#got wank for ts

[cascigarette]

imagine thinking sam "I felt like a freak my whole life amongst my family and my peers and society as a whole" winchester isn't queer coded

[obaewankenope]

It’s wild because The Narrative was constantly all “Sam is demon-coded and Dean is Angel-coded also Dean is usually right”. Meanwhile Sam is mostly normal like 90% of the time and in the background Dean is stabbing the shit out of passerby like some kind of DnD-style murderhobo. Like, I’m supposed to believe SAM is the one constantly tempted by evil in this family? Because I sure as fuck don’t.

Fjdkrtkot anon I am HOWLING right now because YEAH THAT'S KINDA IT ISN'T IT omfg

The narrative, especially from s4, centred on Sam having 'demon blood' and being judged by the Angels as that, somehow, being The Worst Thing Ever when it wasn't even something Sam CONSENTED TO IN THE FIRST PLACE and he only 'embraced' the changes forced upon him in order to get Dean back (or just get revenge because, honestly, Sam is 10000% incapable of giving a fuck about his own life when Dean died for him and is reckless af) because Sam's whole life has been defined by him being Dean's 'little brother' and Sam is Lost™ without Dean in the world.

And then we get Dean being the 'righteous man' narrative which... If Dean is a righteous man then the moment he broke in Hell he stopped being that and instead chose to be unrighteous (which is somehow completely ignored and glossed over and yeah but he's got an Angel who favours him which means Dean is obviously the Good Brother right???? W R O N G) so, by the same metric that Sam is measured by, Dean is just as 'evil' as his little brother.

Except, of course, we THEN get the whole 'vessels' concept shoved in and for that, then Sam and Dean MUST conform to the Angels they are the vessels for.

Dean must be righteous, good, the perfect son who honours his father and is Noble.

Sam must be capricious, stubborn, disrespectful of his father, the imperfect son, the challenger, the one who will lie and manipulate and arrogantly self-assured and Wrong.

Which then makes the Free Will narrative so much fucking worse imho because Sam... Sam Sam Sam...

Sam does what he's told, follows the Plan set out by his 'father' (because Sam and Lucifer have so many parallels and struggling to submit to the commands of a father they don't understand is literally central to them both) and then wrestles control enough to RUIN EVERYTHING because Sam loves his brother, just like Lucifer loves his own siblings, but where Lucifer will still kill his own, Sam REFUSES TO.

Sam accepts the plan, finally obeys his father, but he again shows that any obedience he performs, any acceptance of his 'place' as according to others means FUCK ALL when situated against the life of Dean.

Sam loves his brother above all else, including himself, and that makes him better than any Angel, any Demon, any being because Sam has no qualms about destroying himself for his big brother.

The narrative gives us these two brothers who grew up together, raising each other, protecting one another, and trying to love and support each other in an imperfect, harsh world where their father was more absent than present. It gave us this and then presented us with a narrative foil in the form of the entire apocalypse and the Angels and God and it showed us that Sam and Dean are exactly what we should strive to be.

It throws at us the question: what matters to you more: adhering to the Will of God or loving that which is your life?

Sam and Dean are each others world. They are life to each other. One cannot exist without the other. And the show, the narrative, gives us this amazing gift of showing us that loving those who love us matters most and then it fuckin tramples on it.

Dean faces several moral quandries throughout the show, quandries that Sam faced in different ways and different scenarios, and it does Dean such a disservice because it constantly throws Dean back to the metaphorical Square One.

Dean, as the elder brother, is presented as being dutiful, as the obedient one who listens to their father and does what John expected of them. Dean is the one that, eventually, John expected to take Sam out if John wasn't there to (and isn't that fucked up, to expect a son to kill his brother and to always be both his protector and potential killer, what a way to fuck up a kid) and that sort of... expectation, that exceptionally painful obligation and duty is a horrible, cruel thing to levy upon an elder brother that loves his younger brother.

The narrative gives us that and it makes us look at it and at what John expected and it, rightly, makes us as uncomfortable as it did Dean. Then it throws some characters, like fuckin Gordon, to try and... soothe it? The whole "if our sibling becomes a monster, we have no choice, it's the merciful thing to do" when, ya know, it isn't really because, as the show then points out later: FREE WILL.

