carry-on-wayward-blogger

[carry-on-wayward-blogger]

You are a superhero who gains temporary powers based off of the food you eat (for instance, hot salsa gives you fire powers). You’ve just come across the situation you’ve always dreaded: Having to eat your absolute least favorite food to stop your archnemesis.

[carry-on-wayward-blogger]

This is an appreciation post for the fanfic authors who aren’t included on rec lists

For the fanfic authors who don’t get art of their fics

For the fanfic authors who can’t get to 1000/500/100 hits

For the fanfic authors who don’t get comments/reviews

For the fanfic authors who write for small fandoms

For the fanfic authors who write rarepairs or gen fics

For the fanfic authors who get hate for the ships/characters/fandoms they write

For the fanfic authors who write in English despite it not being their first language

For the fanfic authors who don’t write in English

For the fanfic authors who don’t think anyone reads or likes their work

For the fanfic authors who aren’t big name fans

For the fanfic authors who don’t get requests in their inboxes

For the fanfic authors who can’t write stories that are more than a thousand words

For the fanfic authors who only write one ship

For the fanfic authors who are just starting

For the fanfic authors who have been writing fic for years

For the fanfic authors who use fanfic to practice writing

For the fanfic authors who write self-insert fics

For the fanfic authors who write about their OCs

For the fanfic authors who write to vent or cope

For the fanfic authors who are just waiting for their big break

Keep creating, I love you ❤️

[carry-on-wayward-blogger]

deancas coffee shop au: featuring dean’s terrible (yet successful) pickup lines

[carry-on-wayward-blogger]

baby bunnies sleeping in glasses

[carry-on-wayward-blogger]

insp.

[carry-on-wayward-blogger]

# Dean Winchester can’t even remember if his new beloved tv is a boy or a girl # no worries Dean # it happens to the best of us

[carry-on-wayward-blogger]

Scoobies and Djinns and Dean, oh my!

So all that talk about djinns and Cas made me think about the other times we had djinn on the show, especially 2x20 “What is and What Should Never Be” and 8x20, “Pac-Man Fever”. These two times we see the fake realities the djinn creates to trap Dean and Charlie respectively, and on the meta level these realities showed us (and the characters) a glimpse under the surface of what was going on inside their minds - mainly Dean. The first dream was Dean centered, and the other one was Dean centered by proxy. Both times Dean is faced with realization: to keep moving on with his life, he needs to let go of something (in 2x20 he needs to let go of his idea of the perfect family life where everyone is normal, happy and successful - everyone but him; in 9x20 he needs to let go of his need to protect Sam). 

Both times he decides to let it go, and by doing that he manages to break out of the dream, and get back to the reality. 

 Dude, I hear you. And yet…

Well, it is, isn’t it? It is not exactly a djinn dream, but it seems like all of the situations have A LOT in common.

This Scooby Doo episode is a CONSTRUCT, and it is tailor-made for Dean.

Why do I think so? First of all, the shoutouts to djinns and Gabriel (and a callback to the “bigger mouth” joke from “Changing Channels”), both of whom created their fake realities in ways that fit the boys personally. Gabriel adjusted the real-life television programs so that they go smoothly with the boys’ story and the djinn dream in “What Is and What Should Never Be” is made based on Dean’s dreams and insecurities. For me, the whole Scooby Doo story inside the story is more a thing shaped by Dean’s subconsciousness (or at least we should see it like that) that Sam and Cas got sucked into as guest visitors. It’s almost like being dragged into somebody else’s dream.

