#this is a dabb appreciation blog

[mlobsters]

supernatural s10e17 inside man (w. andrew dabb)

why are y'all's bedrooms so far apart? say it's downright miraculous what with the time in hell etc, if dean (or sam) aren't regularly having screaming night terrors.

so we're all gonna lie about everything, all right

SAM All right, well . . . It's playing in Wichita, so I might not be back till morning. DEAN Well, I trust you. Make good choices.

what a weird thing to say.

little freckle appreciation with the blood sigils

small cuteness with dean pranking sam's room. except the toothbrush in the armpit :S gross, dean-o

this entire conversation between cas and hannah, i'd turned off captions so i thought he said "anna" and i was so distracted trying remember if anna was dead or not i missed the whole thing lol

laughing semi-hysterically at yet another surface product placement (this is the third at least and i know i point them out but i can't fucking find anything with tumblr search. i knew at least one was with charlie so i had to go find posts on her episodes, to find the post with microsoft and surface, both which returned bupkis in the search I HATE YOU. it's like posts aren't indexed, can't site:search them either -- EDIT I FUCKING FOUND IT because i was looking up this ep for 10x18)

it's silly but it's a little weird pet peeve i have that tv people with short hair never touch it even if it's somewhat reasonable that when you have junk in your hair you don't wanna touch it. i have my hands in my hair constantly (better i mess with my hair than bite off chunks of skin hey hey) so i recall seeing gifs of this moment like hallelujah (but i figured actually it was on a gag reel because when do characters ever do this? NEVER) anyway. all to hustle some pool and look a little disheveled haha

and a wink at the bartender ok

CASTIEL I'll break it down. SAM Dude, dude, dude. Chill. CASTIEL What? I'm helping.

haha that could be his tagline. what? i'm helping 🥺

so dean is bored and wants to start some shit so he's gonna hustle these dudes in the least subtle way possible and maybe if he's lucky he'll get to beat some people up?

always here for the bonus competency (i had to search the wiki for scenes dean was playing pool in a later season so i could figure out what fucking episode tag to put in my blog search [9x17] because searching for "competency" "rack" "racking" etc no. *incoherent rage*)

oh, dean.

BOBBY Hell, I'm already dead. What's the worst that could happen?

shut your mouth, bobby!

pretty shot. i like how the knife is reflecting a little strip of light on his face. and he's all anger ball up top and very carefully cradling her head lol

ROWENA You're a good influence on him. That's why you need to die.

lol okay. not the grudge against the men of letters and wanting to get whatever shit they have stashed away in the bunker. can't remember really at all what that episode was even about that they were together in

BOBBY Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in.

no escaping the mob or the winchesters

ANGEL RADIO The Bobbys are fighting back. All hands. We need all hands. They're surly. I repeat, the Bobbys are surly.

this is so ridiculous :p what is dean up to with crowley

CASTIEL Dean doesn't know we're doing this. BOBBY Well, that's a page right out of the Winchester playbook, ain't it?

it's funny because it's true

CROWLEY She says I've gone soft. DEAN You have. What? Yeah, maybe it's all the human blood that Sammy pumped into you, you know? Maybe it's, uh . . . I don't know. I don't know. But the old Crowley, he would have come in here with hellhounds and demons, and he would have blown the roof off the joint. Now? You didn't want to fight. You wanted to talk. And maybe I've changed, too. Here I am playing Dr. Phil to the King of Hell. Never saw that coming.

waiting for a hug, relive the good old times. so i'm getting more reunited exes vibes than i ever got of boyfriend vibes from their brief fling during demon!dean times

CROWLEY Because . . . We're family. Blood. DEAN That's not the same thing. A wise man once told me, "family don't end in blood," but it doesn't start there, either. Family cares about you, not what you can do for them. Family's there through the good, bad . . . all of it. They got your back . . . even when it hurts. That's family. That sound like your mother?

you know, i am enjoying this weirdly sincere interaction but doesn't really mesh with where they left things off with the blade debacle

stop it, bro.

sticking with the ass-tiel, still got a laugh from me unfortunately

METATRON Oh, I'm afraid I am. I know about the Mark. I have your Grace. I make the rules. It's called leverage, boys. Learn it, live it, love it.

he's not live laugh loving getting his grace yoinked and being shot in the leg

:p goofy

BOBBY’S VOICE “Sam . . . So, this is weird, huh? Look, I just wanted to say that Cas told me what you're doing for Dean. And I'm not asking you to stop, but maybe going behind his back ain't the best idea. Your brother, he can be stubborn. But I think he'd understand. And I know it's the life, doing a little bad so you can do a lot of good. But sometimes the bad's real bad and the good, it can come at one hell of a price.

that's putting it lightly. anyway, i'm glad we're getting someone to tell him straight and plain to one of their faces, to stop fucking going behind each other's backs. and giving them the benefit of the doubt that they'll understand if you explain.

