#author: dean spade

[haveyoureadthispoll]

Mutual aid is the radical act of caring for each other while working to change the world. Around the globe, people are faced with a spiralling succession of crises, from the Covid-19 pandemic and climate change-induced fires, floods, and storms to the ongoing horrors of mass incarceration, racist policing, brutal immigration enforcement, endemic gender violence, and severe wealth inequality. As governments fail to respond to—or actively engineer—each crisis, ordinary people are finding bold and innovative ways to share resources and support the vulnerable. Survival work, when done alongside social movement demands for transformative change, is called mutual aid. This book is about mutual aid: why it is so important, what it looks like, and how to do it. It provides a grassroots theory of mutual aid, describes how mutual aid is a crucial part of powerful movements for social justice, and offers concrete tools for organizing, such as how to work in groups, how to foster a collective decision-making process, how to prevent and address conflict, and how to deal with burnout. Writing for those new to activism as well as those who have been in social movements for a long time, Dean Spade draws on years of organizing to offer a radical vision of community mobilization, social transformation, compassionate activism, and solidarity.

[battyaboutbooksreviews]

🖤 Black History Month ❤️

💛 Queer Books by Black Authors 💚

[ List Under the Cut ]

🖤 Felix Ever After by Kacen Callender ❤️ Under the Udala Trees by Chinelo Okparanta 💛 Warrior of the Wind by Suyi Davies Okungbowa 💚 I'm a Wild Seed by Sharon Lee De La Cruz 🖤 Real Life by Brandon Taylor ❤️ Ruthless Pamela Jean by Carol Denise Mitchell 💛 The Unbroken by C.L. Clark 💚 Labyrinth Lost by Zoraida Córdova 🖤 Skin Deep Magic by Craig Laurance Gidney ❤️ The Death of Vivek Oji by Akwaeke Emezi 💛 That Could Be Enough by Alyssa Cole 💚Work for It by Talia Hibbert

🖤 All Boys Aren't Blue by George M. Johnson ❤️ The Deep by Rivers Solomon 💛 How to Be Remy Cameron by Julian Winters 💚 Running With Lions by Julian Winters 🖤 Right Where I Left You by Julian Winters ❤️ This Is Kind of an Epic Love Story by Kacen Callender 💛 The Weight of the Stars by K. Ancrum 💚 This Is What It Feels Like by Rebecca Barrow 🖤 Son of the Storm by Suyi Davies Okungbowa ❤️ Black Boy Joy by Kwame Mbalia 💛 Legendborn by Tracy Deonn 💚 The Wicker King by K. Ancrum

🖤 Pet by Akwaeke Emezi ❤️ You Should See Me in a Crown by Leah Johnson 💛 Once Ghosted, Twice Shy by Alyssa Cole 💚 Cinderella Is Dead by Kalynn Bayron 🖤 Let's Talk About Love by Claire Kann ❤️ A Spectral Hue by Craig Laurance Gidney 💛 Power & Magic by Joamette Gil 💚 The Black Veins by Ashia Monet 🖤 Treasure by Rebekah Weatherspoon ❤️ The Sound of Stars by Alechia Dow 💛 Black Leopard, Red Wolf by Marlon James 💚 Full Disclosure by Camryn Garrett

🖤 The Black Flamingo by Dean Atta ❤️ Meet Cute Diary by Emery Lee 💛 A Phoenix First Must Burn (edited) by Patrice Caldwell 💚 Rise to the Sun by Leah Johnson 🖤 Things We Couldn't Say by Jay Coles ❤️ Black Boy Out of Time by Hari Ziyad 💛 Darling by K. Ancrum 💚 The Secrets of Eden by Brandon Goode 🖤 Ace of Spades by Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé ❤️ Off the Record by Camryn Garrett 💛 Honey Girl by Morgan Rogers 💚 Ace of Spades by Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé

🖤 How to Dispatch a Human by Stephanie Andrea Allen ❤️ Black Girl, Call Home by Jasmine Mans 💛 The Essential June Jordan (edited) by Jan Heller Levi and Christoph Keller 💚 A Master of Djinn by P. Djèlí Clark 🖤 A Blade So Black by L.L. McKinney ❤️ Clap When You Land by Elizabeth Acevedo 💛 Dread Nation by Justina Ireland 💚 Punch Me Up to the Gods by Brian Broome 🖤 Masquerade by Anne Shade ❤️ One of the Good Ones by Maika Moulite & Maritza Moulite 💛 Soulstar by C.L. Polk 💚 100 Boyfriends by Brontez Purnell

🖤 Hurricane Child by Kacen Callender ❤️ Quietly Hostile by Samantha Irby 💛 Coffee Will Make You Black by April Sinclair 💚 The Death of Vivek Oji by Akwaeke Emezi 🖤 If It Makes You Happy by Claire Kann ❤️ Sweethand by N.G. Peltier 💛 This Poison Heart by Kalynn Bayron 💚 Better Off Red by Rebekah Weatherspoon 🖤 Friday I’m in Love by Camryn Garrett ❤️ Rainbow Milk by Paul Mendez 💛 Memorial by Bryan Washington 💚 Patsy by Nicole Y. Dennis-Benn

🖤 Sorrowland by Rivers Solomon ❤️ How to Find a Princess by Alyssa Cole 💛 Yesterday is History by Kosoko Jackosn 💚 Mouths of Rain (edited) by Briona Simone Jones 🖤 Dead Dead Girls by Nekesa Afia ❤️ Love's Divine by Ava Freeman 💛 The Prophets by Robert Jones Jr 💚 Odd One Out by Nic Stone 🖤 Symbiosis by Nicky Drayden ❤️ Thanks a Lot, Universe by Chad Lucas 💛 The Passing Playbook by Isaac Fitzsimons 💚 Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin

