#cannot deny the facts

[incorectquoteswlw]

Kate, with wide puppy dog eyes: Please? For me?

Yelena: Don't do that

Kate: Do what?

Yelena: You think every time you say "Please? for me?" I'll do whatever you want. Well, not this time

Kate, with wider puppy dog eyes and a pout: Please? For me?

Yelena: Yeah, alright

[titleofpersonage-p01]

[xbraveheartx]

Still drives me absolutely bonkers thinking about the moment you first start to change and become human in Lies of P, is the moment after you fight Romeo and go back to the hotel. Sophia notes you don’t look so good after she mentions the necklace Romeo had— the one that says “To Romeo from your friend C”. It visibly affects you and you’re not sure why just yet.

Where only after that, you hear Romeo’s voice whisper “Carlo” and suddenly you have physically changed. Your hair is longer, your shoulders are broader, you have physically been altered because encountering Romeo and hearing him say that name awakened something deep within you that wants out.

And the menu screen where your very heart sits is now the Opera House in flames with a bundle of white stargazer flowers sitting beside it.

Bonkers, man— BONKERS!!

[saltpepperbeard]

Stede is hotter than his man is.

Fight me

...COUNTERPOINT, ANON, WITH SOME EDITS HERE:

THEY'RE BOTH HOT SHDKLJS.

Or, to throw a Rhysie Gif in here for some additional pizzazz/point:

[jululipop]

this is so sad!! 😢💔 tag a friend!!

[astraltrickster]

Given that my post about why you are not obligated to blog about Current Events (whatever they are at any given time) is going around again, I'd like to say the same thing from a slightly different angle and state what you ARE obligated to do.

You are still not obligated to blog about ANY specific subject, no matter how serious, no matter how urgent, no matter how grave. You never will be. The impact of social media on real world atrocities has the potential to be great, but it is cumulative. No one is going to die in a ditch somewhere, barely uttering the tragic final words, "if only...if only...tumblr users wormhentaiafficionado and mothmanbutthole...posted about how sad they are...then maybe things would be different..." - nor are policymakers going to change their minds because some tweet has 749,845 cumulative likes and retweets instead of 750,000. Make no mistake, if you have the energy to be sharing these kinds of things, it can be good to do! We live in a society, it's always good to help where you can, even if all you can do is show public support for people who are hurting - but if you can't do that, for any reason, you're not obligated to. Period. End of.

What are you obligated to do?

1. Give people the benefit of the doubt. Social media accounts are not most people's entire lives. Just because someone isn't blogging about whatever tragedy is occurring does not mean they don't care. Sometimes it does mean that, sure, and that sucks - but not only are you not going to change that by yelling at them, sometimes it means they care too much. Sometimes it means they're closer to it than you assumed and need a moment to think about something else, anything else. Sometimes it means it's not safe for them to be blogging about it, be it due to abusive family potentially finding out, being at risk of getting fired and quite possibly dying of poverty sooner rather than later, or even taking very illegal direct action that they do not want to be linked to on record in even the vaguest possible way. Sometimes it means dealing with it is their day job and they're on the internet after a long and exhausting day of trying to make things better. You don't know. You'll never know unless they decide to tell you. No one owes you that explanation. You are obligated to make peace with that fact.

2. Slow the fuck down.

Listen. When bad things happen, from natural disasters, to manmade horrors beyond our comprehension, it's only normal to get scared and desperate to do something, anything about it. That heightened emotional state is very vulnerable, and because of that, there will always be people out there looking to take advantage of the chaos for ulterior motives - and no matter how good your intentions, and in fact no matter how right you are in your values and at the core of your strategy, you will never be immune to garbage-in-garbage-out. Misinformation can be deadly, even in the hands of someone who means well. You need to pause long enough to sort out the garbage. You need to learn to fight the impulse to trust every single post that tells you that your share/comment/etc. is URGENT and WILL mean the difference between life and death for someone, somewhere. Do your fact checks. Scan for dogwhistles before you end up passing around a post that implies [insert group that is marginalized in most of the English-speaking world but has hegemonic power in some other part of the world and is committing some atrocity there] is coming after you next if you stay silent. Vet charity and advice links before you accidentally send scared, desperate, and vulnerable people to a scammer - or worse, hand them over to a honeypot operation or give them a recipe for poisonous "medicine".

