#i needed to fix some of the values on cass lol

[ashoss]

ive had this helmet saved in my pins for a while and i needed to draw cass in it. i guess jasons there too.

how do u draw motorcycles

[diminuel]

15x11 rewatch! Let’s go! It’s again, very long, so read below the cut!

My recap of last week to orient myself: We’ve seen Sam and Dean struggle with issues that they usually don’t have. Garth’s theory is that they are now faced with “normal people problems”, things a writer glosses over when it gets to their heroes because it slows down the story. However, they aren’t only faced with lactose intolerance but also suddenly find that they have trouble with all skills they used while hunting - they can’t open locks (at least not with make shift tools and when they’re stressed), they cannot fight against monsters (that are vastly overpowered while they just have human abilities), etc.

At the end of the episode Garth suggested a magical fix to their issues and we see them decide they would head to Alaska. Meanwhile, Cas is glaringly absent on a not further specified mission to Heaven. (*rolls eyes*)

Now, on twitter I said that if Sam and Dean went to Alaska to find a magic fix it for their issues without talking it through with Cas first they are “embarrassing dumbasses”. Spoiler alert: they are embarrassing dumbasses.

Now we start the reaction. I will bundle this sections since there are two plots that progress 98% independently of each other.

A: Misadventures in Alaska

- I know that Cas is absent, but I wish the Winchesters would have waited long enough to dicuss the issues with Cas. Sam does afterall talk it through with Eileen. And he must have talked to other people about it because he knows that it’s not in the lore and nobody else ever heard of it apart from Garth. But waiting for Cas to discuss with him was too much of a hassle...?

- Dean might not be able to digest cheese now, but he knows how to help himself. Like a normal person. (Well, I’m a normal person too but I just risk it and then suffer the dire consequences.)

- Okay, so they are in Alaska already. Don’t you have to cross through Canada to get to Alaska? If yes, how did they manage to cross the border with all the weapons in their trunk and without valid ID?

- I love Sam’s bewildered reply to when Dean claims that he was playing pool since before Sam was born. “What, between nap time and snack?”

- I was constantly worried that Dean was too cocky about his pool skills considering he had lost some other skills and that he would get into this game without even making sure that he still had the necessary skills for it. However, this episode isn’t the kind of silly overkill like last one was. Pool is a skill Dean and Sam developped over years and years, so of course they should be able to do it. (It’s not the same as lockpicking with a random nail)

- Dean “baiting” the other players wasn’t super elegant for someone who’s hustled pool for years *lol* But it was cute I guess?

- I like that Sam tries to talk to people and make them leave before it’s too late.

- Fortuna’s a dick, not winning any parent of the year awards...

- I like how Dean’s sure enough of himself to know that he’s much more complex than a “sexy but skimmable beach read”

- I think that usually the villains agree to Sam and Dean’s demands far too easily even though they have nothing to bargain with. So I assume Fortuna not agreeing to Sam’s terms falls under Sam and Dean no longer having their god given hero bonuses.

- I really appreciate the explanations we got on how Gods and all the other gods can exist at the same time. Humans/ human needs creating gods has always been my headcanon.

- Fortuna called Sam “little minx” *lol*

- Hero’s luck is a thing independently of Chuck then, but still granted by a divine being. But what makes a hero a hero is not their luck - but their choices and their attitude. Fortuna recognized that in them: bravery, the willingness to risk it all for others.

- I’m not sure yet what “don’t play his game, make him play yours” means. Though it’d be interesting if the same thing that happened to Metatron (who tried to play God) happens to God. God as “one of them”. Give him a soul and the weight of it, so he experiences the story and creation differently. I don’t know. I feel there aren’t enough episodes left for such a “remind God of the beauty and value of his creation” kind of plot.

B: Agent Lizzo

(I think this story line is more interesting than the monster of the week case and should have been given more screentime)

- “CASS”. Sam, that’s not how you spell his name. And why did you write a note instead of texting him? Also, they explained nothing. 

- Jack’s “Wanted by the FBI” picture is pretty cute. I wonder who took it.

- I like how Cas now frequently has a very visible reaction to things; he pulls the phone away from his hears, his expression changes, he has to breathe, before he manages to regain his composure. (Like the phone call he had with Dean while they were still seperated)

- Cas is so cute sitting at the desk with his laptop

- Why Jack. Why do you just sit down in the office to eat the heart?

