#they play a big part in this next arc of baby steps that I'm writing and i literally cannot stop thinking about them

[theangrypomeranian]

thinking about them again ❤️

[sortasirius]

what makes you think the writers want deancas? not trying to be an asshole, i'm just genuinely curious as to why you think that. i know berens' episodes are pretty heavy with subtext so i can see why you'd say that he wants it, but i'm not so sure about the rest of the writers/dabb. it seems like meghan isn't a huge fan either, given her "they twisted it so fast" tweet :/ of course she's a very new writer (think she's only writing one ep this season?) but still

OKAY this is a great question, welcome to my dissertation.

I’m going to address the end of your question first. Meghan is actually DeanCas positive, she has been for quite a long time. She actually, a few years back, posted a picture of her reading a literal book about Destiel and captioned it “writing reading” or something like that.

This whole thing just comes out of a boiling over of tensions because of how nasty fandom twitter can be. Like I said here, I think this has just gotten blown out of proportion, they shouldn’t have posted all this randomly disparaging stuff, but also like...can you blame them? The fandom is a lot, we always have been, and they’re probably also under a gag order not to talk about the finale, and are annoyed that people keep asking.

So nah, Meg is not anti Destiel.

To the first part!! So let’s take a look at the show runners since Cas has been around.

Seasons 4 and 5: Kripke

Seasons 6 and 7: Gamble

Seasons 8-11ish: Carver

Seasons 11ish-15: Dabb

So starting with Kripke. Okay, yes, I will be the first to admit that we have some pretty incredible Destiel moments in these seasons, but it’s less directly written into the plot and much more from Misha and Jensen’s uhhhh ~chemistry~. The only times it was directly written into the script was when the episode was handled by someone like Edlund (“On The Head Of A Pin,” “The End,” “My Bloody Valentine”). And you have to remember, if in season 5, there are moments here and there where you’re like huh that’s suspiciously romantic dialogue, remember that Cas took Anna’s place. Anna was supposed to be endgame for Dean, but due to a myriad of issues and Misha’s general greatness, Anna was replaced with Cas.

Onto 6 and 7. Hmmm. Gamble. 6 and 7 are my two least favorite seasons and that’s no secret, and that’s not only due to the plain old weird shit in the overall storyline, but also that homegirl killed off Cas in s7 and then Bobby like four episodes later. (Also it ALWAYS rubbed me the wrong way they couldn’t have Baby in that season lol). We still had some great DeanCas moments, but again, it wasn’t really written into the overall arc (until they had to change the end of season 7 because of tanking ratings and bring Misha back lol, anyone remember the fact that Dean kept Cas’ jacket and would randomly dream of him? Yeah.). But we still had those moments, those distinctly romantic moments, probably the best example in these two seasons is from Edlund again, specifically “The Man Who Would be King,” I wrote a little about that here.

We move onto Carver, who gave us, at this point, the most overt DeanCas season with season 8 (season gr8 is a better name imo), and this is the first time Dean and Cas’ relationship is directly written as an arc of the season.  I mean, you have everything in Purgatory, Dean “seeing” Cas everywhere, the fact that he felt so guilty that Cas stayed in Purgatory that he manipulated his own memories to think that he was the one that failed Cas, because he couldn’t comprehend that Cas would want to leave him, and let’s not forget Dean snapping Cas out of Naomi’s hold on him in “Goodbye Stranger.”  It was a very obvious shift, not enough to alert the general audience, but more than enough for most of us in fandom.

It’s also important to note that this is when Andrew stopped co writing with Loflin and started writing his own episodes (”Hunter Heroici” anyone?)  I like Loflin fine, but Dabb was able to stretch his legs a little bit more once he stopped co-writing, and we also began to see some DeanCas themes in his solo episodes.

In any case, them and their issues being a big part of the seasons continued with Carver, and Berens entered the scene, his first episode (”Heaven Can’t Wait”) is one of my favorites, with human Cas and the fanfiction gap and Dean and Cas just generally being awkward and funny and sweet.  This is Bobo’s FIRST episode, remember that.  He comes right out of the gate with it.

