#subtext vs text

[jinkieswouldyoulookatthis]

Subtext - Part 2

This is a follow-up to my previous post about subtext.

Subtext vs. Text

So, if the potential meaning(s) of subtextual elements is not part of canon, Jinkies, how can you say that Sam and Dean are canonically soulmates when the show never came right out and said that they were?

Great question! The short answer is that there is a difference between subtext and text that shows rather than tells.

Writers are always being told to "show, don't tell." But what the fuck does that actually mean? It means that good storytelling isn't just exposition. Sure, you can explicitly tell your readers/viewers a thing, it happens all the time, but if you want to really draw your audience in and make them suspend disbelief for a time, immerse them in your story, you want to show them things because that makes them feel the things. So instead of saying, "Bob went to the store and bought eggs, milk, and flour," you would instead, perhaps, describe Bob coming back with shopping bags that he unloads, pulling out eggs, milk, and flour, and putting them away in his kitchen. The fact that Bob went to the store and bought these items, while unsaid, isn't subtext. As the writer, you just chose to show your reader the results of an action instead of talking them through the steps of that action.

Likewise, in the episode Dark Side of the Moon (5x16), the writers show us that Sam and Dean share a heaven by having them be able to find each other without breaking out of their individual heavens, a thing that they show and explain to us through Ash as needing to happen to jump from one person's heaven to another's. But Dean just follows the road through his heaven and it leads him to Sam... because they're in different parts of the same heaven. Taking Ash's metaphor of Heaven being like Disneyland a step further, both Sam and Dean were in the Winchesterland heaven portion of Heaven, just on different rides within that portion of the larger park. Then Ash says, while looking pointedly at the two of them, that special cases like soulmates share a heaven. So while the story did not say, "Sam and Dean are soulmates," it gave us the equation, explained all the variables, and just left us to fill in the answer on our own because they had faith in our ability to do the basic math. Turns out that faith wasn't 100% justified, but whatever, not everyone is good at math.

So in this case, Sam and Dean being soulmates is a part of canon even though they never came right out and said those specific words in that order. It is text that is shown not told.

Text, in a written work, is the actual words used, whether those words are describing actions, dialog, or setting a scene. While subtext is the space between and underneath the words where implied additional meanings can be found, if one chooses to go looking for them.

A great and fertile ground for subtextual readings can be found in discussions about Sam and Dean's sexualities. Because while the text only tells and shows us both brothers being heterosexual, there is a lot of subtext that speaks to a lot of people in support of one or both of them being queer in some fashion. Queer readings of either character are valid head canons with lots of support that can be pulled from the subtextual elements of the show. There is room within the story for a lot of subjective readings, even though all the canon tells/shows us is that they are heterosexual cis men.

Now I know a lot of you may screech to a halt here and start objecting that I am putting a subjectively heteronormative read on this. Yeah, I know. Unfortunately, the entire issue with the heteronormative bullshit that we all deal with in the really real world on a daily basis, is that it is the default presumed pov. This is changing (thankfully) but Supernatural was created before that shift really began in the collective consciousness, so the default presumed pov of the show is a heteronormative one. That is how the show was created, the filter through which it was written and acted and presented. And while reading it from a different pov is valid, it is not going to be in line with canon... it would be head canon.

Again, HEAD CANONS ARE VALID even though they aren't canon.

[castielscarma]

I was reading an article about design and art and how much of it seems literal nowadays (at least in Sweden). Three paintings on a wall with Love+House= Love. Or a necklace with the words L-O-V-E spelled out, not even an abstract symbol to represent that love. The writer goes on to ask if this is a sign of our times, that everything needs to be printed in text, literally spelled out. Each book turns into an autofiction, where the writer is viewed (by its reader) as the hidden protagonist in said book (true or not doesn’t matter). They go on to say that it doesn’t matter if a book is “true” in that sense or just a figment of the writer’s imagination, as long as it makes the reader feel something, that feeling is still valid. They continue: “Or maybe this is about that we perhaps in uncertain times, immediately desire to understand what we’re looking at, we don’t want to nor have the energy to interpret it. Or even worse, -- we don’t know how to. This is the great threat if children don’t learn to read properly. They won’t be able to perceive subtext, underlying themes, they won’t be able to see beyond the literal. The world becomes flat and less understandable.”  (my highlight). I think this is very relevant in regards to discussions about narrative and subtext in Supernatural (both among Destiel fans and bronlies) as well as the GA in various Facebook groups.

