supernatural metafandom let's go

i say this with so much love: @ supernatural fans pspsps let me study you. Profile picture shows a man with angel wings backlit by a sunset; photo by Rakicevic Nenad on Pexels. Background shows a pair of dirty hands clawing at the edge of a cliff over a body of water; photo by Daniel Jensen on Unsplash, 

[les-belles-infideles]

About this blog

Tooth, he/him

I have seen 3 5 episodes of Supernatural:

5x03 Free to Be You and Me

4x01 Lazarus Rising

6x15 The French Mistake

1x01 Pilot

1x02 [redacted]

(yes, in that order). I am primarily invested in the warped version of SPN presented to me via Tumblr and the fix-it fic the brother and sister who went to hell by LiutenantSaavik. I think this was a good and healthy and not at all weird choice to make /s I am not here to make fun of fans; my feelings towards you as a collective are respect, fear, and affection.

Tags I use:

tooth speech -- original posts or posts where I've added something substantial

lore -- how did I get to a point in my life where I have a dedicated fanblog for a CW show I don't watch

image described/not image described/image described in alt text/partially image described/functionally image described -- unless I fuck up all posts with images should be tagged with one of these. "functionally image described" means there's no explicit ID but the caption explains what the image is. Analogously, I have subtitled/not subtitled/partially subtitled

flashing lights cw -- stuff that in my inexpert assessment might trigger photosensitive epilepsy

[topic] cw -- general content warning format, e.g. gore cw, racism cw Not super consistent with these but can be more consistent if you ask

ask to tag -- I feel like maybe this should have a cw but not sure what; lmk

translation tag -- posts about translation and adaptation

fic rec -- fanfic I like

Rationale for the blog title partly explained in this post.

Probably a Dean Girl (gender-neutral) but I'm not exactly sure what that means

Supernatural playlist (Spotify)

the brother and sister who went to hell playlist (Spotify)

[inthetags]

reblog and put in the tags which characters currently live in your brain rent free

[minddpalaces]

[vampirebaited]

its so humiliating to wear flannels in this post-spn renaissance world "oh look at me im dressed like a supernatural character" im mortified

[autisticandroids]

i am Always in some kind of state of “quietly in love with best friend and will never ever acknowledge it just enjoy being in their life at all and tell self that it’s fine that’s all you need :)” ive been like this my whole life. cas is representation. cascoded idiots unite

oh you know.

[seffersonjtarship-deactivated20]

have you fallen in every way imaginable (spn edition) quiz out now fellas. put your results in the tags <3

[autisticandroids]

like i don’t know how to explain to you that dean dehumanizing cas is generally like. a bad thing for their relationship.

[autisticandroids]

like. i’ve seen it! i enjoy it! but it’s not leading anywhere good! 

dean seeing cas as something better than human is not a good thing! it’s asking to feel betrayed because cas isn’t better than human he’s just like, a guy. and somebody was on my post about dean thinking cas doesn’t have feelings earlier saying it wasn’t that dean didn’t think cas had feelings per se it was more that cas didn’t have feelings the same way as humans do and that’s like… just as bad, actually! 

the thing about saying someone feels abnormally is that it’s a gateway to a power dynamic. like, if someone doesn’t feel enough, it’s an excuse to deny their emotional needs and treat them poorly because they don’t care. if they feel too much it’s an excuse to say they’re irrational and strip them of agency. (on the other hand, this can also be used by the “abnormal” person to their advantage: if someone doesn’t feel enough, they can claim they’re more reasonable than everyone else and should be the one to make decisions; if they feel too much they can claim their emotions override other people’s and they have to get their needs met even at a terrible cost to others. it all depends on who is setting the power dynamic.)

essentially, you have to be really, really careful saying that someone’s emotions are abnormal, that’s super dangerous and can lead in a bad direction. if cas, for example, can’t feel as sharply as a human, or is above certain petty human feelings… doesn’t that make him a natural dumping ground for violence and cruelty? doesn’t it make it more okay to treat him poorly? doesn’t he need less from dean?

and like, i’m not accusing dean of doing this on purpose, but it’s an easy pattern to fall into once you start dehumanizing someone and stripping them (in your mind) of “normal” emotional capacity. like, once you start thinking of someone like that it’s easy to take it in a bad direction, even with the purest of intentions.