Do you remember when Dean hitched a ride into Charlie’s subconsciousness in “Pac-Man Fever”? He woke up in the computer game she often dreamt about, dressed as an army doctor, in full hospital uniform and heavily decorated. Why? Because that’s how Charlie saw him - as a skilled, dependable fighter, but also a guy who’s main job in life was to help people in need. Dean was still himself inside, as his whole consciousness was put into that dream, but his outside look and the role he played in her dream was dictated by her subconsciousness. In both cases, both in 2x20 and in 8x20, everyone else besides the self-aware people, were just pawns, fake background characters put there by the subconsciousness of the dreamer (or dreamers, as Charlie asks Dean in 8x20: “Is this my nightmare or yours?”) to make a point. In 2x20 Dean was still Dean, but his role in the dream (a guy with a low-level job, stealing, gambling, having a girlfriend having “low standards” for dating him), and every other person there, was dictated by his subconsciousness.

“Scoobynatural” is not a djinn dream, but the djinn dream rules seem to apply here.

So, why would the ghost kid decide to put an adult man of 39 into a tailor-made cartoon, you ask? Well, because the said man has only been mentioning kid’s stuff every five seconds since he stepped on screen in this episode: Moosylvania (the fictional country from “The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle“, the original moose and squirrel show), Barney, Bat Cave/Fortress of Solitude (comic book/superhero references) , and “Frozen”. Except the moment he enthusiastically starts humming “Sunrise” from Richard Strauss’ “Thus Spoke Zarathustra”, these are Dean’s only cultural references in the episode before the boys get sucked into the 2D-land.  

So, if this assumption is right, what does Dean’s subconsciousness tell us here? Let’s look how his psyche shaped the characters’ and their roles in the Scoobyland.

First of all, it puts them in “A Night of Fright is No Delight”, the episode that includes a character of Colonel Sanders (Asmodeus, anyone?).

Daphne is hotter and sexier than we remembered, which is completely understandable since Dean was watching Scooby Doo as a kid, and even the regular Daphne was probably considered crazy hot by the tween Dean. It’s understandable that his subconsciousness would make her much more adult-looking than she actually was on screen, in the same way our older siblings always seemed taller and more mature than they really were at the time.

Fred - the one guy who is everything Dean had always so desperately wanted to be. Cool, good-looking, optimistic, well-dressed, STRAIGHT, with groovy tunes and a fast car. Big, beautiful and dumb, the one who always runs head-first into the dangerous situation, no matter the consequence. His elaborate plans never work, but he still succeeds. In Dean’s mind Fred wins at life - he wins the car race, he gets the girl, he is the self-assured leader of the group. Dean wants to be him, but Dean also wants to be WITH him (but that’s a topic for another time).

Velma, Scooby and Shaggy are pretty regular, but the costruct has special roles for them - to be paired with just the right people.

Velma is infatuated with Sam from the very beginning, and Cas (the talking dog) is paired with Shaggy and Scooby right away - and please notice how it’s Scooby characters who approach them when the group splits, not the other way round; Sam doesn’t choose Velma - Velma just slides to Sam’s side, and in the same way Scooby and Shaggy are the only ones who even acknowledge that Cas exists). (Similarly, please notice how Daphne doesn’t seem to approach anyone from the TFW herself, and Fred magnetically approaches Dean every single time Daphne doesn’t seem to have any interest in him).

The Scooby characters are painfully two dimentional (no pun intended), and only seem to play their expected parts in this weird fanfiction (except for the moment when they get their nervous breakdown due the the fact that Dean stops performing, and starts being real about ghosts - and that’s also the time where the characters fall out of their expected roles). 

Three other elements get sucked into the Scoobyland alongside Dean - Sam, Cas and Baby. The three most important things in Dean’s life. The Impala looks sexy. Cas looks REALLY sexy. Cartoon Sam has a permanent bitchface looking at Dean. (This also calls back to 2x20, where Sam didn’t actually like Dean in his dream construct. Like, AT ALL.) As I said, some people in the construct are themselves and self-aware, but their outside visuals seem to be dictated by the dreamer/central person. 

You are telling me it’s not Dean’s subconsciousness speaking to us here?