Or, to put it another way, you are obligated to make an attempt to stay informed enough to avoid making things materially worse. You are not obligated to doomblog. In fact, doomblogging can be antithetical to your obligation to not make things worse. Choosing neutrality in times of great tragedy and injustice is bad, yes, but you should immediately be wary of anyone who says that simply not blogging about a subject - let alone not sharing a specific post - is inherently "choosing neutrality".

So remember: breathe. Be careful out there. Mourn for the people that whatever atrocity has this or my other post circulating has taken from us or will take from us, and do your best to be kind to the people who are still alive - and remember that kindness includes using social media responsibly.

[possamble]

What are your headcanons about Marcille's mom if you have any? It's interesting that what drew Donato to her was cause she lived the history he studied, or that was said somewhere at least. She must've had an interesting life.

so this was going to be just a normal answer but then I realized I have a Lot of Things To Say. so here goes, a compilation of what we know for a fact from the canon, what I've extrapolated from the visual cues and details, and my theories based on all of that.

Things we know for a fact about Marcille's mother because they were explicitly stated in the manga and supplemental materials:

She was a court mage for a Tall-man kingdom at the southern part of the Northern Continent

Donato, a court historian, fell in love with her because she had lived through the history he was studying, and he courted her for 17 years (age 15 to 32) before getting married

She was a cheerful person who rarely showed extreme emotion and took things as they came

She always cooked a huge meal for Marcille on her birthdays

She remarried a gnome after Donato's death and a short distance away from Marcille's childhood home

Pipi, Marcille's pet bird, was actually older than Marcille and originally belonged to her mother (bird died at 62)

She was extremely heartbroken when Donato died and ultimately ended up instilling a deep fear of mortality in Marcille with her words

the only time she showed extreme emotion in front of her family was when Donato could no longer eat his favourite dish near the end of his life.

She scolded Marcille for being cruel to ants (implying she can have a stern side when needed)

Things that are explicitly shown but mostly through visual cues

She has a very distinctive style of dress always involving a ribbon choker (mirroring Marcille's habit of always wearing a matching choker with any of her outfits that don't cover her neck)

She was almost stereotypically good at housekeeping and traditionally "wifely" things (very frequently depicted wearing an apron or doing some domestic chore when not at work, seems to have been an avid cook).

She knits? (also, note the affectionate smile as she's looking at Donato and Marcille reading a book together in the full panel)

She was as excited for Marcille's milestones as Donato was.

She didn't tell Marcille much about elven food

(there are a couple things that this panel in particular implies:

She lived a good deal of her life (if not being born and raised) in a mainly elven country in the West, implied by her knowing enough of an elven region's cuisine to prefer Tall-man food over it

seems to have a pretty carefree and casual demeanour overall, if this is how she replied to Marcille asking her about it (sounds like she never gave her culinary preferences that much thought to begin with)

slightly related to number 2, it seems like she and Marcille had a fairly casual parent-child dynamic (especially in comparison to the Toudens' memory of their father)

(local elf tastes Italian food once and never goes back))

However, she seems a lot more... serious in most of the other times we see her? Almost like the very stereotypical archetype of a graceful elf.

Subsequent conclusions about her personality:

Usually pretty carefree and cheerful at home, has been a loving and attentive parent throughout Marcille's childhood (while not being so doting that she didn't discipline Marcille).

Slightly more conjectural theories on her personality:

Had a much more graceful and professional personality at work, which would explain the more serious portraits we see of her.

