#ilarual takes

[shallowrambles]

Oh. This person @ilarual put it a lot better than I ever could.

#I am so tired of fanon a) stripping Cas of all agency and emotional intelligence and b) acting like 100% of his issues are bc of Dean#sorry but he was a whole person in his own right and had a whole life (RAISED BY A LITERAL EXTREMIST DOOMSDAY CULT????)#long before Dean and Sam came into his life#Cas absolutely 100% gets it entirely the second Dean explains to him exactly what was happening#moreover I swear people act like it's a given that Dean just marched Cas straight to the door#with nothing but a hoodie and that microwave burrito to his name#but sorry I just don't buy it#we never see anything that clarifies one way or another but what's in character for Dean#is to give him all the cash he has on him and three changes of clothes and all the fake IDs Dean made for him in 2009#and drive him to the bus station with really vague instructions to lay low for awhile until things cool off#which Cas interprets as ''please go to the other side of the continental divide'' instead of ''go three towns over where I can get to you''#because Cas has a lot of issues that have nothing to do with Dean so of course he would interpret it that way#anyway point is as painful as Cas getting kicked out of the bunker is for the viewer#I think it's honestly worse for the audience in the long run bc I really agree that the second Cas understands what's actually happening#and not really have any hangups about it#there's definitely some shit in their history Dean and Cas really need to talk about and work through as a couple bc it didn't get resolved#but this particular issue doesn't strike me as one of them#spn

Yeah, I agree that the audience holds a grudge and gives more weight to this event than it actually has. You could say that us hyperfixated, systemizing fans toxically keep score in their relationship way more than they do, hehe.

And I like your take on what Dean probably actually does here.

////

And yes! Cas gets a whole lot more than people give him credit for. His emotional intuition is much stronger than his social non-understanding of a completely alien human culture. There are times when Cas reads more "lost in translation" than hopelessly lost duck. IMHO. I'll add this bit as another later example of Cas being emotionally on the money (14x09):

Hot takes: Cas completely understands why he couldn't stay in the Bunker and he holds no real grudge about it. He actually understands and grasps the entirety of the between-a-rock-and-a-hard-place situation the angelic imposter put them in. He even gets it INSTANTLY upon being told about it. Because in canon, Cas actually has functioning emotional intelligence, even if some corners of fanon want to deprive him of it. If anything, he's ashamed of his angelic family for being manipulative and brutish...again.

Futhermore, Cas's tendency to rely on himself is a Cas thing (often, he waits till shit hits the fan to go for help). It's as much about his wartime situations as it is his upbringing. It's not JUST the tragic fallout of having different ideas about battle tactics than his human fam. It's also about having no parent in his life. (More on Cas psychology as it pertains to Chuck and Cas here.)

Anyway, Cas may have grudges and anger, but the being kicked out of the bunker thing...just isn't one of them!

And #2: If Cas had stayed in the bunker, Gadreel would've totally found a way to disappear him, and Dean isn't stupid enough NOT to see that.

And #3: We don't really know HOW much support was provided to Cas, or how much Cas refused. Cas has been shown handling public transportation since he cut off the finger of Pestilence, and I wouldn't put it past him to stubbornly hitchhike outta dodge after the rejection. I also wouldn't be surprised if he mishandled his money, and I wouldn't put it past him to stubbornly refuse help, either. Stoically shunning help until it gets really bad is a Cas thing.

[shallowseeker]

Hi shal! I mean this in the nicest way. While sometimes I struggle to keep up with what you're talking about, I find your commentary unique and enjoyable. (Especially the meta about the cars!) Sometimes you'll say things, and I'll walk away thinking not much of it, but then wind up thinking about it for days. Your meta on seasons 14 and 15 are some of my favorites. I came back to your 15.09 posts yesterday and they still hit. Thank you for sharing!

I'll take it in the nicest way, then.

///

One part of me is like this:

HARPER: Okay, I'm just realizing it's weird... That's weird. I'm weird.

But another part is:

I do struggle with words, syntax, and word finding... But there's nothing nicer than hearing that your weird ideas stay with people after the fact. Thank you! :D

[destieltropecollection]

DESTIEL TROPE COLLECTION 2023 | DAY 17 | Friends to Lovers

Touch Me, Sit With Me, Tell Me To Stay | @aaronthe8thdemon

Rating: Teen & Up Word Count: 3,634 Main Tags/Warnings: Post-Season/Series 15, Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Castiel Out of the Empty (Supernatural), Grieving Dean Winchester, John Winchester's A+ Parenting, Angel Castiel (Supernatural) Summary: The day the car dies, Castiel thinks that he (and a great many humans, too) would give up so much to be loved half as well as Dean loves Baby.

