#especially with bela and ruby there

[bardicious]

Okay, while, again, probably still gonna be a fun season, s3 def looks like it was hit hard with the writer's strike. Some greatest worst hits of s3:

Ruby (ugh)

Bela (seriously??)

Too many joke episodes (though I enjoy them it throws the whole tone off the original concept)

"oh no, Sammy is turning evil maybe????" SO fed up with this.

Dean's general refusal to take Sam's fear of him dying seriously. Like, great, you're dying, so "sad", but you did that to yourself and it sure as hell wasn't anything Sam wanted. S2 Dean had more respect for Sam then this bs. (Granted not by much, but I at least understood it)

I love how in this season Dean is more interested in just offing himself, and doesn't care that actually Sam wouldn't be any safer without him, just wants the responsibility off his fucking hands. S2 Dean would never.

In general there's a problem with the writing, where as I was having sympathy for Dean previously, he's honestly just pissed me off for the whole season so far. And while bringing back Sam was always a selfish act, it's in this type of writing where it feels he doesn't even see Sam as anything other than a responsibility (which is not true but I wonder what some of the writers are thinking)

What I do like so far:

The joke episodes (lmao I am what I am)

More Bobby. Always loved him, sill pissed they kill him off later (and in such a fucked up season for Sam too)

More Gabriel this season - though I haven't gotten to the episode.

There are some really memorable episodes here. I remember watching them when they aired. Possibly memorable because they were mostly humorous and simpler for a kid tho. But some I just find fun: Storybook episode, Christmas episode, Timeloop episode.

Mixed feelings about:

Lisa and Ben. I like how Dean had a chance for a wife and kid. I don't like the set up cause it doesn't really feel like that tight of a bond. Dean had much more chemistry and connection with Cassie, if he could get his shit together. So it really felt hamfisted, but I like that he had an option for a family. Ben was hella cute tho, love that he was basically a little Dean.

[rainsongdean]

spn ladies icons + pride month

[llorom4nn1c]

♡ A guide to emo, goth, and scene! ♡

So since I see a lot of confusion over certain subcultures are and the differences between them, I thought I would make somewhat of a master post basically outlining the characteristics and differences of three aesthetics that I see misinterpreted a lot. If I do at any point get something wrong, feel free to correct me because I really don't intend to spread misinformation.

🎀 Emo

Emo is a music based subculture that first emerged in the 80s out of the hardcore scene. The name emo came from the music genre emocore, which was short for emotional hardcore. The fashion is typically pretty casual, with some staples being straightened and teased hair with a sideways fringe, black clothing, band shirts, arm warmers, sneakers, skinny jeans, fishnets, arm warmers, wide leg pants, studded belts, and merchandise from various properties like Emily The Strange, Nightmare Before Christmas, and Ruby Gloom.

Since the early days of emo, the music in the subculture has expanded outside of hardcore and post-hardcore, and has since gone on to include alternative rock, horror punk, metalcore, pop punk, and screamo. Some of the most prominent artists in the scene are Avril Lavigne, Blink 182, Fall Out Boy, Green Day, My Chemical Romance, Panic! at the Disco, Paramore, Pierce The Veil, and Sleeping With Sirens.

Since the subculture is mainly music based, fashion is not as important to being considered part of the scene. Therefore, not dressing in a specific way while listening to the music wouldn't make you a poser, but dressing emo while not listening to the music would. What is not considered emo is listening to a random genre of rock music. Bands like Metallica and Nirvana, while enjoyed by many emos, are not emo bands and therefore don't make someone emo. Furthermore, I can't believe I need to say this, but, contrary to what many people seem to think, kawaii people are also not emo. While it is common for kawaii people to listen to metal and other heavy music genres, their style is not at all similar to emo and they don't consider themselves as part of the subculture either.

🎀 Goth

Goth is probably the oldest subculture here, with it dating back to the 70s English punk scene, with bands like Siouxsie and the Banshees and The Cure pioneering the culture. The post-punk band Bauhaus' debut single 'Bela Lugosi's Dead,' a song inspired by the famous horror actor Bela Lugosi, who portrayed Dracula in the 1931 film adaptation and also starred in White Zombie which is a film that's typically referred to as the first zombie movie, is often considered the first gothic rock song.