- We usually saw Jack heal instantly; can’t he heal now or doesn’t he bother to heal his wounds?

- How many Grigori hearts did Jack eat...?

- Jack’s “dark” in ways he wasn’t before. The kind of dialogue he has comes across as very Winchester/ Cas like. I’m also trying to figure him out. He looks to the side at one point, before the Grigori takes his sword, which I assume means he saw Cas? His next expression is hard to describe; his nostrils flare, his calm expression drops. Is he shocked (I doubt it), is he angry (why would he?), is he trying to get out of the ropes to help or run? During the time it takes for Cas to defeat the Grigori, his expressions calms again and he lowers his head again. Maybe I’m just reading too much into it. I’m not very good at reading expressions anyway...

- The hug was nice but I really wish Cas and Jack would have actually spoken to each other. :/

TFW back together

- Dean and Sam are given the “little extra” that Dean wanted: Jack and Cas are back.

- I wish Sam had a bit of a more profound reaction. It’s the kind of welcome back reaction that would have been appropriate if Jack had just come back from a trip to the Swiss Alps where he tried to find himself among the cows and mountain spirits. Not when he came back from being killed by God.

- Dean’s reaction on the other hand was more impactful to me. Here we see that there’s tension there, some unspoken things. But still, he touches Jack the way that Bobby used to touch him. It’s a fierce look, but a gentle, parental touch. At the same time, this scene also addressed how much has changed (for the better!) between Dean and Cas. Dean seeks out Cas for conformation. I’m very soft about that exchange. (I think it also again presents Cas and Dean as an unit, especially when it gets to Jack.)

- I do hope Jack and Dean will hug eventually because the scene switch was a bit too fast for me. A bit more talk would have been better, or guiding them over into the next scene a bit gentler... Too many fanfic gaps here, even though the gaps are small!

- Sam and Dean acting like Jack ran away from them...? Sam: “You could have called.” Really, Sam...? When Jack says he couldn’t even though he wanted Dean says: “why not?” Why not, Dean? Do you really need to ask? And then Jack addressed nothing of what had happened and just brought up the current reason (staying hidden from god). Dude! You killed their mother, they wanted to trap you, then they wanted to kill you! I mean, come on.

- If Grigori hearts are the beginning, then what is next? Grigori are some of the “failed” creations of God that, according to Cas, should have been wiped out by the Flood. So maybe there are other things that God didn’t like for some reason or another that he wanted to get rid of. Grigori wiped out, Leviathan locked away, Nephilim forbidden... Hm. 

- From S11 we know that you can’t kill God. Killing God is not an option... (I also don’t really want it to happen. If the ending is literally creation being wiped out and there is nothing but a black screen at the end then I will have a panic attack.)

New things going forwards: 

Dean and Sam are heroes, no matter what Chuck says. Maybe they are no longer the heroes of his story (here I remember Metatron’s words again “you’re not the hero of this story, you are the villain”). But they’re still heroes. Fortuna rewards them for that alone with hero’s luck, which might give them back their bonuses to a certain degree. But the fact is that Sam and Dean are ordinary humans who become heroes because they are compassionate and brave and while they receive no reward for it, no “great recognition of their deeds”, they matter to the humans they saved. They matter in the smaller scheme of things, in the ways that Chuck disregards. Here I’m thinking of what Cas realized when he became human: that there is dignity in what he does, even if there is no divinity in it, even though it’s meaningless and “below him” even by Dean’s standards. But it mattered to Cas. He hurt, but it was meaningful and he wanted to live his life anyway. Chuck doesn’t see that. Chuck doesn’t see the dignity and meaning in the small things of human life. Because they are nuisances to him, they don’t make stories. Just like Sam and Dean doing the laundry all day don’t make stories for him - but they do for Becky.

So I think this episode reaffirmed what early SPN established: it’s the story of humans and how they save people, even if the odds are against them, and that makes them heroes. And not the other way around.