Heartcatcher | Maetheheller (AO3)

Rating: Explicit Word Count: 4,975 Main Tags/Warnings: Nick Nelson from Heartstopper is a dean Winchester parallel, hand jobs, frottage, best friends to lovers, Charlie Dean Cas movie nights, The Boys references Summary: Charlie, Dean, and Cas have a Heartstopper “movie night” and Dean doesn’t expect to relate so much to Nick Nelson, or find the courage to confess his feelings to Cas, his blue-eyed best friend, but sometimes good things do happen.

aperture | ilarual (AO3)

Rating: General Word Count: 5,000 Main Tags/Warnings: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Friends To Lovers, It's Not Actually Unrequited They're Just Both Idiots, Oneshot Summary: Dean keeps a photo collage of all the people he loves. Castiel is barely in it.

when the stars align | @twinone1221

Rating: General Word Count: 20,550 Main Tags/Warnings: Camping AU, Mechanic!Dean Winchester, Teacher!Castiel, Car Trouble, Stargazing Summary: Camping was something Castiel’s family loved for different reasons. Amelia loved to cook over an open fire, Jimmy enjoyed hikes the most, his niece Claire preferred riding her bicycle, and his son Jack always asked for stories while stargazing. The plan was simple. Drive to the lake, spend some time with his family, eat some good food, sleep under the stars and then drive back in time for work on Monday morning. It was the perfect plan for a perfect weekend. Then his truck broke down.

Love As Blue And Rainbow Feathers | @aaronthe8thdemon

Rating: Mature Word Count: 37,388 Main Tags/Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Season/Series 13, Major Character Injury, Wingfic, Castiel Possessing Dean Winchester, Friends to Lovers, Slow Burn, Light Angst, Fluff, John Winchester's A+ Parenting, Past Child Abuse, Internalized Homophobia, Canon-Typical Violence Summary: Narrowly escaping death in an alternate reality? Grievous injuries with only the most outrageous solutions available? Pranks as a form of flirting? Unresolved sexual tension driving everyone else nuts? Teaching a toddler how to fight an archangel and actually stand a chance of winning? Juggling a bunker of refugees and the problems in Heaven and the threat of the devil himself? Only on any day ending in Y for the Winchesters.

The barista and the bookshop | @abi-cosmos

Rating: Explicit Word Count: 55,794 Main Tags/Warnings: Coffeeshop AU, Mutual pining, Bisexual Dean Winchester, Gay Castiel, Top Castiel/Bottom Dean Winchester, Friends to lovers, Slow burn, Angst with a happy ending Summary: In a sleepy mountain town, stitched together with fairy lights, Dean Winchester has been running Squirrel and Moose Coffeehouse since his Dad died. Next door, anchored by family obligation, librarian Castiel has been tasked with taking over Chuck’s Bookshop. Wanting a distraction after his brother leaves town, Dean offers to help Castiel fix it up. It’s a job, something to get his hands on, it doesn’t matter that the librarian is hot and kinda weird. Castiel doesn’t understand why Dean is helping him, but he’s happy that he is, and their friendship grows until he can’t deny what’s right in front of him. But when their time together is cut short, both face a decision they aren't ready for. In a sleepy mountain town, stitched together with fairy lights, what's it gonna be? Peace or freedom?

The guy next door | @castielific

Rating: Explicit Word Count: 61,653 Main Tags/Warnings: AU!Neighbors, AU!NoSupernatural, Dean Smith, baby!jack, TheEnd!Cas, minor Cas/OC, Dean has a sexual identity crisis, single parent!Cas, miscommunication, self esteem issues, emotional constipation, angst with a happy ending, pining, friends with benefits Summary: When Dean Smith quit his job at Sandover, he had no idea what he was going to do with his life. He definitely didn't plan for his hippie neighbor and his four years old kid to make him question everything he thought he knew about himself.

[doctorprofessorsong]

ICYMI, Destiel PWP Valentines smut for you <3

As @ilarual put it: unrepentant "Destiel meet and are immediately just unspeakably DTF about it" smut

Worth 1,000 Words

Excerpt:

This is the stupidest idea I've ever had. Blame tequila. And Charlie. And maybe drunk past Dean was possessed by nefarious supernatural forces. That's probably it. There’s no other rational explanation for the fact that Dean is sitting in Baby staring at a yellow bungalow with his gut twisted like some sort of Gordian knot. Dean digs his phone out of his pocket.    Dean: if this guy murders me, I'm haunting your ass Charlie: oooh. A haunted ass? I'm gonna pull so many cute goth girls  Charlie: maybe I'll wear a black veil. I think I could pull that off Dean: you are literally the worst Charlie: you love it. Now stop procrastinating. Charlie: You're lurking outside like a weirdo, aren't you? I can feel it from here, dude.  Charlie: go inside.   Dean sighs down at his phone.  He's not lurking. He's simply assessing the situation. He's being cautious. Sensible.  In these modern times you never know what kind of weird psychopath might be hiding behind an innocuous advertisement for services.  Especially boudoir photography services. What kind of guy takes pictures of naked strangers for a living? He probably has a 1970s pornstashe. And unironically wears one of those Hugh Hefner smoking jackets.  Hell, this guy probably lures unsuspecting people to his lair so he can get off on taking pictures of their naughty bits before he kills them and buries him in his bright, sunny garden for fertilizer. Those sunflowers look a little too healthy.  Well, Dean Winchester is nobody's plant food.  He reaches to start his car. He will simply head home and resume his previous Valentine’s plans - Tombstone and a carton of Rocky Road. His phone dings.   Charlie: I'm serious Dean. I can hear you overthinking this from here. Don't make me cut off your Prime access. I will change my password so fast. Defeated, Dean grabs the keys from the ignition and slides out of the car. 