As I said, Sam looks pretty much like regular Sam, but he is the only one who gets the attention of the girl who Dean most probably thinks the best suited for him: the smart, bookish one. Because that’s how Dean sees Sam: as the one who deserves attention, who is the smart one, the brains of the operation, who should get the kiss and the happy ending. In season 8, Dean says it in text (in a Dabb episode, no less, “Trial and Error”), that Sam should survive, should get a normal life, a wife and a way out. And where Dean failed to get interest of either Fred or Daphne - because even when he lets himself admit he actually does like Fred as well, his subconsciousness blocks his chances with either of them because he still doesn’t think he is good enough to be wanted by anyone (oh, Dean). (In the same way he questions why a cute, smart, and mature girl is dating him in the dream in 2x20, hearing that she she only does it because has low standards.) Daphne ignores him. Fred compliments him, but in the end leaves him as well, and goes off together with Daphne. 

Cas, as mentioned, looks devastatingly handsome (much more than usually, great job there Dean’s subconsciousness), and Dean can’t stop smiling when he shows up in the Scoobyland. 

It was the last missing piece of his perfect dream adventure. In Dean’s mind Cas is the talking dog of their group, and sure enough, from the moment he arrives he gets automatically approached and claimed by Scooby and Shaggy, bonding with them and showing his Superman side before the end of the case. Cas is not happy to be in the cartoon though, and here comes the ironic part of episode, and he whole season as well: by performing violently while chasing his unattainable goal of seducing Daphne, and at the same time seaching for approval from Fred, Dean alienated the one person who actually matters, who doesn’t care about the performance at all, who thinks the ghost’s costume is ridiculous. Not unlike in 13x06, Cas sees Dean really happy for reasons he is not a part of (or thinks he is not a part of because Dean is a coward), and fails to understand that in the end nothing else matters to Dean beside Cas (and his and only his attention and approval)(also, Dean ends the episode with losing exactly this).

Dean enjoys the Scoobyland, but he quickly learns that a) it’s not real life (obviously), and b) it doesn’t serve as his safe haven anymore.

Whatever makes Dean happy in the Scoobyland is just a childhood fantasy that he tries desperately to hold on to because otherwise he’d have to face the reality of who he really is, and the life he leads. In the end though he understands letting go (like Elsa, like the djinn dreams) is the way to go - he admits that ghosts are real, shattering the naivity and the innocence of the Scooby gang in the process, and he admits that Fred is not so bad after all, that he is not an enemy but an ally (or maybe even something more - the yang to Daphne’s yin, the metaphor for uniting the feminine and the masculine aspects in his life and his sexuality). And even though eventually TFW helps Velma and the gang to bounce back to their regular, pure selves, Dean is not backtracking after this - no, he comes back to the real world and follows through with the promise of liberating the ghost boy aka his own spirit of childhood while literally hammering the point home by smashing the tv and the Scoobyland to pieces.

This is only possible because Dean was ready to let it all go already. This was his last hurrah, his last bucket of cold water that he needed to realize that he has moved on from that childhood ideal of masculine men and hot girls, that he can admit he likes the stuff (and people) he likes without feeling ashamed, and that Fred actually is a kind of a douche and nothing much to aspire to (but he still likes him). That if he wants to like Elsa and wear ascots, he will just like Elsa and wear ascots. That being smart pays off because you find secret passages, that Freds plans never work while his own do, that being honest and sincere is always the right way to go.

In the end he admits it would never have worked out with Daphne anyway (don’t we all know it!)

Even during the story, everytime he turns away from chasing after Daphne, he turns back to Dean we know and love: the hug monster in his purple nightgown; the smart guy finding clues in the library; an excellent pep-talker; the competent hunter; the person who helps the ghost of the young boy find his peace.

Source

[carry-on-wayward-blogger]

Can you tell I am in love with “What has eight tentacles, and isn’t allowed to eat pie?” YEs you can tell. This was a warm up that turned drawing to put in my portfolio that turned… octopuses. Oh well. 

You can find the fic from the amazing Annie D here (X) 

[carry-on-wayward-blogger]

RIP

[carry-on-wayward-blogger]

Thoughts about Spn 13x16

SPOILERS! SPOILERS! SPOILERS!

