#longlineofquitters

[angelinthefire]

longlineofquitters replied to your post: longlineofquitters replied to your post:...

i’m worried because some of the writing/directing (of dean) in 8.10 may put cas in an even worse place with his recovery. i hope it was purely accidental shittiness and thus free of consequences. i’m planning an angsty post about this for tomorrow ;)

I chalk a lot up to accidental shittiness. 

We know that Carver is a fan of Dean and Cas. We've gotten good stuff this season thus far. Better than what I would have previously hoped for in some cases. I think maybe some writers and directors are more invested in/comfortable with Dean and Castiel's relationship than others? And despite what the overall direction or instruction from Carver might be, that comes through in the episode? I dunno. 

[angelinthefire]

longlineofquitters replied to your post: haylike-needle-of-death replied to your post:...

With what we know now, I… feel bad for not being able to hate Naomi, but Amanda Tapping is just so adorable?… And her and Misha have really god chemistry and… Damn, I like Naomi a lot, she’s so… unusual for an antagonist.

She is rather cute, isn't she? (When she lifted Cas up by the lapels it read really strangely on-screen, to me anyways). I really like how they're drawing out the sense of mystery around her. The thing with Naiomi is that (so far) she lacks the smugness/arrogance that Zachariah and Raphael had. It really seems like she's all business and is doing what she thinks is required, and not what she wants because she thinks she's entitled to it. 

haylike-needle-of-death replied to your post: haylike-needle-of-death replied to your post:...

Ya, and as of now she’s honestly just doing what she thinks best for Heaven. At least from our pov. She said she wanted to see what Samandriel told Crowley and maybe he 1) had to be dread to do that or 2) it’s very painful, so mercy maybe?

I think it was a straight-up cold, utilitarian decision. 

[littlehollyleaf]

longlineofquitters replied to your post:

Shh. My tentative guess is that Benny will be back in a spectacular albeit deadly and tragic way. Amelia will come back for good at some point later. Maybe much later. I feel like neither of their stories has an ending yet. Hopeful?

Yes yes yes - Benny can come back and sacrifice himself for the boys when their attempt to fight Hell and/or Heaven alone leaves them in peril, teaching them that they need friends and teaching Sam that Benny is/was a good monster and he shouldn't give up on his old trust in monsters, all in one fell swoop!

(and then Cas can turn up and heal Benny, muttering something about them 'being even now' :p)

I have no headcanon speculation for Amelia yet. Although considering there's an ep about a shapeshifting dog, I thought it might be funny if Riot was a shifter :p

[littlehollyleaf]

longlineofquitters replied to your post: longlineofquitters replied to your post:...

His s7 “crazy”? Though at least then he was in hospital clothes so if the audience laughed at his brokenness, we were not spared the knowledge that we’re laughing at a sick person. In HH most people didn’t see the ‘funny’ bits as Cas being broken.

Ah yes, I remember complaints at the time about Cas at the end of S07 being too comedy. But, again, for me personally the balance between humour and seriousness was absolutely fine.

And I'm sad about people not seeing the brokenness in HH :( I really do think that on the whole it was written well. don't know what else they could have done without making the story too dreary and/or making Cas too w00bie.

[littlehollyleaf]

longlineofquitters replied to your post: longlineofquitters replied to your post:...

I agree with everything you say here, actually. It can be done subtly and in small doses. But I’d want Cas being broken to, like I said, not be used for laughs again and again. Quiet, dignified (!) suffering in the background would be perfect.

Yes, sounds good :) Although I don't think they really HAVE used Cas being broken for laughs this season. I know HH was supposedly a comedy episode, but I thought they got the balance between comedy and showing how serious Cas' 'brokenness' really was pretty nicely. But that's the kind of thing where YMMV. I'm bad at understanding/noticing comedy, so I might have missed that that was happening. Have there been other times Cas' suffering has been used for laughs?