I ain't there on the ground, and whatever you do, I know you'll make the right choice. You're a good man, Sam Winchester . . . one of the best. And I'm damn proud of you, son.

takes a little emotion out of it when all i can think is You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown.

[naruhearts]

Friendly reminder that Dean was once and for all textualized and confirmed as NOT ‘just a grunt’ but an intelligent nerd/pop culture geek (as if we didn’t already know that for many, many years :P) in 14x20.

He is the multilayered Dean Winchester we adore, and Sam the truth-teller knew it here.

Tough but soft, firm but deeply affectionate. Specific but ever-versatile: pop music lover and pink comforting-nightgown wearer and closet (pun intended) fashionista who defies the endless list of unhealthy social conventions that A Real ManTM must follow. He’s indelibly caring, and generous, and emotionally apt, and instinctually sharp, and profoundly strong (“more than strong”, as his subtextual spouse Cas says in Dean-focal 14x10), yet the prime element of himself that he has finally embraced is LOVE.

Self-love...the unconditional love he holds for his family...love waiting to be released from the prison/spiral arc of toxic psychological suppression and emotional misarticulation, waiting to be self-fulfilled as he stops rejecting what/who he WANTS to have/be, waiting to spit in the face of destiny — was finally set free when he chose not to shoot his son Jack —> Dean’s first act of true free will - true defiance against God’s authorial Fate machine. And this act was his final rebirth, the ultimate WIN. He chose LOVE, LIFE, FOUND FAMILY, HOPE, FAITH (in himself and in his interpersonal romantic vs familial relationships) — all intrinsically linked universal forces that Chuck was never able to control. Now S15 shall see Dean further emancipate himself from his last remaining personal shackles to achieve self-actualization/complete positive self-process, and this includes HONESTY. Using his words. Verbalizing the unsaid. Pursuing his unadulterated self (again, he HAS, and he’ll continue to do so).

*dances across table*

The upper echelons of internal progression. It’s vindicating!!

Me since 14x20 aired/S14 wrapped up:

(Yes I’m still writing some more about this finale omg)

[daughter-of-the-rain-and-snow]

Oh gosh I'm sweating!

It was the perfect opportunity Chuck!

Why did you return everything to normality!

They could finally use their words!

[naruhearts]

😭

Sorry again for adding onto this already great thing, Marghe :p

If you wanna talk archetypally, Dean = Emotional/Psychological Hero, Sam = Action Hero, where they present 2 different dimensions of the narrative, 2 contrasting purviews for audiences, and of course both carry the story (Sam can 100% undergo emotional development). YES to all of this ^^^

It just so happens that Dean embodies psyche. Jensen is the perfect actor to portray him, his complex internal processes, and his PLETHORA of trauma, all within the emotional context. He makes up the bildungsroman of SPN. The show was never meant to stay static, and viewers who think otherwise — who hope SPN returns to its “former glory” — will be super (pun intended) unsatisfied.

(Oops I may go off-topic here) I mean, indeed, Cas states, “You and Sam have each other,” then parts ways with Dean, and rejoice, it’s what Dean & Sam!fanatics want! Unbeknownst to them, though, Dabb & Co have always been astute re: interpersonal themes, and if the past 4-5 years of Dabb Era are any key indication, we’ll see Sam and Dean experience much more profound, if not subtle, personal clashes, emotional wreckage, and general unhappiness, because they feel INCOMPLETE — their Found Family is GONE — and human nature is such that being the Only Brothers at The End of the World’s no longer sufficient to keep them going…to keep them alive and receptive to self-development.

They’ve grown up.

The rebirth of TFW / final dissipation of Brodependency is long overdue after so many thematic parallels and references to it. I’m not even surprised — Dabb loves growth. We do, too, because GROWTH ENRICHES EVERY STORY!

Do you think Dabb dislikes Dean and favours Sam?

Short answer: no.

Longer answer: definitely not.