🖤 Little & Lion by Brandy Colbert ❤️ My Government Means to Kill Me by Rasheed Newson 💛 Pleasure and Spice by Fiona Zedde 💚 No Gods, No Monsters by Cadwell Turnbull 🖤 The Stars and the Blackness Between Them by Junauda Petrus ❤️ Filthy Animals by Brandon Taylor 💛 The City We Became by N.K. Jemisin 💚 Peaces by Helen Oyeyem 🖤 The Beauty That Remains by Ashley Woodfolk ❤️ Every Body Looking by Candice Iloh 💛 Bingo Love by Tee Franklin, Jenn St-Onge, Joy San 💚 The Heart Does Not Bend by Makeda Silvera

🖤 King and the Dragonflies by Kacen Callender ❤️ By Any Means Necessary by Candice Montgomery 💛 Busy Ain't the Half of It by Frederick Smith & Chaz Lamar Cruz 💚 Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo 🖤 Sin Against the Race by Gar McVey-Russell ❤️ Trumpet by Jackie Kay 💛 Remembrance by Rita Woods 💚 Daughters of Nri by Reni K. Amayo 🖤 You Know Me Well by Nina LaCour ❤️ The Summer of Everything by Julian Winters 💛 Butter Honey Pig Bread by Francesca Ekwuyasi 💚 Gingerbread by Helen Oyeyem

[anarchywoofwoof]

Left social movements have two big jobs right now. First, we need to organize to help people survive the devastating conditions unfolding every day. Second, we need to mobilize hundreds of millions of people for resistance so we can tackle the underlying causes of these crises. In this pivotal moment, movements can strengthen, mobilizing new people to fight back against cops, immigration enforcement, welfare authorities, landlords, budget cuts, polluters, the defense industry, prison profiteers, and right-wing groups. The way to tackle these two big tasks—meeting people’s needs and mobilizing them for resistance—is to create mutual aid projects and get lots of people to participate in them. Social movements that have built power and won major change have all included mutual aid, yet it is often a part of movement work that is less visible and less valued. In this moment, our ability to build mutual aid will determine whether we win the world we long for or dive further into crisis.

Dean Spade, Mutual Aid, "Crisis Conditions Require Bold Tactics"

[leonardcohenofficial]

reform and abolition checklist created by dean spade, activist, writer, teacher and author of normal life: administrative violence, critical trans politics and mutual aid: building solidarity during this crisis (and the next)

[runawaydr3amerao3]

West series (SPN, Dean/Sam, Explicit) now available for your eyes and ears.

If you prefer to consume your fic via earhole instead of eyeball, have I got news for you! Because I am spoilt AF by my wonderful fandom friends, I can share that my dear old West series is now available, in full, in podfic form! @talltalesandbedtimestories, one of the two beautiful hosts of the @idlingintheimpalapodcast and just an incredible narrator besides, has now posted the final part and it. Is. Glorious. 🙌 Please do yourself a favour, click some links below, and treat yourself to this aural delight. 👇

Title: West series

Author: runawaydr3amer

Narrator: @talltalesandbedtimestories

Pairing/Fandom: Dean/Sam (Supernatural)

Rating: Explicit/NC-17

Tags: Brotherly Platonic Handjobs, Pining, Angst, Idiots In Love, First Time, Shower Sex, Anal Fingering, Oral Sex, Rimming, Anal Sex (Top Dean/Bottom Sam), Barebacking

Word Count: ~48,700 in four parts

Audio Length: ~5:48:00 in five parts

Summary: Sam loves and sometimes hates his brother, but mostly he just loves him. That they've been through a lot together over the years is the understatement of the century. When the occasional (and totally platonic) handjob has been a staple of their sexual diets for a long time, why are things suddenly changing? There's only one thing Sam's sure of anymore, and it's that Dean loves him. The question now is whether the kind of love he's getting is the kind of love he wants most.

Part One: Run It All Over — Fic // Podfic

Part Two: The One I Never Tried — Fic // Podfic

Part Three: When I'm Bad — Fic // Podfic

Part Four: Unless I Can't Resist — Fic // Podfic Part One and Part Two

Wherever you choose to consume, if you choose to do so, please enjoy and pretty please leave @talltalesandbedtimestories some love via comments. She deserves it in spades. 💖

[oddlittlestories]

So one of the things about TUA that I find so interesting is how each of the characters reacts to the abuse of Hargreeves in a different way. It’s very close to an exploration of the full spectrum of reactions. (Season 1 in particular is a kind of study of this but I’m not going to go into Leonard here. I’m also not going to go into Lila or the abusive relationship employment of the Commission, but I have thought about those things as well.)

Edit: Kind of long so more under the cut. Slipped and marked it mature by accident >.<

Luther

Luther isn’t the leader, like he thinks. He’s the enforcer. And he’s the enforcer because he is so convinced that the failure is with him, with them, and not their father. When he can no longer follow his father’s will in s2, he finds a new powerful man to enforce for—in a very literal way.

Luther, especially in s1-2, is a difficult character to like. He’s an ass, he’s always convinced he’s right, and he’s always wheedling to be heard, to be obeyed, to be listened to. And he is the cause of much of his siblings’ suffering.

It’s quite sad from another angle, though. He seeks out another powerful man in s2 because he very much does not have any internalized framework of his own—of right and wrong, or even really of likes and dislikes.

Once he sets that need for control down, he’s mostly just this goofy, slouchy guy. He doesn’t know what’s happening, going to happen, or what’s right. He just takes things as they come.

As a comparison to a character many of us find much more appealing, Dean Winchester is also an enforcer. The difference is, one of John’s directives is to protect Sammy, and his own reaction is in that same direction, like many abused kids. Protect your sibling. Which creates this deeply codependent dynamic that we see throughout the show. (They also have a bit of golden child / scapegoat going on, which we’ll come back around to.)

