him for as long as it took, but Felix would not have you be uncomfortable and so he slid a pillow under your knees. 

Your hands cup his balls. He twitches. You take more of him into you. It feels like heaven to have you wrap yourself around him. Wet, warm, silky heaven. All for him. 

Him. Him. Him. Him. His. 

You moan around him. It sends vibrations straight through him. It pulls a low groan straight from his chest, one that makes you moan. His pleasure is your pleasure, and your pleasure is his, and so the circle begins. 

His eyes roll into the back of his head when you begin bobbing your head up and down. You slurp. Electricity runs down his spine. It’s wet. Sloppy. Saliva drips down your mouth as you press your nose into his abdomen. 

Someone drops a plate somewhere in the house and the spell is broken. Not unlike a reflection in a lake is the memory distorted, wrong. You’re on your knees without the pillow. He’s standing above you, not sitting. Your knees are bruised and bleeding. You’re crying. 

Some small part of him, one that he’d allowed to fester for far too long, enjoys the scene. Enjoys the submission, thrives in the knowledge that it is not only he that longs and wants and would press and press until nothing remains if only to bring you a sliver of happiness. You smile around his cock. It’s not the pain that brings you to tears. 

This isn’t right. This isn’t him. It’s Elspeth messing with his head. It’s Oliver whispering his lies in his ear. 

He wants to vomit. Why would they punish him so? To make him see you hurt, 

to force him to see himself hurt you, brutalize you, 

humiliate you. 

Why, when he adored you, worshiped you. If there was a puddle he’d lay himself down to let you walk over him. He’d drown himself so that you would not have to dirty yourself. Like a tumor he’d performed surgery after surgery to remove what you didn’t like. 

And you did the same. 

The image is restored, but he’s already on his feet. 

He would wait no longer. 

Felix runs up the stairs but is forced to a halt by the moans coming from the king’s bedroom. Another memory? The door is already open. 

“Tell me your vows again.” 

You’ve got your legs up in the air behind you, head resting in your hands as you stare at him. 

“Dear,” Felix turns around from where he stood by the window. Your name sounds like prayer on his lips. “I’ve never been alone. People have flocked to me since before I can remember. But they didn’t see me. But you… you, I let you see me. It’s a rare gift. And it’s one that I’ve never regretted giving you. I’ve never felt more loved than in your arms. Do I need to continue, Mrs Catton?” 

You laugh. 

“Come to bed, Felix.”

The memory changes before he can enjoy the sight of you in your wedding dress. The happiest day of his life. Gone in a blink. 

You’re no longer on the bed. You’re in his arms, crying yet again. There’s blood on his shirt. No finger graces your finger. Felix closes his eyes. He knows this memory. KNows very well what he’d have to endure to get back to you. 

“Y-you killed him!” You shudder. 

Felix shushes you. “There was no other way.”

“There’s always another way.”

“Not this time." 

Truly, there wasn’t. You saw much, but Oliver was so good at pretending to be someone else that he even fooled himself into believing his own lies. And so, you thought nothing of it when Oliver offered you his bottle of wine. Had no idea of the drugs that he’d shoved in there. 

“Are you scared of me?” Felix asks you. His voice shakes. He remembers his own fear, how his stomach churned. He could write a thousand words and not even chip at the surface of the emotions he felt. A thrill at the thought of you finally seeing the deepest deepest parts of him? Disgust that he’d slipped and revealed a crack in his mask? Such fear that it clung to his very bones, stopped his lungs from working and had his own eyes water with tears? All true. And yet all of them are false. There wasn’t a single emotion he could place, they all blended together to form a concoction of heart-wrenching pain and fear. 

The memory fades away. He doesn’t remember the rest. All he remembers is how it ended. 

The headboard bangs against the wall with the force of his thrusts. His hands are cradling your face, kissing away the tears of pleasure. You push your legs up higher on his back where you’ve hitched them, your own hands pressing against his own face to bring him closer. He’s inside you but he’s not close enough. 

Felix leans down to cover your whole body with his. You squeak at the change. 

“Oh god,” you throw your head back with a moan. 

He moves a deft finger down to press down on your clit. He experimented with pressure, directions, even spelled out his own name with your pleasure. Felix feels as though he’s on fire, but still he wants more. He wants to be closer. Closer. Closer. Closer. 

You clench around his cock, and he stutters. 

The love in your eyes makes him falter, before he drives into you faster than before. The bed squeaks, one hard thrust away from breaking. Fitting. So is he. Your right hand moved up his cheekbone, past his ear and to the back of his head. Your touch is gentle, barely-there pressure as you guide him down to slant your mouth over his. His heart aches with love, adoration, you. You’ve made it your home. 

Yet again he is denied release as the memory is gone. The room is empty. 

“Fuck.”

It’s not graceful the way he stalks out of the room. No more interruptions, he thinks. 

The last door in the corridor. Yours. And his. Your marital chambers, as Duncan would call it. Old fashioned bastard. 

He pushes it open without as much as a knock. And there you are. 

“Felix!” You cross the room in seconds and then you’ve thrown yourself in his arms. “We missed you!”

Your rounded stomach presses into him. He rests his forehead on yours, pressing long, soft kisses against your lips, even as you giggle and try to move away. When you do, he chases after you. He’s not done. Never done. 

His legs feel like jelly, his soul is on fire, 

but he finally found you.

In a house full of memories and vengeful ghosts he found you. 

And you saw him, as you always do, and he’s tugged back into bed with the comforting weight of you pressing him down into the mattress. 

And he’s almost content. 

Almost. 