Okay, long answer: I might be biased by looking at the show through Dean fan lenses, but… Dean is literally the heart and core of the show. It’s been like that since Jensen just… outshone literally everything else for basically day 1. It is true that Sam gets the “plotty plots” most of the time, but there’s a simple reason for it - that Dean is such an emotionally charged character, so “powerful”, that he naturally makes everything about himself, so to speak (I mean it in a good way, of course), and the writers need to “give” something to Sam because Dean just… makes friends out of everyone. Take Rowena, for instance - throw her in a few scenes with Dean, Dean makes Rowena a character with a connection to him. Remember the episode where Dean loses his memory? It was supposed to be “Sam and Rowena team up to save Dean”, i.e. putting Sam and Rowena “together” narratively, but Dean, by the sheer means of being Dean, basically makes the episode about Dean and Rowena having an emotional connection. Thus why you need to write a “plotty” connection between Sam and Rowena, i.e. the destiny in Death’s books. Otherwise Rowena would be a character whose connection is mostly with Dean, because it happens with pretty much everyone. Make someone interact with Dean, Dean will make something emotionally charged out of it. Heck, remember Crowley? He was supposed to be “about Sam” at a certain point - the scenes in the s8 finale, etc etc - but then Crowley developed a connection with Dean instead. Because Dean is that powerful of a character - he is the character that carries the emotional weight of the show. And that’s how good Jensen is at bringing the character to life… he just made Dean into the character he is.

I am not sure why Dabb would seem to prefer Sam to Dean? Everything is about Dean (again, I mean it in a good way, that’s what I’m here for ahaha). Dean is the character who drives the show. It’s possible that the Amara arc back then was intended to be, you know, Dean associated to Amara, Sam associated to God, but then Dean and Chuck share a room once and bam, Dean absolutely steal the spotlight and the new thing is Dean’s disappointment and bitterness towards God–>who’s the character most affected by Chuck’s revelation now? Dean’s made Chuck about him, emotionally. Thus we need to create a “plotty” connection between Sam and Chuck, the bullet wound. See the pattern? Dean connected emotionally to other characters, Sam connected “plottily” to other characters - Rowena’s destiny, Chuck’s wound, “external” reasons for him to interact with Crowley (the trial, Rowena ordering him to kill Crowley…) while Dean’s interactions with Crowley happen because Crowley has a thing for Dean - internal, emotional motivation. Heck, look at Jack! Dean bonds with him last, and yet when he does Dean and Jack’s relationship gets the spotlight, dying Jack gets emotionally charged scenes in Dean…

I mean, what happened in the Dabb era? Mary? Meant to be about both Sam and Dean, becomes pretty much about Dean (just look at how in the same episode Sam is shooting British people while Dean is literally inside her mind! because Dean is the one who really develops the emotional connection to her…). The British Men of Letters? Sam gets the plot, basically, Dean gets the emotional mess around Ketch - eventually Ketch isn’t even connected to the BMoL plot, it’s just all about Mary and weird complicated feelings. Jack? Again, meant to be possibly more about Sam or Cas… bam, Dean gets the spotlight again, although they’ve managed to keep that a bit more balanced, I think, possibly because it’s not just about Dean-and-Sam but also Cas, so the emotional weight of Jack’s character is more spread-out. Even when Dean gets a supernatural-related plot, Michael, it’s less about the actual possession and more about the psychological game Michael plays with him - heck we spend an episode inside Dean’s mind! And then the box plot is all about emotions again.

These first episodes of s15 are about Dean’s breakdown, simultaneously the peak and the consequences. I mean, in 15x03 what happens? Sam is associated to Rowena, who drives the plot; Dean’s part in the episode is all about his emotions and his relationship with Cas.

So no, it’s not about favoring one brother or the other. It’s just that Dean is the force that drives the show emotionally since forever, and, well, the writers need to find ways to balance things out and give something to Sam too - because Supernatural has a plot, sure, but it’s character-driven story, not a plot-driven story, so the emotionally-driving character just tends to overshine everything else.