[queermania]

yesterday i was talking with @swordofsun and @ilarual about the cold open of 'atomic monsters' (where dean is losing against fighting super bloodfreak sammy, and benny is also there) and we were discussing whether or not cas (not castiel the angel, but cas) existed in that universe. we came to the conclusion that yes he could exist in that universe but the timeline would have to diverge in s8, probably around the time of 'citizen fang' and most likely cas would be dead by the time the events of 'atomic monsters' take place (perhaps killed by sam?).

but we also floated the idea of cas never having gotten out of purgatory, so when sam kills benny, benny goes back to purgatory and meets up with cas there.

but... dean doesn't go to purgatory when sam kills him. and now i can't stop thinking about a scenario where all that happens, but when sam kills dean, dean goes to hell instead of heaven (for any number of reasons) and he's so enraged about all of it that he decides to take over hell. he leans into the torture and he brings hell to its knees just so that when sam finishes his reign of terror on earth and finally comes down to hell, he's not the one in charge. he's the boy king but he's not the ruler.

meanwhile, benny has found cas in purgatory and relayed everything that's happened on earth and now they have to figure out how to get out of purgatory and then eventually into hell. and when they do get there they find dean and are horrified join his demon army.

basically i'm thinking about a civil war between the boy king of hell and his brother—the guy who can inspire demons via torture.

ruby will also be there somehow. the logistics are not important to me.

[deancasforcutie]

#Cas taking one look at Eileen and going ''oh yeah. okay. this one is a keeper.'' #it's so good (via @ilarual)

last call ➤ eileen

[shallowseeker]

god i wish the show had bothered to address the "jack's not family" line only bc it feels VERY weird that it's unaddressed and people bring it up all the time when i feel like it's very obvious dean's been pushed to a breaking point (i guess spnwin addresses it by having dean call jack family but it's still like. man it feels like this should've been addressed)

Yeah, nervous breakdowns and existential crises. Everyone has them in the show. It's just tough on Dean that he had his biggest one at the end of the show, and that's the taste people want to carry forward.

///

So, I think one of the core issues here is that Dean is a character that tends to show a lot of his emotions on-screen.

Season 15 broke from that pattern a little bit, imho. It pulled away from Dean's emotions, overall, giving him more privacy as far as his relationships and grief went. We saw Dean trudge in and out of the kitchen in early 15, knowing he was at his lowest point, seeing him do things that were CLEARLY Mary-Cas-Jack-related.

But there were no lingering shots on him crying alone in his bedroom or going out to sob in forest clearings.

And it's a little strange, I think, that some of the GA looked at Dean's history of emotions and suddenly decided that those emotions had evaporated and he no longer cared.

It's... well. At the very least, it's uncharitable.

We have to be careful not to default to a Sam-oriented viewpoint: "If I don't see it, it's not happening!"

We also have to be careful not to take a parallel and make it one-to-one. Just because someone has a trait in common with one of the most-hated characters on SPN (John Winchester, Lucifer, Chuck... to name a few) doesn't mean that they are that character in a stereotyped, super-duper-evil way.

///

Even the prayer scene gets levied with a hefty amount of unfair expectation.

(WARNING/// This is a super, long, OPEN conversation with @ilarual & @somnatine about the complexities of that, not necessarily a meta.)

///

In general, I think there's a psychological element to how hard we can tend to be on Dean, overall. Not to be "Trumpian," but when you apologize more, people sometimes tend to rake you over the coals more for it, rather than giving you grace.

(See: Dean + rumination)

Dean apologizes a lot, but conversely, he gets less respect because of it. (And yes, before you start. Words aren't everything. Behavior counts, too. But I'd argue that most of the characters struggle with that due to the intense genre-related pressures of the plot and not having time to breathe between disasters.)

[shallowrambles]

What is your favorite episode or saying from Supernatual

Over time, the lines that have stuck with me are Dean's and Cas's words about trying to get better/be better.

I think Cas's was something like: "You can start being good anytime." and Dean's (to Jack) was "Every day we have to believe we can get better."

I have come to love Optimism for the showcase of Dean's growth away from the fear-clinging in particular.

To Jack, he says: "It's not about being right. You're gonna make mistakes."

And I LOVE that.

///

Sorry I get...rambley when I'm sick:

Since I got here, I notice in fandom that there's a lot of "specialist talk," where ppl identify themselves as an X-girl brand themselves as stuff like: "I'm an understander, I'm a Ph.D is <special topic> and I'm literally always right about my analyses."

And well. I think it was maybe ilarual or angelsdean or maybe even queermania that put it best: SPN is a revolving door where each character goes through periods where they enjoy the moral high ground.