[autisticandroids]

also i feel like i was insufficiently clear: this post is about the fanon interpretation (perpetuated by jensen ackles) that dean thinks of cas as not being able to feel the same way humans do. i don’t think that’s a good interpretation of the text, both because i think it’s wrong, and because it has some pretty bad implications, which i’ve laid out here. i vastly prefer other theories on what dean thinks is going on inside cas’ head. 

like, it’s an uninteresting interpretation of destiel, to me, but also, if you’re going to use it, don’t be casual about it. be intentional. i read a 3k 15x18 fixit fluff fic that had dean just casually drop to cas, during his reciprocating confession, that he hadn’t thought cas could feel things like that, and that’s what kicked off this posting spiral. i am deeply unsettled by how common this headcanon is, particularly among the sunshine and roses parts of the destiel fandom.

[spndiscoursebot]

every milf in supernatural 🤝 carry on wayward son 🤝 being trans

[suncaptor]

like the leviathan are way more terrifying than anything else. they flip the entire script on the hunter/hunted. they can look like anyone just like demons or shapeshifters. they’re intelligent and malicious and specifically desire to eat humans without remorse. their first appearances include taking over positions in families and then into hospitals, taking the face of surgeons to cut into people, specifically in the same episode where Sam could have lost autonomy for a psychotic break. they’re near impossible to kill. they infiltrate the government and plan horrific things on a scale that no individual person has the power to stop. it plays on both primal fears of being hunted and also the social fears of what is happening out of our control in society and our inability to prevent it. they utilise food sources to subdue. everything we consider safe isn’t safe. and the foreshadowing of their plans actually does enfold over the course of the season.

[postcyberpunkpirate]

spn scene where cas has to leave the vessel and be in his true form for a battle or something and he says to dean "close your eyes and hold this for a sec" and "this" is jimmy novak's dead body

[forgiveyourwaywardson]

dean is weird about adam and michael being together because he’s being faced with the implications of humans and angels dating but he can’t EXPLAIN THAT so he just comes off as inexplicably uncomfortable and adam's like dude are you homophobic and michael's like What Are You Jealous Or Something Dean. You're The One Who Rejected Me.

[forgiveyourwaywardson]

michael ends up going like HARD. CORE with the whole “showing off how happy you are now to your ex” thing. he's like Adam This Is The Only Time I've Wished We Had Separate Bodies Because I Want To Tongue You In Front Of Him So Bad. and adam’s like alright babe. this seems healthy. but the thing is dean never wanted michael, michael only wanted dean. so michael is trying very hard to rub it in dean’s face but dean doesn’t actually care about michael so it doesn’t succeed in making him jealous. it DOES, however, succeed in making CAS extremely jealous.

michael is like Oh Did I Mention I Am So Happy With Adam He Is My Rock And My World And Gives Me Something To Believe In Every Day and dean is like OK! COOL! DIDN’T ASK! and cas is in the corner completely silent but staring holes into adam’s battered little green jacket and seconds away from blowing out every lightbulb in the room.

[forgiveyourwaywardson]

michael meanwhile will not stop going on he’s like Yes Adam And I Really Do Have Such A Special Relationship. A Very Deep And Beautiful Bond. It’s Almost... What’s A Fitting Word. and adam’s like idk profound? and michael’s like Oh Yes Thank You Adam That Works Quite Well. A Profound Bond. and dean has to leave the room

[offbrandhuman]

going insane thinking about the handprint symbolism in terms of making cas and deans relationship visible on screen. their relationship begins in lazarus rising when we see it for the first time. it’s something that changes their lives, their story. it’s the handprint we know dean must still have on him all these years after, but he doesn’t show it to us, he covers it up, it’s never seen. the symbol of their special connection. 

and then the romantic confession puts the handprint back on dean, on top of his clothes this time, not covered any more and for everyone to see. it’s visible again, but not as something new. it’s a callback, something that has always been there, just not on the surface

[prokopetz]

Subtext: The unstated implications of a text, as understood by a particular interpreter.

Paratext: Other stuff by the same author that you drag up in order to support your interpretation of the subtext.

Intertext: Stuff by other authors that you drag up in order to support your interpretation of the subtext.

Supertext: Those little authorial asides where they explicitly tell you how you’re supposed to interpret the subtext.

Infratext: Subtext that nobody picked up on because it was too deep for them.

Quasitext: Elements of the text you could have sworn were present because you’re getting two similar works mixed up.