😎

[castielscarma]

Go where your heart leads you

I have so many feelings about Andrew Dabb. He who started over a decade ago on Supernatural as a writer and slowly worked his way up, and who ended up being a showrunner when season 12 started (probably a tad earlier).  He knows Supernatural, it’s role and mythology, it’s quirks and messages like the back of his sleeve. He knows Jensen, Jared, Misha and about fandom and shipping and the themes and what makes humans tick, he knows about Gods and Goddesses, about lead turning into gold, about cards and queens and emperors and the sun and the moon. He knows. And he was thinking and mulling and pondering about this show and he made it better.  He expanded and deepened the lore and he took that fan shipping, the idea of Dean and Cas as two beings, arguable different and apart, a messed up human and an angel in doubt and together they circled around each other like galaxies until they finally collided. And it was beautiful.  And arguable, these ideas about Dean and Cas may have come unconsciously from the writers and they pushed back and they made nods but it never ventured into “we are real” until it did. And Dabb and his team saw the potential, the story, the spark that these characters carried within and they dared finally and they said we will go there. Dabb had been there a long time and I think he mulled over how to steer this ship to port and he decided when he knew he was running this beast of a show that, yes, he’d go there.  And not only did they go there, but I’m sure that they fought for it to go there at the high seat and said this is a worthy story, it’s a good story, it’s a human story. They did that for us, for what we saw (and just like Chuck they were blind to it in the beginning ann didn’t see it as important) and they decided to let go and honor their creative power. They did not control and try to put it back in. They tore up the script. And how lucky are we for that. And he knows. The cast knows. The crew knows. How it would all be perceived. He knew that some would see the story for what it is, for what it’s always been, for how Dabb is telling it. Others would scream and kick and flail and deny love when it stares them boldly in the eye. And he went there anyway.  He led with his heart and he knows that not everyone, hell, maybe not even the majority will be happy with it. But he was true. True to himself, true to the characters. True to the story. And I can’t love that enough.

[mittensmorgul]

I've been peeking in on twitter more often than usual over the last few days, partly because I spent the weekend working a con with Zerbe and didn't have time to spend scrolling tumblr, and partly in looking at the numerous Hot Bad Takes about Steve Yockey getting what appears to be a once in a lifetime sort of opportunity for a writer and leaving Supernatural before the series is finished, and partly because since the show is ending this year and there's so many campaigns to show our love to the cast and crew... but I haven't seen anyone start a campaign to show our love to the one group of people who've already been laboring away on s15 for more than a month already: THE BELOVED WRITERS WHO ARE CRAFTING OUR RUN TO THE FINISH LINE!

(presented with a focus on the writers who have a social media presence on twitter, who will actually see this...)

They've been hard at work since May preparing to bring us one final season of Team Free Will in their last stand against the Cosmic Drama that has been building up to this for the last 14 years. I'd really love to begin a concerted campaign to share our love for what they do, and not just in a generalized squee sort of way, but in the same way we offer thoughtful comments on fic. I feel bad because I spend all my time writing about the glory of the narrative structure of this show, the brilliance of Dabb's showrunning direction, the depth of Meredith Glynn's character study (especially of Dean, but honestly of all the characters, including Cas... remember 14.17? Cas has amply demonstrated just how much he understands the value of his human family, and is on the road to understanding what he might also mean to them). 

The care with wich Bobo has crafted some of the most painful leaps in emotional growth for the characters (hello, 14.18... you can watch a a microcosm of Dean's entire emotional journey over the course of the show encapsulated in that single episode). Master of the Fanfiction Gap-- and in partnership with Meredith-- the providers of possibly the most efficient and broad emotional layering through glimpses of the past in the current narrative... I know I'm not explaining this well, but, I SEE WHAT THEY DID THERE, with everything from the mixtape-- and not even the shippy implications of it, but using that singular moment to show us the breadth and depth of all the characters' relationships by reminding us of all the things we never actually see on screen, yet which still happen in the characters' "real lives." And holy HECK 14.18 was a master class in that, with the layered flashbacks to explore each character’s relationship with Mary.

One of my most-referred back to episodes of s14 has been 14.08, Byzantium, which honestly the meta implications of the title alone spurred some of the most interesting discussions I've had on the cosmology of the show's universe, and laid some solid groundwork for what I presume will be the direction the show takes in s15. SOULS DETERMINE THEIR OWN FATE! Our choices DO matter! And we have Meredith Glynn to thank for that.

This is the sort of excellent writing that makes these characters so real to us, that keeps us invested in the characters and the show. They DO feel like real people, with full lives in three dimensions, and our televisions are the portal to their universe that we're only gifted a tiny portion of in 42 minute chunks. And yet... we do feel like we understand so much of their lives that we DON'T see on screen, precisely because of this incredibly layered and subtle character study.

