Holly or Hal, she/her, 27, Spn sideblog for @tarantula-hawk-wasp, W*ncest or underage shippers will be blocked and I hate you personally, check out my art tag. Big proponent of reblogging art.
gotta say the funniest bit about jack is that he is incredibly powerful, smart, he can do pretty much anything he wants, but he is Noodle Arms McGee. bobby tried to teach him to fight. bobby failed. jack tried multiple times to fight when he didn't have his powers. it went poorly. this guy has infinite power beyond any being before him and he has to ask one of his dads to open a pickle jar
let’s bring destiel back to some grocky levels of freak shit. let’s have dean saying he’d let cas do open heart surgery on him and cas attentively listening to the sounds dean’s organs make. put cas on the ceiling to watch dean sleep
This may be of no interest to most of you, but with all the comments I got on my Impala portraits, I thought this would be of interest to some of you.
Original Photo
This is the original photo I used--it's of a fan car ("Night Moves") that was at Denver con 2022. What a great photo!
Posterize
In Photoshop, I posterize the photo to get chunkier blocks of color. I just play with the number of levels until I get a good representation.
Draw Lines
I place the posterized image in Illustrator (reversed) and then go to town drawing lines. The rule for pieced quilting is that every line you draw must go all the way until it hits another line. So for the first couple of lines, they go all the way from one end of the photo to the other.
I just keep drawing until I get something like this.
Paint the Pieces with Color
I bring the outlines into Photoshop so I can paint each individual piece with a solid color that will match the (future) fabric. Sometimes posterizing can result in dark colors, so you have some creative liberty to make changes. Note that these are still just screen colors; the actual fabric will differ again.
Outlines:
Colored:
Number the Sewing Order
Paper piecing means that you sew through the paper and fabric. That way, you can be sure to place your seam perfectly.
Generally, in quilting, you want to sew a seam from one end to the other without running into any already sewn seams. For a traditional patchwork, this means you would sew 10 blocks, then sew a row of 5 blocks, and then sew another row of 5 blocks onto the first row.
Paper piecing is the same, but because no "block" is repeated, it's an exercise to determine the sewing order of each block, and then the sewing order of the blocks to each other.
A quilt like the Impala has a few hundred blocks of 1-15 pieces of fabric each. Within each block, the sewn size is near perfect. But sewing the blocks to each other introduces a lot of variability: the seams can be wider or narrower, or the alignment can be off. That's why the actual quilt looks "wonky" compared to the pattern. It's just not possible--for me--to get it perfect. If I didn't work so small, it would be easier.
Back in Illustrator:
You can see that the black lines are pieces within a block. The red lines are blocks. And the green lines are sections of blocks. It all needs to be sewn in order. I will make small changes to the sewing lines at this stage to "make it sewable."
Printing
Because printers aren't the best at replicating onscreen colors exactly (good luck telling the difference between black and dark purple), I have to recolor it to "printable" colors and then do a swatch concordance.
The bright green on the left actually represents lavender.
I print the pattern out on vellum, which is more durable than paper. Since this is 17" x 17", I will print out overlapping 8 1/2" x 11" sheets. Illustrator has a good printing function, so you can print the exact area you want.
Pick Fabric
I have collected a ridiculous amount of fabric. These want solids for the most part. Sometimes it's a challenge getting 5 shades of blue, or 6 beiges for their faces, so sometimes, I make color errors that I don't discover until later. Painful mistake. The above pattern uses 25 colors, but some of the faces use around 40.
Sew
This is a really challenging project. It would be easier if it were bigger! The pieces are so small, and when you start sewing blocks together, the layers get to be ridiculously thick with all the seam allowances. It's a true challenge to feed through the machine. Use a small stitch length; use a good machine with dual feed (Bernina!!! or maybe Pfaff).
Check out the back side of the previous Impala quilt.
I pull out the paper as I go, otherwise it will get accidentally sewn in.
Finishing
I don't do complicated quilting here. The piecing is what's on show! I embroidered the Chevrolet and the license plate lettering. Some things are really too small to piece.
Original Photo Again:
Conclusion
I think anyone could do this, in theory. It takes a lot of patience. And your sewing machine needs to be quality. And it helps to know how to use Photoshop and Illustrator. And you need to "get it" when numbering the pattern, in a mathematical way. And it's helpful owning all the fabric.
If you do try it, make a larger quilt; this size with this level of detail is crazy making.