Goth is a subculture with many different sub-subcultures. Some of the most popular are batcave, bubble goth, cyber goth (formerly referred to as gravers), death rock, mall goth (formerly known as spooky kids), nu goth, romantic goth, steampunk, vampire goth, and, my personal favourite, gothic lolita. Contrary to what many people think, I don't consider aesthetics like pastel goth (which I do love) to really be a part of goth since it doesn't have roots in goth. Obviously I'm not going to go over every substyle because that would take way too long and would have to require its own post, but some common staples in most of these styles is lots of black, horror-inspired imagery, very big teased hair, black or red lipstick (red was the most common in the earlier days), and very pale almost white skin. Therefore, e-girls and emos (e-girls especially) are not goth. Also, the fetishisation of the 'big tiddy goth girlfriend' is very demeaning and offensive to goths, as well as just not funny at all because of how it objectifies and reduces them to simply walking breasts who wear black.

Goth music is, in my opinion, some of the most accesible and palatable alternative music. The most popular genres are dark wave, electronic rock, gothic rock, industrial metal and rock, new wave, and post-punk. Some of the most popular bands are Bauhaus, Evanescence, Joy Division, Marilyn Manson, Rammstein, Siouxsie and the Banshees, The Birthday Massacre, and The Cure.

🎀 Scene

Scene is an aesthetic that originated in the 2000s on the website MySpace as a derivative aesthetic to emo. Many scene kids were considered emo posers because of their unconventional style and the music they listened to, which included genres ranging from crunkcore to metalcore, often being considered 'trashy' by other subcultures. Despite all of the hate towards scene kids, many embraced their label and many of the most popular people in the subculture started being known as scene queens who are also often credited as the first influencers. This included people such as Ambrehhhisdead, LedaMonsterBunny, and Melissa Marie Green.

Some staples to the style are colourful clothes, straightened and teased hair with colourful raccoon hair extensions, the scene swoop fringe, brass knuckles or diamond necklaces, bows, leopard print, zebra print, colourful shorts, tutus, tight clothes, sunglasses, knee high converse, band shirts, and merchandise of characters like Gir from Invader Zim, Gloomy Bear, and Hello Kitty. Personally, I would consider the modern rendition of scene, scenecore, to be a different aesthetic that, while it is pretty similar to scene, typically borrows from aesthetics like glitchcore rather than emo or mcbling.

Scene music is pretty diverse in what it provides, as it ranges from very heavy genres such as deathcore and metalcore to more pop and rap adjacent genres like crunkcore and neon pop. Some of the most prominent artists are 3OH!3, All Time Low, Asking Alexandria, Blood on the Dance Floor (unfortunately), Bring Me The Horizon, Brokencyde, Cobra Starship, Dot Dot Curve, Jeffree Star, Ke$ha, Metro Station, and Millionaires. A lot of the music is known to ignore many of the typically conventions of music, with the lyrics often containing themes relating to partying and sex.

That's it, byeeeee! ˚｡⋆୨୧˚♡

[normalbrothers]

spn or asoiaf for the meme!

@winged-cries also asked for spn

thank you both <333

my favorite female character: at least up to the season i watched i don't think there were super permanent female characters that would let me think of them as 'favourite' characters, however i liked most of them. bela and ruby stand out to me, though, and especially with bela i wish she could have returned in some way :'( cassie robinson was a great one episode character as well. dean really loved her ;~;

my favorite male character: dean, and it's no contest

my favorite book/season/etc: the first three seasons had the best vibe, and i think i always liked the second one the most.

my favorite episode (if its a tv show): on the head of the pin! a classic!

my favorite cast member: a much debated question, i don't really think i have been invested in any of the actors outside of their roles, but j2 are hilarious at cons, i give them that

my favorite ship: well, the obvious answer is wincest. but i also have a tender spot for dean/john

a character I’d die defending: those days are past for me, it's fun to see though that the same annoying takes circulate today that where hotly discussed ten years ago as well. the circularity of fandom discourse ... thank god i'm doing this in another one and it's me talking to myself mostly

a character I just can’t sympathize with: can't say this is true for any of them, though admittedly i was never very invested in castiel's whole thing (nevertheless, the man who would be king was a good episode? that i think about sometimes?).

a character I grew to love: bobby lol

my anti otp: sastiel is like a huge reactive cope ship to me, but i also don't have any feelings about it. have fun with that i guess

asoiaf

my favorite female character: sansa ... my darling sansa ...

my favorite male character: tyrion, i think, he's a fantastic character, though i think generally speaking i like the cast of women and girls just more, i don't have that many feelings about the guys.

my favorite book/season/etc: a feast for crows (not a very unique answer to be fair)

my favorite episode (if its a tv show): well the equivalent would be the chapters; sansa's are a always a delight to read, but as above, i like reading the female povs the most.