(And I know I've said this a couple times, BUT if I ever go on any of my blogs professing to be "right" or "an understander", please please please shoot me. I'm either already dead or someone is impersonating me.)

The truth is, no one is "right" all the time, in the story or the analysis. All the mains say hurtful things. They all engage in defense mechanisms that hurt others. They all horribly overreach for power, and that reaching for power tends to have multiple, sometimes even competing motives:

(1) For Sam, he wants to be strong to do all this "good guy” stuff, but he also loves the power itself; his tendency to dissociate and sunder his emotions (like *Rowena) can manifest in callous pragmatism. (2) Dean wants to take out the threats, and so many of his arcs are about torturing too! Which is about the revenge power fantasy, of "being the one to dole out the suffering for one (see: Dean in hell, Demon Dean). Dean is neurotically rigid at times because he so desperately wants to keep you safe. (Mary and Dean’s convo in Exodus comes to mind.) (3) Cas wanted to be a "just" God, to put beloved humanity first, but he also really really really wants to punish, becoming authoritarian, demanding adoration, love, etc as reward for his good deeds. Those good deeds ranged from real political threats to thought crimes and run-on-the-mill hypocrisy, often lurching into overly severe punishments.

And Jack ofc, has arcs that echo and represent all three: doomed child that might need to be executed, sacrificial soldier-child, and disconnected heir to the throne/"God."

///

SPN does a pretty good job showing flawed men, and though the flaws of characters like Lisa ("doormat tendencies and people as projects") and Amelia (“currently having a great big OOC freakout/nervous breakdown"), Jo (“become a hero to fill the void of the loss of her father”) are present in small doses, it goes even harder with characters like Amara and Mary! I love love love that no one is an ideal.

So when I talk about it, know that I favor it because it represents how real relationships tend to generate and change. When an ideal exists, it's usually positioned as a fantasy or juxtaposed with a character's psychological wound/big freakout in response to a stressor. (Yes, I think even Sam from season 8 is having a Big Freakout. An "OOC" Nervous Breakdown, if you will. It happens. When Sam goes hard into hunting or gets back into hunting, he tends to overcorrect. He doesn’t wanna “choke again.”)

And Mary Mary Mary…my love. Mary's whole arc was, "I'm not just a mother," because it's trying to make the point that archetypes, even in writing, are just simplified boxes, and we have to step back sometimes and reminds ourselves of that.

///

I feel like the back-half of SPN and especially SPNwin is about loss, closure, and trying to see each other as the flawed selves that we really are. “I wanted you to see that the real Mary was better than (the ideal).”

I feel like sometimes we can veer into distinctly Chuck-coded territory when we pretend we are always right or don't change our minds about a topic OR don't entertain both the least charitable and the most charitable viewpoints.

I've come to realize that I can hold several viewpoints at once, including "Dean as neurotic-controlling villain / Sam as callous-pragmatic villain / Cas as grandiose-idealistic villain," shadowlines. It’s about the anxiety underlying worst self / best self.

Which is pretty cool.

[shallowseeker]

okay so, yesterday I found your spn meta by chance and fell in love with them 'cause more than writing they're like images, like they really depict things and I just immediately understand what you mean instantly + I started to rewatch Steve Yockey's episodes 'cause I feel like I like his writing (lots of queer! lots of rom-com references! but it's all done so intellingently, I love it!) but ALSO sometimes it doesn't translate to me + I just saw you wrote about "Optimism"= I GOTTA ASK: what's your take on "Optimism"? I don't understand what the Zombie story and the Musca one should reveal about the characters. Visually, it looks like the Musca = Charlie, so Harper and the zombie are ??? I'm mad at myself 'cause I don't seem to get what the show is telling me so I'm hoping you can share what the show tells YOU and, vicariously, I can get it as well (lol). THANK YOU!

Hi! Hello!

Oh, really? That's so cool. I still have trouble thinking of myself as a "meta writer." I don't mean to be. I just like to ramble. But cool! It's probably mostly that we think alike and are sympatico in some key ways. :-) Always fun to find kindred spirits!

///

O P T I M I S M

I have so many thoughts on Optimism. It's one of my fave episodes! I actually did a re-watch-slash-convo with some friends on Discord and just transcribed the very, very, very LOOONG bulk of it today!

I haven't written much on the Musca. After spending a lot of time of @scoobydoodean's blog, I've just about decided the Musca plot is actually a Sam's emotions-through line more than it is a true dark mirror. Even AU Charlie is cheeky about it:

AU CHARLIE (annoyed at Sam, about the Musca): Your nifty metaphor has holes.

Basically, Charlie is saying that mirrors aren't one-to-one, and that trying to force-fit them into being one-to-one can be super annoying sometimes.

//

CHARLIE - Every two hundred years there is "bad egg". When a male fails to find a mate, he abandons his community and starts using peoples bodies to "nest". Binding them together with a viscous goo. And when the goo fits...