Except. Except the growth that Dean gets to experience in the narrative is shoved backwards again and again. He gets to take steps forward, to being able to exist outside the confines of what John raised him to be (a soldier, John raised a soldier, not a son, a general like Michael, a brother who he expected to be able to kill his sibling like Cain) but that growth is set in a juxtaposition with the Angels and apocalypse storyline that tries to shove Sam and Dean into the narrow constraints that the Angels have for the vessels of the two major players in Gods 'plan'.

Dean gets thrown back over and over to the starting point, to season 1 Dean who still does what dad taught 'em, thinks like dad conditioned 'em, and re-enacts how dad raised' em, because the Dean back then at least had some illusion of agency. He thought he had some control, some free will that wasn't curtailed by other, more powerful things.

The Dean of season 1 had faith in his dad and love for his brother.

Season 1 Dean was comfortable hunting monsters and ganking them because back then, it really was that simple. Monster hunts humans? Bad. Something isn't human? Monster. Simple.

As easy as basic addition.

Except.

Except it's not that simple anymore. Not after season 4. Not when Angels — the supposed good guys, the pinnacle of morality and righteousness and goodness — are shown to be flawed, damaged, even evil. Dean doesn't have an unbroken faith in his father — burned into him by the One Time he didn't listen and Sammy nearly died and sorry dad, I'll do better next time, I'll listen, I'm sorry, Sammy I'm so sorry! — and everything is messy and complicated and getting more and more complicated the longer it goes on.

So Dean falls back to a time when it wasn't complicated. When things could be and were simply black-and-white to him.

Hunting monsters. Protecting people. The family business.

And because of this, the show and the narrative make Sam and Dean look... So, so different.

Season 6 Sam, the soulless Sam, is the one that (ironically) was most like Dean and it's horrifying. It's monstrous. Because that Sam didn't care about morality, didn't care about nuance, didn't care for shades of grey. That Sam is exactly the Sam that John Winchester feared (and likely secretly wished for at times because Sam's compassion made it harder for John, and eventually Dean, to possibly 'put him down' if needed).

We get to see Dean who tries to go back to the past, to when things seemed so much simpler to him, with a Sam that emulates the things Dean wishes for and we are shown — and so is Dean — that it's not that easy. That to go back to the beginning mentality is, in itself, the most monstrous thing of all.

And then- then we get Sam with a soul back. We get Dean losing Cas who he came to care for, love, trust, have faith in because Cas is there for Dean in ways Sam can't be. And the trade off is... Messy. It's unfair. And for Dean it's harder still.

He gets his brother back and loses Cas. It's an unfair trade off and it's out of Dean's control.

So, he doubles down on trying to find control again. He does what he knows best and the softness in him, the vulnerability that only Sam — and later Cas, in his own way — was able to draw out gets locked up in a cage more secure than the one in hell. Dean makes himself colder and harsher and lets pain and trauma and grief cloak him just like their father.

Eventually, he literally gets demonified which is a hysterical bit of role-reversal for the brothers (and I'd have loved to see Sam get angelified as an extra bit of 'fuck you' because it'd have been even more poetic imho) and we see how much closer to a demon Dean has always been.

Because... Sam. Sam will do horrible things for those he loves and he'll own the consequences. He'll destroy himself for those he loves and for Dean most of all. Sam will do monstrous things and will become a monster because of his great capacity to love. It, in an ironic way, is closer to the way Angels love than anything else we see in the show because Sam extends compassion, kindness, and forgiveness to everyone (even when he doesn't personally want to). He gives so many chances to people. Heck, he even gave Lilth a choice, a chance, and although she didn't take it, he still offered it.

Dean, in contrast, is more selective and selfish in how he loves and who. He hoards his loved ones close, but he also can be so so cruel and toxic to them because he wants to keep them close and control everything so nothing can harm them. He is exacting and dictatorial in a variety of ways because Dean's love is just as bountiful as Sam's but it makes him selfish. Dean will condemn the world to avoid hurting Sam. He won't say yes no matter what because he will not be the one who kills Sam (not like that, not that way).

