#this is really nothing in the grand scheme of things I'm just a bit baffled

[lovelaceisntdead]

the way some people are talking about tai eating van's heart really makes me wonder what show these people have been watching.

[emmaspadoodles]

It was recently the 1 anniversary of the fanfic I've been writing and a lot of things came to mind.

1. WHAT?! Where did the time GO 🤯

2. I BARELY WROTE ANYTHING 😭

3. A lot of things have happened in that time frame and I am not the same person I once was 👁👁

4. I actually committed to a long-term creative project? 🤨

And in the words of my cognitive behavioral therapist.

We should unpack that.

Now I'm not going to psychoanalyze my nonexistent sense of time because every year I get a little older, and every year I lose the sense of time and the fabric of space and continuum, BUT I think those last 3 are pretty interesting, and I think they're common thoughts to have as any creator.

2. At first glance, maybe not, but WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME I WROTE 40K WORDS OVER ANYTHING- ZAMNNnnn

That's...

*Grabs my caluculater*

...3k per month. 833 words per week, and I was a full-time student.

Could it be seen as lazy? Sure, but let's choose to see that I am great at avoiding burn-out. (School burned me out first, but yk)

Could I have achieved more? Yes, and I have before, but I am not that mentally ill teenager I was in quarantine with nothing but time. 50k words in 1 month is RIDICULOUS! WHO LET ME DO THAT?! Bad comparison. Horrible comparison actually. Those were two different people. Write at your own pace, y'all. Be kind and considerate of you right now, not to who you were or think you should be.

3. Jesus christ I was busy this year, and a lot of things happened too. I lost a few people, I almost lost a few more, and yet I keep writing.

For escapism? Definitely, but what is creativity and stories if not to pass the time and escape your own life for a bit. Maybe I needed it. Escapism doesn't have to be a negative thing. I think I benefited from it.

4. I figured out that I actually can commit to long term projects. I can. I know I could, but there was always that doubt and self-hatred that I was too scatter-brained, too lazy, not good enough, etc.

Is 1 year really that long? In the grand scheme of things, no. It's a sliver of my life. But it's also 365 days I kept coming back to something. I pushed myself to keep doing something I loved and y'know what? I loved most of the days I spent writing. Not all, but most.

Could I have had a better schedule? Absolutely. In fact, I had no writing schedule, and the fact that I somehow wrote 20 chapters in a year baffles me. I find it a miracle I didn't quit in the early chapters, but maybe it's not. Maybe just this once I can blame myself for something good and not credit the universe. Let's choose to see I did well, and the person I become in the future will do the best they can as well.

This was a ramble and more of a self-reflection than anything else, but we are all about self-positivity over here because shit is too hard not to be. I think anniversaries of any kind should be celebrated, not a time to critique yourself because you do it all year long anyways. Take a break, pat yourself on the back, and be kind to you and others.

[kanmom51]

I am just so confused by taekookers as a group. I just watched a taekook vlive analysis video because I'm always tryna make sure I'm not delulu in thinking something is going on with jikook. The vlive analysis I watched was the live jungkook did after jimin and jin turned the live off after jungkook wanted to join.

I was so confused that taekookers find this live iconic in the grand scheme of taekook because jikook is written all over that live. So I watched their analysis and I'm just here confused cause I saw nothing at all.

They tried to deduce taekook "clues " by twisting jin's words to imply taekook proof but even if I give them that, I just don't feel any sort of romantic energy between taekook. At all. I just don't get it. What do they see???

Even people who don't think jikook are a thing can OBVIOUSLY see the tension between jikook. But there's none with taekook. Are they just that good at hiding?? Taekookers pls enlighten my darkness cause I am lost.

In the analysis I watched they even tried to take tae's goofing around as something suggestive and I again was so confused.

I honestly think there's a level of emotional immaturity with a lot of taekookers and I'm not saying that to be mean. And a lot of their proof just comes from whatever interpretation the person analysing the video says.

I don't need to do that for jikook. I just need to watch any random piece of content with them in it. Nobody needs to analyze anything for me.

I'm starting to think it really is true that taekookers don't watch original content cause if they watched that whole vlive, taekook would be the last thing on their minds.