Some general comments: This is totally subjective but I feel there were some extra scenes that could have been cut (some pool hall stuff, the Grigori thing could have been slimmed down a bit) to give more space to things which I found more relevant like Cas/TFW’s reunion with Jack. I know that fanfic will fill the gaps eventually, but I wish we had to do a bit less work, you know? *lol* I mean, how did Cas and Jack’s conversation go, how was the drive back? How long where they in the Bunker by the time Sam and Dean came back from Alaska? What did they talk about? What conversations were exchanged in the scene break between TFW reuniting and them sitting at the map table? So many scenes to fill.

[irrlicht-ghostfront]

My first coda, and I haven’t even watched the episde (lol)! I do hope Dean will get his act together someday soon.

_____________________________

“We are.”

Castiel had wanted to make Dean believe; really believe that their choices – them – were their own. But he couldn’t. Dean wouldn’t have any of it. It used to be the other way around, years and years ago – Dean desperately trying to make Cass see the fault in God’s “plan”. And now it was Castiel who tried to convince Dean. Of course, he failed. He failed everything, even when he did everything right.

 Maybe he was just someone easy to blame. Perhaps he’s stuck around for too long and always returned, no matter what happened. Perhaps that had taught Dean he could do everything he wanted with the angel and still – still get to keep him. And he, stupid angel that he is, never called Dean on anything. If he’d just put his foot down years ago, then maybe...

Dean had seemed so happy when he returned from the Empty. He’d been so relieved, and Jack even told him he hadn’t really seen Dean smile before. And Castiel thought it had been worth it. That, maybe, Dean valued him as much as he said he does.

But it hadn’t been true. No matter Dean’s words – “You’re our brother” – none of them were ever true. They’ve always just been about getting something, making Castiel compliant. And he’d fallen for it, time and time again.

 There had been a time, long ago, where Dean refused to believe Castiel had done something bad – the one time that he did. He always thought that he must’ve done Dean wrong, that he would need to redeem himself to the man. But it hadn’t been like that. Castiel had done everything right – he stopped the second apocalypse, and he did it all on his own. He apologised, and he meant it; and he saved them again and again – he fixed what he broke.

And still, for Dean, it would never be enough.

Castiel wasn’t Sam.

And clearly, in Dean’s eyes, that was the biggest mistake.

Family don’t end with blood.

Except when it does, and Castiel’s never been family.

 There hadn’t been a right choice.

He killed Belphegor and prevented him from becoming a new God. That was wrong.

He let Belphegor do whatever he wanted and in turn, Rowena wouldn’t have to die. In the long run, that would’ve been wrong too. He was sorry about Rowena. She had been his friend, too. Did Dean really believe he didn’t care?

He was sorry about Mary, but he didn’t kill her. He shouldn’t have to take the blame. Castiel was pretty sure Dean didn’t blame him for Crowley’s death simply because he died two minutes later.

 Jack was gone. And now, Castiel destroyed his body. He had to watch his son die twice, once at his own hands. And Dean didn’t care. For all Castiel knew, Dean wanted him dead, as well. Hell, he already was in his eyes. He didn’t do anything wrong. He didn’t deserve this treatment; he didn’t deserve to be some human’s punching bag because they couldn’t cope!

Maybe, all these times he believed he was wrong, he hadn’t been.

What if that had just been Dean projecting?

He wondered when that started. When did Dean start to blame him for everything? Had it been before Purgatory? After Lucifer? Every so often, it had seemed like Dean truly, honestly cared. He had that look in his eyes; that look that meant he cared.

Castiel wasn’t Sam, so these moments never lasted long.

What if his siblings had been right all along?

Dean Winchester would do nothing but corrupt him.

 He hoped Sam would be alright. No matter the circumstances, it was still him who killed the witch. Castiel hoped that Sam would be able to forgive himself. After all, Dean wouldn’t blame him. Dean would keep telling him that it was the only thing he could’ve done and that everything was Castiel’s fault anyway – if Cass had just stuck to the plan...

He clenched his fist. No, Sam wouldn’t blame him. He almost never did. It was Dean. It was always Dean. Dean Winchester, the Righteous Man. He didn’t feel so righteous anymore. Dean had wanted to kill Jack, just because he lost his soul to save them. Jack wouldn’t have burned up his soul so quickly if he hadn’t had needed to save them from Michael. Yes, Jack killed Mary. Yes, that was unforgiveable. But Dean didn’t even try to look for another way, see it from another point of view. Jack being soulless, only filled with Michael’s grace, was a danger. Jack hadn’t hurt anyone; and they could have found a way to restore it somehow; or live with it like Donatello did.