Ok, alright… I HAVE A LOT OF FEELINGS ABOUT THIS! As a Dean-girl I feel emotional attacked… in a groovy way, but nevertheless attacked. Even though this episode wasn’t written by our usual suspects I feel like they spent a lot time in the Dean meta section of tumblr.com. Of course, given that the episode was written a year in advance it doesn’t add a lot to the ongoing mytharc (except that Cas has the fruit from the tree of life and is married now… wtf?), but it was a great character piece. And unlike the brothers I do love the meta episodes, so there is that.

So let’s have a closer look.

(I usually write my episode reviews using a transcript for the episode, but there isn’t one online yet, so I probably forget half the things I want to talk about)

The loss of innocence

To me that was the major theme of the episode. Because to Dean Scooby Doo represents his childhood, and a world where, unlike the real world, the monsters were not real. I remember seeing this show as a child, and how Velma always was my favourite character, because she always tried to solve the mystery with logic. The fact that the monsters were never real but just bad guys in masks was always a relief for me. But imagine Dean watching this show, Dean who knows better, and wishes this could be his reality. And then there is the fact that no matter where they were Scooby Doo was always on the TV, one of the few constants in Dean’s life at the time. Dean’s love for television is based on this, that every crappy motel had a TV, showing the same shows and movies all over again, creating a safe place for him.

Therefore it is no surprise that Dean doesn’t want the Scooby gang to learn the truth about monsters. He wants them to remain pure, to let them live in the ignorance he never had as a child. The real world of course is catching up on them, as this Scooby Doo is created by a child who is trapped in his own horror story. Suddenly they are real bodies, real injuries (Shaggy breaks his arm) and we get a sexed up Daphne. At first however the Scooby gang ignores what is going on; they seem to be unaffected by the bodies. And I think it is because they are not part of their story. Scooby Doo is made for children; the horrors of the real world have no place in there. When they do learn the truth however it immediately leads them to an existential crisis, where they suddenly start to question everything. They are not made for the real world. And I’m glad that by the end of the episode Sam, Dean and Cas convince them they have been right all along: monsters are not real. (Though I would love to see some fan art of the Scooby gang as hunters)

From a meta point of view I think the episode made a comment about reality and truth. The Scooby gang couldn’t handle the reality and truth of our world (or you know the Supernatural world). They were not made to fight real monsters. In the same way Sam and Dean couldn’t hide in the innocent world of Scooby Doo. They are not made for that either, and the horrors of their world follow them. As this season is all about different worlds and portals to them this is a warning not to meddle with them. Billie warned Dean about the consequences it would have to the universe. We already saw last season the traumatic effect it had on Mary to be brought back; she is a woman out of her time, and the choices she made because of it had horrible consequences. I’m sure that by the end of the season we will have characters from other universe in our main universe, screwing up the balance of the entire universe. Different realities means a different set of rules after all.

Fanboy Dean

Dean has seen every episode of Scooby Doo, multiple times, and even years later he knows all the titles… Basically Dean’s relationship to Scooby Doo is our relationship to Supernatural… ahem. (Does he write meta though? Fanfic? I need answers) He also has some strong opinions on Daphne and Fred. And look, Dean hitting on Daphne was a bit much, but I wouldn’t give it too much credit. For one thing this episode wasn’t written by our writers and second, just as everything else regarding Scooby Doo, I think Dean’s affection for Daphne is innocent. She had been his (animated) childhood crush, and that is the way I see his interactions with her. What is more interesting to me is his dislike for Fred because… Fred is too perfect? All I’m saying is that I used to dislike female characters, especially love interests, as well, seeing them as stupid Mary Sues, until I had my bi awaking and realized I had giant crushes on them instead (it is a better way to watch things, trust me). In the end Dean accepts that Fred isn’t that bad after all, and his little ascot in the end is to me a reference to both Daphne and Fred. Also, the mentioning of the Cartwright twins…. don’t know if he meant the twins he had sex with in 3x01 with that (there was also a Scooby Doo reference in that episode), but there is a lot of meta out there wondering if the twins back then had been a man and a woman. Given all the Dean/Daphne/Fred subtext I think the mentioning of the threesome Dean once had is deliberate. (Then again the whole “boys and girls sleep in separated rooms” was pretty gay if you ask me)