Dean and Sam both show how powerful love is and how, in different ways, it is also destructive.

Dean always falls back on what he knows works, time-tested, familiar patterns of behaviour and emotional expression, drilled into him by John. John who was damaged and broken by grief and rage and loss and the thirst for vengeance, revenge, and the need to understand. John who, whilst loving both his sons, resented the youngest because his wife died because of him. Logically John may have known it wasn't ever Sam's fault (and in fact, we later learn it was Mary and John's fault really, the deal that led to everything), but logic is not emotion. And that emotion absolutely affected the dynamics of their family.

Dean was Sam's pseudo-parent because John couldn't be Sam's dad the same way he was Dean's because emotionally, John couldn't move past the loss Sam's existence led to (Mary). It affected all of them and it's why, in a way, the behaviour we see from Dean post s4 is so... painful.

Because Dean starts to emulate their dad and the way John behaved and it is disgustingly obvious how toxic that behaviour was when the one doing it is Dean. And, because the show is a fuckin mess, the behaviour never really stops. Dean is so damaged, so traumatised by everything he's gone through, that he falls back on the behaviour that he grew up with and that behaviour held Sam at a distance.

It's why Sam seems so well-adjusted compared to Dean — which, tbf, Sam got to socialise with 'normal' people for a while at Stanford and Dean also raised Sam to have as many 'normal' interactions and opportunities as possible so yeah, Sam is more well-adjusted compared to Dean but it's a kinda low bar tbqh — and is partly what makes Dean reverting back to the black-and-white 'gank all monsters' mentality of John Winchester and s1 Dean so... tragic.

The show tried to portray Sam and Dean as two sides of the same coin — Sam as the rebellious, tainted younger brother: Dean as the dutiful, righteous elder brother — but the narrative itself kind of wrecked that dynamic and instead gives us two very, very damaged young men who are never given the chance to breathe, to think, to try and really heal from any of the seemingly endless amount of emotional, psychological, and spiritual wounds they gain over the duration of the sow.

The narrative, if anything, shows us that Dean was always the one most at risk of becoming a 'monster' because Dean carried upon his shoulders so much expectation, duty, and obligation, so much responsibility, that the moment he stumbled it crushed him.

Sam, in comparison, is shown to be the one who carries his own weights and shame, the guilt and the knowledge that he is the 'perfect' vessel for the devil, and who keeps shouldering more and more like Atlas because Sam... Sam is stronger than Dean. Sam is stronger because Dean put his faith in their father and had it shaken to the core of him, where Sam put his faith in Dean's love for Sam which, even at the worst points in their lives, is something Sam has always had to bolster himself with.

It's also why Dean is the only one who can (and has) hurt Sam so deeply as to leave him feeling broken. Because Sam is a little brother and all Sam ever really wanted was his big brother's approval and love — which, ironically, is what makes Sam and Lucifer perfect mirrors of each other, because Lucifer wanted the same and didn't want to be be made to love anything else more than his family, and Sam cannot love anything more than he loves Dean and doesn't pretend to, but where Sam can still love others to an endless degree, Lucifer's ability to love is a finite thing and it's why Sam, in the end, could wrestle control from a frickin archangel and throw himself into the cage because Sam loves his brother most of all.

The narrative tried so hard to make us see Sam as the dangerous one, the monster-in-waiting and Dean as the one who would do as duty demands but it failed so hard because it, as you say, made Dean seem the most unhinged of the two of them.

Ironically, if it intended to that, it did it brilliantly, but I doubt the writers were thinking that far ahead (unfortunately).

[queermania]

"relax it was just a joke" okay then why are you so upset someone responded in kind????

[lesbianclaryfray]

i will never understand why we’re always on the first batgirl. or why babs always has to be batgirl because she’s the most “well-known” (which i’ve seen cited as a reason for babsgirl’s return in n52). dick grayson is the first and most well-known robin but he gets to grow the fuck up and move on. jason gets to be red hood. even tim sometimes gets to grow up to make room for dami!robin. but babs can never be oracle and cass/steph can never be the only/main batgirl because…? because having disabled superheroes is too far? because having more than 1-2 women in the batfamily is too much work? it’s such bullshit i can’t believe dc keeps getting away with it and people keep defending it

[obaewankenope]

Ableism? Absolutely.