my favorite cast member: /

my favorite ship: i don't read these books with shipping goggles i'm afraid, but i think jaimecersei will always reign supreme for me

a character I’d die defending: sansa, i guess, though i think the hate for her abated over the years, unless you go into the really weird corners of the fandom

a character I just can’t sympathize with: he's certainly more than a one note villain, but littlefinger ... idc, i think if twow ever happens it would be funny if he like, died right in the middle

a character I grew to love; jon's chapters used to bore me, but i've grown fond of his cattiness. i'm genuinely curious how the parent reveal will play out for him psychologically tbh

my anti otp: idk it's all good tbh

[incesthemes]

Happy Wincest Wednesday! I have my first appointment for HRT today (eeeee) so everyone's getting the same question: thoughts on trans wincest? Is it something you like to think about? How do you trans the Winchesters? Which one(s) and which way(s)? And of course, most importantly: how does that impact the sex?

happy wincest wednesday, and congratulations!!! that's so exciting 🥰 wishing you a fulfilling and easy process :)

as for transchesters... honestly i'm not a fan, lol. i don't see either of them as being emotionally intelligent or vulnerable enough to even begin questioning their gender, especially since they grew up in a space that absolutely did not allow for something like that. in a chronic survival situation surrounded only by extreme displays of masculinity and both men and women who are deeply traumatized and lack the emotional capacity for something as intimate and vulnerable as gender exploration, all the while lacking any sort of resources or education on queerness in general, i truly cannot see dean or sam ever even considering the potential for them to be anything other than the men they were raised as.

this, of course, has caveats:

a lot of the recurring themes in supernatural revolve around the performance of masculinity, and specifically sam and dean's failure to perform masculinity adequately. so many of their allegories are feminine: dean is mary, sam is jo, sam is ruby and meg, dean is bela, so on and so forth. they have plenty of masculine allegories as well, but take, for example, gordon as an allegory for dean: he's not so much representing who dean is, but who he should be, and he symbolizes a dean who didn't fail at life. bela, while being an equivalent allegory for dean's fate in season 3, represents the inevitability of that fate and therefore the inescapability of dean to become her. gordon is who dean fails to be; bela is who dean can't avoid becoming.

so on and so forth.

as a result, there is an undercurrent of genderqueerness that saturates sam and dean's story. they consistently fail at masculinity, and oftentimes this failure is actually portrayed as something good—take, for example, john as the ideal of masculinity for both sam and dean, since he is the only reasonable real-life model of it, them being isolated from society. if john is the masculine ideal, then dean consistently turning away from john in season 2 and beyond represents a turning away from masculine performance, and this is undoubtedly a good thing because through his rejection of his father, dean avoids succumbing to his fate. it's when he correctly performs as his father (by selling his soul to revive sam) that he makes the wrong decision, and then he must undergo the rejection process once again in season 3 to return to an acceptable state of being. sam, too, performs as his father by pursuing revenge and thus his fate, and this is a dangerous path to follow. it's only when they both reject john, the masculine ideal, that they can achieve the "correct" paths for themselves (no matter how internally destructive).

john is kind of a unique character overall tbh, since he is at once the masculine ideal and the ultimate representation of fate. it links these concepts together, and so every time sam and dean are fighting against fate, they are equally fighting against the construction of masculinity. don't be like your father; be something else. the message is then genderqueer, and the story does commit to this message through its use of feminine allegories and by encouraging the constant undercurrent of questioning the masculinity of them both in various ways—the gay jokes, the joking accusations of femininity or failed masculinity, dean's odd fetishization of young girls that seems to reflect a desire for girlhood himself. so on and so forth. i can't imagine kripke actually intended for his red-blooded characters to be read as genderqueer, but that's the silly thing about a lot of queer narratives 🤪

so basically, i don't realistically think that sam or dean would ever come to a point in their lives where they would even conceptualize a desire to be something other than masculine, much much less identify themselves as anything other than "man" (and they would definitely be the types, dean especially, to get reactionarily offended at someone calling them cis or asking their pronouns). at the same time, i think their failure to adequately perform the masculinity of the hunter world creates a genderqueer narrative for them, and their series-long struggle against fate (especially with john as the representation of it) can be seen metaphorically as the struggle against masculinity itself—and interesting, too, that the only other option they have presented to themselves, the option they have to choose to avoid their fates, is one of love and intimacy, traditionally feminine domains. they can pick masculine violence and become cain and abel, michael and lucifer, or they can pick feminine love and reject masculinity, reject their father, reject manhood altogether.

tl;dr they're not trans imho because they would never identify that way, but that doesn't mean they don't have something gender going on. if you get what i mean.

