#it's the themes maestro!

[shallowseeker]

My favorite thing is when Dean gets mad at Cas for doing the same things Dean does RIGHT AFTER DEAN DOES THEM.

I'm not even being facetious. I love it.

12x09:

DEAN: *plans to sacrifice himself; calls Cas on the phone and tells him GET HERE but mentions nothing else about said death deal*

LATER: DEAN & CAS find each other in the nick of time and ride in the back seat together. DEAN stares longingfully at CAS with big sad eyes (but still says nothing about the deal)

CAS: *puts himself in danger to stop said deal from coming to fruition and harming any of them* ... DEAN: *spends the whole next episode being irrationally angry at CAS for putting himself in danger*

SPECIAL NOTE: Dean's not seen to be laying into Mary*** for putting a gun to her own head. No, he's mad at CAS specifically.

It's setup as a bit of a fun in-joke the VERY next episode. These two very similar actions are set up as DIRECT CONTRASTS TO ONE ANOTHER.

We know Dean's not giving her the silent treatment, at least, because...

"You hear from mom yet?"

VS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

"You talk to Cas yet?"

It's hilarious, because Dean's reactions to Cas tend to be wonderfully disproportionate and emotionally charged.

////Spec, but I suspect that if the roles were reversed, and Cas DIDN'T tell Dean ON THE PHONE about the Billie deal RIGHT THEN, Dean might’ve held it against him for not telling him the Truth (TM)… for a little while anyways.

(But ultimately, Dean gets it... because he gets wanting to keep loved ones out of harm's way. After all, after an initial mini-explosion, Dean was very sympathetic to Cas in 12x19, even after Cas lied AND took the Colt.)

But here's... the thing. In 12x10, it was READING as anger. Fear-anger. Franger, if you will.

Dean's fear sometimes reads as anger, just like Cas's fear sometimes reads as a lack of trust. Both tendencies can blown up in their faces and lead to snap decisions.

But! Their actions are very very very much rooted in love-fear. Cas understands that Dean has low self-worth, and though Cas may get desperate and angry about Dean making "a stupid deal," he totally gets it, too... because he's pretty much the same.

But yeah, as for Dean, his initial reactions and grudges about things like this tend to be much more emotionally volatile, so they narratively FEEL very big. He gives Cas the silent treatment about cosmic consequences, but won't look too hard at the hypocrisy of putting his own life in jeopardy. (Pot-kettle.)

Messy, messy, messy.

SPECIAL NOTE #2: This season, Mary and Cas are twinned by this trauma of losing Dean and Sam, and, in a thematic echo, it drives them both to try and take Dean and Sam out of the equation because they can't bear the though of losing them. Mary pivots to BMoL because she wants big-family-manpower... and, very importantly, she doesn't care if the BmoL die. Likewise, after 12x09 and 12x13, Cas freaks out and pivots to working with Heaven. (I really need to write the Mary mate to this someday; it's so crunchy!)

Even Dean verbalizes something similar when he sneakily takes Ketch* with him to Apocalypse World in place of Sam and Cas in 13x17-19: because, in his own words, he “doesn't care if Ketch dies.”

Dean's headspace from script 13x19 via @spnscripthunt-inactive

ALL of these above instances are inflamed by recent losses and feelings of powerlessness, but I don’t view this specific behavior of needing to shield loved ones and "keep them out of it" as unique to angel wiring by any means, even when that involves lies of omission.

Lies by omission in Supernatural are primarily driven by (1) protecting perceived innocents (2) protecting loves ones because you're horrified at the thought of losing them or (3) avoiding the great big painful emotions that telling them The Things will dredge up.

Extra credit for (4) You're putting yourself in danger and playing loose with not only your own but also potentially the whole world's safety.

