deanismymirror

[deanismymirror]

On the subject about parents needing to control their child's reading and invade their privacy in order to "protect" them from "inappropriate material:

Until I was in....college? At least? The vast, vast majority of the books I read were either a) assigned by my school or b) (the vast majority of my reading) provided to me by my mother.

My mom is a librarian. She filled our rooms with books, picked especially for us. She pointed out books on the shelves in our home library (separate from our bedroom shelves) that she thought we would like. She bought us books for birthdays, Christmas, and just stacks of recommendations. She once paid me $10 to read one of the Cirque Du Freak books because she said I needed "to be exposed to bad literature."

She respected my privacy in room, didn't go through my belongings. She explicitly pointed out to us that she wouldn't know if we took a particular book of the shelf, as long as we returned it, if we didn't want her to know we were reading it. She purposely brought us books that she didn't care for herself, because she thought we might find them valuable or enjoyable.

And if we wanted to read something she thought might upset or disturb us, she would explain why. She wouldn't stop us from reading it - just ask us to check in with her, to talk through it.

And so when I read something that upset or disturbed me, I would go to her. She would listen and talk through it with me.

If she said she didn't think I would like something, or that a book might disturb me, or that she thought I should wait until I was older, I listened to her.

She didn't need restrictions or control to protect me. Because she proved I could trust her.

Controlling kids is never about "protecting" them. It's just about control.

[deanismymirror]

I think Cas has a panty kink but only because Dean has a panty kink and Cas' real kink is Dean being vulnerable enough in front of him to indulge in the things he wants

[deanismymirror]

tbh even if i didnt ship destiel, the genuine homoerotic tension between cas shoving dean into a wall and covering his mouth, and dean literally, physically softening (watch the scene dude) and giving a little nod and putting his full trust into cas is insane. like that’s some crazy fucking work im sorry

[deanismymirror]

i was thinking the other day how we tend to draw cas and dean (correctly tbh) like

but in doing so we are betraying another fundamental dynamic of theirs which is more like,

[deanismymirror]

“There was only one bed”

Bonus:

[deanismymirror]

The ending of s15 ep18 being completely silent except for the sounds of Dean crying alone in the dungeon is SO gut wrenchingly awful. Literal psychological warfare.

[deanismymirror]

season 4 dean is so funny because my boy has seen one pretty man (angel but thats semantics) and it makes him question his sexuality so hard he overcompensates like crazy😭

not one episode we go without him mentioning porn in one shape or form, it gets to a point where sam has to tell him to tone it down repeatedly throughout multiple episodes🤕 just embarrassing for him truly

but also... can we blame him? if a pretty dude with blue eyes started telling me how he saved me from literal hell because good things happen and that he sees me, etc??? it would also sent me into a crisis and im aware of my bisexuality!!

[deanismymirror]

my ass could not be in the van der linde gang. dutch would kill me immediately for trying to get molly to leave him for me.

[deanismymirror]

If you're having a private phone conversation with the phone off your ear, no headphones, and the speaker on in public, that's a public conversation now. That's an open invite, and I'm going to chime in if I have an opinion. This is now OUR disagreement about your boyfriend's spending habits.

[deanismymirror]

in a fair world Arthur Morgan would be living his dad life and John Marston would be living his whore life

[deanismymirror]

I know some people were salty about Bilbo in the Hobbit movies not wearing the same thing that Ian Holm Bilbo is wearing in the prologue scene of Fellowship, and I hear you. That kind of attention to detail is always wonderful. And I know some people think the explanation that since the voice over is done by Galadriel, she probably just didn't know what he was wearing is a copout.

However...I do enjoy picturing everyone sitting around listening to Galadriel tell the story, and Bilbo starts tugging on Elrond's sleeve and whispering to him like

"Elrond...Elrond...that's not what I was wearing that day."

(being patient with the elderly) "It's okay, Bilbo."

"I didn't even own that waistcoat yet."

(getting exasperated) "It really doesn't matter, it's fine."

