#but maybe faf and/or fallen faf would be good so /pray hands

[cielospeaks]

ngl i kinda wish ganglot had a friend/friends who would have a dynamic w her like bill and ted + the grim reaper

[awed-frog]

The Season Finale/Bye, Boys

I know I'm late - I had to work all day yesterday and today, and when I first got those jobs I’d anticipated I'd be frustrated about missing the finale live, but, well - after last week's episode, I mostly wasn't interested at all. When I sat down tonight to watch it, I almost didn't want to. I was highkey convinced I wouldn't like it, and, yeah, I didn't. Not particularly. I've suspected for a while that Supernatural lost its grandeur and sense of tragedy years ago, and all that's left is a bunch of occasionally magnificent, but mostly unconnected, monster hunts - that they're grasping at straws to avoid going down paths that would actually make sense because they don't want to go there - and this finale confirmed all that with the subtlety of a badly driven tank. 

(Really - I was hoping things would be different, but they're not. As much as this show held my hand and made me laugh and cry in difficult moments and distracted me when real life was plain unbearable, the magic is no longer there. I watched the finale with that same awful weight in your stomach you feel when faced with that one person you no longer love - when you look and look and you don't understand how you could ever love them in the first place, and then your eye catches something - they way their mouth curves into a smile, perhaps, or the once beloved lilt in their voice, and you realize that oh, that's how. 

But still, it's over.)

So, what happens next?

The honest answer is, I don't know. I've been mostly off tumblr for a week, and while I missed chatting and talking with you guys, this self-imposed break really brought home just how my world has shrunk. I tend to be very intense in what I like, and over the last year, 90% of my free time has been Supernatural. Writing stories, writing metas, creating the odd graphic, reblogging other people's posts and ooohing and aaaawing at their creations and insight - that was great, but it also cut my mental landscape into a tiny little postcard. And this past week - I did things. I discovered new stuff, I read real books, I faffed around weird Wikipedia pages, I lost myself in other series, I planted beans and basil and edible flowers. And I liked it - a lot. So whatever I do next, I'll be on tumblr a lot less, because - I’m sorry - I’ve been fearing for a while that Supernatural simply wasn't worth this level of devotion, and this finale pretty much confirmed that. So - really - I’ll keep reblogging gifs and I’ll probably write the occasional headcanon and feel free to ask me things and come talk to me and everything else, but please know that I'm not that positive about this show anymore, so if you want rainbows and ponies, my blog's probably not the best place to get them. I'll definitely keep writing, and I hope I've got enough love left in me to finish my DCBB, but other than that - I think I'm done. It's likely I'll watch the show next year, but I'll certainly not anticipate new episodes and squeal at the screen and bleed my own blood all over it or anything. And maybe this will hurt at some point - God, I loved this show so goddamn much - but for now I'm just numb. 

So, here goes - quite possibly, my last meta. 

Cas: Yes, They Went There

This is what we’re all wondering, isn’t it? Is Cas really dead? 

No, he isn't. If Misha was leaving the show, we'd know about it. Like, of course they'd keep it under wraps until the last episode, but it'd be out today - no reason it wouldn’t. Plus, from a narrative point of view, Cas' death doesn't make any sense. He just died after fucking up - again - and he never got to make his Big Choice between Heaven and *coughs* humanity, plus they're having so much fun jerking us around with that yeah so maybe he and Dean they're in love thing, why would they stop now? So, honestly, his 'death' was his only good moment during this season finale. Like, he obviously wasn't brainwashed brainwashed, so it didn't make any sense he wouldn't involve Sam and Dean in his overly simplistic scheme, plus he's been acting stupid and out of character the whole time he was on screen - and, I get Cas is hard to write, but come on. Renting a cabin under the name James Novak when he can hypnotize it out of some guy without leaving a paper trace? Reading books and taking online classes about childbirth? This from a guy who's not a guy at all and has instinctive knowledge of physics and whatever and knows perfectly well that thing inside Kelly isn't a human child, anyway, so he might as well take woodworking classes for all the good that would do him? Uh. Not to mention his random snooping into alternate dimensions he knew nothing about when he was supposed to be taking care of Kelly - if AU!Bobby had killed him, or if he'd fallen into a pit or whatever else, Kelly would have remained alone in that cabin basically waiting for Lucifer to find her. Honestly - why do they bother writing Cas at all if they can't get him right?