Also in Season 9, this is when Dean takes the Mark of Cain, and the Cas/Colette mirror is born, so obviously, Dean and Cas are the fabric of the season once again.  This is also the season where Metatron says Cas is “in love with humanity,” and then immediately refers to Dean as Humanity so uhhhh yeah.

Onto season 10, Dabb and Berens continue with their greatness (I could write pages on the DeanCas date in “The Things We Left Behind” alone).  And then we have one of the best scenes in the entire show in “The Prisoner” where the Cas/Colette mirror continues and Dean, driven by grief and pain and rage and the Mark, still doesn’t kill Cas.  He still can’t kill Cas.

Season 11 is important because it takes choice away from both Cas and Dean, and shows us, as the audience, how much losing each other takes out of them. We saw in season 10 how much losing Dean takes from Cas, but what about Cas losing Dean?  Dean loses his choice with his connection to Amara this season, and loses even more when Lucifer reveals he’s been possessing Cas, and plays on Dean’s connection to Cas like a mockery.  It’s also worth noting that, similarly to season 8, Dean breaks out of the connection with Amara when he’s worried about Cas, and that’s something that even SHE is surprised by.

But then season 12, the beginning to the Renaissance.  This is when we get the writer’s that become important for what Dean and Cas are today, and, truly, why I believe they want canon Destiel as much as we do.

This is the first season with Dabb’s writers: Davy Perez, Meredith Glynn, Steve Yockey, and of course Bobo all come in with their incredible talents and gave us episode after episode of good content.  “Lily Sunder Has Some Regrets” is probably my favorite, probably the best example of what I’m saying.  An episode where Dean is called out by an enemy directly, told to “roll the dice” on Cas’ life.  And Dean won’t, it’s not even really a hesitation.  And this comes from a character that has known Dean for ten seconds.  I also wrote more in depth about this episode here.  There are also some.....distinctly domestic details we get this season, specifically in “The Future” (written by Berens and Glynn) with the mixtape.  The most tropey of tropes mixtape.  Yeah, I’ll just leave that one here.

And then season 12 ends with Cas’ death, but also with the parallel between Sam and Dean with Jess and Cas.  Sam literally has to drag Dean away from Cas, just like Dean had to drag Sam out of his burning apartment in the pilot.  The episode drives it home in every way that it can: Dean is the one left kneeling by Cas’ body, while Sam goes to find out what is upstairs.  Dean is the one who stares at the sky, finally broken.  This isn’t a random thing, this is Dean’s whole arc, it’s the entirety of the beginning of 13.  Dean’s pain, his anguish, his anger.

Season 13 starts with them burning Cas, with Dean, who has begged God to bring him back, who has split his knuckles punching a door, standing, staring at Cas’ pyre with brokenness on his face.

I mean.....

Anyway, season 13 is where it gets interesting (well, I think all of this is interesting but I’m a writer nerd so).  So Cas comes back from the Empty in “Advanced Thanatology” written by Steve Yockey, and then a wombo combo of “Tombstone” by Davy Perez next (”Brokebacknatural” as the PR said at the time).  Listen.  This is the part that SPN crossed a line that they couldn’t come back from.  With Cas being Dean’s “big win,” the fact that Dean and Cas watch movies together, “I told you, he’s an angry sleeper.  Like a bear.” Talked about it here.

This is where, in my opinion, the network stepped in, but the damage was already done.  They had already established that Cas was Dean’s big win, that Dean’s poor coping was not due to Mary’s disappearance, but solely due to Cas, and that Dean and Cas have more married energy than anyone else.  The network had nixed blatant canon at this point, and they writing room had been pushing the boundaries of what the network would allow. 

After these episodes, we see a marked drop off of DeanCas heavy scenes.  They’re still there, still a part of the fabric of the season, but not as...obvious as it had been in early season 13.