Ben

The one who dies. I’m not going to say too much about this beyond sometimes that, too, is a consequence of abuse.

Allison

The one who perpetuates the cycle. I really like this because I don’t fully like the adage ‘hurt people hurt people.’ Hargreeves is an abuser because he feels justified in his abuse.

Allison does it because she didn’t grow up with any other skills, and because it feels safe. Her first acts of abuse are with her daughter, because she is a frustrated and overwhelmed parent with no other skills to manage her own emotions. But she does well in therapy, and we see her leveraging those skills to push back against ingrained family dynamics.

But whenever she is lost and afraid in the world, she resorts to abuse to get what she wants. And more and more through the story, we see her abandoning compassion and emotional regulation in favor of taking her feelings out on others. Because she decides it’s justified.

Five

The runaway. Five rebels to escape the abuse, and gets re-traumatized out in the world. But he also steals his autonomy back and crafts his own completely-formed identity. Look. That’s not to say that the dude doesn’t have issues in spades. But he can talk to Hargreeves, interact with him at any stage in the game, and not have it shake his identity to the core. Both the trauma that he chooses and his own choice for responsibility and autonomy determines who Five becomes.

Diego

There’s a sequence from House, MD that I feel like sums up Diego’s reaction to the abuse quite nicely. House is late to his dad’s funeral and he explains to Wilson how punishing his (abusive) father was about punctuality. He explains that he is deliberately careless around time because he didn’t want to make his father’s issues HIS issues. And Wilson, incredulous, shoots back with, “Thereby MAKING it your issue!”

Yeah. That’s Diego. He defines himself in opposition to Hargreeves. And he even says so explicitly. He’s all about fighting crime, “the right way.” But he defines himself so in opposition to authority (and to people in general) that he gets kicked out of the police force and burns his first romantic relationship to ashes. He just can’t stop fighting.

Klaus

The addict. Addiction is a common response to abuse. And Klaus is a full-blown addict. A thief, willing to do anything and everything for his next score. He’ll injure himself, terrorize others, go dumpster diving, steal, defraud. Really there are no limits to what he’ll do. And yet we always feel he’s a sunshiney sweetheart right from the start. Even so, the “anything to score to escape my demons” is a keen literalization of the addiction response to abuse.

Viktor

The scapegoat

“Everything is always your fault.” This is the one who gets blamed for the family’s problems, who gets punished and punished and ignored. This is the one who is always in the wrong. And Viktor is such a great character in season 1 & 2 for this because he’s both reactions to that. He is the explosive anger, the rage and indignity. And he’s the one broken by any means necessary, heaped with family blame, with no sense of what he wants or who he is. And also, in s1, exceptionally vulnerable to an abuser masquerading as everything he ever wanted.

I just. It’s so multifaceted. It’s such a good exploration of abuse and this is only one sliver of that. TUA has its flaws, and I thought s3 was such a mixed bag, but this is one piece they just NAILED.

[drdemonprince]

Ayo, do you have any recs for transmasc authors and academics you enjoy? Frankly, I'm transmasc and with reading stuff I tend to practically always enjoy pieces done by transfem writers but the more famous tguys brought me nothing but disappointment. I don't enjoy tenderqueer YA, I hate superstar academic cliché (lookin at Preciado here), Malatino & Amin were underwhelming so like I ended up loving practically only Feinberg and Halberstam. Naturally I also appreciate how concise your work is!

...and if you haven't watched Mutt by Lungulov-Klotz it was really a smooth debut ^^

danny lavery, dean spade, and me are the only t boy authors worth fucking w i can think of at the moment

[fiercynn]

steven w. thrasher writing for mondoweiss on november 6, 2023:

As I recently heard Queer Palestine and the Empire of Critique author Sa’ed Atshan say in a talk, pinkwashing falsely presumes not only that LGBTQ life doesn’t exist in Palestine but that LGBTQ Palestinians aren’t ever affirmed by their families or each other. And much as feminism is necessary, Atshan argues, queerness is fundamental to imagining a free Palestine into being. Perhaps most relevant to the ceasefire the Queer Bloc marched for this weekend, pinkwashing obscures how LGBTQ people are being tortured, starved, and killed daily by the Israeli Occupation Forces. If just five percent of the 2.3 million people in Gaza are LGBTQ, that means at least 115,000 of queer Palestinians are being directly terrorized right now and about 500 have been killed (to say nothing of their families). This has been most heartbreakingly documented by people in Gaza using Queering the Map,  a community-generated platform that “provides an interface to collaboratively record the cartography of queer life—from park benches to the middle of the ocean—in order to preserve our histories and unfolding realities, which continue to be invalidated, contested, and erased.” In Gaza, queer people have been using it to honor their dead, post what they imagine to be their final messages before their own deaths, and make promises to find each other in the afterlife. Queer theory and contemporary gay life were formed in the shadow of death caused by AIDS in 1980s; now, queer people in Gaza are living in a far more urgent shadow of death—one in which the grim reaper won’t come in the form of HIV killing them over years, but in an instant, when a bomb is dropped from one of the American made jets or drones constantly flying over Gaza. However, because they are Palestinians, pinkwashing tries to erase the need for their safety from the global LGBTQ community. 

more resources on israel's pinkwashing and queer palestinian liberation

pinkwashing at decolonize palestine

a liberatory demand from queers in palestine at mizna

beyond propaganda: pinkwashing as colonial violence at alQaws

"i'd rather die in the west bank": lgbtq palestinians find no safety in israel by tamar ben david and lilach ben david at +972 magazine

a palestinian trans woman's story peels away israel's pinkwashing veil by sharona weiss at +972 magazine

palestinian liberation is queer liberation by kayla kumari upadhyaya at autostraddle

say no to pinkwashing at bds movement

palestine as a queer struggle at the u.s. campaign for palestinian rights

pinkwashing settler colonialsm: how settler-colonial states co-opt gay rights to legitimize occupation by emily zak at briar patch magazine

pinkwashing exposed: seattle fights back! an hour-long documentary directed by dean spade and edited by amy mahardy

filmmaker pledge at queer cinema for palestine

[dovesndecay]

There is nothing new about police enforcing racialized gender norms with deadly violence, but as criminalization and imprisonment have drastically expanded in the last decades, we have needed to respond in new ways to calls for "law and order" that sometimes pretend to operate from a concern for protecting women, queer, and trans people from violence.