Destiel: Still Subtext

And more bad news: five seasons of queerbaiting - and counting. This season finale had to be the one with the least amount of UST or pining or any kind of fuckery between them since, I don’t know, ever? Sure, there were moments, and I could list them, but why should I? Look at Cas doing his own thing, and what does it matter if he was staring at the water (possibly thinking about that fish which started everything, and by everything I mean Cas’ love for humanity, and by humanity I mean Dean), and what does it matter if Dean, as usual, is the one fretting about Cas and worrying about Cas and being all undignified and unmanly? It's been years, and Dean was unusually chatty during the whole finale, so I'm sure some of us were like, ALERT ALERT THIS IS WHEN IT HAPPENS (not me, because I'm grumpy and disillusioned), and nope, not the time. Better luck next season, guys.

Honestly, at this point there are no good options. 

Like, I’m sure there are already two hundred codas out there about the Nephilim resurrecting Cas and Dean kissing him out of sheer relief, but yeah - that’s not gonna happen. My bet is - if they’re being decent about things, Cas will be saved in some way and the eye fucking will start again, dragging on and on to some series finale which, no doubt about it, will indicate the two of them are actually sleeping together, because look at that painting in the background and the label on that beer - it’s obvious; and if they’re not being decent about things, our Cas is definitely dead and Sam and Dean will meet AU!Cas in their search for Mary and at that point things will get Weird, because Dean will be Grief-stricken and Unhappy, and Cas won’t know or love him at all, and then what? Again, at best the whole thing is definitely gone and buried and Supernatural will remain the main Wikipedia example for queerbaiting (but until that very last moment, we’ll speculate this is really about destiny and falling in love in every universe and whatever), and at worst we’ve got yet another cringeworthy dance between the two of them as Dean gets over AU!Cas just as AU!Cas falls for Dean, cue romance tropes, cue will they/won’t they, cue shoot me now.

Guys - I still believe there was something there. More: I believe it was subtextually indicated, for years, that Dean and Cas were in love, and this season kept giving us confirmation that subtext is a thing and that it matters (the latest hint to date is Dean’s I’m actually Sam’s parent speech), but the fact is, subtext is not enough. There are dozens of ways to bring a romance into text without resolving it so it stays ‘interesting’, and the fact they haven’t done it yet - we should stop excusing their behaviour. If Cas had been a woman, the possibility of a relationship would be confirmed by now. So, whatever.

Gold Star, Sammy!

For someone who's been pretty much a secondary character in his own story for the whole season, or, let's be mean, the whole show after S5, Sam suddenly got some unexpected attention, and was the only person to get a win out of this finale. His character development was mostly subtextual, but it was clearly leading somewhere, and this was exactly it. Sam's naturally ambitious and driven, and he's suppressed this aspect of his personality for years because freak and vessel of Lucifer and whatever else, but now, after years and years of penance and invisibility and praying to a God who didn't give a flying fuck about him, it looks like Sammy's all grown up. Yay. There he is, a leader of man, a consummate warrior, a witch. Not hiding, not underplaying his skills, not feeling guilty at all - and finally. Sam got to hug his mother and defeat all of his archenemies - the BMoL's gone, Toni's gone, Lucifer's gone, and Crowley's gone. And none of them need to weigh on his conscience, because, lookie here, Sam sort of forgave them all (except Lucifer, but, then again, he's not really dead, is he?). No, Sam got to reject the BMoL's pernicious influence on his pure, noble soul, he got to work with Toni, who'd cruelly taunted and tortured him, and he got to be nice to Crowley, which mostly didn't make any sense because Crowley and Sam always hated each other. And even the fact he lost Mary and Cas in the end - that doesn't affect his shiny character arc at all. Sam's been ready to lose Cas several times before now, and he's accepted it in a way Dean never has; and as for Mary - narratively, Sam got what he needed from her: a declaration of love and an admission of guilt - the confirmation that nothing was ever actually his fault. Now he can finally move on.