Sigh I'm over here baffled

Sigh I'm over here baffled

You brought a smile to my face anon. It's been a bit of a shit of a day here, so thank you.

The New Jersey Vlive a Taekook live, that's just the funniest thing I've heard in a while.

Do they not have eyes???

The way JK was with Tae, it's like "get the f**k out of here already dood..."

And Tae was like: "In you face mate, I know you want me out of here so I am not budging"...

This was all me verbalizing, but JK outright said: "when will you be leaving?"

I mean, isn't it obvious????

Yeah, JK really wanted to spend quality time with Tae here.

JK too polite to say yes...

But still, JK doesn't go wash up, he goes to stand behind Tae waiting for him to get the message and get the f**k out of there. You can see the thoughts going on in JK's head at that point...

This goes on for several minutes. Yes, you can feel the chemistry in the air (NOT).

Yes, Tae, he wants to tell you to piss off, but he won't do that on the live broadcast, now will he??

When I first saw this live I felt second hand embarrassment at this point. It was sooooo awkward.

Forget about the electricity between JK & JM, I'm not even talking about that, or JM telling us 1000 times he's leaving but actually waiting for everyone else to leave, so he can stay, the weird door bell ring with no one there (really???)...

How can you not see how uninterested JK was with Tae, all he wanted from him was to be out of there, and Tae knew it, and because he knew it he stayed.

[elizabethrobertajones]

Do you think they descibed the mixtape for this episode? I feel it would've worked even better if we actually had a scene of Dean giving Cas the mixtape and now I'm thinking did they only think if it rn and it was to late for the gifting scene or did they maybe cut it out and its gonna be a deleted scene?

No, it all happened too quickly unless there was going to be a ridiculous romantic flashback of it, because Cas comes back, Dean storms off, Cas follows and gives it to him, so he had to have already had it on him when he came through the door, which means he has to have had it since at LEAST 12x12 when we last saw Dean and Cas in the same space. I’m pretty sure it was meant to imply that at some point off screen since Dean n Cas knew each other (although likely in the last year) Dean had given Cas the mixtape, and it was the change in circumstances that made Cas give it back, and that was the first time we were supposed to know about it. Like, with the shock that this was something that HAD happened.

In a way it’s kind of forced character development if this WASN’T Dean and Cas would be a bit empty and a dick move to make us think they care - it’s the kind of shit Doctor Who pulled all the time that annoyed me where characters would pull out whole backstories they’d apparently known all along and SHARED or whatever but we only found out about them belatedly, often as emotional manipulation to make us more invested in whatever was going on, the kind of things where a casual viewer has to double check with the fan in the room if that was ever mentioned before or if it’s new or they’re filling in years of character history which necessarily has to change the dynamics but we never saw how it happened, they just tell us what’s new. I was always annoyed when they just pulled out stuff like oh yeah such and such happened in our past and we know all about it but we’re just telling you the audience about it in passing so you believe these characters care about each other now without us having to do work. (I’m sorry I can’t think of examples but bad writing tends not to stick for the very reason it’s trite and not deep enough to make me care because in this case it’s exactly where “show don’t tell” is an actually important mantra… I guess River Song’s intro is the most egregious example but it’s really not limited to her even if she was the embodiment of just telling us a character cared without needing to develop it, which no matter how deep it’s professed, is totally empty without OUR experience of it… As a writer I personally always want to focus on the moments that change and grow and bring people together or break them apart and the gaps in between are when things are normal, not when anything dramatic happens.) 

BUT in this case Dean n Cas have a deep complicated relationship and this is a good example of using a random artefact from their past to suddenly pull us in - even if that “past” is something that’s blatantly happened not just since we knew them but like, probably since Cas got that truck or whatever. Dean probably looked it over for him some other time at the start of the season and was like, cool, you have a tape deck, brb need to be a love fool, and went to make him the tape. It implies extra depth that they can’t show on screen and we already know, in AGONISING detail how much Dean and Cas love each other. 

The fact Dean made Cas a mixtape is surprising that Dean did it but doesn’t actually tell us anything new about Dean’s FEELINGS because basically at least half the length of the show now Dean has been clearly in love with Cas via the subtext and narrative stuff, so this is just telling us about how he’s been expressing these feelings lately and in this way the sudden introduction of something that already happened, retracting it before we even knew it had been offered in the first place, says so much in one moment it’s ridiculous. 