Check out all my supernatural quilts on Instagram! https://www.instagram.com/catnipster69/
to me the single most indicative thing about the idea of dean and benny banging in purgatory is that dean never, not once, made a “i havent been laid in a year” joke. i was waiting for it and it never came. you know he would’ve made that joke. why didn’t he make that joke? because he & benny were fucking
re dean not “letting” sam drive, the time i remember most is when john comes back in s1 and they’re hunting vampires together and john’s seamlessly pushed them back in the old family dynamic of doing what he says no matter what; no thinking, no input, just follow orders. sam’s angry, he’s feeling ignored and like a child with no autonomy or thought of his own. the situation has been taken completely out of his control
so dean lets him drive
he gives him a sense of control back even if it’s as minor as being behind the wheel instead of in the passenger seat and you can even say it’s this allowance that gives sam the confidence to speed up and confront john, he might not have otherwise or he might have waited until they were in an enclosed space where the fight would’ve been worse
(also sam literally drives in the second episode after dean offers in the beginning i don’t know what these people are on lmao)
Yeah it's really weird to me how fixated some people get on the driving thing... and insisting Dean doesn't "allow" Sam to drive when we see Dean offer Sam the keys or easily agree to give them up every single time Sam asks for them (ex: 1.02, 5.05, 5.12, 7.14).
It's also just that... just because Sam feels he lacks control and sometimes asks for the keys to feel more in control doesn't mean 1) he actually does lack control or 2) that Dean's the one taking control away from him. If I am taking the "driving is about control" meta and running with it... if anything, I might argue that Sam demanding to drive (or being offered to drive) often happens when Sam substitutes (or Dean offers himself as a substitute) for other things Sam can't (or feels he can't) gain control over. It is in a way an extension of the way Dean is treated as a scapegoat or a force upon whom aggression is displaced (season 1 compilation, season 4/5 thoughts).
Your point about 1.20 fits well here. Whether Dean offered Sam the keys or Sam demanded to drive, I agree that scene is about Sam feeling like he lacks control... and the control he doesn't have is over John, not Dean. (And he shouldn't be aspiring to control others at all, but purely himself).
I might further point out that what Sam does with that control he has in 1.20 is perform an extremely dangerous maneuver at high speed to cut John's truck off and force him to a stop (nearly resulting in the impala being t-boned by John's truck), which risks not only his own life but Dean's (who put his life in Sam's hands). So if we learn anything here—quite contrary to the narrative that Dean is metaphorically "stealing" control from Sam somehow by driving and Sam is now righteously taking it back—it's that when Dean hands Sam the reigns and trusts him with his life, Sam treats Dean's life carelessly and thoughtlessly, blinded by outrage. That doesn't sound to me like Dean being the bad guy controlling Sam. And 1.20-1.22 really goes to great lengths to show Dean is the person trapped in the middle trying to get his brother and father to see sense and realize the consequences of their actions for themselves and for him while they both fight for control... and Dean's taking a lot of glancing blows from both of them while he's at it. (Just like his life is put on the line by that near car accident simply by existing in the vicinity of his brother and father).
What's further interesting is that it's somewhat sensible to read that scene in 1.20 as a bit of foreshadowing for what happens in 1.22—where Sam is once again driving, and he and John are at odds, and the impala gets t-boned by a truck, and Dean is the one who ends up in a coma. Sam isn't at fault for the accident in 1.22—in fact, he's specifically stressing that he's finally come to align himself with Dean's stance that revenge isn't worth their lives. But John is not on board yet, and it is as Sam's distracted trying to placate John and explain how they can still get that revenge they both want so badly that they get hit.
so I think I figured out why the in-universe SPN fandom is almost entirely comprised of Sam girls. look at the list of titles of the Carver Edlund books published prior to 04.18:
apologies for the bad quality on the first screenshot, trying to get a good one before Sam starts scrolling was hard
there's no Dead In The Water. no Something Wicked. no In My Time of Dying (I think we can reasonably assume that Salvation covers the events of both Salvation and Devil's Trap all as one but they jump straight from that to Bloodlust). there are only three episodes from season 2 covered at all, and it seems to completely leave out John's demon deal, and seemingly Dean's as well. there's no What Is And What Should Never Be. it completely skips past All Hell Breaks Loose and jumps straight from Heart right to Sin City.
no wonder there are no in-universe Dean girls: fans of the Supernatural books have barely even met Dean.
furthermore, we knew Chuck had left Sam's blood drinking habits out of the books because he wanted him to appear more sympathetic to the audience, but based on this list, it seems like the entire demon blood plotline was left out entirely.