Sam being soulless had been perfectly fine. Woe poor Sam and damn Castiel for not bringing Sam’s soul back from hell. Not ever a “thanks for saving Sam, Cass”, always just “why didn’t you just do better, you useless angel?”

 And now, Castiel had nothing. He started out with nothing, it seemed only fitting that he’d end up with nothing, too. Dean still had Sam. Team Free Will. What a hoax. It wasn’t a team with just two people, and Dean lost all faith in free will anyway.

He kept walking. He’d end up somewhere eventually; and if he didn’t, that was alright too. It’s not like Dean would look for him – and while Sam might wonder, he wouldn’t look for the angel without Dean’s approval. If only Chuck would’ve been better. If Chuck would’ve restored Jack’s soul, they could’ve dealt with it. It was all Chuck’s fault, him and his stupid stories. This wasn’t a story. This was real. No matter what Dean or Chuck want to make him believe; he is real, his choices are real, and his life had meaning. He made his choices, not some wanna-be writer up in the clouds, completely detached from reality.

 Castiel did everything right.

And so, he would just keep on doing the right things – Dean’s opinion didn’t matter anymore. Let the human stew in his own self-pity, someone had to try and save the world. It might as well be him.

 And if, at the end of the day, he’d still be just a monster in Dean’s eyes, that’s okay too.

 “I think it’s time for me to move on.”

[amilliontinywraiths]

to the walnut people’s garden.

Blog,

Im starting my post in the way my friend Joshua does, as a letter to a digital realm of writing / reading / whatever u want to say about the cybernetic makeup on the tumblrverse. Mostly, I didn’t know how to start. Insert the meme format, every day I open Microsoft word and write absolutely nothing. Its paralyzing – to have some aspect of my identity wrapped up in “writing,” to be a “writer,” but to really exist as such in bursts. Every few months I’ll write something and lay it to rest in my hard drive, go back to living as a sentient being trying to scrape by eleven dollars an hour.

Its getting colder – the wind knocked over some plants outside, I opened the window and immediately closed it. Im worried about the lettuce dying from the frost. Im doing some reflection because there’s nothing else to do. Im googling depression lamps and silly tips to quit smoking and “psychiatric evaluations for cheap.”

My sister is in town and was asking me about my move, the semi-chaotic summer I lived when plans A and B fell through and my ass tumbled back to my hometown. Its depressing if I read too far into it, coming back to a place I swore I never would, being proof that “you always come back home” (because home is a vapid suburb). She had come to the garden last night, to see the space that picked me up and saved the move, to meet the people that have made this city feel like something new and worth appreciating, and not an exemplar of postgraduate failures. I think the garden might be the only thing that kept me in my hometown, feeling ashamed that I hadnt made it anywhere but here.

Let me explain myself. Im a little sick of the ‘2020 was a bad year [insert sad face]’ discourse, but it was a fucking bad year. So was 2019 and every year dating back to industrialization and colonial exploration, but im getting sidetracked. The year started with a silly (actually devastating and heartbreaking) breakup and months of depression. Of going to aa and spilling my sorrows to a group of gay 50-somethings who hugged me like I wasn’t a lost case. Of later fearing my loved ones, as if they were virus-carrying rascals, or worse, that I was and would infect and kill them all. Of having my visa cancelled but still needing to leave Chicago – fueling myself with the potentially false and certainly romantic idea that running away from ur friends and problems will fix it all. Im lamenting.

What im saying is im as surprised as you are at the success of kc. At the community and love ive found here, all cooked up in the garden squat. The day I met syd and cass and felt really shocked at the ease of meeting the anarchist poets, as if they were just waiting for me. when syd invited me to the garden one night and it all made sense – to take back the land and grow sunflowers. I wont go too far into my gaden-becoming (lol). As it will potentially be ripped away from us by landlord bastards in this next month, I need to solidify some reflections. To poorly paraphrase Audre lorde, you gotta write it down so you don’t forget how you felt. How you thought. Maybe in five years the garden will be flourishing. Or we will be sitting at the track tagging ‘fuck fascism’ as we approach our thirties. Or both.