[quietwingsinthesky]

what do you think people would say about supernatural/the winchesters relationship if sam was female?

Realistically, I think Sam being a woman would have given the show itself free rein to be So Much Fucking Weirder towards her. I know this ask is mostly about the fandom’s reaction, but I need to set the basis that, given everything we know about how the show already is, Supernatural would have taken the Sam Experiencing Sexual Violence dial that is already at 9 and cranked that baby up to 20 and left it there for the whole run. And also, given everything else we know about the show, every time Dean ribs about Sam being gay in canon would either 1) stay that way but now have the extra layer of “Dean is really into watching girls fuck” on top of it to make it weird or 2) would just flat out be replaced with Dean hitting on Sam/insinuating something along the lines of ‘why would u ever want another guy? when I am here and all u need?’ because Dean is already a creep obsessed with his brother, can you imagine how it would’ve been written if he had a baby sister instead? Homophobia was the only thing holding the show back from flat out incest sometimes, I swear to god.

Okay, so. Now that I have established All Of That.

For one, we have to take into account how the fandom tended to react to female characters in general. Let’s see the forecast is uh. Bad. We are looking at huge divides between the “Sam is cool, we like her” and the “Sam is a bitch and the show should just be about Dean” crowds. (And the third crowd of “Sam should fuck her brother 😩”, absolutely wincest would still be a thing. It might be even more of a thing in this universe, but that’s all speculation.) Especially when s4 rolls around and Sam decides to be a little evil (and have a girlfriend? I’m assuming everything else in the show goes as is, and so would the Ruby plotline. Which means that’s going to awaken even more things in people than it already does. I would have stopped functioning if I saw girl!Sam/Ruby blood drinking and fucking on my screen as a preteen do you have any idea-) People are going to villainize the shit out of her for that, never let it go.

(Now, as the fandom ages, a lot of this is gonna simmer down like it did for real for characters like Bela. But in the moment? A goddamn war zone. Toxic waste dump.)

And we need to talk about the elephant in the room. Destiel. We already exist in a world where Sam will be completely sidelined and erased to get Dean and Castiel’s love story to seem like the most important plot of Supernatural. Now, I want you to imagine the absolute hell that would be to exist in a fandom where Destiel is the big slash ship and the other main character of the show is a woman. At best, continued sidelining. At worst, we are looking at “Sam is a bitch and the show should be about dean only” attitudes that carry forward into “Sam is a bitch who is in the way of destiel and should be killed off to get her out of the way.” Which you may note is usually a role given to female love interests that are despised for breaking up the main ship. This is because, for all intents and purposes, Sam is the main love interest in competition with Castiel for Dean. On a fandom level between ship wars of destiel vs wincest, but also textually, in the show, beyond shipping, Sam fills out that role in a platonic way as well and Castiel doesn’t. If Sam was a woman, this spells bad news for her. No woman gets in the way of gay ships and comes out unharmed.

Okay and now let’s talk about Lucifer because we need to talk about Lucifer, I’m a Lucifer blog, I’m a samifer girl, and I can tell you that none of these things would change for me if I was watching this version of the show lol. But! Remember what I said about the Sam Sexual Violence dial? Yeah. That is going to be. Extremely loud. Every time Sam and Lucifer are in the same scene. I guarantee you this is the universe where we get evil forced Samifer kisses at multiple points. This is absolutely the universe where, when Lucifer decides he wants a kid, he tries to get Sam pregnant first and only if he fails does he move onto someone else (and hint: he probably doesn’t fail.) Think about every Sam & Lucifer scene that ever happened and now reimagine it but the show can now be as weirdly sexually violent as it feels like because it’s “straight” now. The innuendos are out, and Lucifer is going to pin Sam against a wall at some point.

I’m very into this, but I feel like this would make the whole fandom situation around them a lot worse. People already get up in arms around samifer, or even liking Lucifer at all. If all that subtext became flat out text and people could gif “Times Lucifer sexually assaulted Sam on screen” into little gotcha compilations, it would be way more of a struggle to exist around here.