We are confronted with a significant task of articulating a politics that refuses invitations to be included in laws and policies that supposedly promote the value of our lives, but actually operate to expand systems that we know target queer and trans poor people, people of color, immigrants, and people with disabilities. [These books]* contribute to the thinking on queer and trans abolition politics, helping us imagine the locations where that politics lives, the tactics it engages, the populations it concerns, the traps it aims to evade, and the stakes of its existence.

Queering Prison Abolition, Now?

Author(s): Eric A. Stanley, Dean Spade and Queer (In)Justice

Source: American Quarterly (March 2012)

These Books:*

Captive Genders: Trans Embodiment and the Prison Industrial Complex edited by Eric A. Stanley and Nat Smith

Queer (In)Justice: The Criminalization of LGBT People In The United States by Joey L. Mogul, Andrea J. Ritchie, Kay Whitlock

Normal Life: Administrative Violence, Critical Trans Politics, and the Limits of Law by Dean Spade

[nym-wibbly]

Getting Away With It - Supernatural

I wondered if I'd have some big revelation about Supernatural once I saw the whole thing - if I'd get some big epiphany about how it held up for 15 years or whatever.

My main takeaway overnight, however, has been marvelling (while ocassionally grinning crazily at a flashback) at what the creatives got away with just by building up to it slowly. Network TV in the US remains absolutely hogtied by the prevailing moral discourse, and by the money-power of controversy-shy advertisers to be the arbiters of what can and cannot be shown on a syndicated show. Syndication is its own money-slave and it's incapable of fully breaking free, short of the US viewership achieving consensus on both good taste and bad influences.

Supernatural worked its way up from a mythology of isolated urban legends to pull in the occult, then religion. The latter two subjects have been shockingly taboo for telly even here in the arguably post-Christian UK market within my lifetime. The spluttering outrage of the Mary Whitehouse Brigade would've turned to fatal aneurysms watching Supernatural play witchcraft, demonic possession, and angelic lore with equal irony and humour.

The heroes drink so much and live so badly that only their canonical Plot Armour, courtesy of failed-writer God, keeps them functioning as human beings. They're outlaws, criminals Robin Hood-style, defrauding their way to a living because their day job, the heroing, doesn't pay for food and shelter. They pass themselves off as badged figures of authority without difficulty. They never have to face the everyday moral or practical consequences of career-criminal actions that would be the moral backbone of the average movie or miniseries.

Dean routinely has carefree, casual sex with equally willing and available women during his travels, free of consequence and guilt, while the (currently) male angel Castiel occupies the textual role of Dean's love interest/romantic antagonist for most of 12 seasons because that happened to be where the show found the equivalent chemistry. They didn't just let it lie - they upped the ante season after season. That can only mean that the creatives of Supernatural have awesome poker-faces in serious meetings with their network-suited counterparts. ("No homo," they said gravely, sipping coffee and resting one hand half over the scene(s) where Dean takes the role of devastated widower every time Cas gets dead.)

They made everything about free will and standing for what's right. Even some of the sparkier demons got there before their arcs closed, grabbing agency and choosing to serve the greater good, or to act from love, but the angels consistently struggled to do the same. The angels are an unholy mess on Supernatural, opting for largely self-inflicted genocide having been abandoned by God.

Supernatural made God the ultimate baddie then had Lucifer's son - actual son of Satan - kick his arse and replace him. The Antichrist showed up too, but turned out to be a nice kid who caused so little trouble he never returned to the show. Fantasy usually only gets away with that (Christianity-defined) blasphemy shit by cloaking it in not-our-world trappings; sword and sorcery, worldbuilding from the ground up to provide a safe otherspace for questions that half of society in the target market isn't comfortable even asking, let alone answering or turning into casual entertainment.

Supernatural did that too - 14 seasons of slow, epic worldbuilding set in what looks, sounds, feels and tastes like modern America, is a love poem to its land and uniqueness at times, especially under the original showrunner, but turns out in the end to be a fictional world written by a self-obsessed deity who's run out of new ideas and settled for endless reruns with his comfort characters. Our Heroes are puppets and God himself is the bad guy jerking them around. Season 15 pays off that buildup in spades, then wipes the floor with God, leaving him a pitiable irrelevance in the Supernatural America of free will and doing-what's-right.

I've seen the show take a lot of vitreol for being unambitious, and a lot of fans being very unhappy over what the show didn't do or attempt. After my first viewing, I'm just pouring one out for the cunning shit they got away with while the networks who kept the lights on for 15 years were too distracted by the comfortable, mainstream headline of "two marketable white dudes (but no homo) drive around America in a cool car being manly-man heroes" to do anything about it.

[dyed-red]

Dean has this intensely fascinating arrested development, especially prominent in season 1 before he pushes back against his father.

There are developmental periods during which a person's social identification progresses from being predominantly based around their family and parents to instead being based around their peer group. Meaning as we progress into our teens, we turn to our classmates and friends and similar for our estimation of what is cool, what is normal, what is expected.