//

The Musca/fly is at face-value:

A) A bodysnatcher plot: In that regard, it could be like all angels, demons, or anyone inhabiting a body. (Cas, Lucifer, Michael, Crowley, etc.) Ergo, it's a dark, uncharitable Cas mirror the way Dave Mathers outlaw wraith was in Tombstone. It could be saying that Cas "failed" among "his own people" and cruelly took up space in a human body. But that would be grossly oversimplifying the whole situation, saying that Cas "should have stayed with his people," which ofc doesn't work.

It, as Charlie says, "has a lot of holes." @ilarual has written a lot about the totalitarian structure of Heaven. And Sam himself wants Cas around. As far as metaphors go, it's a dud for Cas.

B) It's a failure to thrive plot: Because the Musca "failed" in The Real World with its Own People, perhaps failed to live up to The prescriptive Dream of Success (TM), now it's wreaking havoc on others.

Sam himself "failed out" of Harvard. He "choked." Kevin Train and Patience Turner are also Failed Gifted Students. Losers who didn't live up to their potential. This could even apply to Chuck, binding together his characters because he's a Loser with a capital L.

///

ANYWAY, I feel like the Music plot is a "red herring" for a few reasons.

One: The main Harper plot is about breaking narratives, about not relying so much on books. And then Charlie says this:

CHARLIE: Goo. So, yeah. I'd say this is the right place. Now, I'm just trying to figure out what we are dealing with. Thus, books.

Aside: Later Cas says sarcastically in Ouroboros that Sam and Rowena, "Have many, many books."

So, there's this niggling indictment of trying to find too much truth in books...

///

Two: Sam has a tendency to see something and, like, imprint on it. He tends to fall into "It's just like me!" instead of speaking frankly about the present situations and emotions.

*In American Nightmare, he sees Madga Peterson, an abused child* -> "She's just like me!"

*In Somewhere in Between Heaven and Hell, he sees someone lying about something completely unrelated to his current situation* ->"Omg, they're lying to them, like I'm lying to Dean! It's just like me!"

*In Lost & Found, he meets Jack Kline, who is Lucifer's son "OMG, he's just like me!" -> *spoiler alert* Jack is not in fact much like Sam at all. -> Sidenote: instead of speaking frankly about how Dean is grieving, how Lucifer killed Cas and likely killed Mary, he uses complex euphemisms with Jack, ones that actually obscure the reality of the situation! This winds up annoying Jack and making him pull away from Sam.

///

IMHO...Sam isn't...naturally all that great with emotions.

He tries really, really hard, and he loves patterns, but he's always seeming to force-fit situations and scenarios into neat little boxes so he can passively-aggressively use it to indirectly communicate something he feels about himself.

He has a very cognitive empathy style. Bless him.

///

So what's REALLY going on here?

Well. In this episode, he wants Charlie to stay. He wants Charlie to stay and fill a void the other Charlie left behind. He wants Charlie to stay really, really badly. And he beats around the bush about it.

At first, he sidesteps his own emotions by passive-aggressively implying that it's Dean that in fact needs her.

CHARLIE: He'll be fine. Your brother, I mean. He's got other friends, right? SAM: Plenty. Uhm, he used to have a pretty damn good wingman. CHARLIE: So call that guy to check on him. SAM: That guy was you. CHARLIE: No, it wasn't. SAM: Right, I, uh, sorry. I didn't mean that.

And then by trying to make the case fit her.

He's very indirect and weird about it. Because he's Sam. (It's a contrast to the effortless, awkward-but-honest communication style we see from characters like Jack and Dean in this very episode.)

SAM: Charlie, you can't just quit and go live on a mountain somewhere. People need people. CHARLIE: Why? Cause they're the luckiest people in the world? SAM: Look, come on. We just do. We're social animals. CHARLIE: Emphasis on animals. SAM: Yeah, but you're also a hunter. The things that we've seen, it's not so easy to just walk away from it all. Believe me, I've tried. Our Charlie tried. CHARLIE: Yeah, well again, she ain't me. It's my life, Sam. Not hers. And not yours.

Ah, yes. Instead of saying, “I want you here,” it’s, “people need people.”

And Hell, sometimes indirect communication works! Like how Dean and Cas use Felix the snake to indirectly communicate with Jack in Peace of Mind!

But the difference with Sam is...he's not using this indirect communication style to find out how Charlie feels (the way Dean and Cas use the snake to suss out how Jack feels).

No, he's using the whole thing to try to tell Charlie what he thinks is best for her! To tell her things, not find out things.

Eventually, he breaks and says what he actually thinks, but only after AU Charlie is starting to lose her patience with him:

SAM (faux-sadly): Got to say, I do feel kind of bad for the Musca. I mean, he could have been happy if he'd stayed with his people. Didn't have to go off on his own just because... CHARLIE (exasperated): Okay, I get it. I am just like the bug and I shouldn't go out on my own.

OMG, Sammy! It's okay if we want to hit Sam sometimes, right? I too wanted to hit him after he said this to Charlie.

CHALIE: But your nifty metaphor has holes. I wasn't looking for love. I found it and I lost it. And I didn't kill people and literally nest in their body parts so...(Scene cuts to other Musca removing the body of the dead one) SAM: Okay, yeah I know, I know, How about this? Don't leave. 