[naruhearts]

I’m a little shocked by how upset I am that so many people are still not hopeful about destiel in season 15. 14.20 made me so excited, and filled me with a lot of hope, but I’ve been unfollowing meta writers and bloggers I’ve followed for years now because of their negative outlook on endgame destiel. I don’t really have a point to this apart from needing to relieve some of the stress the consistency of negative endgame destiel is filling me with.

I’m about to get ready for Avengers Endgame - I apologize for the late reply!!

Oh nonnie *tight hugs* I know – I’ve seen it too, and the negative purviews expanded like, super fast late-S14 up to 14x20 (Dean’s “You’re dead to me” pretty much caused the fandom pot to boil in different ways, from understanding to angry feelings and everything in-between). I’m so sorry you feel this way! <3 Obviously, folks are fully entitled to their opinion, but I do relate and understand: observing negativity could in turn bring you down.

Personally, my heart breaks for the people I know who did shift sides on the endgame Destiel scale, yet we aren’t responsible for changing their minds.

Now, for those of us who still occupy the Destiel-positive endgame lane post-14x20, all we’re capable of at this point is remembering what brought Dean and Cas here, to this certain rising action, to this certain timeframe, to this certain characteristic crux supposedly building to a cathartic moment in their narrative where words continue to be UNSAID (those words should be SAID) — and like I said here — because we’ve witnessed Chuck emerging as the genuine Big Bad (I’m working on meta about this - especially in relation to TFW, Jack, Free Will, and Love - and I plan to post them throughout the week if time allows!!), THEY MUST ENGAGE IN SOLIDARITY MORE THAN EVER BEFORE, and uniting against the Eldritch common enemy entails uniting with your family – strengthening familial AND romantic interpersonal dynamics!!

I hope I can relieve some of your stress if you scroll through my recent predominantly Destiel-positive meta x, x, x, x etc (#Destiel-positive or #my meta tag) regarding Dean/Cas at odds, their general narrative position since S12, and my interpretation of S14′s negative space palpably narrowing. I mean, the D/C conflict was a vital foundational block for their genuine internal progress in S15 where they break the spirals of their self-toxicity one final time…in that they realize that REBIRTH – truly undoing the shackles – means fostering mutual honesty, transparency, and interdependence within a stable romantic relationship after pushing past their last barriers of low self-esteem. And Dean was FINALLY able to do so in 14x20!! Again, Dean choosing not to kill Chuck’s pre-planned Big Bad Jack was the penultimate open door for his “new self-actualized beginning” and depicted his real free will – the veracity of it – actually releasing itself, which trashed Chuck’s script –> TL;DR Chuck lied because there was always another way he was afraid of. Dean chose Love. And love totally changed the story Chuck wanted to tell. 

I’m really excited to see where S15 takes us, and once it airs, I’ll see if my position on endgame Destiel changes or not. But to me, so far it hasn’t – they’ve been validating our meta re: miscommunication and star-crossed lover tropes (GOD as that specific narrative cockblocker who intended that Destiel stay apart for drama, tension, increased characteristic torture for complexity in his story; Dean and Cas should re-evaluate a LOT of things in S15 –> finally following their HEART) and I hold nothing but confidence for now :D

[naruhearts]

Before I crash tonight, don’t forget — we saw Dabb purposefully insert Truthful couples in the periphery (resulting from Jack’s frustration over their lies) as Sam and Dean walked through their world powered by Jack’s Truth Serum e.g.

- M/M couple: “It’s not you, it’s me”

- Parents telling their child that they still love them even when the child’s parents aren’t together anymore. Oh, hm, rings a bell.

These couples, then transforming into truth-tellers, were part of the catalyst for Jack literally ushering in honesty and transparency, which is subtextually linked to Destiel.

As expected since Character Conflict Primers 14x17/18/19, spousal-coded Dean and Cas continued to argue in front of Sam, expressed raw, choppy disagreement/engaged in mistranslation during the season finale, raised their voices at each other out of anger re: the wellbeing of their son Jack (complete with self-aware and humanized upset Cas shoving past Dean), and were clearly framed as divorcees, topping off all the emotional character-driven angst in the episode itself *flips table*

But EH, it all means nothing, right? Right???