Everyone can and will become disabled at some point in their lives. It may be a temporary state or a permanent one but everyone will be disabled in some way at some point in their lives.

Sprained ankle so can't go hiking? Temporary disability.

Broken leg so can't work? Temporary disability.

Bad case of cold/flu requiring hospitalisation? Temporary disability.

Broken back? Permanent disability.

Chronic fatigue? Permanent disability.

Long COVID? Permanent disability.

Some people didn't mask during the pandemic. Some people didn't get vaccinated. But not everyone who caught covid, who is diagnosed with long covid now is someone who didn't mask or vaccinate.

Some people just got unlucky. Some people were stubborn. Some people were victims of others stubbornness.

It's not a moral or personal failing, nor is it right to act like it's a justification or moral reason why these people end up with long covid.

Disability is disability and no one should be shamed or blamed for being disabled.

Even if it's a "you didn't listen to advice" or "you didn't get vaccinated and caught covid after" it's still not right to blame someone for their disability and act like it's an indicator of their value or worth or moral beliefs.

Back in the Victorian era there was a theory that if you looked a certain way then that defined your worth and person.

Phrenology.

It was racist, ableist, and disproportionately discriminatory against poor people.

The way some dialogue nowadays is skewed to blame people for having long covid, for some people acting morally superior because they didn't get it, is just phrenology in a different coat.

You are using something that shouldn't be used to justify your own bias, your own predjuice, and then patting yourself on the back because you see your actions as something noble and good.

If someone who didn't vaccinate, who didn't mask, gets long covid? By all means, tell them they should have gotten vaccinated. But don't you dare tell them they deserve to be disabled. Don't make disability into some sort of virtue signalling metric that you can then use to decide someone's moral or political standing.

Don't be a dick like that.

It's ableist af and, honestly, I'd prefer for people to be better than that.

Ok also but I do think the subtext of a bunch of "long COVID is why ppl are stupid/mean/shitty" takes is like 1) straightforwardly ableist (the threshold for pathologizing other ppl attributing their decisions/actions/politics to that pathology should be so fucking high and 2) wrapped up in the idea that being conservative = not taking COVID seriously = catching it multiple times = having severe long COVID such that it's like......woke coding using ableist logics to dismiss huge portions of the population + dipping frighteningly far into the idea that being sick is a moral failing. Like come on y'all.

[kedreeva]

getting real tired of people who think the only way to talk nice about characters they like is to put down characters they don't. it's not cool, it's just mean and petty.

[dyed-red]

Not to be self-satisfied dick but this review of episode 2 of TW feels like a lot of vindication for issues I have with the prequel and what its missing:

And not to double down and be a total bitch but the way the writer keeps pointing out weird character retcons and calling the gang the Scooby hunters or the Scoobies is giving me life

[homemadesterekpie]

The fucking nerve of the tw tumblr account I-

AHAHAHAH I KNOW RIGHT

[prince-of-elsinore]

I find it so funny when hellers call it "gatekeeping" to insist you have to watch the first three seasons of the show to get it, as if it's the same as saying "you're not a real fan if you can't name X writer or director or character" I mean it's not like this is Grey's Anatomy or NCIS, folks, it's not some procedural drama, it is a show with a plot and season arcs, and the first five seasons are actually all one long arc, so yeah, coming in at season 4 is like showing up to Hamlet in Act IV, can you imagine having the audacity to claim your criticism and interpretation are just as valid as those who actually arrived on time and saw the whole dang thing? No one's forcing you to watch s1-3, but pretending that it's gatekeeping when people who did watch the whole five season arc suggest your opinions don't have a firm basis in the text? It's laughable

[venturoushearta]

Do you ever think about how Clara was labelled a control freak because she watched her friend die and change into a completely different person and received absolutely zero emotional support for it because yeah

[kendalroys]

i’m gonna get this off my chest...

so upon seeing a random weird of Booker hate coming in all the sudden the past few days, I saw one thing in particular that made me roll my eyes but kinda upset. along the lines of “Booker acting like the rest of the team never went through any kind of pain or loss or trauma or etc...” and im ???? 