///

BONUS EXAMPLE: Not wanting to face the big scary Emotions

14x12

& ofc

[snackleggg]

You know what would've been so funny, is if Maestro was the one that picked up the tooth and then mocked the Doctor with that just like the Toymaker did but then they lose it and it gets picked up by a different member of this pantheon that of course uses it to mock the Doctor when they face him.

Like the Master is getting hot potatoed around these gods so they can make his ex feel bad like, that would be hilarious, missed potential.

[purrvaire]

imo if evil jinkx monsoon wants to conquer the universe through the power of music and serving cunt I think we should, you know, let her

[minty-frost]

I thought for a while that the equivalent of Balan's hat for Lance would be a comedy/tragedy mask. Just a concept doodle, I'll probably change the design if I draw it again. No hair gradient version under the cut

[naivesilver]

at this point I'm treating the master's return within the current season like a certainty and not a theory I'm sure I won't bitterly regret my confidence by the year's end-

[the-desolated-quill]

I don’t think I want to watch Doctor Who anymore 😡

[prod-svt]

genuinely loving these two recent seventeen titles track names; god of music & maestro.

those are distinct titles given to influential and important people in the music world. god of music is self-explanatory. maestro is a distinguished musician, especially a conductor of classical music or someone who is skilled enough to be considered an artistic genius.

while us, carats, use it or sometimes interpret it as titles for seventeen themselves (which, deserve), the overall message of the two song is more than that.

god of music, as per woozi's commentary live, at its core is an appreciation song towards the proverbial god of music because music is what connects carats and seventeen, music is seventeen's life, as cringy as it sounds, but its true. without music, how can carats know seventeen. without music, how can seventeen convey their feelings and emotions in a creative way.

in maestro, it questions "who is the real maestro?" in an era where everything can be created to easily bc of machines. in here, its in the realm of music but it can also be applied to every branch of arts and creatives. in writing, in illustration, in animation, in digital arts, in communication arts. however, in the end, the human touch would prevail bc of its result's personality and the humanity stored in each piece made. because how can a machine work to produce ""art"" without the works of humans, where can they steal to distort if not from the humans, what can they run through their machines if not the works of human.

[spinnedcycle]

Watching the SU movie with my niece was a platinum experience

[aveil-moved]

changed to a simple kirby theme :~)

let's see if i hate it tomorrow

[supercantaloupe]

why does roger base his song on quando m'en vo' in rent. that's not even his girlfriend. and i wouldn't hazard to say that quando m'en vo' is all that more famous than either che gelida manina or si mi chamano mimi, either of which would make a lot more sense thematically

[indigodawns]

god but yoon jeonghan looks incredible even fully covered. gloves. maestro suit. little smirk. long hair. YOON JEONGHAN

[shallowseeker]

i was thinking about naomi and i realized that despite her being manipulative and controlling she's probably one of the few leaders of heaven who view humans as something to protect. like she seems to view dean as an exception to that rule but was willing to sacrifice a lot if it meant humanity was safe.

maybe that was all a front but i wonder if that's why castiel trusted her more than other leaders, even after everything she did to him personally.

I think Cas trusts her motivation (eventually), but not her methods, so yes. I tend to agree!

(Her ends do NOT justify her means!)

But... I do love how her motivation is very solid, really, by the time everything is said and done!

"For the greater good," right?

///

I know I'm beating a dead drum, but I love how Naomi didn’t want to help Cas. She wanted to "break" him in order to "fix" him. (Like resetting a bone, maybe?)

If there’s one thing this season does well, it’s fatalism as force for good, like a kind of false reliability.

Time and again, we see characters become most dependable when they have little else to live for. They’re stripped of competing ties or driven by simple, predictable patterns of behavior or needs. Their reliability comes from this simplicity. They don’t second-guess your judgment. This makes them steady and uncomplicated—almost flat—especially compared to your more complex, dynamic, and ever-changing (ever-grieving) family people.

Both feet in, or both feet out etc etc.