But like I’d still be into it so I’d definitely still be here, give me those comps, I’m gonna jerk off to them

ANYWAY. That’s what I think would change if Sam was a lady. Overall, not great, but I think there would also be a lot of people who find her relatable, empowering, etc, and really enjoy her as a woman. Probably the same people who like Sam now, honestly. If there’s any universe I got a chance to peak into, I’d want it to be this one. If only for samruby canon lesbian sex.

[monstermoviedean]

also. it would have been so fun and spicy if ruby had ditched her 1.0 vessel and switched into bela's body right as bela died. especially if dean and bela had a Thing in late season 3 and season 4 had sam/ruby but a ruby that looked like bela. especially especially if dean had been forced to torture bela in hell.

[boykingscourt]

Sometimes, I try to rank the most skincrawlingly misogynistic things Supernatural did, and I just...I can't. It's too much. Bela? Ava? Ruby? Jo? Mary? Meg? Hell, the way Naomi was basically introduced to make Cas look better retroactively? Like, it's Bela, the answer has got to be Bela for grossest thing ever, but my god, is there a lot of competition. The Supernatural fandom does not deserve women.

this is more about the fanbase but the audience response to mary post-resurrection is right up there for me

but yeah to your point it's nothing short of infuriating, especially when thought about collectively

misogynistic writers doing their damnedest to rid the show of any interesting women (very few exceptions) to appease their misogynistic viewers and meanwhile the amount of times Some White Dude had his role extended or basically became a series regular 😀😀😀

[angelinthefire]

As someone who's been around the fandom longer than i, what do you think of the claim that destiel shippers were the reason female characters got killed or kicked off the show? This seems to be a really common narrative in gen fandom spaces like r/supernatural but there's never any mention of wincest shippers and idk I find it kind of dubious. I mean obviously when it's applied to characters like bela or ruby it makes no sense but what about others? Like the claim usually goes oh they could never keep around a love interest for either of them because the hellers would throw a fit but did that happen? Usually it's brought up with Jo, Lisa, Meg, and Hannah. I know that is not actually why Meg left the show, but what about the others? I also know Alona and Cindy Sampson in particular are cited as receiving harassment for their roles but did this actually have anything to do with destiel seeing as it wasn't that popular of a ship back then? I only started watching in 2014 when destiel was the biggest ship and it never seemed to me like they were trying to set up romances that were shot down by the fans. I mean did anyone actually expect hannah to be an endgame love interest? And no one really makes this claim about Amara either. And it also wouldn't apply to characters like Charlie or Missouri either who both still got killed off. Idk I've just been seeing a lot of narrative recently about fans being primarily responsible for the killing off of female characters but I feel like it's shifting blame a bit, even more so to apply it solely to destiel fans (I mean did destiel get Sarah Blake killed??)

Yeah blaming destiel shippers is ridiculous. Destiel shippers didn't even reach preponderance in the fandom until s8. The worst of the misogyny of the fandom was solidly concentrated in the first half of the shows life. Attitudes changed as societal attitudes changed, and as the show itself finally broke down and developed more of an ensemble cast.

The wincesties/bronlies were always far more venomous when it came to characters who threatened to get between the bros. No matter the gender. As can be seen from the segment that tried to keep Misha from coming back. Were there destiel shippers who hated on Meg or Anna or others? Yes, but to a degree that is pretty typical across fandoms, especially in the 2000s. Not to the degree that they actually tried to launch a campaign to get any actors fired. Which, again, is what bronlies did to Misha.

In general I think it's incorrect to blame the fans for female characters being killed off. If the writers are committed to a character and a vision and it's working for them they can make it work for the audience too. The thing with Jo and Bela is that, to my understanding, their existence is the result of network notes to try to include more female characters, so Kripke was never super committed to them in the first place.

You point out why Hannah and Meg don't make sense as examples. Alona's role was in s2, and in s5 she was basically brought back in order to be killed off. Same thing with Sarah Blake, which is a useful counter example. She was also brought back to die. Since neither of them had a recurring role when they were killed off, it doesn’t make sense to blame shippers. Again, it's the writers deciding that the most useful thing a female character can do is die to further the main characters' motivation.

Few people liked Lisa at the time s6 aired, she was seen as boring and as detracting attention from the brothers.

I think there's a relationship between the sexism of the writers and the fans. When the writers don't care about characters and see them as fridging material, fans can pick up on it. And then fan hatred of the character is cited as an excuse to write them off. This is a simplification, I do think there are parts of spn fandom that are particularly toxic, but I also think it's true that fan opinion is never the only reason why writing choices are made.