because never once in the movie is it said or even implied that Booker thinks that way. all he says is that Joe and Nicky always had each other while he and Andy had to face the weight of the world and pain alone. its never once said or implied that he doesn't think Joe or Nicky or Andy dealt with pain or loss or whatever. not ONCE. and the thing that gets me is its so fucking clear and explicitly spelt out in the movie I don’t even know how people jumped to that conclusion at all ??? like. i swear I see some takes that try to legit villainize Booker and i don’t think these people have watched the same movie as others did. 

what Booker did was fucked up. he fucked up (as did Copley but this is about Booker) and there’s no denying that. He wasn’t thinking at all and it had consequences against the team. his family.

but its driving me lowkey insane that people are sitting here like “uwuwu Booker doesn’t care about what they went through and doesnt think anyone but he suffered” when that is literally not what he said or thought. at all. 

[userachilles]

(TFATWS spoilers) I love how Marvel tried to no homo Bucky right off the bat by setting him up on a date with a woman in the first episode, yet the date wasn't even his idea and he looked uncomfortable the entire time. It really gave off "closeted gay guy being forced into performing heterosexuality" vibes to me lol

uh exactly!!! I saw this post that was like the waitress had lesbian vibes and she was just being sweet and asked about his dating history in a gender neutral way (I��d have to watch again to confirm that)....mlm and wlw solidarity <33 honestly idk why it even had to be a date I would’ve loved to see the two of them just hanging out!! ....we all know he could use positive interactions and more friends!!!!!

[venusdebotticelli]

Anyway, in light of That Bullshit™, here’s a show recommendation for everyone here who enjoyed the Destiel meta for years: 

Watch The Untamed!!!!!!!!!!

It is based on a canonically queer book where the main couple get married and have a kid and everything.

It is a Chinese show, so the censorship doesn’t actually let them show it as such. 

What did they do about it¿? 

They turned it into one of the sweetest and most loving and most fucking blatant queer love stories I’ve ever seen, even within the constraints of actual fucking homophobic state censorship. 

The censors wouldn’t let them kiss on camera, so they made up for it by pumping up the romance from the book even more, to the point where their relationship is actually slightly healthier and more thoroughly built up and more supportive than in the book it’s based on, and it breathes and soars beautifully throughout the show. 

This is a show that was made by a cast and crew that OBVIOUSLY carried this love story in their hearts and actually put their best work forward to portray it with all the love and respect it deserved. Again, whilst working against honest-to-god censorship!!! (unlike certain other shows... ¬_¬)

The same style of subtext analysis that has been used on Destiel for years works really well here, because it is also a blatantly queer story that’s superficially mislabeled as something else, but unlike with fucking Destiel you actually get a fucking satisfying resolution that sticks the landing beautifully!

And that’s another great thing about it!!! The show’s finished!!! No nasty surprises!!! The ending is good and happy!!! 

It also has lots of angst and drama, but it pays off!!! *insert the noise of popping open a can of fizzy* 👏 Sa 👏 Tis 👏 Fy 👏 Ing 👏 !!!!!! 👏

This ACTUALLY CENSORED show does a better fucking job of handling their queer love story than fucking supernatural, because unlike fucking supernatural, they are utterly unapologetic and unashamed about the story they’re telling! (and oh, supernatural *was* telling that story, even if they took that insultingly cowardly approach and exit.)

It’s also slightly campy fantasy with creepy supernatural stuff and great character relationships with lots of heart and complexity. The main mytharc plot is a bit weakly developped at times and the cgi was obviously made with a toaster oven from 1987, but honestly, if you enjoyed supernatural at any point I don’t think you have any particular issue with that :P

And yeah, I’m fucking angry and bitter at supernatural right now, after so long of my life invested in a show that in the end did not fucking deserve it. 

But one thing I will always cherish about this fandom is the incredible critical analysis it’s always engaged on, and everything it personally taught me about how stories are built, and all the richness you can imbue into them with even the smallest of details. It taught me to pay attention to each and every single element of a story, no matter how small or inconsequential it might seem at first glance, and to find greater meaning within it. And even if supernatural’s ending is a Betrayal against good storytelling and everything their characters ever stood for, I am telling you, The Untamed is a show where those skills are put to good use. Where it is actually rewarding and fulfilling to engage on that level!!! 