Taglist:

@fedyascoffin

[angel-fruitcake]

How is it canon when it’s unrequited u make no sense whatsoever is it delusion or memes

first of all- 'unrequited' means distinctly not returned. Dean's stunned lack of response in the moment was not a rejection of Cas' feelings, and should not be considered as such. therefore, Destiel cannot be considered unrequited.

second of all- Cas' love for Dean has been confirmed many times on multiple different occasions, by both Misha and Jensen themselves, as well as Robert Berens, to be romantic love. that is not up for interpretation. based on that fact alone, it is canon. whether or not Dean's feelings are ever explicitly and/or verbally expressed does not change the fact that Castiel is canonically in love with Dean Winchester. that makes it c a n o n.

third of all- the fact that Dean's feelings have not yet been verbally confirmed is of very little consequence when compared to the monumental amount of very compelling evidence suggesting that he does, in fact, return Cas' feelings, even if Dean himself hadn't yet realized it at the time of the confession.

if you have watched this show and actually picked up on the frankly staggering amount of very clear context clues, it is quite obvious that, aside from his brother, Castiel is the most important person in Dean's life, full stop.

i don't have the patience right now to list every single instance that suggests Dean's feelings for Cas are mutual; there are far too many. but i will remind you of the most significant ones:

when Cas died in the s12 finale, Dean mourned that loss unlike he had done with any other character death up to that point in the series, and the way in which Dean grieved Cas was very purposefully portrayed in such an undeniably different way than how Sam grieved Cas. even the loss of his mother seemed to almost pale in comparison to the immense weight of Cas' sudden absence in Dean's life. Dean mourned Cas like a spouse rather than like a brother or family member; it is known as the 'widower arc' for a reason.

Dean was nearly suicidal up until the very moment he learned that Cas had come back. when Cas inevitably returned, the sudden change in Dean's demeanor was so immediately apparent and extreme, it gave Sam whiplash.

in the final seasons, Dean no longer showed much if any interest in having any romantic or sexual partners, a stark contrast to earlier seasons. the last committed relationship he had was with Lisa, which was quite a few years prior. this is in direct contrast to Sam, who had several romantic love interests over the course of the show (Jess, Madison, Ruby, Amelia, Eileen). the role of closest person to Dean other than Sam was always filled by Cas, the only difference being the lack of romantic label.

Dean and Cas' relationship has been directly paralleled in multiple different instances with canonically romantic couples, the most significant ones being: Sam and Jess, Cain and his wife Collette, John and Mary (during the widower arc), and Sam and Eileen in the final season.

additionally, directly following Cas being taken by the empty, Sam's attempts to call Dean were completely ignored, despite Dean knowing that his brother needed confirmation that he was alive. the sole thing occupying Dean's mind at that moment was Castiel; nothing else in the world mattered.

do you get it?

[angelinthefire]

I think one thing that gets kind of tricky with talking about Dean (and to a lesser extent Sam and cas) parenting Jack is that Jack isn't really either a kid or an adult and I don't think people are very good at talking about it. Like even just calling it child abuse is kind of misleading imo. Jack simply doesn't have the same emotional or physical needs as a human child but he also needs more guidance than an adult, and not really in a way that's equivalent to any real life scenario either. Like their situation is so unusual and Jack is extremely powerful I just don't think you can put all the regular human rules onto it. Like dean saying he'll stop jack if he becomes dangerous seems harsh but what real world equivalent can we look at to figure out how this should be handled? Jack has ready shown he can kill extremely powerful beings with his mind before he was even born. There's no real world equivalent to that and he is potentially dangerous. I think shooting Jack in the convenience store is another good example. I find it incredibly bizarre when people call that abuse or even violence. Like yeah, if you actually shot a kid to get their attention that would be bad but jack is immune to bullets. To me it's more like if your kid was hitting another kid and you yanked them away but even that isn't a perfect analogy. Idk I just think when people try to slot it into this normal family system it doesn't work and I'm not saying Dean's actions were all okay but it's not fair to make a direct comparison to real life of even to john imo

ENTIRELY agree.

Like I've ranted about baby jack before and it is a pet peeve of mine when people treat him as a straight-up child when he's not that. In general I don't like when people start their analysis by categorizing a character deciding that they must have all the characteristics of that category, instead of looking at all the contradictory components of a character and what they mean. And that happens with Jack a lot.

[misrepresentedmorallygrey]

PROPAGANDA

John

This fella is Fascinating. just trust me on this he deserves to be here

He tried so hard to do the right thing, he feels bad and says things would be better if he was never born. He thinks he should've just stayed acting like a monster and continued to act threatening.

(LONG PROPAGANDA INCOMING)

John. Milgram. Here's a short description of the fortunes and misfortunes of the guy. It gets worse before it gets better (probably).

While MILGRAM is a prison that judges a bunch of sympathetic killers, it doesn't consider him to be one – it didn't even exactly know he existed until too little too late, when it got its grabby hands on the brain of prisoner 009, who claimed to not know anything about any murder he'd have committed. Then, footage from his brain was extracted, as MILGRAM does, into a music video, and… that was MeMe. Ninth prisoner, Kayano Mikoto, was revealed to have DID, and what obviously who do you think actually Killed Someone?

Enter John. Well. Mikoto is half deeply unaware half subconsciously scared of his existence, so the MV painted him in a rather. Deeply disturbing way, bathing in bloody baths and all that (not a blood bath though! easy mistake). Adding to that him showing up in the first Voice Drama for five seconds to punch the "protagonist" and yell for a bit, and the result wasn't. Assuring. The fandom proceeded to treat him like a cardboard cutout and variously dunk on MILGRAM for having a cliché "evil" character w/ DID despite the overall well handling of complex characters.

Two years time skip: second season ending. We get to prisoner 009 again. The protagonist Finally gets to chat with John: and voila, he's admitting to the crime, he's apparently "killed a bunch of people because they annoyed him", which means, as he's saying, Mikoto has nothing to do with the crime at all! And he, as per the judging system, should be forgiven, right! Well, he's so full of shit. The music video immediately reveals how protective he feels of Mikoto (and well, he definitely doesn't rebuke That one), that the events of murder were somehow tied in to Mikoto's job at a black company, his continuous overworking and him being mentally on the brink of breaking; that any committed violence was For The Sake of Mikoto and that John feels deeply horrible for messing up his life in any way. By making himself into the image of a "monster" he's trying to make Mikoto look good in comparison and be forgiven and all. He also mentioned if Mikoto is voted innocent he's gonna try to go dormant since he's The Issue, right, and the audience/protagonist hates him, Right, and Mikoto Also Hates him, Right?

I'm underselling the sheer devotion of this guy tbh.

Yeah, the fandom results were kinda mixed on that one. Lots of people immediately started to love him dearly and kinda forgot any people were maimed or killed with baseball bats; lots also got sold on him "messing up Mikoto's life" and actually voted Mikoto innocent Specifically because of John's promise to eventually "disappear". There's more of the babygirlifying kind in the English side of the fandom that I've seen, to be fair. And that's around where we are!