[tvxcue]

i think s1 is genuinely good and so is s2 except for the fact that they don’t answer THE question they have been asking the entire season in a meaningful way which really kills the seasons momentum and therefore the rest of the show but i think s3 is nowhere near as good. it has lots of good moments and bela and ruby were some of the strongest additions to the show they had but i think that’s where the show does start to fall apart simply bc they were planning to save dean. it was literally saved by the writers’ strike making them deviate from that plan and having him go to hell but to try to save dean cheapens the entire story and how they engage with death, especially bc in s4 they position dean’s resulting trauma (anger and fear of monsterhood) as narratively correct. the writers were literally just too in love with dean and couldn’t engage with his flaws in a way that made the story better.

[snnynatural]

spn for the fandom meme ;D

send me a fandom and i'll tell you...

tagging @malka-lisitsa for sending the same fandom

The  first  character  I  first  fell  in  love  with:

the way i fell inlove with both sam and dean at the same time rekjgsbjregb i'm a whore.

The  character  I  never  expected  to  love  as  much  as  I  do  now:

ruby....at first watch, i was annoyed. but honestly? rewatches?? i actually adore her.

The  character  everyone  else  loves  that  I  don’t:

claire........... i do like the arch she has as being the consequence for cas's actions, but aaahhh I'M SORRY.

The  character  I  love  that  everyone  else  hates:

bela. i'm sorry, but she deserves fucking better. and my bro in law and his bestie said that i could be their bela in their trio and i SOBBED.

The  character  I  used  to  love  but  don’t  any  longer:

this a tough one that i have google up. probably claire? idk.

The  character  I  would  totally  smooch:

dean, sam, and castiel. SMOOCHES!! LET ME GIVE SMOOCHES!! i shall give jack a smooch on his head. even crowley gets smooch on his head.

The  character  I’d  want  to  be  like:

rowena. she is a mother fucking QUEEN!!!!

The  character  I’d  slap:

mother fucking becky.

A  pairing  that  I  love:

DESTIEL!!!!!!! also love the dynamic that sam and rowena have. and the chaos of crowley and cas.

A  pairing  that  I  despise: 

amara and dean.... i hated that whole thing. especially teenage amara feeling dean up like.. POR QUE

[420technoblazeit]

if you were to recommend one spn season to someone who only knows about november 5th shenanigans, which season would you recommend? asking for a friend

oh hcrist ok uh. SPOILERS FOR SEASON 2 BELOW BUT. tie between season 3 and season 4. season 3 is really well written in the sense that literally every episode ties into the plot in a really interesting way and it has a good number of standalone monster-of-the-week eps thrown in there too. the plot of that season has to do with the season 2 finale, where dean sold his soul to a demon to bring sam back to life. now they both have a year to find a way to get dean out of the soul contract before time runs out and he gets dragged down to hell by a hellhound. you also meet some interesting side characters like bela talbot (a cat burglar who specializes in stealing and selling supernatural artifacts), agent henrikson (an fbi agent currently looking for sam and dean because they're wanted for several murders because yk. sometimes you can't really explain that the man you just murdered was actually a werewolf or smth), ruby (a demon who wants to help sam and dean fight against hell for unknown reasons), and gordon walker (a vampire hunter with a very black-and-white view of monsters who believes sam should be killed for his involvement with the yellow-eyed demon azazel)

season 4 on the other hand can be watched by itself but it's best watched back-to-back with season 5. some people even start with this season and it's widely considered to be spn's best run of episodes. it introduces the angels and the plot of the demons racing to release lucifer. the gist of it is that there are hundreds of 'seals' or locks on lucifer's cage in hell. these seals are events like killing reapers, raising souls from the dead, etc etc. basically tasks that the demons have to accomplish to get closer to freeing lucifer and kickstarting the apocalypse. sam and dean frequently get roped into helping the angels stop these tasks and this is also where cas gets introduced. major side characters for this season include yk. the guy himself castiel supernatural (an angel intent on carrying out his orders from god who has doubts about whether or not they're doing the right thing), anna milton (a girl who insists she can hear angels and see demons), lilith (a demon at the forefront of the quest to release lucifer from his cage who especially has it out for sam because he was intended to be groomed into becoming the king of hell), and chuck (a prophet writer who uses his visions to write books about the events of sam and dean's lives)

basically if you want a season of largely standalone episodes that still has an interconnected plot watch season 3. if you're fine with shit getting a little crazy in a good way and despairing over cycles and all that watch season 4. though tbh if you watch season 4 youre probably going to end up watching season 5 too so it's up to you