I have to say - despite the fact it was a fucking long time coming, this sudden bout of character development felt hurried to me. All that talk about leading others - when had Sam ever expressed an open interest in it? Until last season, he seemed warily determined to settle down with ‘someone who understands the life’ and be as normal as he could, and now out of the blue he’s King bloody Arthur? Like Crowley’s sudden meekness and suicidal schemes, Sam becoming the top pilot of the Rebellion was not out of character, exactly, but was rushed and badly written - this whole episode felt like someone had said, Okay, these characters need to get here, and there’s this chapter in the middle which explains how but lolz, who’s got time to write that? Let’s skip to the good parts. Rewrite, try again

Dean “I hate that I love you” Winchester

Dean is Sam’s parent - this has been my Dean tag for a while, and boy, they went to such lengths to finally confirm it textually it was very nearly out of character. Because, I mean, this is Dean, and as much as I appreciated that whole speech, that's so not who he is. I'm going to be generous and say he was under the effects of a lot of drugs, but still - this is the guy who never blurted out more than one tearful line in his entire life when under threat of imminent death, and speaking from the heart with such eloquence is not really his thing. Jensen pulled it off, but only just. But, whatever - nice to see some of the subtext they weave in this show is actually significant - and, full offense, now that it's textually confirmed Dean always felt like a parent to Sam, more than a brother, I hope that those who are convinced he actually wants to bend Sam over a couch and do “bad things” with him will finally take a cold shower (possibly with holy water) and step away from the whole thing. 

Other than that moment, though, which, dreamworld or not, Dean really needed, this season was disastrous for him. His arc's been downwards as much as Sam's been upwards, and, as we predicted, Dean ended his year in a very low place. Both his parent figures are gone - Mary swallowed by an alternate dimension, Bobby who flat-out didn't recognize him - Cas spent weeks ignoring him and now he's dead, Crowley's also dead (and however much they tried to downplay their relationship in this finale, we know there was something there), and the world is ending - again - because Dean didn't need to wait for the birth to know in his heart Lucifer's kid's gonna be a threat to, like, everything.

So, uhm, I really don’t know how to feel about things. Dean tried to be more open this season, which mostly went badly for him, but he also fixed things with his family - look at him letting Sam step away into danger (and, I mean, we don’t need any more confirmation because text, but in that moment he was definitely coded as Sam’s parent) and focusing on helping his mom instead (anon - I know I still have to answer your question about why I think Dean’s perfectly happy fixing cars and baking pies for his family while Sam’s off to Congress, and that meta’s mostly written, but here you see it again - Dean, the feminine, blue-collar character, is content with staying at home while his masculine, Ivy League educated brother goes off to war). I guess this means the brodependency is definitely over? Too bad Dean will be too busy mourning Cas and saving the world to actually appreciate it.

(Then again, #NoHomo.)  

Crowley: At Last, We Know

Crowley's arc has trasparently clear for a while, and it's mirrored Cas' so precisely the question of his death was becoming a when, and not an if. When we were speculating about his fate, I wrote somewhere that much would depend on the kind of story they were writing - if this is a coming of age thingy, then Crowley wouldn't have needed to die, because he's not a father figure (no matter how many times Dean’s called him Daddy); but if this is a tragedy, then the textbook solution was to have him die for the heroes. It's a The Last of the Mohicans ending: an überdramatic I know you'll never love me but I care so much about you I'll sacrifice myself all the same thing, and, look - what can I even say? 

I'm upset because I really liked Crowley and there was so much we didn't know about him and Mark is outstanding and aaaaaargh. On the other hand, at least they did him the courtesy of a noble ending (Rowena, of course, being a silly woman, got a humiliating and prolonged off-screen death, because, yeah, who cares, and the same pattern was applied to Toni and Ketch) and he got to bow out on his own terms: for Dean, and with a self-inflicted wound. 

Still, his death, like Eileen's, signals there's no believable happy ending in sight for our forlorn heroes. They'll probably stay alive long enough to kill the Nephilim and fall into the Apocalypse World of Doom™, and then they'll die*.

*Terms and conditions apply, because it would make sense if they died and it would make for a heartbreaking, tragic ending, but hey, the movie deal's still on the table so better leave everything unresolved and have them drive off into the sunset on their own. 