Which brings me to the newest writer on staff, Jeremy Adams. He gave us the glory that is Scoobynatural, under some incredibly tight constraints (given the limitations of how they were allowed to present the Scoobyverse within the Supernatural universe's rules), and I'm incredibly excited to see his more standard take on Sam, Dean, and Cas in a full-on episode of Supernatural. And honestly, we need more along the lines of The Killer Stuffed Dinosaur In Love. I think, if anything, Jeremy has a solid hold on who these characters are-- both the surface layer and the far deeper emotional layers-- as well as a fresh take on the show’s inherent sense of humor.

(and I mean COME ON in Dabb era, the era of the author of 8.08, we know there’s an element of brilliant Cartoon Logic to the narrative)

And we can't forget Davy Perez, who effectively provided us a guidebook on How To Watch This Show: Meta Edition with 14.04 Mint Condition, and then used this guide to break us all completely with 14.11 Damaged Goods. But also setting up a mirror confrontation for how Mary parents her boys in how she deals with Dean here, which will become painfully, horrifically twisted around in how she presents the exact same choice to Jack in 14.17/14.18. I'm wibbling just thinking about it, and honestly that's what good writing DOES. It grabs you by the feelers and does not let go.

And ALL of this has happened under Dabb's orchestration. All these other writers are effectively telling us HIS story. I don't think they're all getting the credit they deserve. Yes, I write rhapsodic about their episodes on tumblr, but they never see it. I think, heading into this final season, we all owe these people the praise and thanks they deserve to hear, and not just the usual Twitter Terrible Hot Take machine they're typically exposed to.

To that end, I've done a bit of research and made a contact who has promised to hand deliver our gratitude directly to these writers who need to hear it most. The cast is steeped in our gratitude at every con, and there's been multiple campaigns in fandom to thank the tireless crew who works on set every day to bring this show to us. But as a writer, I understand how thankless their job can feel. And I have an idea of what would absolutely mean the most to them: Direct messages of "I see what you did there."

I got a message to that effect on my fic Cakepocalypse! a few weeks ago, and I'm gonna share it here (without attribution, since I haven't asked the commenter for permission to share it), but it is the PERFECT example of the sort of thing I want to give the SPN writers:

[transcript of the image: comment:  Ok, I'm re-reading this and I'm amazed to see that there are more hints as to what's really going on much sooner than I realized! You must have worked really hard structuring all this! Wow, the mind boggles.

my response:  HEEE! OMG THANK YOU THIS IS THE BEST. I, being a Nervous Author Type, was worried I would give it all away too soon, or that nobody would notice what I was doing and feel like the surprise comes out of nowhere, so this is literally the most satisfying possible comment you could've given and I appreciate you so much rn. Thank you :'D]

I can't even BEGIN to express how much this simple comment meant to me. I felt PERFECTLY SEEN. And I want to share that feeling with the writers who craft this show for us to enjoy, because all of them deserve to know that we care about the characters and their story and their eventual fate as much as they do.

So here's my proposal:

It doesn't have to be complex. You don't need to write them novels, but I think sharing the sort of specific love and appreciation for them that I've attempted to express above will go MILES toward energizing the writers as they move into the final season. Let's share with them how much this entire journey has meant to us. Let's let them know that WE SEE WHAT YOU'RE DOING THERE!

If you're comfortable going on twitter, by all means take your appreciation directly to the source. Here's a link to the thread I tweeted out to this effect for a reference if you'd like one:

https://twitter.com/MittensMorgul/status/1146137421345636352

(and because I think twitter cut my thread in half, here’s the rest: https://twitter.com/MittensMorgul/status/1146137437170626560)

If you're not on twitter (or are D: over sharing your love so openly for whatever reason), I will open my submissions here on tumblr. You can write a letter of appreciation which I will ensure (anonymously if you prefer) will reach the writers directly. I'll also be compiling a list of links to meta or other tumblr posts you feel the writers will appreciate reading, but I will only share them with explicit permission from the authors of said posts. So if you want to share your love that way, please submit links to the specific posts you'd like me to share with them and I’ll make sure they get them.

My tumblr experience has been a gleeful love letter to this show, but I know the writers aren't seeing any of it. If anyone deserves to feel our love (especially as writers ourselves-- meta, fic, etc.-- or even as appreciators of excellent writing), it's the people who have poured themselves into creating this show for us. Regardless of what we ship, or what our expectations might be going into s15, I think it's important for us to acknowledge them now, and let them know how important Supernatural has been to all of us.