[synesindri]

lucifer gender symbolism essay part 10: villain gender in supernatural, comparisons

masterpost

i’m saying villains but i really mean villains, antagonists, and monsters.

i already said a lot of what i have to say about this in the mothers vs fathers section, in the women in white section, and in the white women section, but let’s bring it together i guess. 

villains in (especially early) spn have a few main functions. they steal safety and normalcy, rupturing characters’ feelings of safety and stability. they are deceptive and emphasize how no one but family is to be trusted, which in turn increases the insular, suffocating lifestyle the winchesters have. they make the main characters feel unfit to be around others, abnormal, dangerous, evil. they embody inescapable cycles of trauma and abuse, roping other people into their problems. they are predatory, feeding on others (often literally). they steal agency and autonomy through lies, manipulation, and literal body theft. etc.

these are mostly things that spn villains of all genders do. but there are some differences in how male and female villains tend to approach their villainy. so…here is an incomplete survey of that, and how it relates to lucifer. 

(none of these are clear-cut male villains vs female villain things…supernatural, like a lot of media, likes to toy with genderbending to tell us there is something Wrong with someone, so a lot of the villains are Problematically Androgynous or whatever. it’s also “a kind of masculine equivalent of those old-school bodice-ripper novels” and has a fair number of hardass women who complicate feminine gender roles, so while it is strict about gender in some senses, it also often really…isn’t. so. this is all pretty hand-wavey. but anyway i’ll do my best because if i’m going to spend thousands of words talking about lucifer being a feminine-ish villain i might as well also talk about why that’s significant.)

women are more likely to be portrayed explicitly as direct victims (and to be convinced of their own victimhood), whereas men are more likely to be portrayed as having lost someone. constance welch is like this; bloody mary is like this; madison (not a villain, but certainly a monster of the week) is like this; ruby is like this with her self-sacrificial “i remember what it was like to be human” thing; bela is like this; lizzie from ‘family remains’ is like this, etc etc etc — in contrast to, like, gordon (especially before he gets turned into a vampire), and john (i promise i’m not trying to make a statement about him being an antagonist or not; it’s just that a lot of his worst behaviors stem from him having lost mary), and even michael, donnie!raphael, and gabriel (who all lost god, stability, and lucifer). lucifer fits the female villain pattern better than the male villain pattern here, being a character who escalates conflicts because of sleights and attacks done against herself out of a sense of victimization, rather than because of the loss of someone close to her. 

i don’t think there’s much difference in tendency to be overtly cruel or violent, so i’m not going to get into that. i’m also not sure there’s much of a gender difference in being underhandedly cruel/violent? or even in tendency to falsify their identity to get close to someone in a way that is either deliberately or incidentally cruel…like, meg and ruby do that, but so do azazel and michael and demon brady and the siren and both ghouls in jump the shark etc etc. i think this is just a creepy thing, not a gendered thing.

[cw discussion of sexual assault and other sexual misconduct in this paragraph] female villains are somewhat more likely to be openly sensuous and/or sexual, though, maybe — especially with sam and dean. i’m fighting myself a little on this, because there are a lot of male/”male” villains who also get handsy or sultry with protagonists (e.g. azazel, alastair, crowley), but i think often the female characters can get away with being more overtly sexual about it because of heteronormativity, if nothing else. constance in ‘pilot’ states that she plans to force sex on sam to make him unfaithful; ruby has sex with sam under false pretenses; lilith tries to manipulate sam into having sex with her; various women like becky and the lady from ‘red sky at morning’ sexually harass sam…a lot of women and woman-presenting characters on supernatural do a lot of sexual misconduct when it comes to sam, whereas men and man-presenting characters are creepy in a less hands-on on-screen way with him. lucifer does this role both ways: as jess, she lies in bed with sam, touches him, and lets him touch her sensually while deceiving him about her identity — then, as nick in that same scene, lucifer takes his hands off sam’s bare skin and touches him much less, but remains on the bed with him until sam gets up. for the rest of season 5, lucifer is (overly) familiar with sam, but doesn’t touch him or attempt to do anything sexual with him. so, lucifer’s behavior as an antagonist reflects the gendered appearance of the body the character is wearing. 

female villains/antagonists/monsters also insinuate themselves into the protagonists’ lives differently to their male counterparts, often. a lot of male villains place themselves in sam and/or dean’s lives in a familial context, as a warped father or brother figure. female villains don’t do that as much; they’re more likely to try to relate to sam and/or dean as romantic/sexual partners. honestly i’d love to write more about this as a standalone concept but that will have to wait; i’ll leave this at michael and lucifer playing this out in a male and female way respectively, with michael appearing to dean as john and lucifer appearing to sam as jess. more on that here.