[littlehollyleaf]

longlineofquitters replied to your post: Additional to my last

Sigh. Since they established that Cas was suffering, I wish they’d just let him be depressed for some time after Purgatory, and get better… like a person. Without using it as an occasion to make jokes and without supernatural intervention.

You know, idk... this is something I flip-flop over depending on my mood. Because the bottom line is that Supernatural is a show ABOUT the supernatural, and that's what I watch it for. Well... I watch it for the characters and character interaction of course, but take away the supernatural element and I WOULDN'T be so interested, so it's obviously vital... so I don't want it to become a soap opera, or a show like Glee where the personal issues are made such a huge song and dance of it overshadows the story and the characters and instead becomes an after school special on the 'issue of the week/season' (ie. teenage pregnancy, homosexuality, bullying, mental illness etc.)

So sometimes I think - yes, it's GOOD the show is not dwelling TOO MUCH on the characters' 'issues', be they depression, alcoholism, drug addiction whatever. I don't want a FULL BLOWN storyline about those things, I just want them to be elements of the storyline and the characters' lives that are happening in the background while the characters deal with whatever the main storyline is (hence why I was so NOT upset that Dean's issue with drinking got 'dropped' - omg I DID NOT WANT)... so sometimes I even wonder if some of the problem last season was that they priortised Dean's depression too much over the mytharc, which is why the leviathans ended up being so boring overall to me, and I wonder if the way the show is just touching on the idea of Castiel being depressed is BETTER, because it's getting the audience thinking about the issue and highlighting how depression after trauma IS an issue, without MAKING IT AN ISSUE, if that makes sense?

...but then, of course, I don't want that kind of storytelling to end up portraying serious issues BADLY, in the sense of giving the impression alcoholism and depression and drug addiction are things you can just 'get over'... but I don't think they ARE doing that, not even with Cas...

...and then also, of course, that general opinion of mine has flipped a bit this season considering I was all FOR 'character growth' (ie. character issues) BEING THE STORYLINE just a while back (ie. Sam and Dean growing up etc). So perhaps some background issues have been bubbling along without being addressed enough BECAUSE of the 'main' supernatural storyline each season, so that it's reached the point where the show NEEDS to make more of a focus of them and I actually AM prioritising them over the supernatural element (ie. the mytharc)... but then does this apply to CAS considering his non-supernatural issues are fairly new, so perhaps I don't need his addressed in huge detail just yet and...

IDK! It's a difficult balance isn't it? Doing justice to these RL things and character development while also making sure your supernatural story is moving forward at a good pace and is remaining compelling. I don't envy the writers the job!

[littlehollyleaf]

longlineofquitters replied to your post: RL question

Interesting, because the TV smile looked VERY real to me and the hunter one not so much, since it was too… it was a GRIN, it was… new. Different. But ‘not reaching the eyes’? Idk. Agree about f!Cas’ smile obviously ‘not reaching his eyes’ tho.

I can't recall now where I heard someone say the TV grin seemed fake, which is making me think I made it up... YES I did! I remember now, it wasn't the TV smile, it was the little smile after Cas has washed up and is back in his clean trenchcoat garb - he says 'better' and gives a little smile and there was some debate from a few corners about THAT smile being fake and bad, like Cas was putting on a front that was actually outright compared to future!Cas' grins and deemed as painful to watch, when I thought (and still think) it was a real smile and it made me feel warm to watch. Not in the sense of it being a super 'I am all better now and everything is fine' smile, but a genuine 'I feel a little better like this, enough to surprise me because I didn't think something as small as a change of clothes and a wash could make a difference to my emotional state, although I am in no way cured of my struggles.'

As to the hunter smile - something NEW is a good way to put it. I do think Cas was trying too hard in that scene. He was using hunting as a distraction from facing up to his guilt, so he was trying to make himself more enthused about hunting than he really felt by trying to act excited. But I think there was an element of truth in the smile too because he felt genuinely happy at the prospect of working with Sam and Dean and trying something new.

IDK. Hard to call.