I’m making this post because as angry as I am, I know it would’ve hit me even harder just last year, or a couple of years ago, when I hadn’t been into any other fandoms that let me hyperfixate as deeply and intensely as this one does, and if it helps anyone move on, please take it! It’s also extremely popular at the moment, so there’s no shortage of good content to explore!!! And yeah, we fucking deserve better than supernatural. THIS IS BETTER, censorship and all, because it feels intrinsically queer in the way the story’s been told, even with all its constraints. 

[kedreeva]

did you read the CNBC article "Egg prices rose 60% in 2022. One farm griup claims it's a 'collusive scheme' by suppliers"? Given how knowledgeable you are about your own birds, I'm interested to hear your thoughts! I particularly found it weird in the inflation numbers comparison where eggs went up by 59.9% in December while the "poultry" category only went up by 12.2%. Doesn't that seem counter-intuitive since it takes much longer to raise meat vs eggs even with the flu? I'm not trying to grill you at all I just like your blog and would like to see your thoughts on it :)

I have no idea why you think eggs take a shorter time, but meat birds are ready for butcher at 6-8 weeks old, and egg birds are a minimum of like 4 months, if not 6-10 depending on breed.

Don't listen to people (general) on farm groups. I'm in several, and day in and day out I see some real hot takes on stuff and a lot of people who either don't know what they're doing or are doing stuff that's like, actively harmful. The people that know what they're talking about burn out trying to argue with the people that are Very Convinced that they're right as they say the most wrong things. I'm locked in combat to the death in one group over the people there using the phrase "fertile but not fertilized" to describe an infertile/unfertilized egg. There's literally no such thing as "fertile but unfertilized." An egg is infertile or fertile, or it's unfertilized or fertilized. But by golly you cannot convince them this is the case, even directing them to google to check for themselves. I've seen med recs for overdoses and underdoses. I had one lady tell me she poured some injectable meds under her bird's wing, and flat out refuse to give more via injection or buy the pour-on version because didn't "want to overdose him." MA'AM you didn't DOSE him!!! What you did was the equivalent of pouring cough syrup on your hand. I chased my own tail for WEEKS with a lady that INSISTED 12 accidental fires in a single year, across all the farms in the US (you know, the 2.5 million farms in the US), meant that there was a government conspiracy to cause a food shortage, and that's why she kept chickens. You might be able to find A Person on those groups that knows anything correct, but the groups at large are often not great for anything other than sharing cute pics and finding homes for excess birds.

Now don't get me wrong, if a company CAN charge a little more for something and get away with it, they're probably gonna try, and I'm sure that some of that is involved, in some places more heavily than others. But also we lost almost 58 MILLION chickens, a lot of them egg layers, to HPAI last year, from around march to june (like, for reference, the US has about 300 million egg-type production birds, across ages). There's also a higher cost in fuel, and likely an unwillingness to hire people who have standards about how they're treated factoring in. Given the processing/shipping/distribution time and the requirements (including the cost of materials, testing, cleaning, disposal etc) of sanitizing land and having to let it sit for a period before being able to resume production, that lag and then sept-dec 2022 zone was exactly where I expected the price rise to happen, and at least from what I've seen, it's already coming back down (from $6 to $4 around me anyway) as those lost facilities have reached laying ages. I expect it will keep going down, provided HPAI doesn't devastate the industry again this year.

If you want a visual representation of what the fuck happened last year, here's from the USDA:

So no, I don't think it's weird and also I don't think it's a conspiracy. Shit just happens sometimes, and instead of taking the hit to their profit, they took it out of egg prices because they had an excuse to raise them to cover costs and possibly make extra while people were tolerant. That's not really a conspiracy in my book, it's just capitalizing on a thing that happened. you know. like capitalists.

[homemadesterekpie]

i can’t believe i’ll have to go through this again

[myownprivatcidaho]

im sorry but user ************ is SO annoying and gross lmao literally have their url blacklisted thats the only person ive had to do that with fucking DISGUSTING