Dean, though he is socially adept when he wants to be, tends to approach that peer identification merely as a performance. All the moving around and how it interrupted his ability to create cohesive peer groups, all the way people approached him for his looks rather than his character, all the dangerous situations he was in and the weapon or the bait he made of himself ...

We see it in After School Special, we see it in Dream a Little Dream of Me. How he doesn't fit in with his peers, how his likes and dislikes and identity are moulded around an image of his father (his music, his car, his leather jacket) rather than his peers or himself.

It's not that Dean lacks autonomy or independence. That critical developmental period he had in spades, the over-responsibilization meaning he is confident with action and not anxious about his ability to deal with consequences. It grounds him with a strong internal locus of control -- he can and will control his choices and those can and do materially impact on his outcomes.

But from an identity perspective? Dean has no peers. His aspirational social ideals are and remain his father. A hunter, a badass, who saves people, who is always correct because he is always looking out for family (and Dean remembers the heat, the flame. He knows what happens when you aren't obsessively overcautiously looking out for family. He remembers).

The only one he can truly trust with Sammy. (Right up until he can't.)

The point is -- Dean in S1, before he's really begun to question John's authority and his righteousness and his right to determine their actions and dictate their circumstances -- he's so interesting.

Here is a 26 year old man who, without a hint of irony, asks his brother why he's advising a teen to "ditch his family" when Sam tells him he'll be able to go to college soon and get away from an unhappy environment. The thought of college being a desirable outcome for everyone involved, parents and teen alike, doesn't seem to cross his mind.

Here is a 26 year old man who tells his similarly adult brother that their father would yell at him and treat him badly because he was sometimes "out of line", seemingly oblivious to the harms from his father while easily able to recognize the damage of similar actions from others.

He's this fully formed independent adult whose self concept is so nebulous and porous, so deeply horribly vulnerable to manipulation because he hasn't yet established the boundaries of his own identity (but so difficult to manipulate because he has one minder, John, and one priority, protecting family/Sam. Anything that attempts to draw him from either of these for a moment will be so resoundingly rejected as to be obliterated entirely).

(And this lack of rebellion, of personal identity formation? It's by design, dear reader. Consciously or not, ex-marine John Winchester shaped Dean into a soldier. Soldiers obey, they don't question orders, they don't need to see the bigger picture, they just need to trust. Breaking down the human urge to question and reforming it as duty and as obeyance to authority is part of the process of forming boys and men into soldiers. Forging bonds of fraternity and loyalty.

Dean is a soldier but Sam is not. Sam's desire for independence is defecting from the war, from his duty, and it is disloyalty to the fraternity of men in the trench with him. We are not the head, we are the hands, and to leave is to cut off a hand, to leave us a gaping wound while we are in the midst of battle. It is a betrayal. Dean was raised with the understanding he's at war and Sam was raised sheltered from that notion, and they wonder why their ideals and their views chafe so hard against the other's.)

There's this incredible child-like quality to it, too, because part of him is still a boy. My dad is big and tough and he's gonna kick your ass. When I grow up I wanna be just like him. My brother broke the rules so he gets punished just like I do when I break the rules that's just how it is because Dad's always right and the rules he makes keep our family safe. Oh you like me that's so cool you're so pretty and smart and interesting and oh you don't like this small aspect of my brother or father okay nevermind you're dead to me.

Dean's not a rebel without a cause, he's a rebel without a rebellion. It is necessary, on some level, to learn to question one's parents and their ideals and teachings, so as to determine what to keep, what duties to obey, what to change or amend for oneself. At 26, Dean hadn't yet done that. Hadn't rebelled against John, hadn't questioned an order Hadn't developed an even somewhat stable identity for himself, not based on social groups nor even his own personal accomplishments.

(Even when he thinks of self-pride he thinks of shooting cans and his father being impressed at his marksmanship. When he thinks of shame it's not being adequately diligent in watching Sammy, not taking the shot when the shtriga came for him.)

(It's John's smile and John's recriminations. Those are what define Dean still at this point in the narrative).

It's only after John's death that this process of identity transition and formation really happens for Dean, and that's wild. It starts before, a little, when he reconnects with Sam and they hunt together. Because John isn't there.

John is alive and well and giving them orders but he's not there when they call, not just with questions but for help. When Sam's girlfriend died the same way their mother did, John's comfort is nowhere to be found. When they return home to Lawrence and meet the ghost of their mother, when Dean is electrocuted and unwell. John is giving them orders remotely, via coordinates and voicemail tags, but nothing more. He is not MIA, he is some version of AWOL. On a mission, clearly, but after a lifetime of the primary mission and duty being to protect this family, to privilege and prioritize anything else above that undermines the entire game, the foundation of necessity on which that authority was built.

Dean isn't naive. He is intellectually cunning, mechanically inclined and inventive, and interpersonally gifted, incredible at reading people. He understands his father like no one else, without illusion. He knows John is harsh, punitive, rigid, unfair. He allows it because John is righteous, gets results, puts himself in misery to accomplish his aims, and expects no less of himself than he does of anyone else. Which means Dean knows what he is entitled to from John as well, for this to work.

John has been derelict in his critical familial duties for most of the season, has been gone when they needed him. And Sam has been there with his reminders of John's similar abdications (in Sam's eyes) and Dean has been caught between duty and loyalty and justice. Has begun to question and rebel, has even gone in record with blasphemy to say that if finding the demon costs any of them their lives, he hopes they never find it. He's begun to more concretely articulate and prioritize his aim (protect the family) over what he's understanding as his father's aim (kill the demon).