Naomi fits perfectly into that mindset. To her, the more reliable soldier (brother, son, family, or fellow warrior) is the one with few attachments outside of herself, her cause, or the mission to save the world. No distractions.

((ASIDE: Ironically, by the end of the season, Sam ends up in a similar mode—reduced to The Cause, running on heroic suicidality to try and patch over the wounds of his actual nervous breakdown... his abandonment of family and friends.

That said, I’ll give Sam this (stolen from anon hi): part of his neurosis is that, unlike some of his mirrors, he’s not primarily looking for family to support himself or "keep him good." At least not in theory. What he really wants is to BE reliable. To be taken seriously, to get out from under the kids' table. He doesn’t want to let people down. He wants to be a hero.

But after the loss and shattering of his soul, then having it flayed open, his walls broken and barely mended, and then losing Dean, Bobby, and Cas in rapid succession, he’s left too mentally unwell to be the hero he wants to be.

Truth is... At the end of season 7, he’s a coward. He flees. He has a nervous breakdown and tries to rationalize this abandonment instead of looking at it for what it is. And instead of looking at it directly, he looks at it sideways—as letting Dean down, instead of facing the deeper truth:

he let himself down.

In truth, Sam has fallen far from his idealized vision of who he wants to be: a good brother, a hero to his friends, STRONG. (RELATED: Back in season 4, he was disgusted by others’ weakness because he couldn’t stand his own.) This creates a dark parallel to Naomi’s worldview. While Naomi tries to engineer dependability by severing all ties, Sam tries to embody it through suicide/his trials.)))

That’s why I love that Naomi steps in at the end to protect Sam’s wellbeing... because she’s realized she too has fallen far from her idealized view of herself as protector. She’s endangered a soul (Sam) and pushed her best soldier (Cas) away... all to her home’s detriment.

In classic SPN fashion, she went too far and ended up hurting the very things she meant to protect.

Naomi wants to be trusted, and Sam wants to be trusted. But neither knows how to rebuild that trust.

In a way, they’ve both turned their backs on who they truly are slash want to be.

///

NAOMI: "I don't know when we forgot that."

///

Last note on this

because NONE of this is what you asked for, right? LOL.

I love how Naomi winds up in a full-on Naomi-who-cried-wolf scenario. The people SHE trusts? They don’t trust her back.

She’s burned every. Single. Bridge.

And who are these people she WOULD trust?

These guys. That's right. Cas, who she tortured and poked holes in his brain, and Dean, the guy she actively tried to have murdered.

Cas turned out to be her most IMPORTANT bridge, and she burned it and stomped around in the ashes.

Irony...

She trusts them because they’re wary, rebellious, and willing to DISAGREE with her directly and vehemently—not just with lukewarm lip service. They're action-oriented. They stand up to her.

They’re not figments of always-and-never, not perfect super-soldiers or flawless war companions.

Which is also why it backfires so spectacularly. They don't trust her here, and it's all her own damn fault.

It's so crunchy!

EDIT: RELEVANT TO ABOVE

JACK: But how could the Empty get in? And I thought Heaven was supposed to be perfect. CAS: No. It's not. Nothing's perfect, Jack. But I know Naomi, and she's complicated, but there is nothing that she won't do to protect the souls that are in her charge. Try not to worry, okay? 14x09 The Spear

//

13x19 Funeralia

[amourrs]

THEME SO CUNTY IT KNOCKED ME TO THE GROUND 💛 GORGINA

WHY THANK YOU MONARCH!

[vieramars]

The devil's chord is so good immediately

[thelowerdecker]

That’s a crazy way to have the intro come in! 😍😱

Also the updated visuals look way more cinematic! 😎

[tuliharja]

Five songs I actually listen to -tag game

Thank you so much for the tag @officerjennie!

Five songs I actually listen to~ (at least as of lately):

Tagging: @callmeasyouwantidk, @lemongrass-and-cedarwood, @nachobean, @kaiyaru, @dinainsun, and anyone else who wants to do this!