(Aside// I think this is a cheeky nod to the fact that Cas and Dean weren't looking for love either. In fact, they tried (and keep trying) really, really hard not to love each other. Their real life was faaaar more complicated than some simple "bodysnatcher plot.")

But thank God--Sam finally says outright what he needed to say to Charlie: Don't leave.

Now, it probably would've been better if he's gone a step further: "I don't want you to leave," but for Sam, this is pretty good progress.

SAM: Hear me out. Sure some people can do bad things when they're desperate or scared. But the guy we just saved, he has a wife and children. I'm not saying that all people are good people or even that most people are but if we help people then maybe they'll help people and all that. And that's worth it. Even with all the tears and death. It's worth it. CHARLIE: Just to be super clear, I am not like the fly monster. (Sam chuckles) But, I'll think about staying.

So I think OVERALL the Musca plot is really about highlighting Sam's difficult communication style, and I think it's intentionally being cheeky about it how it's using a "really "dumb metaphor" with gaping holes!

It's about how Sam tries to force-fit the case of the week into saying what he wants it to say...instead of just saying it.

///

I think Sam has a little bit of a "mental main character syndrome." He sees a scenario and moves directly into cognitive empathy, reading the situation and thinking:

How can I apply this to myself? Or make it a stand-in for either something I want to believe about myself or a stand-in for something I want to say indirectly?

Sometimes you'll see ppl insist that Sam is the "MC" because every storyline tells you "something about Sam." But I'm more in the camp that it's Sam's inherent cognitive style of empathy at work, desperately reworking anything and everything to make it apply to himself.

Whereas Cas and Dean (and Jack) have a truer emotional style of empathy, connecting with people for who they actually are, as they are.

That's not to say that both styles can't be manipulative when we want them to be. But Sam really struggles with his style in a way I feel like Dean and Cas do not. Dean and Cas perhaps don't even realize what effective communicators they actually are!

///

My other thoughts on Optimism:

[deancasforcutie]

#this wasn't actually Misha breaking character this was Cas taking control of the vessel for a second (via @ilarual)

season 15 [gag reel]

[castielmybeloved]

I posted 2,125 times in 2022

66 posts created (3%)

2,059 posts reblogged (97%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@jewishcharliebradbury

@outdean

@ilarual

@queerstudiesnatural

@kellykline

I tagged 354 of my posts in 2022

#spn - 13 posts

#dcrack - 10 posts

#spnedit - 10 posts

#bluefirecas - 10 posts

#destiel - 10 posts

#destieledit - 10 posts

#deancasedit - 10 posts

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Longest Tag: 139 characters

#and now they don’t have sam any more. they have to live with out him there was a real sacrifice made and they have to deal with the fallout

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

Oh? My hot take about supernatural?

2 notes - Posted January 2, 2022

#4

That said, I do think if you’ve seen the 35 minute destiel super cut you’ve pretty much seen the whole show

4 notes - Posted July 5, 2022

#3

oh. u kno.

[ID: Screen grab of a phone notes app that reads “Meeting the girl of my dreams YouTube Thumbnail” with a doodle of two figures inside of a rectangle. One is a person screaming and the other is a humanoid figure with angel wings and 6 overlapping eyes. The text below the drawing reads “Meeting the girl of my dreams!!! (Not click bait!!!). End ID]

5 notes - Posted January 22, 2022

#2

Lisa was the Colin Robinson of supernatural

6 notes - Posted January 3, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

I was reading a fic author from 2012 and I was really intrigued because they kept writing fic that had established deancas. Like after a decade of baiting I feel like most of the fics through time and retroactively are about them getting together at different moments. Moments where we went “yes. There. That would be good, there’s the moment where things can change for them and they can admit what they’re feeling” and then the show moved on and left us hanging. But with this author it was just like “yep they got together sometime in season four. Who cares how. Now they kiss and hold hands on hunts. And do relationship stuff where they check in on each other and are honest about why they’re afraid to lose one another” and I don’t know if they just had more hope or weren’t beaten down by the potential offered by the show before it was snapped away but I think that it’s fun to look at this diverging timeline that just establishes deancas as fact and just fully cuts out the longing that’s been in so many fics since then

50 notes - Posted January 21, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[shallowseeker]

WIP Thursdays

Rules: Post a lil' snippet of a WIP you're hyped to finish:

I'm working on the last chapter of a post-finale ficlet called Truth and despair

(wherein Cas has been rescued and is washing Empty gunk off...and Sam just won't take the god-damned hint and gtfo:)

Tagging @payphoneangel to post a little snippet of theirs (or @satinsolace and @handsliketruth or @ilarual if you got somethin' fit for public consumption no presh)

[mortuarybees]

ilarual replied to your post “I promise to make a book omens week. All of you wait patiently. I...”

sign me the FUCK up

:D

[beautifulglider]