But it's not until John dies and Dean is untethered that his rebellion really begins. Not until John asks horror and betrayal of him, betrayal of the worst order and destruction of what he believes in most, that Dean recoils.

Some religious perspectives argue that Abraham failed his mission by God. That when God asked him to kill his son Isaac, Abraham's willingness to do so, bringing his son like a lamb to the slaughter until in that final moment the father was stayed by God's hand was him failing -- not passing -- the test. That God outright demanded unquestioning loyalty and obedience but that truth beneath this was that these things are evil, these things will take your son from you, your family from you. That spilling the blood of the innocent is wrong, even if God your father has asked it of you, and that you are supposed to know the difference. That serving God requires doing good and right even in the face of demands to the contrary, no matter how absolute those demands may appear.

If John were to make his son into Abraham, if he were to make him into Cain, then John is wrong, and Dean's rejection of this order is righteous. And in that moment, Dean himself is righteous, and becomes not just a man unto himself, but the righteous man.

[janiedean]

How are you Lavi? I was wondering, have you have shared your opinion about the end of Supernatural? I would especially love to hear your thoughts about Destiel and that love confession.

hey! I'm... extremely tired because a lot of stuff is going on that I will partially share on main about soon but has been sapping my energies a lot (i'm OOOLD) but it could be worse, thank you <3

also, wrt spn: I think I did say it in scattered posts but if you want the condensed version:

I had quit spn like early s12 at the hitler episode then I finished it after the ending because I figured I owed it to them after watching the finale live as it aired so... it was something but going in order

I actually greatly enjoyed s12-15 up to the end and I was pleasurably surprised - like okay it was the usual crazy shit half of the time and it def had gone on too long but 12-15 were eons better than the slug that was 9-11 and I had a lot of genuine fun when watching them and like they actually look/are extremely coherent for spn standards so I mostly have positive stuff on the topic like the apocalypse universe was cool, the ketch redemption arc was cool, tombstone and the tarantino episode were a masterpiece (and the 80s rock episode too sdlgkjd same as the scooby doo crossover) and I loved chuck as the villain and how meta that was

concerning deancas and the love confession: I mean as the resident idiot who had written her first deancas fic after 4x03 aired I always thought that they didn't know what they had been doing until like s5 when they realized what they were doing (sorry no one convinces that 5x03 wasn't written by someone who didn't have the deancas agenda in mind in spades) but like I generally thought that if it went somewhere it was gonna end with sam retiring and being a man of letters or smth like that and deancas going off to fight monsters in a way where you could frame it as THEY ARE BEST FRIENDS™ in places where them being gay would be frowned upon

I also thought that if anything happened whether like... either canonization or adjacent-canonization it was gonna be the last five minutes of the series finale because otherwise some parts of fandom wouldn't have let anyone involved with that show live which is why I was pleasurably shocked the confession was in ep 18 and not 20

now: I think the network authorized it and then chickened out when covid hit because the way the entire thing is structured... like sorry but this story starts with cas rescuing dean from hell, in 18 cas ends up in the empty from which he can obviously be rescued, in 19 every single plotline gets wrapped except that one in an episode that can work as a finale-finale if you leave it at that and I'm supposed to think that the og plan for ep 20 didn't include a reverse thing where dean got him out and they made out? sorry at this point bite me I'mma put my money on that esp given that...

... episode 20 is the most useless finale i've ever seen in the sense that literally nothing happens in it, the show itself had fillers where more shit happened like honestly I've never seen 40 minutes of a show that were more... a waste of time and resources and effort as that one, it looked like they told the writers they needed to have dean and sam be bros™ one of them had to die and they met in heaven again and they did that but just that X°D like sorry but the vampire porn diaries had the exact same finale template - one brother dies the other lives a happy normal life and they meet again in heaven -, s8 of tvd was vastly worsely written than spn s15 like i'm not even arguing that, but if you look at tvd finale actually shit happens in it and when you watch it it actually looks decent/wraps things up/makes you feel stuff, the spn finale is just stupid but I can't even be angry at it because imvho it's obvious they did it on purpose X°D but like tldr if the og plans hadn't been scrapped whatever they were they would have had an ep 20 where shit actually happened and that wasn't the drag it was, and like if it had come at the end of a badly written season (like tvd) I'd have just shrugged and whatever but... it came after an actually well-written season that was actually coherent with the previous four ones so I can't believe that was the real endgame content really XD

anyway: the confession was imvho absolutely ic and coherent with the entire thing starting from s4 because like sorry cas being in love with dean since then is just blatantly making sense, I never thought once it was baiting or teasing because only ppl who never watched the show would think the delivery was bad or that either misha or jensen were cringing while saying their lines, cas saying exactly the stuff he said made absolute sense in context, dean's reaction (as much as I'm sure they cut stuff) was absolutely sensed as well and no one tells me he didn't reciprocate bc the entire thing was built so that he'd admit it to himself at the very end and I mean anon my friend my comrade when I watched that episode I cried for twenty minutes straight after I finished it so X°D

like okay yeah part of it was the SEE WE WERE RIGHT ALL ALONG FUCK THE DENIERS but most of it was that I honestly was moved and I found that entire speech extremely heartfelt, meaningful and a whole lot of things I'm not sharing on main because I don't want people deciding stuff based on it but like I have zero negative things to say about that confession, I'm glad it happened and I don't regret catching up also because it happened as it really felt like the natural reaching point of cas's whole arc, I'm just sad that whatever the fuck went on with the cw they didn't let dean have a decent ending bc honestly what the fuck was that thing and they deserved to be happy without presuming they met offscreen in heaven or whatever the fuck but honestly all my issues with spn's ending are with the cw obviously getting cold feet concerning episode 20

tldr: the ending-ending sucked but up until 15x19 I thoroughly enjoyed most of what I saw nonsensical or not because at that point spn was the kinda thing you watched bc you liked it with all the faults it has, I 100% believe that the last episode sucked on purpose because I've never seen a finale done with so little effort after four seasons full of effort ever like not even penny dreadful whose finale imvho sucked on purpose sucked this much but like getting there was worth it and deancas being canon in itself was smth I never thought we'd get this explicitly and I'm very very very happy it happened, peace

[uozlulu]

Hello! Fic authors self rec! When you get this, reply with your favorite five fics that you've written, then pass on to five other writers 🥰

In the order I thought them in:

The Land Across the Sea - Black Clover/Boruto - Boruto lands in Clover on a tidal wave and a delegation has to take him back to the Land of Fire, which is Yami's homeland (written pre-Land of the Sun arc) - [I just really like the little things I did with it. It's full of little headcanons and moments.]