Mary: No Means Yes

I know some people like Mary, and I do think she was a good character, but as a person, she was kind of awful. I won't go back to everything she did wrong all season, but I will point out that her only redemptive point is that she sucked as a mom because she was not a Traditional Woman, and that sort of made her interesting and we raved about their courage all season, right? How Mary could have been a 1950s housewife and instead look at her - much BAMF, such wow. And yet we now know that Mad Max woman I do what I want façade was just that - a façade. Because when Mary was brainwashed, where was the real part of herself? Her most cherished piece of soul? The writers left no doubt, no margin for error: back in the kitchen, preparing horribly unhealthy yet terribly American lunches for toddler Dean, cooing at baby Sammy, her flat spotless (where are Dean's toys?), her ironing almost done. This is, apparently, the person she wishes she could be - what every woman should aspire to be: a mom who's 100% dedicated to her kids - someone who hovers around the house in her nightgown, ethereal and effortlessly beautiful and probably shaved bald (legs and armpits and lady bits shaved and trimmed and waxed and moisturised and perfumed and pleasantly soft and babyish), humbly content with this family God has given her. And, by the way, when she gets back to reality, that's who she becomes - she shoots Ketch, who'd dared to sully her marital bed and hurt Dean, she sobs in Sam's shoulder, she anxiously looks after Kelly because women always bond over periods and pregnancy and mascara and stuff, she tearily reassures Kelly that yes, dying for your unborn son, even if that son is a demon and the scourge of the Earth, is the done thing and anyone would do the same; her final act - punching Lucifer in the face - is completely out of character for the smart, ruthless hunter we know she can be. Instead, it speaks of a mother’s love - a kind of adrenalinic - you hurt my baby boy, I’ll make you bleed sort of thing. This, of course, is supposed to speak in her favour, because give me an emotional woman over a rational one any day. Honestly, if I didn't find Mary so annoying I would welcome the moment when she'll meet the other Mary - the woman who let her boyfriend die rather than dooming the world. As it is, I’m finding it hard to be excited about anything S13 has to bring, though.

Kelly: Blessed Are You among Women

I know that Supernatural doesn’t have the best record with women, and this finale, even coming as it did on the legacy of Eileen’s death, did not disappoint: from Toni playing her mother card and then dying off-screen, to Rowena left a burned husk in a non-descript room, to Mrs Hess cowardly attempting to escape as her operatives kept fighting around her, both episodes were a testosterone festival of testicles and bad beer. Still, what they did to Kelly was very nearly unforgivable. To recap: they basically took a smart, modern, career-driven woman, had her raped by her actual lover (marital rape’s still not a crime in 49 countries, by the way, and it was completely legal in many Western countries until the 1990s), got her pregnant, and then turned her into a Stepford mother. Because, of course - what else could she do? Get an abortion? I know we’re all theoretically in favour of that, but who can really go through with it, the heartless monster? And as for killing yourself - it may be your life, your body and your decision, but it's also a sin, and a big no no. Just be grateful your demon baby still needs your internal organs to survive and shut up. So, well - they basically sucked away her every choice Kelly had until she was this bouncing pregnant ball who got no say over her own destiny and on top of that, her last few days were spent building Ikea furniture and painting a nursery for the literal Antichrist who'd claw his way through her stomach to be born. Honestly - I'd say I haven't seen such a demeaning and antifeminist storyline since the last encyclical letter - except I saw the exact same thing on The Magicians only three weeks ago, so apparently misogyny's back in fashion? 

Then again, we already knew that. Just look at how people are voting.

(If you're interested, hedge witch Julia, raped by a god, manages to abort after a series of mishaps - like, the Planned Parenthood doctor who tries to help her is brutally murdered by a demon of some kind and Julia has to rob a bank and doom a friend to certain death in order to get another procedure because pregnant women are selfish bitches - only, what do you know, that part of her soul who could feel love and empathy is snipped right up along with her uborn child, so whooopsie. She'll only get her back if she forgives her rapist, and she does, because that's apparently our role as women in 2017 and fifty years of feminism taught us nothing.)