Dazai Osamu

He did bad things in the Mafia. He's trying to get better. He abused people but he also saved other people. Fans portraying him as an unforgivable abuser are WRONG. He perpetuated an abused cycle on Akutagawa thinking he was right to do that, because of trauma, before he could leave. But he left. He's still treating Akutagawa wrong because he's trying to be a better person but doesn't realize that it will not erase what he did and that he can't just ignore the past. Fans portraying him as a pure angel who didn't know what he was doing because he was sad are WRONG TOO. He abused Akutagawa. He was traumatized but it doesn't give him the right to traumatize innocent people. He's trying to be a better person but he can't keep ignoring Akutagawa. He needs to apologize. And even that won't erase what he did. Dazai is a complex character in a complex situation. He left the abuse cycle and tries to be a good person but did unforgivable things while he was still in this cycle and refuses to aknowledge them. He's not a monster but he's not innocent either.

Dazai used to be a mafia executive until his best friend (a former assassin who remained in the mafia but refused to kill) died. As the friend was dying he told him "I know you don't care about whether you're a good or bad person, so if it doesn't matter to you, be on the side that saves people." Despite that, I've seen countless people insisting that Dazai is a good person/trying his best to be a good person when he really only changed sides by joining a detective agency, while still continuing to do the same things he did while in the mafia (including but not limited to: harassing his coworkers for fun, manipulating people, killing people instead of just trying to incapacitate them, and even torturing an innocent man in one of the side stories). That being said, he's not evil either. Even when he does cruel things, it's not for the sake of being cruel (even when he harasses his coworkers he still has limits), it's just a means to an end. I think most of the confusion comes from a scene where he's talking to a young girl, another former mafia member, who asks if he thinks people can change and he assures her they can, but what the anime left out was that he was thinking about his former assassin friend during that discussion, not himself. The entire series is themed around gray morality, to the point where it's even reflected in the main protagonist and antagonist's designs (mainly white with a bit of black, and mainly black with a bit of white), so I feel like insisting that he's a good person now completely misses the point of the story.

[angelsdean]

I don't get the part of fandom that highlights Dean's supposed codependancy with Sam: he lets him alone x years when Sam was at Stanford, he brings him back to Jess at the end of the Pilot, he is happy to roadtrip with and without Cas in s5 and comes back only because he worries Sam is going to accept to be Lucifer's vessel, etc, etc, etc.

(And there is also Demon!Dean who is like "Fuch responsabilities" lmao)

yea it's like. very clear textually that dean can and will give sam space to live whatever life he wants. even in 1x11 Scarecrow, sam wants to go to california to find john, dean wants to stay and solve the case, he lets sam go !! sam later calls him and dean updates him on the case the the research he's doing bc he doesn't have his nerd brother (putting himself down, self-deprecating as dean is abt his own intelligence even tho he's SO smart) and sam's like joking "oh is this you hinting you need my help" and dean's like, straight up, listen i'm not hinting anything, tells him how proud he is of sam, but i also doesn't beg him to come back, basically tells him to keep doing his own this and to "take care of yourself and call me when you find dad."

sam's often the one projecting or putting words in dean's mouth like "you can't stand being alone!!" at stuff like, not letting sam die ??? not letting your loved one die is being selfish and means you don't wanna be alone ??? in what world. most people will do whatever they can to save a loved one, esp when you're living in a literal horror fantasy show and not like, a basic family drama. and sam will say stuff like but also will do risky things to save dean. hell his plan to save dean from the mark put charlie directly in danger and lead to her death. so like sam is not one to talk abt being "selfish" to save each other. and simply wanting your brother alive is not a bad thing. nor does it mean you can't stand to have separate lives / be alone. though dean very much does not want to be alone, but. he has friends and family outside of sam. he has love interests and people he could build a life with. looking at the relationships on this show you see dean have so many closer bonds with other characters and then sam is notably lacking in comparison. rowena and eileen are the only two recurring characters (off the top of my head) that feel like sam characters. people that are there mainly due to their personal ties to sam. and yea they have lots of joint friends, like gath, jody, donna, etc but even then sometimes it feels like they're closer to dean. sam feels very lonely (and it breaks my heart really) and so a lot of the things he says abt dean and their co-dependency really feels like some projection of sam's own feelings.

anyways this got long and rambly but yea, dean tells us over and over again that he's good with letting sam do his own thing. that he's good with having space and separate lives. the main thing he wants really is just, sam alive. he wants his family and friends alive !!! because he loves them !!!

[clumsykleptorocketscientist]

The Winchester Family: A Rant

Can I just say that Sheriff Jody Mills was more of a mother to Sam and Dean Winchester more than Mary ever was, even after Amara brought her back. Like I guess no hate to Mary...? But like isn't the whole thing about the Winchesters is that family isn't just blood. They developed wayy closer bonds than the ones with Mary, and I know it isn't necessarily her fault, but she wasn't there. Like I dunno, I just wasn't in love with Mary coming back, especially since when she did come back, it seemed like she saw they were grown up and like, didn't care..? Like it felt like she went "oh my job is done these are just two grown dudes that I gave birth to once." Like I know its a weird situation, but as a person who grew up watching Once Upon a Time, where like almost the same thing happened, with Snow, David, and Emma, I can't help but compare their reactions and Mary just didn't stack up.

Snow and David were so ecstatic to see Emma and tried so hard to make up for lost time and parent her as much as they could. They kept trying even as Emma pushed them away saying she was grown and that her and her parents were technically the same age. Throughout the show they found a way to still be her parents while still acknowledging she was grown. It was really beautiful to see, but in comparison Mary did not stack up.

Yes, she is a badass, and, yes, her identity should not solely surround her being the boys' mother, but that doesn't mean she shouldn't be a mother at all. It would've been nice to see her figure out a way to strike the balance the Snow and David did, and I never got that vibe. In Supernatural, it seemed the opposite. It was Dean and Sam trying to be her sons and she pushed them away for the same reasons. I'm not saying she was a bad person, or even a bad mother, as it was a really weird situation and I can't necessarily blame her for how she dealt with it. What I AM saying, though, is that her name had no right to be carved onto that table. Point. Blank. Period.