Given that both she and Donato had positions at the royal court, it seems a little odd that she'd go out of her way to do all the housework herself, so maybe she just enjoyed doing it?

Now taping all the evidence together and toeing the line between analysis and fanfiction:

It's clear that she loved Donato very much and was utterly devastated by losing him. But there's one thing that really stuck out to me in what little we see of her:

Doesn't she seem... angry? The way she's gritting her teeth, clutching the tablecloth, and how this is the first and only time we see her eyes opened that wide. In the following panel, you see her being quiet and dejected after her initial outburst. She's still crying very intensely, but her brows are furrowed, and she's not really responding to Donato's affection in her body language.

We're not told the details of how she felt about losing Donato other than that it upset her. But this, to me, implies that she was angry and resented that he was aging, that the end of his life was approaching. An "it's not fair" type of preemptive grief. And if this was the first and last time she cried like this in front of her family, she was either very good at coping in private... or very bad at letting herself feel unpleasant emotions until they become unavoidable and end up overwhelming her.

It's not too remarkable a detail on the surface. It's even reminiscent of what the audience has seen of Marcille. But... when it comes to the big picture, you'd think an elf who voluntarily chose to marry a tall-man and have a half-elf child would have been better prepared for this.

It kind of recontextualizes her cheerfulness to me.

"I'm sure everything's gonna be okay!" (or some variation thereof, depending on what translation you have).

And this is stated to contrast her extreme grief when finally confronting Donato's failing body and eventual death. But I'm wondering if... maybe this optimism was why she was so upset. What if she went into all of it thinking "everything's gonna be okay"? What if she was a little young by elven standards, and just followed her heart thinking that her own resilience would get her through anything?

Of course, only to get completely overwhelmed when she actually loses Donato. She turns into a completely different person. And that's heartbreaking on its own-- but what the audience sees is the effect it had on Marcille. Can you imagine being her, watching your invincible and upbeat mother suddenly lose all the light in her eyes in one go?

I've already made a huge post about how I think Marcille models her "work persona" off her mother, but another thing that stuck with me as I was looking for more details in the manga was this:

copy pasting from the other post i made about it lmao it's like... the second she resigns herself to lifelong pain and terror, there's another portrait of her mother facing her like this. with their heads bowed, in mirrored body language of resignation and despair and sorrow. Except it's posed like Marcille is still looking at her mother but her mother is looking away.

It took me a second to realize, but I think that it's a visual metaphor for the fact that Marcille's mother was the only long-lived role model she had-- and she failed to model healthy grief for her daughter. I don't say this as an accusation or to disparage her as a character, but just as a matter of fact. In her, Marcille was seeing herself older and losing a short-lived spouse or loved one of her own, and all she saw was hopelessness.

But her mother didn't mean to instill hopelessness and terror in her. She wasn't really thinking of how it would truly affect Marcille at all (at least, that's how I'm interpreting her looking down and away from Marcille in the metaphor), she was just sad. And she, in her own way, was trying to protect her daughter and help her prepare for future losses.

What she meant was "loss is inevitable, and you have to learn how to be in pain but live on anyway." What Marcille heard was "loss is inevitable, and you will be scared and hurt for the rest of your life."

Again. Marcille's mother doesn't feature explicitly in the story the way her father does -- but in so many ways, her shadow, her silhouette, her reflection is always hanging over Marcille.

All that to say... headcanon-wise (everything from here on is 100% without evidence lmao), I'd like to think that she matured and realized that she failed Marcille. I imagine her being regretful about it, wanting a chance to fix it but never finding a way to insert herself back into Marcille's life when Marcille is so so so busy becoming the most accomplished mage possible. I imagine her being herself again, now, so many years after her loss and after remarrying -- but with her cheerfulness tempered with a lot more wisdom and the pain of having gone through loss like that. I think the second Marcille actually tells her what happened in the dungeon, she'd want to go running to her daughter again -- if Marcille tells her the full truth instead of just being embarrassed she let things get that far. (oh, the tragedy of her wanting to be more like her mother and an accomplished adult who doesn't need to be babied... being embarrassed to actually tell her mother how much she fucked up...)