And this continued through season 14, we’re back to scraps of Destiel scenes here and there, but to me it always felt like there was something bubbling under the surface, something distinctly unsaid in the themes of the season, even after the walk back of obvious “Dean and Cas are in love” scenes.

And then we get to season 15, which, y’all know I talk about all the time.  What’s important here is that Bobo and Glynn are both executive producers, calling more of the shots than ever before.  Additionally, it’s important to note that, though they only co write occasionally, Glynn and Berens refer to each other as “work husband” and “work wife.”  Each episode has just turned up the volume, and, not for the first time, but certainly the most obvious, Dean and Cas ARE the season.  Sure, they’re trying to beat God, they’re trying to finally find peace, defeat the final big bad, but really?  This season has been about Dean, and Dean’s relationship to Cas.

And not only do we have obvious and clear Destiel in nearly every episode, but we have episodes like “Last Call” which canonize bi!Dean (wrote about that here).

And, maybe most importantly so far, we have “The Rupture,” the breakup, and “The Trap,” Dean’s confession (both written by Berens).  And here’s the thing.  These episodes feel connected, but also feel like they’re missing something.  Beren’s last episode is 15x18, “The Truth.”  We’ve all spec’ed about what could happen in this episode, and I think *I* know what it’s leading to.  But for it to be leading to that, it means that the network has to have approved what we’ve all been waiting for years for.

Who got this change to happen?  Who got the network to change their minds?  It wasn’t us.  It was them.  I am fully convinced that Dabb and Berens quite literally put their careers on the line for Dean and Cas.  They believe in them, they’ve shown that from the beginning, but the only thing standing in the way was the network, never allowing them to take the final step. 

So, to answer your question: I think the writers want canon DeanCas because they’ve already shown us that they do.  Take a look at their episodes, at Dabb’s, at Beren’s, at Glynn’s, at Perez’s, at Yockey’s.  They’ve been telling us what’s going on with Dean and Cas for years.

Sure, I’m not in their heads, I guess I don’t know for *sure* that this has been their thought process, but if we put it all together, from the marked shift when Dabb fully took over in s12, to the change right after “Tombstone,” to the new shift, the blatantly romantic shift in season 15, what else is there?

I’ve said for a long time that we, the SPN fandom, are beyond lucky to have the writer’s that we do.  They’re all going to go on to have prolific careers and we were lucky to get them at the end of our little show.  I give them a lot of credit for what we have in the show today.

Just remember, they’ve been telling us in all of s15 who Chuck is.  He says he’s the writer, right?  But a writer who doesn’t have control of his characters?  A writer who wants to do the same ending over and over because it “works”?  That doesn’t sound like a writer, it sounds like a network exec.

They’ve been showing us what they want for years, and the way s15 is going?  I think they may have convinced the network to let us have it.

[butterfrogmantis]

I posted 520 times in 2021

278 posts created (53%)

242 posts reblogged (47%)

For every post I created, I reblogged 0.9 posts.

I added 1,034 tags in 2021

#smurfs - 244 posts

#the smurfs - 207 posts

#my art - 145 posts

#reblog - 113 posts

#not my art - 94 posts

#doodle - 66 posts

#clumsy smurf - 54 posts

#handy smurf - 47 posts

#brainy smurf - 34 posts

#handyxclumsy - 30 posts

Longest Tag: 139 characters

#i said i was gonna do a painter/poet doodle pile next and i’m sticking to that promise but this gives me the feels i need for motivation 🥺

My Top Posts in 2021

#5

Sam and Max OC!!  I'm about 70% done with season 2 now ehehe, already looking forwards to season 3 lmaoo- You know I can't resist ocs.  Considering it's a universe in which dogs, rabbits, chickens, rats and other assorted animals like sea chimps can talk I don't see why cats would be off the table?? Weird they seem to be mostly pets. Projected a little of myself here, that and writing English characters is just fundamentally easier for myself cause y'know, I live it. Was very tempted to have her come from my city but I didn't think the accent would fit... Sam & Max Freelance Police (c) Steve Purcell