I also loved Velma and Sam, and that in the end Sam was the one getting a kiss. And that Cas made new friends (if Sam ever gets a dog Cas will now fully support him, just saying). Speaking of Cas, I love that technically that didn’t have to include him in the episode, but they did anyway. You know, as the third lead and all *coughs* Also his entry might be my second favourite after 4x01.

Some other things:

- Between Dean referencing “Frozen” and wearing a night gown I love how he officially no longer gives a fuck. Let it go indeed.

- The Dean cave: How come it took him five years to create this room? I still love it however, though it needs a sofa.

- I love that the villain in the end was an unscrupulous real estate developer.

- And of course the Gabriel reference. Seeing how this episode was written a year in advance I wonder if they took the idea from bringing Gabriel back from here? Could be.

Overall I really liked this episode, the meta nature of it and of course Dean, living his dream.

[carry-on-wayward-blogger]

Dean literally deserves to feel like he’s wrapped in hugs and like he can enjoy it every moment of every day, forever

[carry-on-wayward-blogger]

Rebel without a cause, anyone?

I am a huge James Dean fan & a huge fan of the movie “Rebel without a cause” for many reasons (Jimmy only being one of them).

You know, the movie from the 50s? That’s about emancipation and breaking free. The movie that’s rife with queer undertones and subtext, had a queer cast & crew (Sal Mineo, James Dean, director Nicholas Ray…) and “is bathed in a gorgeously gay, Cinemascopic light”?

“Rebel actually offers a very interesting examination of masculinity that was perhaps ahead of its time. Without a strong male role model, Jim feels inadequate and flies off the handle whenever he gets called a “chicken” — that is, when anyone questions his masculinity.“

(source)

Why am I talking about this? Well, because THIS scene from 13x16 rang a big bell:

Why, you ask? Because of the famous “chicken-run” drag race that went down in Rebel. But let’s not go there, yet. Let’s take a look at the events that lead to the chicken-run in the movie.

Okay, so we have Jim Stark (“the new guy”) on the left and we have “Mr Pompous” Buzz Gunderson on the right. To break it down, there is a bit of an “antagonist to lovers” trope going on here:

This fight scene eventually leads to Buzz challenging Jim to a drag race:

Jim:       Where can we meet? Buzz:     Know the Millertown bluff? Cookie: The bluff, Buzz! That’s dangerous up there. Buzz:     Draw him a picture, Chicken Little. Eight o'clock. Cookie, you call                  Moose and get a couple cars. We’re going to have us some real              kicks. Little chickie-run. You been on chickie-runs before? Jim:       Sure - that’s all I do.

(nevermind that we have a Moose here) Cut to the night of the race. Here comes the “… to lovers” – it’s beautiful, just watch this wonderful kiss by proxy:

(source)

Oh, the UST… Not complete without the dialogue:

Two shot. JIM and BUZZ. JIM is staring below. He is beginning to perspire. He lights a cigarette. Without taking his hand from JIM’s shoulder, BUZZ borrows the cigarette from his lips, takes a drag and hands it back. JIM takes another puff then tosses it into the abyss.

Buzz: (quietly) This is the edge, boy. This is the end. Jim:    Yeah Buzz:  I like you, you know? Jim:    Buzz?  What are we doing this for? Buzz: (still quiet) We got to do something. Don’t we? 

Long shot. JIM and BUZZ with PLATO in f.g. JIM and BUZZ appear to him as two close friends. Suddenly they break and go, without speaking further, to their cars. They back up to the opposite end of the plateau, headlights dark.  PLATO follows them with his gaze.