Also, by the way, since I'm complaining, that weird episode with the pearl thing that let John Winchester come back so they could have a family dinner?????? As if that could truly be what Dean desired. Are you fucking kidding me. John sucked, made them both feel like shit, abused them, and yet that was the "family dinner" we got. It's been a while since I watched the show, so Idk a timeline, but screw the timeline for a sec. Across the entire show, a true family dinner would be Dean and Cas with their son Jack, Sam as the Uncle with Eileen, Bobby and Jody as the Dean and Sam's parents (because, unlike Mary, I very much feel like Jody struck that balance even though they weren't her actual sons) and Jody's brigade of wayward sisters trailing behind her, Donna as like the step-mother or aunt (Idk how Donna fits, I just LOVE Donna), and Charlie as Sam and Dean's little sister. Jo, Ellen, and Ash pop in with Rufus as those family members that are close, but you can't quite pinpoint how exactly you're related to them. Bonus: Kevin and Linda Tran come over like friendly neighbors because, even though they have a family of their own, the Trans are definitely close to the Winchesters, though, whether they like it or not. As much as I'd like to add Adam (to make up for him being left in the pit), I have a feeling he wouldn't want to. He seemed like a guy who refused to subscribe to the idea that because they were blood, they were family. (Maybe Sam and Dean should've learned a thing or two).

TL;DR:

Sam and Dean had a much bigger, and better, family then just John and Mary, but it was never really acknowledged fully and in the best way.

[eggybug]

guess what time it is! its end of season 4 thoughts time!!!!

they are going to be a lot more insane and outta order than in the past

1. the entire season they were yelling at us that lilith was the final seal and it pissed me off jfc

2. i forgot what it was like to lowkey hate sam, i hate it.

3. so cas was in love the whole time, right? RIGHT. like i know ive been ranting about it all season but are you KIDDING me

4. ruby is a bitch and i hate her so bad. but she was in it for the long game thats for damn sure

5. im REALLY not looking forward to the whole "sam gets haunted by lucifer" bit

6. i love cas, i really do, but he looked right in deans eyes, knew that he was doing this shit to him, and did it anyway. like he was probably tortured by the legions of heaven, but goddamn it

7. when i start making cain and abel comparisons all next season, i don't wanna hear shit about it. itll be my bout of insanity and i apologize in advance

8. i fuckin LOVE bobby

9. no body liked john winchester, they loved him, but they hated the son of a bitch

10. i never got to the point where chuck became TRULY the worst guy ever, but i know we as a fandom hate him, so i hate him.

11. i think demons eat babies and i don't know how i feel about that

12. i don't know who i hate more, uriel or zachariah. maybe im glad cas killed all the angels

13. like i get it but HOW did it take dean so long to realize heaven wanted the war too. they disappeared for weeks while lilith was breaking seals like a bull in a damn china shop

14. they keep doing that thing where one of the capital A angels does something shameful to dean, or dean questions his faith in the "Plan" and the camera cuts to cas looking like a sad puppy

15. ik ive said it 1000 times but goddamn those stupid lil boys need therapy

16. GABRIEL WAS TRYING TO WARN THEM, HE WAS TRYING AND HE COULDNT. THEY COULD NEVER MAKE ME HATE YOU GABEY!

17. hey, in the last episode they killed a bunch of nuns, which like damn

18. back to sam, his dumbass really fell for the devil on his shoulder bit jfc

19. like i understand camera work, but two straight men don't stand that close to have a conversation. they just don't.

20. hey sammy, you throw a lady in a trunk, you stop being the good guy

21. at any point did they just consider... not doing that. maybe perhaps, waiting a week?

22. there was a thing with the mirrors and zachariah in the last ep, wasn't there? like that wasn't unintentional. mirrors are notoriously terrible to work with, that can't be unintentional.

23. i love that biblical fanfiction always somehow ends with an angel, a demon, and a human coming together to stop heaven and hell playing out a war on earth.

24. spn just proved you can't leave a bunch of corporate assholes in charge of a planet.

26. im really not looking forward to sam whining about starting the apocalypse for a whole season.

27. dean fighting tooth and nail for cas to see the truth in humanity. to find faith outside of heaven. cas seeing that and it breaking his morale a little bit more and more every time. cas repeatedly seeing dean, perfect vessel, perfect soldier, dean be willing to lose the promise of heaven, of peace for his little bit of humanity. it broke cas. and dean keeps begging cas to see it too. and they're going to drive. me. INSANE.

28. "we're done" those were the exact words dean said to cas.

29. so cas and dean can talk without saying anything, and i hate to say that means they're in love... but thats exactly what that means.

30. cas did it! he broke his faith, he sacrificed himself for dean. and now they're gonna kiss (ik they don't kiss but a boy can dream)

31. have i mentioned that sam pisses me the FUCK off! like yeah i blame ruby but goddamn.

32. this season was hell in a handbasket, jfc (no ounce intended)

omg! season for is done!! woooo! onto the most annoying and lowkey painful season ever! my takes and thoughts for season 5 are going to be annoying, so be prepared !

[deancasbigbang]

Title: Someone Who Doesn’t Want To Be Saved

Author: RedCraneFalling

Artist: Callion

Rating: Explicit

Pairings: Castiel/ Dean Winchester, minor Andrea Howl/ Sam Winchester

Length: 49000

Warnings: Temporary Major Character Death, Child Abuse, Implied/ Referenced Underage Prostitution, Canon Typical Violence, Homophobia/ Parental Homophobia, One use of the F slur

Tags: Childhood Friends to Lovers, Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, John Winchester’s A+ Parenting, Wing Fic, Grace-Soul Bonds, Loss of Virginity, AU - Canon Divergence, Parental Guardian Gabriel, !Kid Sam

Posting Date: October 2, 2023

Summary: A child shall be born of twice-tainted blood, the eldest of two and the two soldiers’ son. A saint’s soul emerges, yet a hunter is made. Born martyr from love, built killer by pain. On his hundredth season, the lock he will break, as Mother kills Child for her Father’s sake.  All God’s angels shall perish by creatures of ol’ ‘less a Seraph gone wayward does hopelessly fall Fledgling angel, Castiel gets in an accident shortly before his seventh birthday, and quite literally falls out of the sky and into Dean’s lap. The two quickly become close, but both of their families are hiding dark secrets. Dean’s in the form of an absent father who seems to drain all happiness from his two children whenever he’s around, and Castiel’s in the form of a prophecy which unites the two boys, but may ultimately tear them apart.