[chiisana-sukima]

So wait, when Jack accidentally killed an innocent guy Sam and Dean were all like 'LOL don't feel bad that happens' but when he accidentally killed Mary they sealed him in a magic prison? What?

It was a terrible episode. Everyone was dumb and out of character and did dumb out of character things. There’s no making sense of it.*sobs pathetically*

[naruhearts]

“Stuart’s my best friend. We watch movies and eat pizza.”

13x06:

13x16:

13x21:

14x04:

x

Stuart and Dirk directly reflecting the offscreen routines Dean and Cas engage in. And we see, for the very first time in 14x04, that Dean is watching movies and eating pizza in his bedroom, therein lies heavily unsubtle and plausible implications of Cas (the Pizza Man, persistently linked to pizza and the recurring concept of interpersonal [romance-coded] bonding via beer + food):

A. sitting with him on his BED pre-Mancave as they watch movies together (and, honestly, not sitting on a chair, because Dean is the type of tactile guy who encourages Cas’ physical company as we’ve seen before)

B. sitting with him INSIDE the Mancave as they watch movies together (two chairs in that Sam is narratively excluded via different interests/visual symbolism, capped off with 14x04′s Salmon Dean comparison to Bert and Ernie, best friends and highly-likely-or-even-confirmed-gay-couple = “That’s weird”) 

*aka hello please call 911 since my ghost is typing*

[daughter-of-the-rain-and-snow]

I haven't had the time to watch the ep but yesterday I saw it and.. it was a masterpiece okay? So well done and so beautiful and nostalgic and sdfghjklasdj..

Bobo Berens knows what's up. Am I sad? Of course! Mary was such a great character, but she leave the narrative in such a good way.. more than we can say about other characters. Am I waiting to see what's next for the whole team free will? definitely. Am I in heaven for this week Destiel content YOU BET YOUR ASS :)

[castielscarma]

My love for Dabb, Bobbo and the others in his writing team... it has no bounds. ❤❤❤

[mittensmorgul]

here we go...

[chiisana-sukima]

'Chosen 5000' wtf? I'm so not looking forward to this. Also, the fact nothing can stop Michael but the entire thing will be resolved in 3 episodes doesn't make me very hopeful on the writing's quality...

Ikr?

The “chosen 5000″ thing seems dumb but mostly neutral to me. Like there’s no way around the stupid, but it doesn’t actively piss me off or anything?

But the “Michael is the Worst thing EVAR but gotta wrap it up so the fans don’t revolt” is particularly unimpressive. They built Dean’s possession up for months in pr, and this looks like they’re leaning towards resolving it in a couple episodes and forgetting it forever, kinda like demon!Dean. Which will be a shame, and also leans towards Dean getting over the whole thing miraculously quickly too, which I’ll be even sadder about, ‘cause I want my Dean whump.

Michael himself I’m guessing will stick around though and be the season Big Bad; he’ll just get ejected from Dean somehow.

I dunno; I don’t have particularly high expectations, so it will be hard to mar my post-Lucifer-is-dead glow tbh. Dabb pretty much lost me at First Blood, when he had Sam and Dean say that 6 weeks in solitary confinement was worse than Hell. The dude has no interest in story continuity or in maintaining a solid long-term mythology, and I’m pretty much in it for the fanworks at this point.

[chiisana-sukima]

I think ultimately the answer is “we don’t choose our blorbos; our blorbos choose us”. People’s ids prefer certain kinds of stories, and then we end up loving characters whose place in their canon is to tell that kind of story.

For me personally, my id likes stories where a character with a lot of obvious vulnerability is subjected to horrific stress but still manages to maintain, by the skin of their teeth, their essential core autonomy and inherent innocence, and then from thereon out, conducts their relationships with the outside world from within the framework of that.

In the early seasons, both Sam and Dean’s stories had a lot of those sorts of elements, and I was actually a Dean girl until s7. But then as the seasons wore on, Dean’s vulnerability became less evident, and the writing of his character became more haphazard. As the writing deteriorated and the characters became more flanderized, I think Sam actually benefited from being somewhat neglected by the writers, because it left his character more open for Jared to inject his own take on Sam’s vulnerability into his scenes, whereas Dean became, by the end, a character who was mostly about Anger Management Issues--which is a topic I’m interested in only if the character’s vulnerability is also explored alongside it.