"It's not fine. It's wrong. Tell her she got it wrong, Elrond."

(questioning his life choices) "I'm not going to do that, Bilbo."

"Why not?"

"BECAUSE SHE'S MY MOTHER-IN-LAW."

[deanismymirror]

they did *NOT* have to go breaking our hearts with the details of Fili, Kili and Thorins deaths 😭😭✋🏻

I never read the hobbit, but I HAVE read lotr and the silmarillion, but I just learned that the battle of the five armies, that part they made a WHOLE movie out of, is only 1 page in the book because bilbo gets hit by a rock and wakes up when it’s over. 10/10 no notes, that should have been the movie too

[deanismymirror]

According to the script and deleted scenes of 4x1 Lazarus Rising, the very first time Dean meets Cas, he'd already make improper jokes about being a womanizer.

This is in both the original screenplay and the deleted scene:

Castiel: Finding a human vessel durable enough to contain me... it's not easy. Dean: I have that same problem with women.

AND THEY CUT IT OUT.

The whole deleted act in 4x1 is basically to cut this out.

They reshoot the whole last scene, just so Dean DOESN'T say that sentence, that witty comment.

I wonder if they did it because they realized, immediately after Jensen and Misha start working together, looking at each other's eyes so intently, Dean and Cas just can't look away from each other -- there is no way Dean can keep up flirting and making light jokes about females at that moment. That's the moment they realize, holy moly Dean is falling, and Cas is falling, and the joke is just not gonna work, and Dean is not going to be able to think about any woman when Cas is there.

They KNOW there is something going on between Dean and Cas, very likely purely because of Jensen and Misha, that the chemistry is there, the bond is there, the LOVE is RIGHT THERE.

The writers and editors and directors and producers, all the staff working on it before the final cut is out, everyone in the room, THEY KNOW, EVER SINCE THEY FIRST MET. BECAUSE IT'S TRUE.

They fall for each other right from the beginning.

[deanismymirror]

sam: so get this

meanwhile dean and castiel background plot:

[deanismymirror]

Phenomenal observation, I love this theory..literally makes sense of why it feels like the shows come so far and changed so much but still continues to work as a storyline in whole

Not the finale, but can you talk about what you mean with Supernatural being basically three seperate shows?

Phase 1 (Seasons 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 )

Eric Kripke Does Star Wars. It's a Joseph Campbell-style Hero's Journey. And it's effective. I mean, the Hero's Journey formula *works.* It's nice to see the world open up, see the hero increase his powers and knowledge. Tonally, it's going for sort of exaggerated Stephen King-esque horror, or modern Western.

Thematically, this is a story about Personal Choice vs Dictated Roles. (I mean. "Team Free Will," the heavy motif of possession, the anti-possession symbol that doubles as the logo of the show...) The characters are trying to throw off the identities given to them by their various parental figures - God the father, John the father - and by end of this part of the show, they do.

Phase 2 (Seasons 6, 8, 9, 10, 11)

(not 7, I'll get to it)

The Gang Goes to Therapy. The characters go from dealing with external problems to problems inside their own heads. Almost every *issue* during this period is just... one of the main characters. Soulless!Sam, Wall!Sam, Hallucifer!Sam, Trials!Sam, Gadreel!Sam. Purgatory!Dean, Mark of Cain!Dean, Demon!Dean, God!Castiel, Insane!Castiel, Human!Castiel, Grace Vampire!Castiel, Brainwashed!Castiel, Lucifer!Castiel... Villains who aren't *literally* our main characters are metaphysically tied to them in that gothic, Doctor Jekyll/Mr. Hyde sort of way. Structurally, the show isn't about the plot anymore. (Like... the plot of these seasons is just that Heaven and Hell have civil wars, but no one is able to grab enough power to meaningfully change anything.)