Excerpt: Dean starts climbing and Castiel waits for him to be about halfway up before he flaps his wings twice and jumps to the branch. “Hey no fair!” Dean calls after him, “I forgot you could fly. Flying is cheating.” “You didn’t specify no flying when you made the rules,” Castiel calls back laughing from his perch on the branch.  Castiel watches Dean climb the rest of the way up, his muscles stretching and coiling under the skin of his arms. He’s strong and lithe, graceful and sure of his movements in a way that Castiel can only imitate in flight. On the ground, the calculated angular movements of an Angel make him look robotic in comparison. He is unnatural where Dean is at home, as a true son of the Earth. And God took clay from Earth’s four corners and gave it the breath of life. Man is better than angel. Created for more than just the divine. Their perfect imperfections leave room for beauty. When Dean gets up to the branch he’s huffing with exertion. There’s sweat on his brow where his hair sticks to his forehead, and his cheeks are bright red around his freckles. The flush brings out the green in his eyes.  “Cheater,” Dean accuses when he sees Castiel’s cocky grin. He reaches out and gives Castiel a light shove.  Castiel moves exaggeratedly with the shove, and falls sideways off the tree branch.  ��Cas!” Dean yells in alarm before he realizes that Castiel is simply floating in the air slightly under the branch with one leg still hooked over it. “Gonna give me a heart attack,.” Dean grumbles.  Castiel laughs and uses his wings to right himself so he’s sitting on the branch again. He straddles it, facing Dean.  “Would you like to race back down?” he says with a cheeky grin.  “No,” Dean pouts, crossing his arms “You’d probably just jump, Mister I-Can-Survive-a-Tornado.” Castiel laughs boisterously, and it seems his laugh is contagious because Dean starts laughing as well. They both smile, looking at each other. The sun dapples Dean’s skin with patches of light through the leaves.  Castiel walks with the brothers back to the nearby motel they’re staying at. Dean is in an uncharacteristically carefree mood, skipping and chattering on like the first time Castiel met him. When they reach the motel, Dean’s face falls as he looks at a big black car parked outside their room. He picks up Sam and turns towards Cas frowning.  “You gotta go home now, Cas, but we can watch Scooby Doo another day, okay?” he says. Castiel is confused but agrees and flies away.  The next time he sees the Winchester brothers, Dean has a black eye. He won’t tell Castiel where it’s from.

DCBB 2023 Posting Schedule

[tiktaalic]

are there at least 5 TS songs that are solidly dean pov? in your opinion

Oh yeah. The cas themes in her work are more overt because there are a dozen of em. I’m in love and it’s new and changing me / you got tired of me and broke up with me and don’t care about me but I still love you so much / I am the other woman to the wife you are committed to and will never leave / I’m in love with a Bad Man. These are all cas. Lot of her love songs are cas pov. But there are a few dean pov themes they just show up less often. These are:

I have self esteem issues and might be the craziest woman alive ? And it’s ruining my relationships / no booing please. An older man made sure I was fucked in the head forever as a teenager / I Don’t Know About all that Commitment stuff / of course you just walked out on me. So with these comparisons it becomes more obvious how she is a Dean Figure experiencing relationships as a cas. And a lot of these themes are more recent than the rest. So it’s a New Thing. On a purely love song front she writes more cas. But. Per theme, dean songs:

Mirrorball the archer I can do it with a broken heart anti hero (self esteem songs)

Woulda coulda shoulda dear John (self explanatory)

I don’t remember her #no commitment songs. But those.

All you had to do was stay and also the other ones about getting left.

[yuleshootureye]

I don't think it's fair to say that people only like WFA if they prefer the fanon, idealized versions of Batfam characters.

More rambling about comics and fandom under the cut, but the tldr version is that a) sometimes people want slice-of-life stuff for their favorite characters and b) if I have to put up with Dark and Gritty, unnaturally-prepared, child-slapping Batman, fans of that guy can put up with some light and fluffy manor hijinks like WFA.

Yes, there is an active and vocal portion of DC fandom that wants things from canon that will never happen. Partially that's because fandoms typically always want things from canon that would never happen. Teen Wolf and SPN fans want a coherent narrative that actually addresses the themes and character choices portrayed on the show. CA:TWS fans want to dig their claws into Steve and Bucky's relationship AND the US Military Industrial Complex in a way that the MCU never will. Stranger Things fans want some honest-to-God character development. And part of what I see in DC fandom is similar: what do fans of works where the characters are constantly emotionally and physically stressed want from their fanworks? Hurt/COMFORT and/or curtain!fic, in my experience.

And yes, partially that's because there seems to be a large portion of DC fandom that have not read a significant portion of the comics.* And/or watched the tv show(s). And/or watched the movie(s). And fanon builds on fanon until suddenly Tim Drake is crying because no one has ever hugged him, Cas/Steph/Duke are Sir Not Appearing in this Film, Jason is Gotham's #1 feminist, Dick is a golden retriever in human form, Damain is baby™, and Bruce would NEVER endanger his children by letting them go out and fight crime. But that happens in every fandom, to some extent.

I think it's perhaps more pronounced in DC because it's a comics fandom without any one unifying canon that most people are drawing from. For good or for ill, the Marvel fandom is typically able to circle the wagons around the MCU, with people incorporating various aspects of the 616 or Fraction's Hawkeye or whatever Spider-Man movie's come out most recently. DC doesn't have that. There's 80+ years of comics, including reboots that are supposed to make things less confusing (but YMMV on the effectiveness of that), and characterizations that change with the times; CW live-action TV shows; the Snyder-verse live-action movies; the NON-Snyder-verse live-action movies; the DCAU or Dini-verse/Timm-verse; the DC animated movies that are generally adaptations of comic storylines; the 2005 Teen Titans animated show; the 2010 Young Justice animated show; TITANS; The Batman (the animated show!); The Batman (R. Battinson!); Gotham; Smallville; Lois and Clark; etc, etc, etc.

I came to comics from the DCAU. I watched Smallville far past the point where any reasonable person would have quit. When I first watched 1978's Superman, I was confused that John Kent was dead, because he wasn't in the canons I was most familiar with. It's obviously not a 1:1 comparison, but I do think the question of "what do you want from canon" depends on what canon you're talking about.