Semitext: The text as it’s popularly remembered.

Pseudotext: What that one guy on the Internet claims the subtext is.

Metatext: Your interpretation of the subtext, itself considered as a text to be interpreted.

Texttext: The text.

[kbsd-moved]

if i were showrunner i would have simply licensed ABBA

[milfgeto]

I’ve never seen a single episode of supernatural. Is this the ship everyone has been waiting to become canon? Because I get why

[oddfuchsia]

i sometimes forget that if u haven’t seen spn u would have absolutely no idea that misha collins had to put on this ridiculous fucking voice for 12 years

[autisticandroids]

do you have an spn unpopular opinions that you don’t talk about often to avoid drama? i mean, you don’t seem shy about your posting (ilu for that), but i feel like everyone has those.

i have no filter on my fat mouth so there really isn’t anything. there are probably a few things that i don’t post because they’re too hard to articulate and because they’re unpopular opinions i don’t trust my audience to be sympathetic enough to help me fill in the gaps. let me think if i can think of one of those.

hey! i got one.

i think dean’s relationship with cassie was real but i also think the dean of canon is incapable of relating romantically/sexually to a woman in a genuine way. i think the reason he’s capable of relating to cassie as genuinely as he does in route 666 is because they met when dean was significantly younger, before dean became the guy he grew up into. 

i think if dean had stayed with cassie, he would have become a different guy with a different way of relating to gender and sexuality, but as it stands, by the beginning of season one, or at the latest by season four, when he is with a woman in a romantic/sexual situation he gets locked into an insane, toxic gender role performance that he does not want. he does not (with the exception of cassie, who he is able to relate to in a genuine way because that’s a holdover from their previous, earlier relationship) have sex with women because he is attracted to them, he has sex with women first and foremost to prove his own masculinity to himself, and as a distant second, because it’s the only acceptably masculine way he knows of getting someone to touch him, in a comfort sort of way. 

i think dean is intensely uncomfortable with women who are viable sexual partners, because he feels obligated to fuck them and perform The Man Who Fucks for them. this is why he’s able to connect so easily with girls he sees as daughter figures (krissy, claire, hell, marie from 10x05! dean is teen girl catnip), and he manages alright with mother figures (jody, mary), and does well with women who are unavailable in some fashion (charlie, fantasy pamela from 14x10 has a whole goddamn spiel about this lmao), but absolutely cannot be normal around women who he could theoretically sleep with. 

i also think the way he talks about his attraction to women is intensely performative and fake (off the top of my head, i just rewatched a bunch of episodes from the back half of season six, and the two things that stick out to me are first, in my heart will go on, dean makes it clear that he’s seen titanic, and sam judges him for it, and in order to defend himself he says “dude, winslet’s rack!” to reassert his masculinity (and as the set up for a truly exquisite gay joke about cas, but that’s neither here nor there), and second, in meet the new boss, which i know isn’t season six but basically is season six, dean like sits in bobby’s living room watching hentai, face like a stone, like light goddamn yagami, as though he is trying to Be Dean Winchester and part of Being Dean Winchester is performing lecherousness (to himself)). 

essentially i think the dean of canon is functionally gay, because he will never successfully untangle any modicum of attraction he has for women from the nightmare of compulsory heterosexuality and performative masculinity that he lives in. certainly this becomes more true as the seasons go on. but i also think that his relationship with cassie was real and genuine (because it started before he was totally 100% gender poisoned) and if things had gone differently he could have made a good life with her. this makes everyone mad.

[autisticandroids]

i had incomprehensible/incoherent thoughts on consumehimnatural and i thought i'd share because idk where i'm going with this but i'm going... somewhere... anyway consumehimantural discourse is so interesting i think because one of the most consistent threads of the show re: monsters is the theme of the literal consumption of humans (werewolves, vampires, rougarous, eps with pagan gods usually define their monstrosity thru their consumption of people, etc)

this comes up a lot especially whenever a monster that used to be human is featured like in s1e2 & s14e16, also theee consumehimnatural thesis my bloody valentine, because it really is just how do you make a monster out of a man? you make him hungry. you make him so hungry he makes a monster out of himself.