*returns to CAPSLOCK FREAKOUTS BECAUSE THE UNSAID - TFW/Destiel’s biggest INTERNAL OBSTACLE — MUST BE SAID AND THESE TWO ARE SLOWLY YET SURELY GETTING THERE* *Miscommunication is their real internal adversary!!*

[naruhearts]

Yikes, most likely Cas’ turn to be angry at Dean. Divorced-like husbands — crippled with misunderstanding, grief and desperation — hitting back at each other (although not for no reason) while it breaks Uncle Sam’s heart to go through with putting Jack in the box.

This is all going to end in one big miscommunicative blow-out :/

[naruhearts]

@itsdeanwinchester *waves* idk if you remember sending me an inbox msg last week. I had a nice reply going with a few of my fave moments and was ready to add onto it tomorrow, so I saved it as a draft in the app.

Because it’s 1:27AM and I didn’t save to Google docs, Tumblr ate both your question and my reply, sorry!

Anyway, let’s get on with it!

- - - -

^^ This. They talk. The spousal-coded domesticity and general offscreen routines between Dean and Cas deliberately increased over the seasons since Dabb Not-So-Subtle Destiel Era S12, and now they’ve become more blatant/on-the-nose from S13 to present. A few of my personal faves:

Cas and Dean watching movies together/Dean making Cas watch his favourite cowboy movies

Cas knowing Dean is “an angry sleeper...like a bear” and Cas implied as making his coffee in the mornings (recalling that Cas doesn’t sleep)

Related to the above, Dean’s mancave as D/C-coded by brilliant Jerry Wanek — additionally a plausibly romantic contrast to platonic Joey/Chandler’s living space (consistent romantic vs familial narrative, where Destiel are like brothers but more than brothers, and platonic situations are subverted into/further contrasted with romantic ones on the show) — with Sam, who’s never seen it before and was first introduced to it in 13x16 compared to Cas, who knew its location when he returned to the bunker after his Tree of Life mission. One can suspect that the mancave was built late S12/pre-Cas 12x23 death/post-13x05. The rest of the room’s setup veers into headcanon territory (i.e. Cas helping Dean move the pool tables in, construct a pop cultural environment -- let’s be real, they can’t build a perfect mancave in a single day/night unless they had no hunts or urgent matters to attend to in-between, and it seems likely that making the room took place over time; maybe Dean probably wanted to surprise Cas after he was resurrected, maybe Dean gave Cas the mixtape in the mancave if it was created pre-12x23, alongside the bedroom or the Impala as more feasible locations for an intimate mixtape gifting exchange; anyway, Dean could’ve given Cas the tape anywhere etc), but the solid fact remains that TPTB went out of their way to narratively stress Sam and Cas’ differing reactions/relationships to Dean’s mancave (Dean himself) based off of TFW’s complex personalities and patterns. Is Sam the type of person to spend a lot of time in there? Why are there two chairs instead of one, if the mancave was specifically made for TFW bonding circle-jerks (no pun intended)? The latter logically adds up with Sam first seeing the mancave vs Cas. Don’t forget the visual narrative—

—in that Sam is excluded, conveyed as an independent person apart from D/C the unit (which we’ve repeatedly seen since S12/13). Voila, Dean and Cas are standing behind each ugly plaid chair. 

p.s. Dean’s Halloween dress-up suggestions of Thelma/Louise and Bert/Ernie in 14x04, with Bert/Ernie as best friends and highly-likely-or-even-confirmed-gay-couple — and familial bro Sam responding to Dean’s suggestions with “That’s weird” — thus reminds viewers of, again, the varying nature of Sam and Cas’ relations to Dean. Both pop culture pairings subtextually make sense within the romantic Dean and Cas context.

Also, Eldritch bunker, because where the heck is the mancave located? :P

SPN Blatant Mirror City 14x04: Dean mirror Dirk saying that A. Stuart the Cas mirror is his best friend (with the exact nature of their relationship purposely veiled), and B. him and Stuart watch movies and eat pizza together, highlighting 13x06 and 13x16; persistently linked to Cas = Pizza Man/pizza subtext and continuous interpersonal romance-coded bonding via beer and food with Dean’s telling reaction:

“We’d just eat pizza and watch movies. It’s...zen.”

“Sounds like a good friend.”