And I don't mean to sound like I'm coming down on the side of people who are only familiar with fanon trying to argue they know the characters better than people who've actually consumed canon. But I do think DC being such a broad canon with no unifying property makes it a difficult discussion to have unless you start off by identifying the parameters.

ANYWAY, the point I've been dancing around is that there's enough canon that when someone says "MY Batman would never do that", they might be talking about their fanon or they might be talking about animated show #903 or the Tim Burton movies or whatever. Also, I had to put up with Nolan!Batman being the Batman du jour for like 10 years. It's WAFF WFA Batman's turn to be in the spotlight for a hot minute.

(Also, as greater minds than mine have pointed out, comics are, in general, a collective mythology of the modern era. And if you've ever tried to look up the One True Version of a myth, you'll know it's a frustrating exercise in futility)

*Of course, there's also a question of "what counts as a significant portion of the comics". Someone semi-recently ran a poll of "would you say you've read a lot of comics" and I was torn because I've read a lot, but in fits and spurts over the last 20 years, based on what was available at my local library or bookstore, and with nowhere near the focused attention that others have managed.

[meeravandaseera]

Folkloric Counterpart of Disney's Ariel

... some analysis and comparison of The Little Mermaid and the folkloric forced-waterspouse motif

Edited "Lure of the North" detail by Arthur Wardle in 1912.

During my initial research, I had read about the half-grilse or the half-young-salmon watermaiden called the maighdean na tuinne or maid-of-the-wave, maighdean mhara or maid-of-the-sea or the ceasg, pronounced kee-ask in Scottish folklore. The folktale "The-maid-of-the-wave" collected by Donald A. Mackenzie in his "Scottish Wonder Tales from Myth and Legend" as published on Sacred Texts https://sacred-texts.com/neu/celt/tsm/tsm16.htm primarily informed me. When the appearance of a ceasg's hair was described, Ariel swam up into my sea of thoughts. It is quite understandable since Ariel has been conditioned into the wide sea of society ever since the movie had released. A ceasg's appearance is quite similar to Ariel, but of course it was never intentional.

According to Donald A. Mackenzie, the ceasg possesses copper-colored hair, similarly to Disney's The Little Mermaid called Ariel. (Many paintings of the past tides feature watermaidens with reddish hair, too, by the way!) The tail of a young salmon, like a ceasg was described with one, may appear like a greenish teal alongside just like Ariel's tail, but possibly more dull.

Illustration from "The book of the salmon; in two parts... Usefully illustrated with numerous coloured engravings of salmon-flies, and salmon-fry" in 1850.

Well, one should also consider that Ariel was originally supposed to be blonde, but got changed to red since she might get associated with the movie "Splash" and because it made a nice complementary distinction from her green tail according to 15 Things you didn't know about The Little Mermaid - Oh My Disney: https://web.archive.org/web/20201111145631/https://ohmy.disney.com/movies/2014/08/16/15-things-you-didnt-know-about-the-little-mermaid/

Edited "A mermaid and a goblin in conversation" detail by Louis Moe (1857-1945) in 1932.

According to the aforementioned folktale, a ceasg was in the possession of a large, bright salmon skin covering for her tail. The maidens-of-the-waves also wore sea-blue garments ashore instead of their salmon skins. This seems a bit similar to Ariel's blue dress she can be seen wearing outside of the movie in some promotional artworks.

Anyhow, a ceasg would be capable of shedding her salmon skin in order to venture ashore. Such a ceasg could do so without having to give up anything like The Little Mermaid does with her tongue or her voice. However, like in the folktales of the selkies, a ceasg's salmon-skin can get stolen by a mortal human being. This seems quite similar to The Little Mermaid's story of her losing all ability to go back into the sea until later on, but she willingly gave up her tail which was stolen in some tide by the Sea Witch. The ceasg is forced into the relationship with a mortal while The Little Mermaid's relationship with the prince is seemingly taken away in the story. In the original novel, The Little Mermaid has no chance of ever getting together with the prince unlike in Disney's version where there is the Happily Ever After. In the original novel, The Little Mermaid returns to the sea just like the ceasg does later on when she finds her salmon skin again. The Little Mermaid in the movie found her prince, but the one from the original novel and the ceasg did not. In the folktale and the original novel, The Little mermaid left her love behind. Both the folktale and the novel are versions mirrored from an alternative sea with darker waters past in contrast to the movie.

"The Siren" by John William Waterhouse in ca. 1900.

I find that the folktales like those of the Irish merrows, Scottish ceasgs, Gurindji karukayn or all the other forced waterspouses are one of the more older origins of The Little Mermaid contrary to Paracelsus' undines. Like many, The Little Mermaid's story has origins coming from the farther depths of the ocean. Andersen claimed that he got inspired by the novel "Undine" by Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué while that novel of his got inspired by Paracelsus' alchemical works on elementary beings and Paracelsus himself got possibly inspired by Christianity's influence on waterfolk. A similar legend featuring the motif of the undines' longing for a soul can be found in the Scottish mermaid from the Isle of Iona where she supposedly lacked a soul, not being able to marry a monk or saint she loved according to "Creatures of Fantasy - Mermaids" by Kathryn Hinds on page 24 and "Sea Enchantress - The Tale of the Mermaid and Her Kin" by Gwen Benwell and Arthur Waugh on page 64. She pleaded him to give her a soul, but she needed to leave the sea forever for him to do so, which she could not as the call of the sea was stronger.

The Little Mermaid may have been based upon such folktales, but she turned the tides to allow newer perspectives and interpretations of them to surface in our minds!

Here is another good article which dives into more folkloric origins in The Little Mermaid and thus explores some more uncharted waves that I did not surf upon here: The Influence of Folklore on The Little Mermaid - Mythos Blog https://www.mythosblog.org/post/the-influence-of-folklore-on-the-little-mermaid

(If any sources are not viewable, consult an archival site)

Thanks for diving into this :>

Thanks to my friend Angel who contributed and helped me choose the depictions for the ceasg!

Added note: I also re-published this on reddit via r/mermaid: https://www.reddit.com/r/mermaid/comments/1gjiptx/folkloric_counterpart_of_disneys_ariel/

[occasionallyprosie]

I have the idea for a Supernatural X Linked Universe AU but I can't even flesh it out.