42 notes • Posted 2021-06-11 15:34:09 GMT

#4

Smurf Screenshots that activate my flight or fight response:

See the full post

43 notes • Posted 2021-01-26 20:22:28 GMT

#3

Uh so yeah sorry I’ve been procrastinating the animatic for like two days now my bad but I won’t give up I swear ;w;

Got onto the topic of a little adult SP au I’ve been working on, this is part of the Kenny/Butters arc collide <3 

Gonna leave out minor details, but to cut a very long story short, Butters grows up to be a social worker, and owns a new SP care home for kids. Kenny left South Park at 18 to pursue a career a couple of states away, hoping to avoid more deaths in SP. During this time he gets into a dysfunctional relationship with a woman who eventually winds up having their daughter, Lucy. Due to his gf cheating, Kenny and the gf split and he is supposed to have 50/50 custody, but is chased away from his daughter by the other man, who threatens him. Kenny changes all of his socials to avoid being harassed, and returns to SP, eventually earning a job as a health and safety manager for a warehouse, and does ok for the time being. 

A couple of years later, Butter’s foster home is given a young girl with PTSD(she had witnessed an abusive step father shoot her mother and threaten to kill her too before police were called) to take care of, who’s favourite past time is blowing bubbles, earning her nickname. Butters gets to know and earn Bubbles’ trust, but it’s not until a couple of months later when he actually gets around to her file (it was a pretty big one and he’s a busy man) that he realises something important. The authorities had not been able to contact Bubbles’ father due to him vanishing it seemed, but had enough info to know his hometown was in SP, so that’s where they delivered her. Butters has an important conversation to have with his friend the next day, one he fears won’t go so well, but which ends up joyous never the less. 

Butters and Kenny (c) South Park

45 notes • Posted 2021-10-06 18:25:40 GMT

#2

I've been playing 'The Fractured But Whole' a lot this weekend XD So yeah I got dragged into South Park by @/Cartoonlover20 - I didn't think I would much but I was surprised! Butters Stotch is just the absolute baby >u< Also I got to beat up Stephen Stotch which is truly an ambition worth achieving  Anyways Bunny is my absolute ultimate <3 so Professor Chaos / Mysterion also just ,,, has that certain something. Oh yeah, hero x villain, one of my favourite tropes of all time >:3 Butters and Kenny (c) South Park

69 notes • Posted 2021-09-28 09:16:04 GMT

#1

I LOVE Sal the cockroach but I phsyically cannot play season 3 and not think of him as Kronk in a cockroaches body

Or, as I like to think of it; a Kronkroach. 

Sal (c) Sam & Max

255 notes • Posted 2021-08-15 10:18:29 GMT

Get your Tumblr 2021 Year in Review →

[cupidsbower]

I'm still living the life where you get home and open the fridge and there's half a pot of yogurt and a half a can of flat Coca-Cola. ~Alan Rickman

Supernatural 12x08 LOTUS, and 12x09 First Blood.

Okay, I’m just gonna be right up front with this -- I’m not a huge fan of either of these episodes. I thought maybe the slight feeling of meh I felt for 12x08 was just end-of-year tiredness, so I held off on the review and had a holiday. But I found 12x08 similarly meh, and also sexist and racist which needless to say I’m not keen on.

LOTUS

I thought having Lucifer possess the President was a fantastic concept, and I loved all the scenes with Lucifer acting that part -- they had some lovely resonances with current US politics that didn’t come over as trying to hard. I loved the nephilim plotline too, and look forward to seeing where it goes. Typical that a man-shaped being should take credit for creating life -- I laughed a lot at Lucifer’s hubris on that. He didn’t fall far from the tree, so to speak. That whole attitude fits in well with the gender themes that have been developing since Amara’s return. It also reaffirms my suspicions that Toni’s child is not-quite-human, and I hope that plot thread is picked up again soon too.