There were a few highlight episodes in the later seasons that were about Dean as a whole person with inherent dignity and innocence--Regarding Dean, for example--and a few missteps with Sam where they gave him takes I found difficult to reconcile with his base character--his espousal of monster genocide in The Raid, for example--but for the most part, by the end Sam had grown a lot as a person and had a full and satisfying (to me, anyway) arc that included the elements my id enjoys, whereas Dean’s character development stagnated to a point that I could no longer believe they realistically could pull off giving him enough growth before the end to make me happy. I still love Dean with all my heart, but the Dean in my heart is mostly early seasons Dean and I view the later seasons as, for him, a not entirely well-realized dark AU.

A quick question to everyone who likes Sam more than Dean. I would be very interested why

[naruhearts]

When you say that the Destiel narrative ran adjacent to the plot in 14.20 in the "negative space," what does that term mean? I've seen antis say that shippers use "negative space" to justify the lack of Destiel moments/interactions, but what is the difference between intentional negative space and simple lack of interaction?

Hi nonnie!

Valid question!

“Lack of interaction” for negative space is totally a misnomer here, defined by antis no less — literary negative space means the unsaid…an implication, entrenched in subtext but can cross over into text if something else in the story’s metanarrative points to that negative space. Aka negative space is just that: the space between subtext and text, emphasizing consistent narrative cues and devices that clue the reader in to what’s happening while “leaving it unsaid”. Dean longing for Cas (in S7/8) is a big example. Another major example is Dean engaging in grief-stricken behaviour that’s more raw/visibly palpable than usual (led to nihilism in 13x05) after Cas died in 12x23, which channels this concept. 

Cas occupies the negative space of Dean’s romance-coded grieving without Dean confirming it himself –> he’s the reason for Dean’s heartbreak. 

(Lord. The visceral exhaustion on Dean’s face. The resignation.)

“We lost everything. Now you’re gonna bring him back.” Cas = Dean’s Everything.

*In the context of 14x20, now we can view this as Chuck enabling his pawn Dean to wallow in necessary self-guilt, self-introspection, and general self-destruction pre-rebirth before employing Jack (Chuck’s Big Bad who incidentally became the Blank Slate and harbinger of Love calling upon true Free Will, which Chuck didn’t intend) as the catalyst for getting Cas back. MORE TENSION AND TORTURE PORN-DRAMA for his version of Dean and Cas’ overarching cosmic love story. The negative spaces of 14x20 – especially when we recall how the couples in the episode were linked to Dean/Cas and truth-telling – stand out pretty well in my opinion. And also recall that Chuck eliminated Jack’s truth spell before Dean and Cas could directly communicate…say a single word to each other. Again, star-crossed lover separation and interpersonal conflict for Chuck’s entertainment*

In other words, we know Dean’s romantic love for Cas is there, and we know it’s present, and we know it’s unfolding in the emotional layers of their arc without the characters themselves being written as saying it out loud (in their own explicit words). Dean and Cas don’t have to interact in order to sustain their narrative progress. Cas’ physical absence is offset by his emotional presence in Dean’s internal narrative. 

Negative space is more or less completely defined here: 

Writers can draw distinction to what’s on the page by repeatedly revolving around ideas or concepts that are left unwritten. The missing element becomes a centerpiece, revolved around by the other elements in the story, making its absence that much more profound. Done properly, writers can use this negative space to their advantage if they want to highlight a critical void between what’s said and what’s implied, what’s present and what’s missing, what should have been but wasn’t.

Let me reiterate: CRITICAL VOID BETWEEN WHAT’S SAID AND WHAT’S IMPLIED, WHAT’S PRESENT AND WHAT’S MISSING, WHAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN BUT WASN’T.

Other KEY eps that come to mind: 14x14 (I still YELL over it), 14x15 (I still yell over this too)

I mean, I could supplement the above definition with WAY MORE Destiel-related instances of negative space (I just don’t have enough time to do so atm, but let me tell you, after several years in development, there’s an extensive library), yet “lack of interaction” is part of an old-ass musty counterargument by antis (hell, they thought late S12/early S13 Grieving!Dean was OOC!). Equating the negative space to “lack of interaction” simply re-confirms that they don’t understand proper storytelling structure. 

[daughter-of-the-rain-and-snow]

All hail king Yokey

[castielscarma]

Moriah

This finale had me flailing like... one of those flailing blow up plastic guy things. You know what I mean!