Like, which pair of Links are gonna be Sam and Dean? And then who works best as Bobby? I know Sky would be Michael with First as Lucifer, or maybe Time as Lucifer? But I also thought of Time as Bobby with Twilight and Wild as Sam and Dean. Or we could do Time as Cas and have Wolf Trio for Team Free Will.

Or! Time and Twilight as Sam and Dean, then Wild's Adam! Then we have Sky as Michael, or maybe Warriors as Michael, Sky as Lucifer, I love the idea of Legend being Gabriel, and probably Hyrule as Raphael. I so love Wind as Cas actually. I'm not sure where to put Four though! Oh waiiiitttt, Four as Crowley.

Yet another alternative: Legend and Hyrule are Sam and Dean, Four is Adam (because I'm pretty sure one of his games was downfall timeline?). Twilight is Ellen and Wild is Jo, and they're brothers instead of mother/daughter, and then Time could be Jo's Dad/Ellen's husband, or Twilight and Wild's oldest brother, who Raven, which would be John, got killed. Sky gets to be Cas or Bobby because Sky is Downfall Duo's responsible adult, probably Cas because I can see that more. First would get Lucifer here I think, and I think Warriors would be a great Michael, especially with the inverse scarf colors. Wind... Wind would be a good Gabriel. No he'd be a great Gabriel, Wind gets Gabriel now.

I just like making comparisons here, it's fun to assign characters to characters in other fandoms and try to figure out how that plot would change if they were put in their shoes.

[shamandrummer]

Saint Nick the Flying Shaman

Have you ever wondered about the origins of modern Christmas traditions? What is the origin of the Christmas tree, decorations about, and all the brightly wrapped presents beneath? This Christmas, as it's been done for generations, stories of Santa and his reindeer will be told around the world, including tales of how Saint Nick flies around on his sleigh in the middle of the night delivering presents to all the good children while they sleep snug in their beds. Where do these stories come from--and better yet--what are we actually celebrating on Christmas morning?

Although most people see Christmas as a Christian holiday, many of the symbols and icons we associate with Christmas celebrations are actually derived from the shamanic traditions of nomadic reindeer herders in Siberia and the Arctic Circle. John Rush, Ph.D., author of Mushrooms in Christian Art and professor of anthropology at Sierra College in Rocklin, CA., suggests, "Santa is a modern counterpart of a shaman, who consumed mind-altering plants and fungi to commune with the spirit world." He believes the story of Santa and his flying reindeer can be traced to shamans in the Siberian and Arctic regions, where the practices of the Indigenous shamanism have uncanny resemblances to the traditions of Christmas. In particular, the red and white mushroom, Amanita muscaria, is a significant connection between the two. Indigenous shamans would visit locals on the Winter Solstice, an astronomical phenomenon strongly related to modern-day Christmas, with gifts of dried hallucinogenic mushrooms.

According to scholars who study Arctic cultures, Indigenous shamans would pick the Amanita in summer, hanging them to dry on the evergreen trees growing above them. The mushrooms may also be taken inside to dry by the fireplace, leading to comparisons with stockings and a Christmas tree surrounded by red and white parcels. The drying of the mushrooms was one way to remove the toxins found in Amanita muscaria, while increasing the potency of psychedelic compounds. Come late December, on the Winter Solstice, the shaman would gather up the dried Amanitas and make use of the mushroom's psychoactive effects to commune with the spirit world and bring gifts of healing to the families, as they set intentions for the new year. If the hut's doorways were covered in snow, the shaman would enter through an opening in the ceiling.

Upon comparison, the similarities in ancient and modern Christmas traditions are undeniable: a Winter Solstice celebration in the snowy North Pole region where reindeer are prominent, consisting of evergreen trees, fireplaces hung with colorful decorations, rooftop chimney entrances and communal gift-giving. Regardless of where the origin of Santa Claus comes from, Christmas is a time of year for rebirth, inward reflection, setting intentions, gifting to loved ones, communing with family…and perhaps, unknowingly, celebrating a psychedelic mushroom.

[softgrungeprophet]

okay i'm gonna post a bunch of pics i took at the seattle art museum with my phone lol - i pasted the full captions onto/beside the images but i'll put the titles and artists underneath in text too.

Weltempfänger (World Receiver) (2018) - Isa Genzken

I started in the modern art area specifically in the section with post-war german art mostly engaging w/ the war in some way, which is neat, but the presentation left me kind of wondering who had curated it. there was a lot of vague language and i'm not sure that any of the artists were like... jewish...?

there were like three pieces by a sculptor who is apparently one of the top 1000 wealthiest men in germany though. lmao. didn't take a picture of those though.

anyway then was the rest of the modern art.

View from the Other Side of the Mountain (1985) - Roger Brown

i liked this painting. the sense of scale etc. w/ the little tiny people is good.

A Cloud Index (2020) - Spencer Finch

Untitled (2001) - Cameron Martin

Thought this was striking. I like that the background and the tree body are slightly different shades of white.

(background): You Mist, Again (Rattle) (2019) - Natalie Ball

(foreground): IF I RULED THE WORLD (2018) - Jeffrey Gibson

There was a section on modern art by marginalized groups which included some indigenous artists, black artists, and stuff, that was pretty cool.

Architecture of return, escape (the British Museum) (2022) - Nicholas Galanin

(this is a floorplan of the British Museum in the context of indigenous American art pieces that have not been repatriated)

Painting, 1950 - Ad Reinhardt

Untitled (1963) - Mark Rothko

I was a little bit psyched to see this. I didn't check what they had ahead of time so I had no idea they had in person Rothko paintings (two of them! though i only took a pic of this one) I always liked his color paintings since I learned about it in college so it was really neat to see this up close and be able to see the like... texture of the paint and stuff.

(left): Frog Feast Bowl (1997)

(right): Whale Hat (1999)

Both by Preston Singletary.

I thought these were neat. Glasswork has such an interesting feel.

There was this as well—Shaman's Soul Catcher (2000)—by the same glass artist plus underneath it an 1860 Tsimshian bone soul catcher, as a contrast/comparison. Both very pretty in very different ways.