There's also the tension of her having remarried -- I know that there's at least a little bit of resentment that Marcille harbours about that, because she's childish like that at heart even if she makes an effort not to externalize it. I think that her mother would be aware of that, potentially adding to her sense of guilt and apprehension at trying to reappear/intrude on Marcille's life. I honestly don't think Marcille has met her stepfather -- or even considers him a stepfather rather than "mama's new husband" and kind of a total stranger. I think she and her mother actively don't talk about it in their correspondence, like an elephant in the room.

but, ultimately, I think her mother is on her side no matter what. Ancient magic? Dark necromancy? Sure, she'll feel guilty and like she was partially responsible for setting Marcille down such a painful path, but she wouldn't care. that's her daughter!! she would've moved back west and been petitioning for her at the court, buying a house right next to the Canaries barracks and visiting her every day that she wasn't on a mission. And if her husband had opinions on Marcille becoming a "dark arts user," he either gets over it or it's divorce with him. Yes, she might have had her optimism completely humbled by losing Donato like that -- but she's still headstrong and self-assured and she doesn't care what people think of her. It's her way or the highway and she's always going to be in Marcille's corner.

(She also needs a name lol. I went with Juno, just to be cute about "Marcille"s closest real life equivalent being Marcella, which is the female version of Marcellus, which in turn is a diminutive of Marcus, which was derived from Mars. Absolutely in love with Marcille potentially being named after Ares/Mars the fucking god of war btw)

[just-pauline]

Alya Cesaire redesign

[greensaplinggrace]

do you guys remember this. because it lives rent free in my brain every single day. this is still some of the funniest shit I have ever seen. like what do you mean no 😭😭

[dollopheadsandclotpoles]

MAKE ME CHOOSE ↳ @youdontloveme-yet asked Kongpob/Arthit or Tharn/Type

[possession1981]

clowns live in concert

[foster-the-moths]

exuvia (septendecim au)

warnings: some descriptions of body horror (much tamer than emergence) and some implied suicidal ideation

jonah starts his journey back to the house. they find adam, but not in the way they expected.

2,411 words. sequel to verify

it turns out jonah did not need to walk for an entire mile, after all. after walking for about 5 minutes, he had noticed a car with one of its windows rolled down on the side of the road. it wouldn't have been his first choice, a forest green car with the license plate 'TCHGEEK' was pretty recognizable, and if a missing report went out then jonah was fucked. but he really didn't /have/ a choice, and besides, he could just ditch it after he and adam found another one to steal.

it was a tough squeeze, but they manage to fit their arm through the gap and unlock the car. nice. now he could just hot-wire it. hopefully. they fish a screwdriver out of their jacket pocket and crouch down to unscrew the panel under the steering column, setting the screws in the center console cup holders. the panel comes off easily, and reveals a few bundles of wires. he makes quick work finding the battery wires, and stripping them down to twist them together with a pair of pliers. he holds his breath as the radio crackles to life, but relaxes as it just plays some news station, and not the voice of an alternate. they move on to finding the starter wire, and it was taking him a bit longer than he would've liked to find it with how badly his vision was swimming, but he wasn't about to quit now. if he could get the car up and running he could get to adam faster and they could have a quick escape. they weren't sure if the alternates from the house would follow adam outside or not, but better safe than sorry.

they held their breath as they connected the starter wire and nearly hollered in joy when the engine started up. thank god the wires on this car were the same as the last one. he's not really sure what happens if the wrong wires are connected, and he really doesn't want to ever find out. he slams the car door shut and puts his hands on the wheel.