(Sidebar: I can never read or hear the word “gaze” platonically because of this:)

I am really holding myself back here because there is so much in this movie. But I am just gonna throw some more stuff at you and let you make up your own mind:

Judy (the girl in green) is Buzz’ girlfriend (look at that beautiful ascot) but there is also a little something between Jim & Judy (which grows as the movie continues):

But we all know, the real love story is between the two of them:

“Plato is obviously gay. Inarguably one of the most blatant homosexual characterizations of the Hays era, the Motion Picture Production Code office made sure to send a memo to Warner Bros. head Jack Warner, warning him against “inference of a questionable or homosexual relationship between Plato and Jim.”

(source)

Just do yourselves a favour and google “Sal Mineo and James Dean”… *sigh*

Anyway, I am digressing. There are also COLOURS (just focusing on those that screamed “13x16!” at me, immediately:

(and mind you: a lot of the gay stuff is happening at that planetarium)

I conclude: Yes, 13x16 did indeed have a lot of queer subtext.

(rebel screenshots, rebel script)

@postmodernmulticoloredcloak @deletingpoint @dimples-of-discontent @naruhearts @sactownbrowns3 @elizabethrobertajones @mittensmorgul @bluestar86 @tinkdw @margarittet @weathergirl83 @amwritingmeta @magnificent-winged-beast @thejabberwock and whoever else wants to read and comment :)

[carry-on-wayward-blogger]

[carry-on-wayward-blogger]

Dean Winchester  I It’s a Terrible Life I  4x17

[carry-on-wayward-blogger]

[carry-on-wayward-blogger]

Hi! I'm not sure if you are aware but the Cartwright Twins are a baseball team in Manitoba (Asa Fox's neck of the woods) and considering all the baseball references recently what d'you reckon? Did Dean get wild with the team while they were up that way??

are you imply the coolest thing that ever happened to Dean was getting fucked by an entire baseball team from Manitoba?

[carry-on-wayward-blogger]

13x16: Performing!Dean v Repressed!Dean

Performing!Dean:

Repressed!Dean:

I know who I prefer (hint, he’s sweet, kind, wuvs hugs, pop music, Disney movies and is a bit of an awkward cute flirter, not a creeper) and this episode hammered this home as who the GA should be rooting for in such a brilliant and clear way, paving the way for Dean to totally let go of the performance, I loved it.

Dean spent the whole episode facing his childhood traumas and heroes, it all came together to show us so much of who Dean is, that yes he was actually creepily insistent but Daphne didn’t give a crap because she kept running after Fred, that Dean found Fred irritatingly perfect just as Velma mirrored him with Sam (because Dean has a childhood crush on Daphne and Fred and was made to feel the crush on Fred was bad so he got all angry about it whereas the crush on Daphne was good so he went all charicaturishly over the top about it.

This is the EPITOME of:

Repressed!Dean = interactions with Fred Performing!Dean = interactions with Daphne

And what happens in the end? The audience is like wow Performing!Dean is an annoying douche with how he was with Daphne and she was right to blow him off and Repressed!Dean was pretty cool, Dean and Fred got along well in the end once Dean let go of his nonsensical hang ups about him!

Dean gets to like Fred, gives him a nickname (pfff) and accepts him, meanwhile Daphne is totally non plussed and waltzes away from him because she didn’t particularly like or was in any way impressed by this Performing!Dean, she prefers Fred, who in turn is such a huge metaphor in this episode for a lot of who Dean really is and Dean even visually LOOKS like Fred in the end with the ascot, I mean…

This was all about Performing!Dean and who the audience should be rooting for!

Hint: IT’S NOT PERFORMING!DEAN… It’s who Dean really is beyond this.