The endless garden bonfires. Indistinguishable from the next. All the bonfires and cookouts melding into each other. The 200 Hams that showed up one night, maybe 180? The joy of collective drunkenness, peeing behind the shed, grabbing another beer on your way back. We began having movie nights. Thank god cadence brought all of the anime, secretly hoping nobody could possibly want to watch Edward Scissorhands. geeking with syd about poets. Spreading mulch at our first work day, gossiping about sean bonney and wendy Trevino with amalia, the excitement that someone else gave a shit about obscure poets. Later making a book club for just that. picking up two trunkloads of bricks from a gentrifying couple in the northeast, how they wanted to rid their property of the old chimney and practically begged me to take more. Making a path later with neve, I think, and being nervous about becoming friends with everyone. Having met so many people in such a short time. Planning to camp at the garden together, and instead, going to an impromptu occupation. The absolute failure of it all, when the occupiers began to police each other. ‘A world without police’ my ass. The walnut people’s garden tent we squeezed into. Playing ‘never have I ever’ with other twenty-somethings, realizing that the game is only spicy when nefarious activities are taboo—and they’re not taboo to us. Almost winning several games of chess in several different tents, though I think I always lost. That time when Syd’s birthday, when their literal hoard of friends came and went and I watched them from one of the garden beds. That art students look like art students everywhere I’ve been. I think I was talking to cass, about something, poetry maybe, at the garden bed. we were avoiding the group dynamic, that specific stomach feeling that arises when you don’t know anybody. The outdoor space fostering some normalcy, people being able to come and go and celebrate years around the sun. afterwards we went to jail support, a reminder that nothing is normal. “the new normal.” I had just dug up my own garden bed, which if I made decisions financially, was a huge money drain. But it taught me how to grow lettuces and how not to grow cauliflowers. I kept a journal with garden notes, which vegetables liked each other. I left it at the garden one night and it was rained on, completely disintegrated. A sweet first kiss on the garden bench, later, the garden bench showing up in a flash sheet that we’ll all choose tattoos from. the subsequent meme. the continual talk of memes fueled by @dante. A massive group tattoo session. The slew of items always left at the garden after a night of drinking. My debit card, my jacket, somehow always sydney’s backpack. Cullen always finding the objects since he was up earlier than us all. Later, dante’s birthday when I walked from the garden to sade’s apartment, which had a living room—quite literally—filled with only couches. Feeling warm and included, invited to something. Discovering sade is best friends with sue, who lives with Vivian. Facetiming Vivian from the garden, facetiming Vivian from the backyard. Feeling so lonely for so long, and then, suddenly pulled into this weird collective embrace. Pulling up to the the garden and freddy howling. Laying with freddy on the couch. The celebration of life erin and Cullen threw for freddy, when miranda made him this foul-looking peanut butter cake and someone took a bite of it. stealing a thousand cigarettes from bobby or kim or anyone who pulled out a pack near me. meeting syd dante and sade at the garden to break into an apartment complex’s pool. But residents were having a pool party with a vague america theme and we felt out-of-place. When we were driving home from the pool and dante spotted a note on the garden sign, our formal eviction notice. How hard it is to meet common ground with landowners, as a group of ppl who don’t believe in that shit. My dad telling me to just ‘buy the land.’ Are you interested in paying rent? The neighborhood association meeting, the landlords pushing for increased value moving into the neighborhood. Us leaving when the meeting proved too boring, typical leftists unable to sit through bureaucratic garbage. Send someone in our place. The giant saw that looked like an oil rig. How I was disappointed in my own passivity in the situation, letting them reverse screwdrive our land! How sometimes you make concessions for the big picture, but then you feel like a fraud in the moment. How maybe that is just an excuse. Cullen eating a grasshopper, suddenly everyone eating grasshoppers. A grasshopper loose in quicktrip, we considered asking to take it home with us. When we painted the sign and we didn’t like the proposed name, so we made up another one, which was admittedly not very anarchist of us. No collective decision making. The sign was later repainted after a meeting and it looked so much better. The meeting showing that we could fight and come to collective decisions and maybe we’d make it through the eviction. The eviction coming in two weeks, the plans for occupation. A slumber party with demands. A giant slingshot to launch discarded objects at construction trucks. A trebuchet. Maybe we’ll make it through the eviction.

To the walnut people’s garden.