& like i think it’s really interesting how what separates regular angels who are just kind of neutral antagonists most of the time (dicks but not necessarily inherently evil), from the grigori who are portrayed as true monsters (in the context of the show) is that the grigori are consuming human souls??? as if that was the most monstrous perversion the show could demonstrate (consumption being the ultimate corruption of an entire class of angels)

(and i guess as an aside, i always thought this was a particularly interesting route to take given that grigori have sometimes been associated with the passage in genesis about the creation of nephilim, so the show was drawing a veeery direct parallel there between consumption and sex imo)

and corporeality is tricky in supernatural but i think it’s interesting how appetite for anything is rooted, inherently, in corporeality/consumption being about having a body/vessel with which to consume things? ghosts in general kill but don’t consume people because they can’t, they're incorporeal. angels and demons, on the other hand, experience consumption thru vessels, but for demons this is familiar (they were human once) whereas for angels it’s new so it takes a while for them to want it

also with death 1.0 it is actually so interesting that we only know a few things about him and the most interesting aspect imo about his portrayal is that he eats food. and a lot of it! he enjoys it even! literally why??? because death is ravenous. 100% appetite. because death. in the end. claims everything, consumes everything. but death is not a monster, not really, so on screen he eats junk food, & not people.

and like, i know this is something that’s been discussed a lot, hunger/desire being construed narratively as inherently bad (particularly re: cas wanting dean) but that made me think about the way the show portrays its hollow masculinity as so purposefully defined by its specific, excessive, and insatiable appetites, especially for (heterosexual) sex and (heroic) violence, and also alcohol (but only beer and hard liquor), red meat not vegan bacon, etc...

narratively the show generally treats this masculine consumption as correct or appropriate (we get hints that perhaps it is not, but they never really follow through on it?) whereas monsters are clearly consuming inappropriately. and it’s reeeeally interesting to think about where tfw is in terms of consumption and appropriateness (food, intimacy, violence) anyway lol that's all i have but i have been thinking thoughts about this

i love all this. interestingly enough, masculinity on spn is defined by appetites but at the same time those appetites are closely bounded:

DEAN: Yeah, well, there's times I want to get slapped during sex by a girl wearing a Zorro mask. That don't make it a good idea.

even heterosexual sex must be desired extremely normatively to be acceptable. and desire for sex is more about identity maintenance than pleasure:

DEAN: It's been a while. But you owe yourself. It's nothing but a ground ball – you just got to put your mitt down. You are Dean Winchester. This is what you do. [emphasis added]

like dean is a real man because the sex he has is about identity maintenance for himself and the way other men see him more than it is about fun.

but yeah your overall point is very good and i'll be thinking about it for a While. like a While while

[tvxcue]

in all honesty my biggest disappointment with 14x13 isn’t even the stuff with john and the boys, it’s john and mary. like okay actually in general it just felt like such a heavy handed plot of like “oh we have the thing that might solve all our problems but oh no dean Really wanted john back so then we’re bringing him back from “2003″ and ignore the fact that he looks even older than he did in 2005″ like it was just such a messy way to write a john reunion in like………someone pitched that and other people approved it. but anyways beyond that, i CAN understand the way sam and dean just…..accept him being back and that they’re not angry with him or anything like that bc their relationship with him was always complicated and if they were going to have their dad back, the very first thing they would want would be to simply Be with him, they weren’t going to talk abt how he abused them and traumatized them.

On The Other Hand…….i simply don’t believe mary would ever forgive what he did to sam and dean. her entire relationship with john post-resurrection was written So badly bc they literally brought her back to show that she wasn’t the idealized perfect mother that john and dean and sam believed her to be but a Person and then never acknowledged that john was her idealized father. why did she bring john back instead of her parents? he was her way out and if he was gone, so was her chance out of the life, he was literally her jess. john was her way out of hunting when she was young, he represented safety and normalcy and she dies bc the literal demon of her past comes back and when she comes back over 30 years later, her way out dragged her sons back into the life she tried so hard to escape. and like dean already confronted her abt the fact that it was Her deal that started all of that for them, but john was also responsible for it. and she learns about some of it from toni in s12, but just knowing that john raised them as hunters would have been bad enough for her. and like!! that’s the thing too, part of what she struggles so much with in s12 is that her sons are hardened soldiers, not just older than her and older than the babies she left behind, but they endured so much she will never understand and they endured it because they were a part of the world she never wanted them to know of. and her first reaction to seeing john in lebanon is happiness? the writers think she would fuck him?