Bite-sized Rants

Toni being a mother - yeah, that didn't have anything to do with anything and that last scene of S11 was just proof of how little they plan ahead. I just read somewhere that this is the problem with modern television - that series will be automatically canceled or renewed no matter the storyline depending on how much money they make, and this means nothing makes sense anymore - stories that were supposed to last one season are artificially stretched to last forever because ratings, while things that were conceived as trilogies - we’ll never know how they end, because not enough people were watching. So, I mean - I am sort of pleased that I got there before they did and wrote a line one year ago about Dean eventually forgiving Toni because ‘a parent’s love - that something he understands’ - because, yeah, that's exactly the ploy Toni used on Dean and it worked, so, points, but at the same time - that whole BMoL thing was so wonky and stereotyped and Nazi-shaped and My God, really? The only character who barely made sense there was Ketch, but, unfortunately, that’s also the easiest character to write and the one who’s most commonly found on our screens: Trigger-happy Psychopath Charms Everyone with His Wit and Good Looks.

(Plus, Ketch was yet another piece of the Dean is Bi mosaic that went nowhere, so I’m not feeling very charitable right now.)

The other hunters - look, it's just not believable anymore. So apparently Sam and Dean know who everyone else is, people are okay following Sam anywhere even if he used to be the actual Antichrist or whatever and there are rumors about how he went to Hell and I don't know what else, and on top of that this Men of Letters thing is just something everybody knows about now? And yet Sam and Dean never contact these people, and more importantly, don't share their super secret Bunker full of weapons and lore with any of them? Not even Jody? Nice, guys. Real grand of you.

(Plus, what is this bullshit - why do Sam and Dean send everyone home after torching the BMoL’s HQ when they know perfectly well Lucifer  and/or the Nephilim are about to destroy the actual world? Maybe ask for some back-up there?)

Cosmic consequences, shmosmic consequences. Dean killed Death, and so what? Cas killed Billie, and so what? There is no way to even argue the current mess has to do with the cosmic consequences Billie promised, because all of it is basically of their own doing: Mary walking away when she should have stayed, Sam trusting the BMoL even as they kept kidnapping him and threatening him and killing random people, Cas being his usual self-sacrificing self and Crowley thinking he knows better than anyone else (or, well, as this episode pointed out - they both “needing a win”) - there was no supernatural involved there. So...?

(Plus, this is yet another example of a big narrative thing of the Destiel variety going nowhere. Cas killing Billie for Dean, Cas nearly dying while confessing his love right, left and centre and then - out of nothing, here is the ‘divorced parents’ routine - Cas is decorating a nursery with a brainwashed Stockholm victim and Dean’s priority is to - who even knows?)

That reference to Romani people was almost worse than that bit about the Arab Spring. Please, for the love of God - your show is watched abroad. If you do use history or politics, maybe Google it first?

The BMoL have te power to create ‘mystical dampeners against magic’ and yet they absolutely needed to kidnap Mary to ensure the continuation of their evil schemes? 

Sam and Dean can become virgins again but can’t mix themselves some old-fashioned explosive?

Mrs Hess had people studying the Winchesters for years and yet she doesn’t know which is which?

Dean finally got to fire his grenade launcher and we didn’t even see it clearly?

Handful of Disorganized but Well-meaning and Kind-Hearted American Mavericks Defeat Superpowerful European Organization Complete with Private Army Without Breaking a Sweat - Jesus, enough.

Claire was too busy to save the world? Where was she? Coachella?

Crowley looking at Dean when he called them beautiful, that fight between Ketch and Dean being heavily paralleled with Dean beating up Cas...when are they going to bring that stuff out of the subtext?

Cas being so easily seduced by Paradise - didn’t Dean reject those exact concepts back in S4, and didn’t Cas switch sides because of it? But I suppose he’s just, forgotten, because that’s what happens when you take online lamaze classes or something?

Honestly - I apologize for being so negative. There were some brilliant bits here and there, but as I said - on the whole, I’m just tired. Supernatural seems determined to tell a story by not actually telling it, and at this point I’m really tired of doing the job it for them. I’m fed up by how little Dean cared about Crowley (because, if nothing else, that was one complex and interesting relationship and a narrative dream they threw away out of fear it would awake old ‘Dean is Bi’ ghosts) and I’m fed up by how anticlimatic Dean’s reaction to Cas’ death was (we’ve seen more dramatic scenes over a nose bleed, but I guess these two episodes were so action packed they had no time to insert a random #NoHomo lady, so even a Merthur hug would have been way too much) and I’m fed up by the fact that Jesus Christ, they have such talented people working for them and why won’t they just let them? 

Guys, I don’t even - I’m going to bed.