swordofsun

[swordofsun]

today is a beautiful day to think about cas telling sam he finds the sound of his voice grating

[swordofsun]

I love the building of suspense in the Demeter entries. How we start off with such short mundane blips and each entry becomes more detailed and intense.

There is something on the ship. The crew is irritable. One of the crew is missing. Olgaren sees a strange man aboard, but he disappears. There is nothing to find. There is nowhere to hide. But something is off.

It’s such a chilling way to present the haunting effect Dracula has, and it gets me every year

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I wish depression were an emergency. I wish someone could take one look at how sick I am and go “oh my god, we need to get you to a hospital!” and then when we get there I get rushed into surgery and the surgeons say “it’s a good thing you brought her here when you did, this is a seriously advanced case” and then they put me under and spend the next ten hours pulling metres of long, sticky black strands of gunk out of my body, throwing it immediately into an incinerator so that it can’t infect anyone else. And then they could stitch me back up and I could rest a few days, and when I leave the hospital everyone can see how much better I am and they congratulate me saying “well done, you’ve been so brave, I’m so glad you’re ok. I love you.”

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Wheel of time is so important representation wise for the entire fantasy genre for women and queers.

I mean, there are so many (!) female characters of different ages, sexualities and ethnicities, each with their own personalities and agencies, which are not determined by the just named factores, but are rooted in their actual characters and stories. None of them are male-gaze sexualized by their costumes, just for the sake of generating pleasure while watching. Instead, their costumes really match their function, background etc and CAN therefore occasionally be hot. But never just sexy/ sexualized. And may I point out, that with Lanfear we only have one classical femme fatale in a set of powerful women?

Generally speaking, the female/ queer characters feel just so natural and three dimensional and organically fitted into the story and character constellations, that I really realise how ROBBED we are usually in most flat fantasy serieses. Serieses in which the few female/ queer characters are so highlighted and sexualized and therefore isolated, that they always feel wrong.

So thanks to Wheel of Time for introducing a diverse set of women and queers not with a special unnatural focus, but just embedding them so beautifully into the story and the world.

And of course showing these characters in platonic relationships/ in intimate situations whre romance is not the main topic of the conversations. That is so important.

[swordofsun]

You really just can't unsee it once you see it though, can you?

Sam starts blaming Dean for what he's going to do (work with Ruby) way back in 3.09 because Dean isn't going to be around to be Sam's mommy, which is going to force Sam's hand.

After Dean comes back, Sam actually blames Dean for him working with Ruby by saying Dean wasn't there to protect him (4.04).

Dean repeatedly begs Sam not to work with Ruby and is ignored repeatedly (3.03, 3.04, 3.09, 3.16, 4.01-4.04, 4.12-4.22).

After telling Dean to open up to him and trust him (4.08), Sam calls Dean weak and pathetic for being traumatized by hell and says Dean is holding him back and therefore deserves to be lied to because he can't be of use (4.14) Sam says it's not what he really thinks when they both know it is (and Sam repeats it to other characters in 4.16, and 4.18) and then he admits it's the truth again to Dean's face in 4.21.

Sam accuses Dean of not trusting him enough (4.21).

Bobby blows up at Dean for not supporting Sam enough and calls him a pansy after Sam strangled Dean near unconscious, and tells him family is supposed to make you miserable (4.22).

Dean tries to reach out to Sam and Zachariah and Cas actively prevent him from doing so (Cas only at first) (4.22)

Zachariah (5.01) and Cas (5.02) both tell Dean the apocalypse is his fault because Dean didn't reach Sam in time to stop him from killing Lilith.

Dean says Sam hurt him, Sam is the one Dean depended on the most and Sam hurt him in ways he can't even voice (5.01). Sam apologizes, but then in the very next episode, shoves Dean into a wall for not trusting him like Dean is crazy and irrational when Sam doesn't even trust himself (5.02).

Sam says he thinks they should go their separate ways and is shocked when Dean agrees easily. Dean says that he spends more time worrying about Sam than he does doing the job right and time apart would be good. Sam reiterates that he's sorry and Dean gently says he knows Sam is (5.02).

Cas asks Dean if he's okay even without his brother, and Dean says "Especially without my brother. I mean, I spent so much time worrying about the son of a bitch. I mean, I’ve had more fun with you in the past twenty-four hours than I’ve had with Sam in years, and you’re not that much fun. It’s funny, you know, I’ve been so chained to my family, but now that I’m alone, hell, I’m happy." (5.03)

Sam says he wants back in. Dean objects, on the basis that he thinks they're stronger apart. Dean says they're each other's weaknesses and it's being used against them (5.04, but the weakness line is repeated from 3.03 and 3.16).

Zachariah pushes Dean into a future 2014 where Dean never met up with Sam again, and as a result, Sam said "Yes" to Lucifer, and billions of people died. All because Dean didn't want to be around Sam after being hurt and never reconnected with him (5.04).

Dean reconnects with Sam (5.04) even though he clearly doesn't want to, because the first case we see them on again, Dean struggles to trust Sam and leaves to go drink alone because he doesn't want to be around Sam (5.05).

Sam says part of the reason he went off with Ruby was to get away from Dean, because Dean is smothering. Dean is the problem in the relationship, because Sam feels inferior compared to him. Dean apologizes for being too smothering (5.05).

What does all of this tell you? Dean can't win. Dean will always be the bad guy in the family. He loves too much, or he isn't loving enough. Sam needs him and Dean wasn't there for him and so Sam went down the wrong path, but also Dean is smothering and Dean being smothering is the reason Sam went down the wrong path. Sam is not a trustworthy person, but Dean doesn't trust him enough. Sam not being trustworthy is Dean's fault. Dean doesn't deserve trust, but Sam deserves Dean's trust no matter what and not giving Sam his trust is the worst possible thing in the entire world and also again makes him smothering. The apocalypse is Dean's fault. Every single thing Sam does every single mistake he might ever make in his life is always at least partly Dean's fault and Dean's responsibility.