And I mean, Perez penned both 14x04 and 13x06, intentionally poking at us to fill in the concurrent subtextual blanks. Dean and Cas are best friends, first and foremost. And they’re also more. Storytelling always builds on previous emotional threads to flesh out and establish long-running themes like Love and...Love (corroborate pre-existing romantic subtext), and when you have these explicitly parallel characters Dirk and Stuart maintaining emotional links to the mytharc (e.g. brave and kind Dirk defending his family, Stuart and Sam mirror Samantha, from Toxic Father John Winchester mirror David (literal Hunter) Yeager and standing up to him), it’s the most relevant.

Just recently in 14x16: Dean telling Sam early AM about Cas’ whereabouts before the general household is even awake, implying that either Cas told him in the evening or let him know in the morning (face-to-face) or text/phone call

These are all canon.

Again, exactly...regardless of whether or not Dean and Cas’ subtextual inexplicably romantic narrative is textually confirmed, the UNDENIABLE take-home message -> Dean and Cas are best friends and spend time together — more than we’re explicitly shown onscreen (Misha/Cas haters/brosonlies who continue to insist otherwise are still ignoring canon); D/C will reach full mutual transparency.

Positive Endgame’s arrived and I’m cautiously optimistic! 

[naruhearts]

With your meta re: the snake symbolizing fear for Dean, is there any connection to be found with the fact the snake came from a bisexual character, who tagged Dean and Cas of all the people hunting him, which singles them out in a queer subtext way? I’m in no way a meta writer, but it occurred to me while reading your snake meta and I wanted to hear your thoughts. :)

Hey nonnie :D

Writing subtext is a deliberate storytelling craft, so there could be two different but particularly interrelated readings here: 1. snake = fertility, phallic, queerness; 2. snake = vengeance (relative to Jack the TFW mirror’s active Dark arc x), but also the fear of engagement with queerness. The snake’s name is Felix, for goodness’ sake (it’s presumably male).

A snake injects venom —> seems synonymous to Gorgon Noah seducing vulnerable victims and poisoning them through his kisses (keeping in mind that Noah claimed females were difficult to prey on since they’re “more cautious” nowadays, whereas men were singled out by him just like they were specifically singled out in 14x15 by Chip Harrington).

One thing I perceived was: textually bisexual Noah pursued vulnerable men who may hold specific hang-ups about their own sexuality and thus Noah seduces them by having a sense of what they want and offering it to them (alongside mirroring Dean’s subtextual bisexuality and old Unattached Drifter Christmas lifestyle) — a good M/M time, a gay time, and the subtext surrounding Noah in the beginning of 14x14:

Dennis, pants-less, is dead in his home, with Noah cooking his innards barefooted and semi-barechested, and we observe this unfolding within an intimate/romance-coded dinner setting, nudging us to ask: did Noah get himself a queer date with Dennis at the poor guy’s house (Dennis’ house in itself - eg. abundance of flowers, especially the orchid - as queer-coded) then sexually seduce him? Is Noah gay?

—quickly emerged into surface text when he seduced the trucker and preyed on him via an explicit sexual onscreen M/M kiss, pretty much answering our questions (aka filling in the negative spaces). TFW also mention that, besides the common blackened/charred lips, there were black marks on the necks of the victims —> necks are another erogenous zone.

And it’s an interesting reading, isn’t it, because in 14x15 we saw Dean sort of dodging Felix the male snake even though he knows it isn’t an inherently harmful animal; this may subtly evoke Dean as still slightly hesitant in acting upon his queer inclinations (narratively symmetrical to 14x06 in that he ‘dodged’ the cock statue = cock) (it’s entirely understandable despite Dean’s clear and genuine statement that he’s finally “good with who he is”; slow but SURE progress) and like I said re: Marghe (postmodernmulticolouredcloak)’s snake meta, Dean suggesting if Felix the snake eats bacon = narrative association to bisexual bacon.

*Felix the snake be like*

Anyway, taking the above narrative soup into consideration, I definitely think there’s a connection — a queer one, and it isn’t a coincidence…Yockey penned both 14x14 and 14x15 (the awesome Meg Fitz feat. Yockey) so you can bet that the consistent and pretty indivisible implementation of queer subtext across both episodes was intentional…

[naruhearts]

Donatello linking Mr. Rogers, a gay man, to Jack was so relevant, considering Dean is Jack’s first and foremost role model (Dean offering him his “cream-filled cakes”...)

P.s. Dean’s face when Donatello described the size of his prostate being as big as a papaya 😂