The show digs into what *exactly* is wrong with each of these characters, and the toxic relationships they have with each other. Then they start the long, messy work of healing. I cannot think of another show that focuses on that, not to this degree. Season 11 ends with Dean symbolically confronting his Id/Anima for the first time - and the Creator and Destroyer gods of the universe set the world back into balance.

Because it goes in a more gothic/noir direction, and because it is SO focused on character, this part of the show gets a lot more morally grey. And weirder. People who don't like this period use words like "messy" and "repetitive" and "unstructured," and that isn't quite fair. Sam and Dean aren't cowboys anymore. They're noir detectives - so you have to watch these seasons like a more slowly paced psychological neo-noir. You do that, and it's honestly my favorite show.

Phase 3 (Seasons 12, 13, 14, 15)

The Jack Show. Sam, Dean and Cas deal with a pregnancy - then a kid - and learn how to be good parents and authority figures. (Like, Jensen Ackles is in his 40s now, you can't write the same kinds of stories for him that you could when he was in his twenties.) Coming from a show that has always been interested in exploring the psychological complexities of bad parents - this is a really responsible direction, honestly.

Dean is worried about becoming his father (which is why he gets possessed by Michael, who has always been symbolically linked with John.) Sam is more interested in becoming a responsible *leader* who does not self-destruct, and Cas gets this coming-out-later-in-life / queer kid storyline. And Mary is here of course, because in order to be a responsible authority, you can't idealize authority. The show becomes a lot less angsty, as Sam and Dean are written more and more as mentors for the younger characters. Any backsliding they do is treated as a problem, not business-as-usual. Tonally, Phase 3 gets *bigger* than Phase 2. More operatic.

Phase 3 also gets more of a plot. We get a lot of status-quo changing worldbuilding with factions like the witch covens, the British Men of Letters, the American Hunters, and the alternate universes. The *president* is a character now. Heavy-hitters like Michael, Lucifer, and Chuck are back. Sam and Dean go up against 'nothing you do matters' toxic authority one last time - and they win because they did a damn good job raising Jack.

Season 7... feels wrong because it's a Phase 3 storyline stuck in the middle of Phase 2. It's campier and sillier than the seasons surrounding it, and it's about a large-scale societal villain, not a personal, internal one. Season 12 hit a lot of the same beats much better using the British Men of Letters (who are also way more fun as villains.) The Phase 2 style aspects of Season 7 - Bobby's insecurity and struggle with becoming obsolete, Sam's mental battle with his own inner darkness - feel really out of place next to a main villain literally named Dick who wants to poison MacDonalds happy meals.

[deanismymirror]

also an insanely underrated aspect of sam's character is that he was pre-law with a ideal lsat score for getting into a top law school. just because it is so obvious that he's pre-law. my qualifications for saying this is that i grew up around pre-law students and law school hopefuls and i worked with a lot of them extensively in mock trial settings and also i dated one + had an almost-situationship homoerotic friendship with another one. okay. anyway.

do you know know how vicious law students are. law students are some of the most ruthlessly intelligent and egotistic bastards you will ever meet. they're polite and charismatic in public, don't get me wrong, but they're also, like. mean. smart mean. you have to have utter confidence in yourself to survive law. utter confidence in your own intelligence and your own arguments and you have to be a stubborn, ruthless son of a bitch to succeed, because you're going to be in the courtroom with a guy who is just as smart as you, just as mean as you, and you need to defend yourself and your client to a judge that has done this whole attorney thing already and is probably smarter and meaner than both of you combined. it's the kind of field that self-selects for people with an ego and the brain to back it up, because in order to do well, you can't falter.

and sam winchester did well! it's clear that guy has teeth under all his soft smiles and gentle words and good-cop persona because we get to see all his flashes of anger, all his bull-headed moments, but frankly as soon as they said "pre-law with a 174 on the lsat" in the pilot i just Knew.

[deanismymirror]

Cas wiped Lisa and Ben’s mind of all memories of Dean and then inserted himself into the role of loving wife and made sure Dean was involved in raising Claire and Jack. Dude was sly as hell