May You Get What You Desire Is a Curse upon the Dead - Interview with the Vampire AMC - A fic that explores the past and present Devil's Minion in alternating POVs (written pre-season 2) - [I'm proud of the structure of this fic. I alternated not just POVs but the past and the present, both sections culminating into major events by the end of the fic successfully]

All Fortune Plays End - Black Clover - Asta takes on more and more of his devil, becoming increasingly grotesque. Winning the Spade War comes at a price (written before Liebe's backstory) - [Sometimes I reread it when I see it appear on a bookmark search because I like how the ending feels emotionally]

The Doctor and the Winchester Brothers - Supernatural/Doctor Who - 3 part SuperWho fic series featuring Ten and Donna running into Sam and Dean in 1985, the Winchesters skipping the Doctor's call in "A Good Man Goes to War" because Bobby is dying, and a fic about Craig asking the Doctor for help because his son is now Samandriel - [I like these because they're fun to reread and I wrote all three of them with me in mind]

Adrian Harris is a Hunter (SuperWolf) - Supernatural/Teen Wolf - A three fic SuperWolf series that I named before I decided to put the first fic in it featuring - Stiles unrequited crush on Dean, Harris and Finstock having to salt and burn Greenberg's bones, and Sam as Harris' emergency contact/next of kin. [I like them because like the previous fic series, they're fun and the Harris featured ones I wrote for me specifically, but the Stiles one is also a decent reread too]

[genderjourneys]

Hi you once mentioned a book/audiobook I think Normal Life by Dean Spade? I’m trying to budget right now and was wondering if you know whether I could find this in a library or something?

Hi! You've got the title and author right. The latest edition was published by an academic press and that makes it a little hard to find (that link further links out to ebooks). Here it is on Bookshop.org, but no ebook/PDF if that's what you're after. SOME public libraries might have it depending on their distribution partners (Boston Public Library does, for example, but only physical copy).

If your local library doesn't have it, I highly recommend you request it!! Most libraries have a way to do that.

[brokehorrorfan]

All the Haunts Be Ours: A Compendium of Folk Horror will be releaed on December 7 via Severin Films. The Blu-ray box set features Kier-La Janisse's new documentary, Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched: A History of Folk Horror (also available separately) plus 19 folk horror movies.

The films include: Avery Crounse's Eyes of Fire (1983), Djordje Kadijevic's Leptirica (1973), Otakar Vávra's Witchhammer (1970), Konstantin Ershov and Georgiy Kropachyov's Viy (1967), Kåre Bergstrøm's Lake of the Dead (1958), Viðar Víkingsson's Tilbury (1987), Mario Andreacchio's The Dreaming (1988), James Bogle's Kadaicha (1988), Ann Turner's Celia (1989), Ian Coughlan's Alison's Birthday (1981),  Marek Piestrak's Wilczyca (1983), Janusz Majewski's Lokis (1970), Ryszard Bugajski's Clearcut (1991), Brunello Rondi's Il Demonio (1963), Mariano Baino's Dark Waters (1993), Ben Wheatley's A Field in England (2012), Chris Newby's Anchoress (1993), Alan Clarke's Penda's Fen (1974), and James MacTaggart's Robin Redbreast (1970).

Also included are various short films, a CD of the Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched soundtrack composed by Jim Williams (A Field in England, Possessor), a CD with Arthur Machen's "The White People" short story read by actress Linda Hayden, and a 126-page book with writings by film scholars, authors, and historians.

All films have been restored in high definition from the best available vault elements. The lengthy list of special features are listed below.

Disc 1:

Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched special features:

Introduction by writer-director Kier-La Janisse

Interview with animator Ashley Thorpe

Outtakes - What is Folk Horror?, Harvest Hymns, Terra Assombrada

Folk Poetry recited by actors Ian Ogilvy Linda Hayden set to Super 8 footage

Trailer

Disc 2:

Eyes of Fire special features:

Audio commentary with author Colin Dickey

Interview with director Avery Crounse by historian Stephen Thrower

Crying Blue Sky - Alternate longer cut restored in 2K from the director’s personal 35mm answer print

Short Films:

The Legend Of Sleepy Hollow (Sam Weiss, 1972)

Transformations (Barbara Hirschfeld, 1972)

Backwoods (Ryan Mackfall, 2018) 

Disc 3:

Leptirica special features:

Interview with director Djordje Kadijevic

Štićenik - 1973 short film directed by Djordje Kadijevic

Interview with Štićenik actor Milan Mihailovic

Devičanska Svirka - 1973 short film directed by Djordje Kadijevic

Iterview with Devičanska Svirka actor Goran Sultanovic

Disc 4:

Witchhammer special features:

Audio commentary by Czech film historian Irena Kovarova

The Womb of Woman Is the Gateway to Hell - Appreciation by historians Kat Ellinger and Michael Brooke

The Projection Booth Podcast on Witchhammer

Viy special features:

From the Woods to the Cosmos - John Leman Riley on the history of Soviet fantasy and sci-fi films

Trailer

Silent Short Films:

Satan Exultant (1917)

The Queen of Spades (1916)

The Portrait (1915)

Disc 5:

Lake of the Dead special features:

Audio commentary by historians Jonathan Rigby and Kevin Lyons

Tilbury special features:

Audio commentary by director Viðar Víkingsson and screenwriter Þórarinn Eldjárn

With Enough Tilbury Butter, Anything Is Good — Interview With Karl Ágúst Úlfsson

Interview with actor Kristján Franklin Magnúss

White Spot in the Back of the Head - 1979 student film directed by Viðar Víkingsson

Interview with director Viðar Víkingsson about White Spot in the Back of the Head

Disc 6:

The Dreaming special features:

Audio commentary with director Mario Andreacchio

Trailer

Kadaicha special features:

Audio commentary with director James Bogle

Audio interview with actress Zoe Carides

Audio interview with composer Peter Westheimer

Behind the scenes footage

Trailer

Disc 7:

Celia special features:

Interview with director Ann Turner

Interview with editor Ken Sallows 

The Rabbit in Australia - 1979 short film

Alison’s Birthday special features:

Interviews with producer David Hannay and actors Joanne Samuel and Belinda Giblin

The Devil Down Under - Video essay by film scholar Alexandra Heller-Nicholas

Disc 8:

Wilczyca special features:

Interview with director Marek Piestrak

Lokis: A Manuscript of Professor Wittembach special features:

Interview with director Janusz Majewski

Disc 9:

Clearcut special features:

Introduction by director Ryszard Bugajski

Audio commentary by scholar Shaawano Chad Uran

Short Films:

The Ballad of Crowfoot (Willie Dunn, 1968) with audio commentary

You Are On Indian Land (Michael Kanentakeron Mitchell, 1969)

Consume (Mike Peterson, 2017)

Disc 10:

Il Demonio special features:

Audio commentary by film historian Kat Ellinger

The Kid From A Kibbutz - Video essay by film historian Tim Lucas

Interview with Brunello Rondi biographer Alberto Pezzotta

Dark Waters special features:

Audio commentary by writer/director Mariano Baino

Deep Into the Dark Waters - Making-of feautrette with cast and crew

Disc 11:

A Field in England special features:

Audio commentary by director Ben Wheatley, producer Andy Starke, and sound editor Martin Pavey

Letterboxd Magic Hour - Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched filmmaker Kier-La Janisse interviews director Ben Wheatley

The Music of A Field in England - Featurette with composer Jim Williams and director Ben Wheatley

Ben Wheatley in conversation with film historian Pete Tombs

Camera tests

Trailer

Anchoress special features:

Lockdown 1329 - Video essay by director Chris Newby

A Short Trip To Shere - Director Chris Newby documentars the location of the real Christine Carpenter’s anchoress cell 

Disc 12:

Penda’s Fen special features:

Audio commentary by James Machin and Matthew Hale, editors of Of Mud & Flame: The Penda’s Fen Sourcebook

The Landscape of Feelings: The Road to Penda’s Fen - Interviews with writer David Rudkin, producer David Rose, and more

Robin Redbreast special features:

Audio commentary by William Fowler and Vic Pratt, authorsof The Bodies Beneath: The Flipside of British Film & Television

Interview with writer John Bowen

Short Films:

The Pledge (Digby Rumsey, 1982)

The Sermon (Dean Puckett, 2018)

Also included:

CD: Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched soundtrack composed by Jim Williams

CD: Arthur Machen's "The White People" short story read by actress Linda Hayden with music by Timothy Fife and Missionary Work

126-page book curated by Kier-La Janisse and designed by Luke Insect with new writing by Andy Paciorek, Stephen Volk, Mitch Horowitz, Dawn Keetley, Sarah Chavez, Stephen R. Bissette, and Dejan Ognjanović, plus archival pieces and a breakdown of all the films in the set

[bookmaven]

BLOOD MONEY by Dashiell Hammett (NY: Dell #53, 1944) Cover by Gerald Gregg.; (NY: Dell #486, 1951) Cover by Robert Stanley.

THE CONTINENTAL OP by Dashiell Hammett (NY: Dell #129, 1946) Cover by Gerald Gregg.

THE CREEPING SIAMESE by Dashiell Hammett (NY: Dell #538, 1951). Cover by Robert Stanley.

DEAD YELLOW WOMEN by Dashiell Hammett. (NY: Dell #308, 1949). Cover by Gerald Gregg.

HAMMETT HOMICIDES by Dashiell Hammett (NY: Dell #223, 1948). Cover by Gerald Gregg.

A MAN CALLED SPADE by Dashiell Hammett (NY: Dell #90, 1945) Cover by Gerald Gregg.; (NY: Dell #411, 1950) Cover by Robert Stanley.

NIGHTMARE TOWN by Dashiell Hammett (NY: Dell #379, 1950) Cover by Robert Stanley.

THE RETURN OF THE CONTINENTAL OP by Dashiell Hammett. (NY: Dell #154, 1947) Cover by Gerald Gregg.

————————

Dashiell Hammett (1894-1961) was an American author of hard-boiled detective novels and short stories. He was also a screenwriter and political activist. Drawing upon his experience as a Pinkerton agent, Hammett created the enduring, hard-boiled characters Sam Spade (The Maltese Falcon), Nick and Nora Charles (The Thin Man), the Continental Op (Red Harvest and The Dain Curse) and the comic strip character Secret Agent X-9.

Hammett "is now widely regarded as one of the finest mystery writers of all time". In his obituary in The New York Times, he was described as "the dean of the ... 'hard-boiled' school of detective fiction."