I was less thrilled with the stock-standard, “I can’t abort my baby,” thingo. I really wish an American show would go somewhere new with that and actually consider the option of abortion with some seriousness that doesn’t automatically default to it being unthinkable, even if the choice is then made not to. The default of “I can’t” is just so useless as a storytelling device. Why bother to have a nephilim plot and not actually wring all the drama out of it? (I know why, I’m just tired of it.) Anyway, this plot still has potential to rise above that moment of church-sanctioned sexism, so I’m in wait-and-see mode.

I also really liked the potential of the Winchesters ending up in government hands, given their history and the records that must still exist. But more on that when I get to First Blood.

There wasn’t much else I really liked. I suspect we’re seeing the consequences of so many new writers on the show this season, combined with Supernatural’s comparatively small budget. But the final act of the episode just felt off to me in subtle ways -- the action felt lackluster, there were too few agents checking things out, I didn’t buy the convenient timing of the arrest, or the splitting up of the team when it wasn’t really required. Little things in themselves, but they all added up -- a stronger writer could have masked them better. Meh. It had potential to be good, but it was just a bit wishy-washy instead.

First Blood

I will admit, I was pretty damn excited by this episode’s title. There’s so much media and political history associated with the Rambo movies, and so many ways they could have been invoked in the episode to excellent effect.

For a start, the very first film, First Blood itself, is about post-traumatic stress disorder in a combat vet, social isolation and poverty as a result of that, persecution at the hands of biased and totalitarian authorities, and the toll of toxic masculinity. It’s rich stuff, and a surprisingly good film all things considered. There’s a reason it spawned big-budget sequels, and the character of Rambo was co-opted in the Reagan era as a kind of masculine fantasy ideal.

There’s a strong resonance between all these things and the ongoing themes in Supernatural. Hence my excitement.

Sadly, though, the allusions to First Blood stayed at a pretty superficial level. Yes, we had persecution at the hands of totalitarian authorities, and we had Sam and Dean taking out a squad of soldiers in a forest. But... ugh, I don’t even really know where to start.

Okay, lets start with the taking soliders out thing. It’s meant to show us that Sam and Dean are actually hardened soldiers too, who have been fighting in a war since their twenties, and against opponents who hit far harder than any human soldier. Not only that, they have consistently won despite the odds being against them. It was on point that Crowley reminded us that he’s the only villain who has ever taken them seriously, and that everyone who doesn’t ends up dust. The Winchesters are scary, and the version we viewers see is the “fluffy” insider perspective, so it’s easy to forget just how hard-core they are.

It really isn’t out of the realms of possibility for Sam and Dean to take out a squad of special ops agents, and even to do it without actively trying to kill any of them, and for them to be chillingly efficient as they go about it. But as with the last episode, these agents came across more as Keystone Cops than what they are meant to be -- the cream of America’s secret ops working directly for the President. Are Sam and Dean hardened soldiers who can take on demons and angels and punch well above their weight, and so are far more competent than special ops agents once their paths do cross? Or are they just lucky to be fighting poorly trained also-rans? Mixed messages, show, very mixed messages.

I think I was so frustrated by this, because the episode didn’t start off quite so obviously making the agents ridiculous -- the “sit and stew in isolation” thing was genuinely solid, and made me wonder how long before the Winchesters cracked. So to fritter that tension away on a pretty ordinary action scene just felt unsatisfying. I was expecting something a bit closer -- uncomfortably so -- to Dean’s action sequences in Purgatory. That would have really rammed the message home that the Winchesters are serious business.

But that’s actually small potatoes as gripes go -- some writers just aren’t that great at action. It happens.

My biggest gripe for this episode came at the end. It was obvious from early on that Sam and Dean had made a deal. Okay, fine. I could have gone with that as an interesting complication. I was even interested to see the escalation of Mary throwing her hat in the ring of Winchester-self-sacrifice. We’ve all been expecting developments along those lines, so some foreshadowing here for a greater test later on was expected.