And it’s important it’s a small detail that changes nothing outwardly in the big plot episodes and how they act and that we can’t guess when Dean might have given it to Cas exactly except for “not any time this week”. 

It’s microscopic in the grand scheme of things - it’s no crypt scene or formal gesture that needs to have a grand stage to show us how it happened. It was just something cute Dean did for Cas which actually tells US all his feelings as burning away as usual but this is how he showed them at some point recently, and it shows Cas misses this cue that we’d even find out about the tape, because he didn’t understand the significance and tried to return it. If he knew what it meant he’d have played it until it was too scratchy and weird to listen to any more, but even knowing how much Dean cares about this stuff, I don’t think Cas gets that Dean gave him a bit of his heart when he did it. If Cas KNEW it was a bigger gesture that deserved a stage to be introduced, we’d have either seen that or they would have been leading a totally secret off-screen Destiel relationship that we know nothing about. Which is not, as Jensen says, how they act it. Dean had to give Cas that tape within the perameters of their existing awkward but caring relationship and for it NOT to change anything secretly behind the scenes, and yet we’re at a point where it’s plausible (if thrillingly exciting to discover) that Dean would give Cas a mixtape away from our eyes, just as part of the general day to day of how they live and how Dean cares about Cas, and telling us that probably Dean does other things on the small level of giving mixtapes that people do when they care for someone.

And so because it’s SO small fry that Cas doesn’t even understand that it was the hugest gesture Dean’s ever made in a turning up on his doorstep with flowers way like the subtext about it implies, and that means it’s easier to tell us he did it and betray Dean’s feelings to the audience via Cas’s misunderstanding, to drop it in as an aside of this is how Dean and Cas have been developing away from the camera. This is showing us there’s small cute moments, tender exchanges that probably have all the fan fic tropes we imagine of Dean, idk, gruffly shoving the tape at Cas? Shyly pushing it across the table one day pretending he didn’t? And is Cas baffled or immediately touched? Does he play it right away, or pocket it and forget until he’s on the road with Crowley and want something to drown out his endless talking? Did Dean give it to him TO help him drown out Crowley’s endless talking? Who knows? It’s never going to be answered, because in the grand scheme of things it’s a tiny little gesture. But between Dean and Cas it’s enormous, and for us to see how Dean feels… 

But yeah, the power is in that we don’t know how it happened, but it betrays and shows how things are between Dean and Cas away from the drama and the fighting demons and angels and panicking about end of the world situations and so on. In the quiet moments between episodes stuff like this happens. I mean, like, in 5x22 Chuck casually betrayed that Sam and Dean actually have downtime between episodes and do stuff like go to concerts and other normal human activities brothers do when they’re not hunting ghosts? And Cas especially has this massive disconnect from a normal life sort of feeling because he only drops by for plot episodes, he’s been in like 3 episodes where we see him doing anything even, like, human or hunter-y rather than dramatic angel-y. Cas doesn’t GET downtime on screen, in the way many episodes start and/or end on giving us a moment of Sam and Dean’s day-to-day life and how they occupy themselves between hunts. 

Cas doesn’t get that luxury, but we do know that OCCASIONALLY he can spend time with Sam and Dean off-camera, and especially this season, he HAS been. Maybe not much, but at the very least, we’ve had gaps and time skips and times when Cas has had the option to at least drop in, if not being taken home or following them back, and when Sam and Dean were gone in 12x09 he used their space without them in it, which I think was a first for Cas being alone in the Bunker. His inner domestic world is growing and we don’t know a LOT about it and they’re often adverse to showing it being connected to Dean, like how Cas was in Sam’s room in 12x07… But we know that Dean and Cas are close and WOULD be closer when they’re alone together… So this fills in a gap that has always existed, to imply that Dean and Cas are, well, gross and in love, even when we don’t see them, in those times when they’re alone together and things are quieter. 

I guess this is also a symbol of the off-screen Destiel we have never been able to definitively say happens and often felt like was deliberately not being shown or avoided being implied?