[swordofsun]

i used to love sam's "i'm a whole new level of freak" speech but now i want to wring his neck about it. dean spends all of s2 (unconvincingly) telling sam that he's not a freak and that there's nothing wrong with him and that he is fundamentally good but if something happens, they'll deal with it. (ultimately, i don't think this was helpful or what sam needed to hear at the time but that's not relevant at the moment).

then they kill azazel and sam's psychic powers essentially go away. it's not a problem anymore. it's not a thing they have to worry about. it's not an issue.

then dean dies and sam loses it and ruby shows back up and offers sam revenge in the form of killing lilith. it does require him to drink demon blood and basically reactivate his powers though. but sam doesn't care. he wants revenge. he wants lilith dead. the ends justifies the means, etc.

but then dean comes back and sam lies about what he's doing (because he knows it's wrong) and dean only finds out because an angel of the lord who rescued him from hell alerts him to it and says sam needs to be stopped.

then sam gives his little speech about how he has a disease running through him and he can never get rid of it and dean is so awful for treating sam like he might be dangerous. but. like. none of those things are true, really. those powers weren't running through sam when he decided to start drinking demon blood. that wasn't about sam trying to find something good in the bad. it was about vengeance, baby! and dean's "judgement" of sam isn't about sam's psychic powers. it's about sam's actions. and still. and still dean apologizes and asks sam to open up, to explain, and sam refuses.

and then gets mad that dean doesn't open up about his hell trauma.

and then dean does open up about his hell trauma and sam kinda just grimaces (hilarious of him because honestly what could he possibly say to make it better).

and amidst all this, dean apologizes to ruby for being a dick and thanks her for saving sam's life and being there for him.

and like. this is all so good and so crunchy and interesting. but somehow fandom has boiled it down to dean hates monsters and thinks sam's an abomination even though sam is doing the morally right thing by drinking demon blood and i just!!!!!

[swordofsun]

I still think that my favorite urban legend/folklore fact is that there are certain areas in New Orleans where you cannot get a taxi late at night not because it isn’t safe, but because taxi companies have had recurring problems of picking up ghosts in those areas who are not aware that they are dead and disappearing from the cab before reaching the destination and therefore stiffing the driver on the fare causing a loss for the company.

[swordofsun]

some of you have never had your notp be the most popular ship in the fandom and it shows

[swordofsun]

Do we experience the air? Who are we? Some of us are lint!

@dimension20official @dropoutdottv

[swordofsun]

the book people said that I need to write a "Dear Reader" postcard, but this is all I have so far

[swordofsun]

Forgot to share this picture my mom sent me of baby turkeys.

[swordofsun]

WAIT I think this is one of the first instances of Dean talking about an alleged one night stand. Apparently Amy is a sagittarius, she loves tequila and she’s got a little tattoo … but please note that he is telling this TO SAM, we did not see the hook up happening and actually he doesn’t even say it’s a hook up. He could quite probably be describing getting a drink with Amy, but he’s just doing it in a way that is calculated to upset and gross out Sam.

It is CRAZY to me how obviously made up Dean-as-womanizer is. In the next scene he’s chatting to a waitress … and then he steps away from her to sit with Sam. Sam makes a joke about Dean needing to think with his upstairs brain, and Dean says that he’s a total professional (and shows off her number on a napkin) but … he’s actually telling the truth. He was just using her for information and then bouncing. He wasn’t interested.

And then we go straight into a scene with Meg, who Sam IS interested in - she gives him her number and he clearly wants to follow up even though he’s also suspicious. Once AGAIN it’s actually SAM who’s the textual ladies’ man and Dean who’s just using his looks and charm to get what he needs for the case.

[swordofsun]

“We need better public transit and more passenger railways” — fuck yeah I’m all about this~

“… and we need to actively discourage people from owning and driving cars and it should be illegal actually” — FUCK NO.

I don’t know why pro-public transit people have to be so obnoxious about this and ostracize people who would otherwise support their cause. I also find it amusing that they’re more than willing to be massive dicks to me for not hating on cars, until I mention I’m disabled and immune compromised and a lot of times not being able to go DIRECTLY from point A to point B (and limit my exposure to other people’s germs) will stop me from being able to do things and go places. At which point they usually stop engaging with me because I don’t fit the stereotype of disabled and unable to drive.

Overall, a lot of causes shoot themselves in both feet by saying that in order to do X thing (which most people would agree is positive) they need to take Y away from you (for no good reason).

[swordofsun]

we highly recommend you google "Brennan Lee Mulligan" right now 🫡 a lovely send off to our former colleague on his new endeavour 👠👡👢👟👞

[swordofsun]

Life in Fallen London is heady, breathless, and more varied than in any other videogame I could think to mention.

[swordofsun]

tumblr: where game changer is bigger than superman

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part of the reason I think it’s so sad that we collectively write so few stories about unrequited love is bc I feel like there’s very little public acknowledgment of how much it sucks to be the one somebody is in unrequited love with??? and not in a way of like, oh they’re crossing boundaries or putting expectations on me or whatever. becoming close friends with someone and then finding out they’re in love with you and you don’t love them back the same way is heartbreaking, bc a) someone you love is in pain and there is literally nothing you can do about it, and b) it usually means that whether you like it or not there’s going to be distance in your friendship that wasn’t there before as they try to get over you. idk man I just feel like we’ve all discussed the tragedy of loving someone who doesn’t love you back quite a lot and very rarely discuss the tragedy of finding out the way that you love someone just isn’t enough.