Mind you, I would have been super-astoundingly angry if they had fridged Mary again in this episode -- frothing at the mouth angry -- giving up the show angry. Her place in the myth-arc is too central to end her return in such a light-weight way. I’d honestly prefer if they never fridge her again, but at the very least, she deserves an actualised death that’s about her, and not her sons.

Like I say, I could have been interested in this set-up -- the complication of another deal, made in full knowledge of the price, and Mary showing us that Winchester self-sacrificial streak that has caused so much harm. But instead I’m just disappointed and cross. What the fuckety fuck are the writers thinking with this whole Billie and Castiel bullshit?

Let’s consider the best possible light first. Sam had his demon-blood arc, and Dean had his Mark of Cain arc, and a lot has been made of Castiel being a Winchester, so yes, alright. I guess. His previous dark-side path was made for the right reasons, as Raphael was about the re-start the apocalypse, and the Leviathan thing wasn’t really an active choice on his part. So there’s an argument to be made that Billie’ death is Castiel’s first blood, as it’s a murder for personal gain, instead of being the best of a bad lot of choices. In the best possible light, this is the first step of Castiel’s demon arc, and within the show we’ve learned that kind of path can really only be stopped and redeemed by love. It’s also an escalation of the plotline about Castiel’s post-traumatic stress disorder and isolation, which I’ve been waiting for. The show has never really dealt with the fact that angels run on faith, and Castiel is an angel who has not only rebelled against Heaven for Humanity, but has lost faith in his father. I’m as keen as the next person to see it acknowledged that he has an unhealthy dependence on his faith in Dean as a result. There are potentially good things being set up by this development, if it means we’re going to delve more into Castiel as a character.

But! But. But but butbutbut...

It felt like a cheat. Tell me it didn’t. You can’t right? It felt like the writer had written themselves into a corner and decided shock value was the best way out of it. I know, they thought to themselves, I’ll have Castiel murder someone because he’s feeling unloved! I bet they sniggered, deus ex machina, as they wrote the stabbing.

Ugh. I hate that kind of writing.

And if it were any other secondary character but Billie I might still be okay with it. But it was Billie, so I’m not. Billie offered the Winchesters a straight-up deal that they asked for. It’s been pretty clearly established ever since she was introduced that she’s a neutral supernatural force -- not someone like Zachariah who played fast and loose with the rules, or a demon like Ruby with her own covert agenda. Yes, her bailiwick is death, and that’s intrinsically scary, and she made no secret of being irritated by the Winchesters cheating it, either. But she was a straight-dealer despite that. SHE DID NOT DESERVE TO BE STABBED IN THE BACK.

Which isn’t even getting into the fact that she was a recurring black woman character. Killing her in such a way was just as shitty as Charlie’s death, and for many of the same kinds of reasons.

Even if they revive her (they fucking better) and bring her back pissed off and an antagonist, it won’t really make up for yet another black woman being killed off for plot convenience. Ugh.

UGH.

I’m also not really all that keen on this as a path for Castiel, despite my best-case reading above. It just feels like more of the same-old, instead of finding a new story to tell. :(

In short, I haven’t yet hit my NOPE limit with this move, but the show has some brownie points to earn in the next few eps in order to keep my interest. It’s officially on notice.

Not fridging any more women or other minorities would be a fucking good start.

Previously:

The Ministry of Information vs Wayward Sons Carrying On (12x01)

My, my, how can I resist you? (12x02) and follow-up about Bohemian Raphsody

So what am I so afraid of? (I think I love you) (12x03)

I’ve got the joy, joy, joy, joy Down in my heart (Where?) (12x04) and a follow-up about the codependency and about Dean’s self-flagellation and issues with space

There can be only one! (12x05), and a follow-up conversation with elizabethrobertajones on Freud vs Schwartz.

They shall fall by the sword: they shall be a portion for foxes (12x06)  

Presenting the Immaculate Heart Reunion Tour (12x07)