probably there are other examples, but i keep thinking of too many exceptions so i’m going to just leave it here. anyway, of the villain gender differences i can get any kind of real handle on, lucifer either fits better into the feminine pattern, or fluctuates between the feminine and masculine patterns.

part 9: sexual connotations of “vessels,” stabbing, and holes part 11: villain gender in supernatural, effects masterpost

[thecassandradimitrescu]

Obviously you’re a gold drop, Bela is a ruby drop, and Dani is a snot drop.

Yes, this. Absolutely this. Don't you agree, @sora-roi, @dani-dimitrescu?

I think this fits us perfectly. Especially since gold is far more valuable than rubies.

[laufire]

Top 5 toxic ships

just five......... alright I'll try lol.

in no particular order, and trying to go with different "types":

Ruby & Sam (Supernatural). Sometimes that seducer/betrayer dynamic hits JUST RIGHT. And they included BLOODSHARING so they win. Similar dynamics can be found in the central "couple" in Lust, Caution, Sherlock/Jamie Moriarty in Elementary... Potentially Helo/Athena and Six/Gaius in Battlestar Galactica... we'll see.

Helly R & Helena (Severance). They have that mirror-images, I-created-you thing that's just *chef's kiss*. AND they combine it with one of my favourite we-share-a-body-and-are-NOT-happy about it cases. The toxicity is OFF-THE-CHARTS. The body horror. The haaaaaate. Everything. It's hard to find something as !!!!! as these two but there are traces of it in Elena/Katherine, Eleanor/Max, Black Swan, Buffy/Faith, Cersei-Sansa... it really works for me lol.

Eleanor & Henry (The Lion in Winter). YOU KNOW what kind of marriages I'm talking about lol. They hate each other but they are the only ones who GET the other, truly. And I do think the husband's infidelity adds a certain layer to it, because something like that is seen as denigrating for the woman (ew), yet it's undeniable these are THE ONES for them in a way nobody else is. It's not that she's lesser and he cheated, it's that he's a pig lol. Alicia/Peter in The Good Wife fit the bill; maybe Jason/Medea LOL, or Catherine/Henry in Reign.

Jennifer & Needy (Jennifer's Body). Toxic teen girlfriendism is just so especial <3. Shoutout to other examples like Jackie/Shauna or even Lilly/Veronica... there are other toxic teen girlfriendism films I must watch asap to add them to the list.

Merteuil & Valmont (Dangerous Liaisons). Love a good awful couple of manipulators that destroy each other <333. There's some overlap with #3 but here I think it's key that their ending is frustrated; there are divorce vibes, they separate or never quite find the moment of synchronicity, iykwim (although ig you could say The Handmaiden has a happy example). Elena/Stefan if I could set aside my Caroline-related-issues lol. Bela/Dean in a better world, Asriel and Marisa! Catherine/Heathcliff. Silverflint at their best (worst); actually, Avon/Stringer too, so ig this is what it takes for me to ship slash xD

[ohsc]

BLONDIEEEEEEE, love, I have a question? What's your favorite female side character or character in general, and why? And what would be some tweaks made to the character if there are any flaws? Mine is Ruby, she's an amazing character, besides the whole manipulation, she added to the demon boy story line for Sam so we'll and I wished they continued that. What about you, babes?

HI SWEETHEART!!! AAAH this is such a hard question omg i genuinely don’t think i can just pick one 😭

i LOVE ruby so much i think the samruby plotline is genuinely one of the best of the entire show, i don’t like them as a romantic ship (she literally manipulated him) but it was so well written and amazing and had some of the hottest scenes of the show LMFAOOO but i loved ruby from the start, genuinely thought she’d be a protagonist the twist was SO good especially since i was rooting for sam the entire time!!!

first one that comes to mind as a favourite though is rowena i love her SO much, i’ve always loved the witches and i think she’s just an amazing character as a whole. she’s one of the funniest characters in the entire show, she has some of my favourite plotlines (saving dean from the mark, her feud with lucifer, her and sam as a whole) and i think she’s so well written and interesting. ugly cried when she died LMAO

i LOVE so many others though like charlie, jo, ellen, eileen, early seasons mary, jody, claire, bela, ugh i could go on i love the spn ladies so much