#no absolutely you're so fucking correct on all of this #the thing is that I absolutely think they both had their realization that they were in love at the worst possible moment #in Dean's case it was at some hazy point between turning back for one last look at Cas in the ring of fire and seeing him disappear #into that reservoir #and in Cas's case it was six seconds after Metatron told him he'd just finished killing Dean #like sorry fam but. they have TERRIBLE timing #also a major subtextual plot of season 11 is Dean coming to terms with his love being unrequited #and accepting that loving Cas and having him as a best friend is still so important and valuable to him even if he'd like more #and a major subtextual plot in season 10 is very much about Cas having recently realized he's in love with Dean #and completely freaking out about it and taking every excuse he can come up with to avoid Dean because he does NOT know how to cope with it #he did not sign up to be in stupid unrequited gay love and it's freaking him out and he is Avoiding It

Incredibly on-point tags from @ilarual

desitel feelings / love timeline (2 me)

DEAN:

immediate attraction in s4 (hello he has eyes!)

s4 - 5, going from allies to friends, crushing hard and shooting his shot / flirting, but all of it goes over cas's head

s6 betrayal / cas's s7 death: when he starts realizing that the way he feels abt cas is Different and More than just a crush / friendship. bobby and sam not reacting the same way to cas's betrayal and death really starts to get the gears turning. then when bobby dies, dean also realizes his grief over cas is different from his grief over bobby. (also the keeping his coat, carrying it with them in every new car all throughout s7. like that man was in Love-love.)

s8: purgatory solidifies dean's feelings. all dean can think about for a year is finding cas, saving cas. he prays to him every night. his mind is just a skipping record of cas, cas, cas. i think by this point he's accepted his romantic feelings for cas. and by the end of s8 he was ready to tell cas how he felt in the crypt. he changes "love" to "need" (which imo is MORE insane and vulnerable actually) and then dean perceives cas's actions after the crypt as a rejection of dean's feelings). meanwhile, cas has not yet even realized his own feelings for dean are romantic love yet, more on that in a minute.

s9 - s12 imo are dean grappling with the fact that his love is unrequited and trying to live with that and maybe move on (drowley summer of love).

s13 -s14 : first the widowers arc of it all. dean realizing no matter what, cas was IT for him. there's never going to be anyone else for him. he doesn't want anyone else. dean accepting that cas is effectively his life partner and he's fine with them staying platonic (bc he still thinks cas doesn't feel the same way). dean stops hooking up. dean is content with the family unit they have made for themselves.

s15: dean grappling with the knowledge of chuck's manipulation over the years. dean questioning what's even real ("is his love for cas even real?") cas asserting that they are real. divorce arc. destiel miscommunication at its finest. dean once again thinking cas doesn't care for him the way he cares for cas. dean nearly losing cas again in purgatory and deciding to put his heart on the line (was going to confess before cas cut him off). then---cas's "i love you." dean overwhelmed in the moment. dean still not sure what cas's words mean until cas is taken by the empty and he processes the speech and declaration. and then he realizes--cas was in love with him. it was mutual. they could've had it. they could've been together for years. the one thing they both wanted---

CAS

immediate attraction in s4 (hello he has eyes! many eyes in fact!)

s4 - 5: going from allies to friends. cas remembering what it's like to FEEL again ("for the first time") after his millionth lobotomy. dean re-awakening those feelings, both for humanity at large and for dean specifically. but cas doesn't have a name for these feelings yet. he attributes them to his bond with dean / assumes most people feel like this about dean.

s6 - 8: cas largely still attributing his feeling for dean to their unique bond. cas putting the mission first. cas also dealing with his own guilt over his failures. not a lot of time for him to process his feelings for dean.

s9: cas has his italicized "oh" moment. i think it's a combination of being human and for the first time all the angel stuff isn't there, he can't attribute his feelings to their "bond." he's rooted in his body for the first time, really in-tune with his physical reactions too. i think early s9 is when he starts to realize his feelings for dean are different but he's still not quite putting a name to them. then metatron calls him out on those feelings (his snarky knowing "he's in love...with humanity") and then dean dying really solidify cas's feelings. he is now aware.

aaaaaand then s10 - 12 is him grappling with those feelings at the same time that dean is really starting to accept that cas doesn't feel the same and is trying to accept that they'll be nothing but platonic and move on. so that's why you get stuff like dean calling cas their "brother" (he's trying to be ok with this) while cas looks sick to his stomach bc he is just now really accepting and processing the fact that he's in romantic love with dean. gotta love that classic destiel miscommunication, never being on the same page at the same time.

by s13 he's accepted he's in love and is now thinking it's one sided and this is all they'll ever be. he's also still kinda avoiding it all throughout the later seasons, putting the Mission first again, leaving more often, focusing on jack stuff. really just putting his feelings on the back burner.

then s15. just like i said in the dean bullet point, the divorce arc stuff is more classic miscommunication. cas so badly wants dean to ask him to stay. dean so badly wants cas to stop leaving. they both need to just have one good conversation about all of this. anyways, the "i love you." truly i think mr. avoidant cas would have continued to keep his feelings for dean to himself perhaps forever, had it not been a life or death situation where he realized telling dean his feelings would trigger the empty deal. but he does tell him. and my personal headcanon is that when he does tell him he gets hit with a wave of feeling from dean (along with the love in his eyes) that basically confirms to cas that dean actually has felt the same way all this time. and also, i think cas has partially known for a while but let his own self doubt and insecurities convince him that dean couldn't possibly feel the same.