…and then realizes he is probably in no condition to be operating a vehicle. fuck. he could barely connect the wires together, how on earth is he going to drive? god, they were never going to make it back to that godawful house, adam was still good as dead. they were useless. they should just give up and-

wait. no.

he presses his hands against his eyes, using the pressure to ground himself. they couldn't spiral. not right now. it was just the MAD talking, they were fine. he's driven short distances while high before, he can make it three-quarters of a mile with a concussion. they would be fine. adam would be fine. they were not useless. adam was still alive, they were not going to fail him again by offing themselves before they could even get to the house. they grit their teeth, and eased a foot onto the gas pedal. he was going to make it to that house or die trying. he sets the radio on the center console, and starts to inch the car forwards.

---

jonah counts his blessings as he pulls the stolen car up to the worst house in the world. they might've swerved and slammed the brakes the whole way there, and run over the curb as they parked, but hey! he wasn't dead. he thunks his head against the steering wheel, relieved. they grab the handle of the car door, yanking it and pushing outwards to stumble out into the street.

they leave the car running and the door open as they scan the front of the house for adam, squinting into the dark. this part of the neighborhood has no streetlights, and he wouldn't be surprised if the whole block was abandoned. whatever the reason may be, the lack of illumination proves to make searching for adam very difficult, especially when jonah is nursing what is most likely a concussion. maybe they should have angled the car towards the house so that the headlights would hit the face of the house.

instead he calls out, "adam?"

a beat of silence, then-

"jonah?" a crackling voice replies.

jonah looks towards where the sound originated, and finds a huddled mass on the front lawn, obscured by the dark. he carefully approaches, and stops five feet from where the figure lays.

he clears his throat, and then speaks, "when- uh- when is your birthday, and what do we do to celebrate?"

a shift, and then a voice. "january 18th. we… we go to the grocery store, buy whatever's in the bakery's reduced price section. nothing above seven dollars. or we just steal something. last year it was half of an apple pie," adam rasps, his voice hissing with an undertone of static.

jonah sighs in relief, unhunching their shoulders and throwing their head back to the sky with a grin. the static is strange, but he brushes it off. everything has sounded like that since he woke up, it makes sense that adam's voice is affected as well. he's found adam, and now they get the hell out of here.

"oh thank god," jonah laughs. "come on, man, i hot-wired a car on the way here, we can-"

"i can't get up," adam interrupts.

"you- what?"

"i… i think my legs are broken… or something. i can't walk right. my arms are broken too. i had to crawl out," adam confesses, his voice sounding small. he always did hate asking for help, and it appears that remained true even now.

"ah." christ, what did those things do to him? jonah thought alternates relied on mental anguish for their attacks, not breaking bones. "that's… not great. i don't think i can carry you. i'm pretty sure i have a concussion, and- uh- yeah," explains, cutting himself off sheepishly. they weren't really sure how to get adam to the car, and they couldn't just sit out here waiting for one of those alternates to come out of the house and maul them. they swallow down a tinge of fear at the thought, they had already spent too much time here. he felt like there were eyes on them, were they being watched? maybe adam was bait, maybe-

"oh… i- i think that if you put my arm over your shoulder i could walk. to the car, at least," adam suggests,

jonah blinks, dispelling the thoughts stinging their brain like a cloud of hornets. "okay, yeah… yeah i think i can do that," they assure, bending down to try and figure out how to get adam to his feet.

"okay. my left arm is… less broken than the other one. here," adam states, offering a limb and, yeah, even in the dark jonah can tell it is very much broken. he grimaces, dropping into a crouch and carefully laying it across his shoulder.

"does that… hurt at all? i don't want to make it worse," jonah murmurs, glancing at the dark shape of adam's shoulder like his entire arm might fall off if they jostle it too much.

"…not really," adam admits. "it's uncomfortable, but it doesn't hurt."

jonah swallows, making a mental note to read up on shock in the first aid books at hq. "okay, that's… concerning, but we'll deal with that once we get out of here. are you ready?" they look to adam, unable to make out more than a vague shape and a small amount of light bouncing off of his eyes and hair.