The places I've lived have often had coastal tribal art in various areas but going to the museum and seeing a lot of the artworks in this section was neat because at least half of the stuff on display has abalone shell so it's very sparkly in person. the public carvings and paintings outside usually don't have abalone lol

There was a lot of Native art from all up and down the coast from like, oly to canada, which was really cool to see. I'm not sure how much of it is donated by the tribes or not but I know that's a thing—the MAC in Spokane does that. Plus there's the Burke here which has the Native American Advisory Board. But there's still a chance some of the stuff at the SAM is like... less than ethical.

this is on their website though:

it seems like most of their stuff is probably ethical but there's always a chance some of it isn't, esp since the section on Native art mentions that "grave goods and certain categories of cultural objects" may be repatriated which kind of implies some don't have to be.

a huge chunk of the very large collection comes from one guy:

Headress with frontlet (sakíid) (ca. 1870) - Simeon Sdiihldaa (skil kingaans)

This is very pretty and seems important and valuable.

(background): Interior housepost (Dłam) (ca. 1907) - Arthur Shaughnessy (Hemasilakw)

(foreground): Mask of the Hux̱whukw-Cannibal Bird (Hux̱whukw'iwe') (ca. 1940) - Mungo Martin (Nakapankam)

There were a bunch of these (as well as some other masks) which were pretty cool, and I think the lower beaks are hinged. It would be neat to see them used.

Mask of the Hux̱whukw-Cannibal Bird (Hux̱whukw'iwe') (ca. 1938) - Willie Seaweed (Hilamas)

this one was really big.

more on the house posts and their history. there was another pair (two big faces stacked) on the opposite side of the room I didn't take a pic of. All of the stuff is very pretty but obviously there's a lot of shitty history—like potlatch bans and houses being dismantled—that's just kind of inextricable in both the US and Canada.

adjacent to the large local native art there was a section of Australian Dreaming art as well, with a small short documentary/interview with one of the artists playing nearby.

Kalipinypa Rockhole (2003) - Elizabeth Marks Nakamarra

I only took a picture of this one. It's very striking. The entrance to this area had a hot pink wall with a black and white painting and then inside was all very dark walls. I think it's one of those things that's best in person (lots of art is, really)

nearby was some Japanese art and they had a whole case of netsuke

Seated Monkey Poking at a (Turtle? I think... got cut off lol) (ca. 1770) - Okatomo

It was hard to photograph cause they're so small and in a glass case but they all had such fine details, it was neat to look at them and see all the little tiny lines

There were quite a few, ivory and wood, plus fish sculpture... this one didn't photograph very well though. the fish is really beautiful.

I like these deer-shaped bronze water droppers too. There were a bunch of them of various sizes.

Concretion of Chinese porcelain fragments and coral from a shipwreck, 17th/early 18th century

There were sections on Japanese art, Chinese art, and some Vietnamese porcelain and I thought this was neat. I didn't take a photograph but directly next to this was a modern porcelain sculpture that was definitely intended to be a pairing in overall form and shape and material but still very different.

Ivory, ostrich egg, and silver pieces. I think this section was meant to be a kind of comparison of similar art forms separated by location and temporality—the ways similar forms convergently exist in different locales and time periods. There was an insane-looking Tiffany silver goblet near a much older and simpler silver goblet. Or tankard? it may have been tankards. I didn't take a picture.

next place I went was the ancient art cause that was the nearest bathroom lol—actually it was next to the Italian and Christian European art which I didn't take any photos of. I like medieval and renaissance European art fine but after like. 2 or 3 hours at the museum I was more interested in the Ancient Egyptian and Greek stuff lol.

like this 1st century snake bracelet from Roman Egypt. Phone camera refused to focus though... But like, hey that's wild, that bracelet is probably almost 2000 years old. it's so pretty and i wonder what the red coloration in the lines is. maybe it's a gold alloy? or pigment?

they had a bunch of Roman glasswork as well which is always fun to see. Lots of people think of pristine white marble (it was painted!) when they think of Classical art but glass was such a distinctive thing in those periods—the iridescence and color especially

They had some Greek vases as well, and this Etruscan krater lid with sirens painted on it, which was pretty cool.

also Check out these Sumerian (and one Elamite) frogs!!!!!!

look at them!!!

Babylonian clay foundation peg with cuneiform inscription ca. 2400 BC—think about that. That's like. over 4000 years old. Crazy.

next to the Egyptian art was Islamic art, and I really liked this silver pen and ink holder. It had so many fine details. The entire section was really beautiful. for some reason this also ended up my highest resolution photo? lmao? i don't understand my phone camera at all.

this Turkish floral tile from the 16th century is so pretty

i hit the image limit so i'm gonna add the last four pictures on a reblog

[solarmidnight]

I posted 3,398 times in 2022

That's 3,398 more posts than 2021!

171 posts created (5%)

3,227 posts reblogged (95%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@deancasforcutie

@angelsdean

@vegancas

@xofemeraldstars

@dylfnatural

I tagged 236 of my posts in 2022

#supernatural - 90 posts

#dean winchester - 78 posts

#destiel - 75 posts

#castiel - 57 posts

#sam winchester - 19 posts

#the winchesters - 15 posts

#john winchester - 15 posts

#fuck john winchester - 10 posts

#spn meta - 10 posts

#destiel meta - 10 posts

Longest Tag: 140 characters

#french mistake universe misha and jensen having to be hunters for a week whilst sam babysits them and makes sure they don't get themselves k

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

If Dean had gone with the Ma'Lak Box option and spent an eternity in the Pacific Ocean fighting Michael, don't think for one second that Castiel wouldn't just go down there with him and lay on top of the box for the rest of eternity.

160 notes - Posted September 29, 2022

#4

Supernatural if Jack had been born a baby, who was then raised by Dean and Castiel:

234 notes - Posted September 16, 2022

#3

Does it ever fuck you up that Supernatural went on for so long that Destiel fanfiction literally has eras. It has eras of popular stuff. Croatoan virus, Endverse, Casifer, fallen angels, Purgatory, Mark of Cain, demon Dean, Michael Dean, season 15 Fix-Its. And I'm likely glossing over so much more. Fanfiction written ten years ago for the same show feels so different to fanfiction written within the past two years.

281 notes - Posted November 16, 2022

#2

Cas's casual disregard for Sam in comparison to his near overwhelming obsession with Dean will never not be hilarious.

383 notes - Posted October 2, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

When you find a new OTP and swear you're going to be normal about it this time

475 notes - Posted December 8, 2022

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