It’s about furthering the already massively established theme of character growth, self acceptance, letting go of the sublimation and repression that he outright stated he has done his whole life and was “kinda his thing” in 12x05 for the GA to take note of as the starting jumping off point and has been continuously addressed and broken down since through:

- standing up to his mother, the catalyst for all this, and telling her he deserves more in 12x14, starting to believe that he really does deserve better and the person who deserves more is not his performance but him, who he truly is deep down

- then telling her the truth about his upbringing in 12x22 alongside using the grenade launcher to literally break down the walls holding him in, this being such a huge metaphorical start of bringing down Performing!Dean that we yelled about it all summer

- continuing into him being so much more open with Sam about his grief at the beginning of the season in contrast to season 7 let’s say re: Cas’ death and now it affected him

- then not giving two shits about letting Sam know he loves cowboys and yes totally has a really expensive hat bag for his hat etc

- that he has to be under a spell to say he loves Dory in 12x11 (pre the 12x14/22 Mary facing catalyst to starting to accept himself) but by 13x16 he openly quotes ELSA. ELSA who is so linked to LGBT representation and metaphors of queer coming out of a closet I can’t EVEN.

Dean… let it go man… let it go… That’s basically what this Dean x Daphne x Fred stuff was all about. By the end of the episode Dean had let go of his childhood hang ups about Fred. THIS WAS THE POINT.

=> This episode showed that Repressed!Dean, the Dean that he has sublimated so much in the past, is actually a pretty cool guy and in the end Dean really likes him (and the audience like him, no-one sane looks at Dean and Fred interact in this episode with Daphne and thinks that Daphne would do better with the one who keeps creeping on her, not taking no for an answer over the one who is respectful and nice to her). Fred is a really nice dude, and Performing!Dean is actually a bit of a douche and clearly not who Dean really is and that doesn’t get him what he wants, because yes Daphne is hot but she’s vacuous and totally not interested, Dean’s fine letting her go in the end and she actually ironically wants Real!Dean in the form of FRED.

Because Repressed!Dean is who the audience should like not Performing!Dean.

This is who the audience is supposed to be rooting for, for him to finally LET IT GO and be his true self because that Dean is so much BETTER than the fake him he performs as to hide it.

This is just part of all of this, getting the GA to see bit by bit who Dean really is and wanting to see more, like hey, Dean loves Disney movies that’s cool! I love that he now says this outright to Sam with no shame whereas last season he needed the nudge of the the spell to admit it (and he totally hid from Sam that he wanted to ride Larry), back in season 1 he was so embarrassed when Sam called him out for watching Oprah, like, I NEED Dean to mention something like wanting to go ride another bull or watching Oprah now and not giving two shits about Sam’s quick look of ‘what?’ and just going for it because that’s what he wants. Bonus points if Cas also likes Oprah (given he watched reality  tv in canon) so he clearly has no shits to give about Dean’s choices and in fact enjoys many of the same things as repressed!Dean so, great, and Sam just shrugs and moves on because Sam isn’t a douche he just doesn’t know because he fell for the performance for so long, he just needs to readjust his perceptions of Dean but he doesn’t really care either way as long as he’s happy!

Meanwhile don’t even get me started on the one person who can so nearly see beyond the performance, Cas, looking deeply into the ghost’s form and being the one who can so nearly see what’s really going on below, but keeps getting dragged away (like he does in the show by all the situations dragging him away all the time). URGH.

IMO that was the point of all this Dean / Daphne / Fred dynamic, not getting hung up on incorrect semantics about age or whatever. It’s this furthering of already established meta by an author who has stated that he loves SPN and didn’t need to watch anything more to write his ep because he knows it all already :

As an author I’m 100% sure has picked up on ALL the meta points we do because well they’re BLATANT even to us let alone someone in the trade and he worked them into his story PERFECTLY.

The Dean / Daphne / Fred triangle was funny but it was also SO TELLING for all the performing!Dean meta established since the pilot but coming out as blatantly about to come to a climax and be subverted soon after such huge build up in Dabb era.

It’s GENIUS.