"yeah."

jonah stands slowly, supporting adam's weight as he flails his legs, trying to catch his balance. jonah's head screams in protest, but they grit their teeth and push through it. they stand still for a moment, before jonah coaches him through walking in unison, adam lurching along like a newborn deer. it definitely seems… strange, to say the least, adam's weight shifting in ways completely different from expected, but they make it work. soon, they are in front of the car, and jonah hoists adam into the passenger seat, stepping back to give him space.

jonah looks up to adam, and the words on his tongue die as his blood runs cold.

in the bright glow of the car light, jonah can finally make out adam's face. two fissures tear down his face from his eyes, lined with two perfect rows of pearly teeth. where his mouth would be, should be, is a smooth stretch of skin. something that looks like blood runs down his face, crimson streaming down his face in dried-up rivulets . jonah rips his gaze from the gruesome sight, but his eyes catch on the rest of adam's body. their eyes flit frantically, taking in ribs poking out of his chest from where they seem fused to his hoodie, raw flesh visible towards the middle, a grisly wound that ripples with his breath.

this is not adam. the thing in front of him has tricked him. they were such a fool to believe they hadn't left adam for dead, and now they were going to pay for it. this poor imitation of his friend would deliver him to death's doorstep, and he deserved it. a small part of his brain whispers in adam's devastated voice, "my body is wrong, i am not the real me."

"jonah?" adam croaks, "are you okay?"

jonah's gaze snaps to his eyes, the pupils of which seem to be spiking outwards across the whites. "yeah! yeah-yeah i'm- i'm fine! just… spaced out for a second, ha," jonah sputtered, his words a bit too rushed as he tears his eyes from adam. he was hallucinating, that's all. adam was fine! he was alive, and human, and everything else he should be! hell, if jonah looks at him out of the corner of his eyes then he looks normal enough! he's fine, but if jonah tells him what he's seeing, then he'll freak out. he just has to keep this to himself.

he strengthens his resolve, and rushes to close the car door, but adam throws out a hand to stop him, looking down. jonah follows his gaze, and just about keels over when he spots a leg with far too many joints spilling out onto the asphalt. adam brings the 'knee' to his chest, and the rest of leg slithers inside the car, pooling into the floor of the passenger side. adam does not look at them as he shuts the car door, a dull clunk leaving jonah the only one outside the car.

alone. in the dark. possibly with alternates waiting to gut him like a fish.

he scrambles to clear the front of the car, passing the headlights and grabbing hold of the driver's side door in a frenzy. they yank the handle with desperation, expecting for a hand to materialize out of the dark at any moment. he throws himself into the car seat, slamming the door behind him, and immediately fumbling to lock the car with the buttons on the door handle. after a series of reassuring clicks, he grasps the wheel and exhales, not realizing he had been holding his breath.

they avoid looking directly at adam, afraid of what they'll see, but in their peripheral they can see him facing them, teeth still running down his face like tear tracks, that's not him, that's not him-).

"jonah," adam starts warily, "are you... are you sure you're okay?" jonah spares him a quick glance out of the corner of their eye, before focusing on the dashboard.

"yeah, man! i'm fine, i just... uh... well," jonah stammers, floundering to find an explanation for his behavior. "um... you know how i said earlier that i didn't think that intruder guy's face could show up on the gps? well, uh, funny story, um. he did. that- that's why i crashed the car. so um. i think i might have MAD?" they stretch their mouth into a grin, hoping adam bought what was admittedly the truth, just... omitting some details.

"what?" adam blurts, disbelief in his tone.

"yeah, i've been, uh. seeing stuff out of the corner of my eyes and... um. yeah," jonah swallows, "it's uh, a bit hard to think."