like, with the exception of Fresh Blood and maybe Mystery Spot, this is a list of books basically tailor-made to make Sam look as good as possible and place Dean firmly in the "funny but violent sidekick" role. this explains so much about the in-universe SPN fandom actually
#actually this has startling implications for how the in universe fandom views JOHN#there's no something wicked no dead man's blood#no in my time of dying#they have Dean's initial defense of him to Sam and Sam's john apologism as it develops#the in universe fandom probably believes that john was well intentioned and did the best that he could#considering both the chuck:john parallels and the john:sam ones that's a set up for some interesting character takes
@swordofsun you are absolutely correct about this actually. the in-universe SPN fandom almost definitely interprets John much more charitably than the real-world SPN fandom does, because they're lacking crucial information about John Winchester's A+ parenting. the closest they probably ever got to a real insight into that was Nightmare, and the exchange between Sam and Dean at the end... the implications of which are almost entirely done in the form of a long, poignant pause, a camera angle, and Jensen's incredible microexpressions... all things that wouldn't translate well to prose, especially in Chuck's style if the examples we get are any indication.
the in-universe fans don't know that John was a horrendous father... because Chuck doesn't want them to.
to be fair to sam, he is kind of being consistent he's just saying "i needed her when you were gone and needed to be away from you when you got back" i just think that's extremely unfair to dean who Got Back From Hell
context
I can see what you're saying (that in 4.04, Sam is talking about why he worked with Ruby between season 3 and 4, whereas in 5.05, Sam is talking about why he went back to working with her in 4.12). The thing is that neither one of his statements is really true either way.
Sam started working with Ruby while Dean was dead explicitly because he wanted revenge. Then he started working with her again in 4.12 because he decided it was the only way to end the demonic influences on their lives once and for all. Negative feelings about Dean also play a role such as #envy of Dean's righteous man title (also here) and Dean's bravery, (very misplaced) disappointment in Dean for being traumatized by hell born out of the guilt that Sam is masking for the pleasure he himself takes in having power, and anger over being unable to force Dean to abandon his principles in season 3 which causes him to want Dean to come to heel while knowing Dean won't because of his own principles.
But what's so striking about 4.04 is that Sam makes a very clear claim that he desires Dean's guidance by saying that without him, he went off the deep end. He pulls out the teary little brother routine saying he needed mommy Dean and can't manage on his own, then at the end of the episode, turns around and tells Dean he's his own man and every decision he makes is his own and Dean doesn't get a say. Dean respects that, but then in 4.07, Sam asks for Dean's input as if he sees them as partners, then bulldozes right past Dean in anger when Dean doesn't agree with him automatically and actually gives the input Sam asked for. When Sam starts working with Ruby in secret again, in 4.15, Dean explicitly says that he can't keep Sam from doing anything he wants, and only asks not to be treated as if he is stupid through Sam's patronizingly bad lies. Sam gets mad, even though Dean is fully treating him like an adult, because Dean dared to ask for honesty and basic human respect.
Basically, there is no way all of season 4 for Dean to ever treat Sam "correctly". Every single thing Dean says or does is wrong, because it is an autonomous thought or action that Sam cannot control or dictate. The only thing that might possibly make Sam happy is having complete control over Dean's thoughts and feelings (because Sam can hide from his own feelings about himself but not Dean's feelings about him and that's A Problem). So it's Dean's fault because he wasn't there to guide Sam then it's Dean's fault because he was (allegedly) guiding Sam. He repeatedly sets Dean up to be the bad guy no matter what he does, for not being there enough or for being there too much in turns, and the whole time, he is misrepresenting what their relationship actually looks like in fickle ways to shuffle blame for his own actions onto Dean's shoulders from one moment to the next and protect his self-image.
If you could remove/alter one story arc of Supernatural, which would you choose and why?
Oooooh, The Slice Girls and Emma.
First, Emma would live. Like. Full stop. And I honestly think if this episode had occurred any later in the show, she might have. Can't really have them murdering Dean's monster daughter who hasn't killed anyone when Dean has befriended and allied himself with a vampire and helped that vampire get out of Purgatory. She would have been such an interesting addition to the main cast - half monster, half monster-hunter and having to wrestle with that.
But even if she just had to die, I would want her to haunt the narrative as a constant source of mental anguish for the Winchesters. Yet another person Dean failed. He couldn't save his own daughter. He let his guard down and it ended with his first child being killed in front of him (by his own brother). Something else for Sam to agonize about, wondering if he made the right decision—if he murdered his own niece when he didn't have to. Another source of extreme resentment to fester between them and bubble up to the surface at the worse possible time. You know. Normal stuff lol.