Additionally: i do enjoy another late seasons variation, where BOTH of them have a mutual awareness of each other's feelings, but they both let insecurities and circumstances convince them it's not the right time, or they don't deserve to have this. they keep putting off talking abt this thing between them because there's always another apocalypse or big bad. because saving the world always comes before their own personal desires and happiness. so they keep putting it off until it's too late, until there's no time left. by s15 they're both feeling desperate. it's the end. they both feel they need to say something. dean tries in The Trap. cas finally does in Despair. and then there's just no time left. it's over. they never got to have it. (YET. because their story ain't over!)

anyways, i'm multitudes girlie and can enjoy many different interpretations, esp in fics, but this is my main destiel + feelings interpretation for when i'm watching the show and engaging with canon.

TLDR: they both start Feeling things for each other immediately. dean realizes these feelings are romantic love and puts that name to them first around late s6/s7. dean Accepts these feeling around s8. while cas has his realization that these intense feelings are romantic love around s9. and accepts them at some point between s10 - 12ish.

[quadsuki]

ilarual replied to your post: sometimes i feel sad about the time i spent...

BIG SAME. I was too young (and too lacking in internet access) in the 90s to really be aware of most of the #drama that surrounds the sport, but I still caught enough of it that when my life got busier it wasn’t hard to stop paying attention outside of Olympic years, but getting back into following it… WOW. And it doesn’t help that this season has been INCREDIBLY cursed, much moreso than the last couple of years, I think.

yeah same here, i was too young in the 90s too but michelle kwan was a huge influence on my life at the time so skating’s always been very near to my heart! even when i grew distant from it. this season is absolutely 180% cursed beyond anything i’ve seen though like jdfkjgd this wouldn’t be happening in the berenstein universe! remove us from this haunted timeline at once!!

[shallowseeker]

But Dean assuming Cas is exclusively interested in women is the funniest thing ever.

(I borrowed the idea from swordofsun and ilarual, not tagging soas to not be annoying). But oh my God, where are the fics with this in mind? It's SO.

Potential Dean POVs:

Cas + Chastity + seeming to take immediate interest in her emotional life / missing father (she seemed to have waaaay overreacted btw)

Cas + enjoying straight porn, getting a boner (even as an angel, I'll remind you!), and identifying with the pizza man

Cas + being Meg's pizza man/Meg makeout sesh + writing poetry for her as PTSD!Cas + tending to her wounds and seeming genuinely sweet on her + discussing getting pizza with her + using her nickname Clarence as his alias

Endverse!Cas + all-female orgy + This may be Zachariah's projection of Dean's fears, but the visual was Cas being Chuck-like in his appetite for women

Cas + shacking up with Daphne + holding her hand and stuff (just another normal life Dean tore away from one of his war/hunting friends/family members)

Cas + Nora + Instead of going deep undercover like it seemed Dean had been expected post-angel war, Cas seemed to want to get a stable job and hook up with a woman and have a family (just another normal life Dean tried not to tear away from one of his war/hunting friends/family members); AND if Nora assumed that Cas had defended her baby from a "robbery/break-in," he might've really been a shoo-in with her after the babysitting fiasco, let's be honest

Cas + Hannah the perfect, beautiful, strong war/angel companion + Cas appeared to "pick" Hannah, the "female waiting in the car" over staying at the bunker + the whole thing with Hannah was paired with "spouses stepping out" storylines

Cas + his first celebrity crush, the news anchor woman; can you imagine Cas getting fixated on her while watching tv around the bunker? it would be hilarious, because Cas said stuff about her like, "Tender one moment, tough the next..." *dreamy sigh*

Cas + Kelly Kline + Cas appeared to run away with Kelly / held her hand at the Dagon fight / wanted to be the father to her baby / rented a beautiful little house with her / went shopping with her / helped her with Ikea furniture -> All this AFTER trying to return Dean's mixtape -> If you're a REAL pessimist, which I believe Dean can be, you could REALLY drum up some implications about those order of operations... "Oh. I misunderstood. He was rejecting me to run away with another lady and have a family. Woe."

Cas + Djinn Queen marriage + Don't think Dean knew about this one, but if he DID... The implications are obvious. A djinn queen that is terrible, beautiful, and STRONG.

Cas + Rowena + I know it's a fan fave to interpret Cas an uncomfortable, but EYE see what could be interpreted as "romantic fluster" sometimes, because Cas gets all uncharacteristically shy when Rowena comes onto him

Cas + Anael + Just another thing Dean could misinterpret + The winter scene with Cas and Anael at the diner in season 14 is visually parallel to the winter of Dean meeting with Amara at the diner in season 15 (in this view, there's no reason to think that angels are siblings; they're just the same species from this pov) + Cas takes her jewelry as a gift