"okay... fuck, i mean- can… can you even drive right now? you said you also have a concussion," adam inquires, a touch of worry lacing his tone.

jonah freezes, and then sobs out a laugh "shit, man. probably not… i mean, i barely got here in one piece. i don't think i could make it back to hq… ha, we're fucked! god…" he thunks his head against the steering wheel, and is rewarded with a spike of pain through his skull. what on god's green earth were they going to do now? they were doomed. they were doomed, and adam was not adam, and they might as well just-

"i… think i might be able to drive. just… crawl into the backseat, you probably need the rest anyways. i can handle this," adam remarks, his confidence betrayed by the waver in his voice.

jonah turns to look at him, and beyond the horrible illusion of his monstrous face, he sees a spark in his eyes. the same spark adam's normal eyes have, that says he isn't going to give in easily. and, well, jonah likely can't drive, and he certainly can't win an argument with adam right now. so they relent.

"…okay, yeah. sure. but if you kill us in a car crash, i'm never letting you live it down," they tease half-heartedly, moving to climb over the center console. he plops himself into the backseat with a huff, and adam slowly clambers his way into the driver's seat. he sets one hand on the wheel, which jonah notes is jutting out of his side above his hip. he forcefully bars the image from his mind. its not real. they don't what to think about what it means if it is. they don't want to think about what adam said over the radio. he fastens his seatbelt, and closes his eyes as adam slowly steers the car back into the road, the car jostling a bit as it goes over the curb jonah had run over before.

he doesn't sleep, but he lets himself drift off in a haze, only somewhat aware of his surroundings as adam takes them to hq.

[chiropteracupola]

@dotsayers correctly guessed the source of my recent nonsense posting, so here is An Attempt At A Biggles as a reward.

[silenthillbunni]

hmm

[rapidhighway]

Neo Metal Sonic still calls Sonic their "loathsome copy" but at the same time, he's the one who gave himself the ability to copy other's biodata and mimic their abilities. It feels more like Neo actually leaning into her identity as a copy or at least taking advantage of that.

[paellegere]

hey girlie it’s me, sam winchesters gay lover, your mootie 🥰🥰🥰 i just wanted to let you know, that your tags on the post about that wincest video are based and i agree with every word, hashtag slay couldn’t agree more i loved reading your essay in those tags heart ❤️

omg thank you!!! i'm basically only capable of talking in essays whether people want me to or not, unfortunately

i just have a lot of feelings on this topic and the whole "canon or not canon" argument is weird to me; the themes are pretty darn clear in supernatural (it is NOT known for its subtlety) so idk man. they don't have to kiss to be canon. and they don't have to have a romantic relationship to be canon either. how many times do they get into relationships with other people only for it to be treated as cheating/betrayal/abandonment, only for them have to give up that relationship in order to reaffirm their devotion to their brother

that's just what the text says. i'm not under any kind of delusion that they have some secret sexual or romantic relationship, but that doesn't change that sam and dean are each other's most important person regardless of that. which is really awesome imo, that romance isn't treated as more important than whatever horrible thing they have with each other, and that they don't have to consummate their relationship with romance/sex in order for it to be the most important one they have

(and of course there's romantic/sexual subtext, like parallels and metaphors and misunderstandings and jokes, but to me that just provides a solid foundation for presenting this relationship between them as the most important even though it's not romantic or sexual—because this language of romance is the only one we know, really, when it comes to writing important relationships between characters. it's the only one we know in our own personal lives, to a large extent. so you use the romance/sexuality to symbolize the actual bond they have. which is so much worse lmao)

anyway i think spn is fairly unique in this way because of how no other relationships can really ever stand parallel to the one they share; even in other shows that center male friendship, romance is allowed to coexist with brotherhood. for sam and dean, it's not, and that becomes a point of tension and conflict and resolution many, many times over the course of the show. so like yeah!!! just because it's not romantic or sexual doesn't mean it's not canon, in the sense that their relationship is the point of the show, and it is the most important relationship they have. they chose each other above all else, every single time. yknow, it's "the epic love story of sam and dean" and all that