#idk i just make up for my lack of fanart bc my hand hates me nd art block is dumb by making fanmixes for the masses

[milky-beans]

on the fanmix train this time featuring ✨zemobucky✨  bc whyyy not :33

you can also check out my:  sambucky fanmix stevebucky fanmix

[gihu]

Hello ! I’ve been wanting to start drawing but to really learn. Do you have any tips ? How did you start drawing? I love your art !! 💕

Hello friend!! So sorry for the delay, I’ve been p busy and also was a little shook that anyone would ask ME for art advice??? bc tbh i’m hardly at that level yet LOL but also maybe it’s a good thing you asked me bc BOY have I struggled and BOY am i struggling now!!  putting this under a cut bc i tend to ramble

So one thing I won’t say is “JuST pRActICE” which is what a lot of tumblr artists say and that irks me even though it’s true and valid advice it’s just…not that helpful. At least for me. Another thing I won’t say is “I popped out of the womb with a pencil in hand!!” because I can’t relate. Being from a pretty conservative Asian family/country kinda suppressed what desire to pursue art, even as a hobby, in me as a kid. I started learning how to draw in sophomore year in high school because I got REALLY fucking obsessed with One Piece LMAO. I lived and breathed OP, I was watching dozens of eps a day at one point. That one tumblr post that was like “the best way to get better at drawing is to become obsessed with something and draw it a million times”? Probably the most solid advice I’ve come across. Anyway, that obsession led me to wanting to create fanart for the first time (that was my starting point for wanting to become an artist, which eventually led me into stop motion, thanks One Piece)! I did start attempting to draw the characters right away, but I also started watching a bunch of youtube videos and using figure drawing sites to practice anatomy. I’d recommend starting off with learning anatomy! Learn the proportions of the face and body, it’ll help a TON. but you’ll have to learn how to enjoy the process of studying bc there’s so much studying to be done if you want to learn how to draw. Other tips (that helped me personally): 

-don’t aim to finish a drawing 100%. By that I mean skip rendering the details, it’ll slow down your improvement. try to aim for 60 or 70%. also, some may disagree with me on this but try to avoid using color at all when you’re starting out! you may get overwhelmed and it’s fact that drawing and knowledge of values are far more important. i’ve heard a professor compare color to icing on a cake: it makes the cake pretty but why would that matter at all if the cake base tastes like crap??

- don’t doodle mindlessly. a tip i hear often is to doodle lots and lots but…i don’t think it helped me improve at all. you need reference, something to compare your drawings to so you can throughly analyze how to improve them. nearly every single artist i know, including myself, uses reference for their drawings. it’s ok to doodle to jot down ideas and stuff, just not for learning. 

 - draw from life as much as possible!! it’s more helpful than drawing from photos or art because translating from 3d to 2d really trains your brain by forcing it to analyze more. also, photos tend to be distorted and alter reality. copying/referencing art can be helpful but only if they’re master paintings (sargent, monet, etc.) IMO. please don’t copy from tumblr artists, even for practice LOL. try to avoid their tutorials as well if you’re a beginner you probably won’t be aware of the mistakes they make, and unwittingly incorporate them into your drawing habits. there’s tons of art book PDFs out there, they’re your best bet! 

- carry a sketchbook around and just draw as much as possible. use your free time to draw from life. make it a habit. the more you draw the more you’ll add to your muscle memory and visual dictionary

- find out what interests you about the world, and incorporate those interests into your art! is it the way clothing falls across the body or the way light casts shadows? do you have a particular interest for teeth or hands?? i think hands are quite amazing 

- idk if i’ll be able to explain this clearly but whether you’re drawing comics or making “aesthetic” work, CONCEPT will always be more important than how your art looks! by concept i mean idea, message, etc. The clarity of your message is also important! it needs to be readable

- don’t blame your tools for your lack of skill. when i was starting out i wasted so much time researching and accumulating a bunch of art supplies that i didn’t even use, thinking that better tools would increase the quality of my art. the only tools i needed turned out to be pencils, pens, some watercolors and later, a basic tablet. award-winning films have been made with iPhones alone.

- lastly…JUST DO IT. technical skills are important but what’s even more important is your passion and desire to create. what’s holding you back? fear of being judged? that’s dumb! the best art-related quote i’ve heard is by andy warhol:

“Don’t think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it’s good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art.”

isn’t that beautiful? this changed my whole outlook on making art! i mean, you won’t ever be able to make art that appeals to everyone but you sure can make art that some people will like! there’s an audience for everything! so don’t be needlessly burdened by what you think others think of your art and make art for you and you only. one thing that i did that i deeply deeply regret is quitting drawing for 2 years up until this past summer, and that’s only because i didn’t think i’d ever be good enough at drawing. so i just gave up. it makes me so sad because even if i drew for just 10min a day i could’ve improved so much in those years! please don’t do what i did

- some helpful websites/youtube channels: schoolism (the best and most affordable online art class i’ve come across, $35 a month but they have legit instructors from disney, pixar etc.) Line-of-action (for figure drawing) croquis cafe (more figure drawing bc you can never do enough) sycra (youtuber who makes tutorials, one of the few that trust completely. i especially like his video on iterative drawing) 

man that was long! but there’s so much to talk about still! btw it’s admirable that you want to learn a new skill! i believe that if you truly want something to be better at something, you will, 100%. if you ever have more questions, feel free to shoot me a message, my inbox/DMs are always open, even if i might take a while to get to it :)

[bluebellss1]

Books that I wish I could get my money back for

((Tbh it’s true, you’re better off 🏴‍☠️���⚓️ing and then buying if you actually like the book. That way you’ll save so much money and you won’t have the negative energy of bad books/authors you don’t like polluting your shelves. ))

So anyway, the books I’m thinking of decluttering are: (contains spoilers)

🌳🏹🐺ACO/TAR: the main characters have become unbearably arrogant and hypocritical. Also the covers are very bright and noticeable and I kind of hate that they’re the first thing you see on my bookshelf. Like do you think people will see the books on my shelf and just immediately discredit me and think I have bad taste? Idk. I also feel like I can’t take selfies in front of my shelf because the ✨faerie p0rn books✨ are just too recognisable.

The only characters I like will never be treated the way they deserve, and once the author puts the spotlight on them she will inevitably ruin them for us anyway lmao. It’s hard to go on with a series when you hate almost the entire main cast. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, fuck the inner circle.

🌑☀️🦴the gri/sha trilogy: squandered my dreams of a dark/light romance, terrible MC with no character development. I’m just saying, if it had been written a little differently we could have had an awesome villain/hero couple.

Also the ending trope of women giving up their autonomy/power needs to go. I don’t care if it’s what she ‘wanted’, it just shows how little development she got bc she is fundamentally unchanged at the end from how she was in the first chapter.

The oppression of the gri/sha continues and Ali/na washes her hands clean of her gri/sha identity so she doesn’t have to deal with the issues/mistreatment of the gri/sha anymore. Yay??? What was the point of her powers if she didn’t want them and the world remained fundamentally unchanged? No wonder the powers-that-be snatched those chosen-one sun powers back at the end. ((I’m keeping six of crows though))

💀🐍kingdom of the w/icked: wtf even was this. The ‘prince of hell’ literally had no personality whatsoever. For a literal demon prince, he had the personality of a piece of cardboard. MC was also a useless dumbass and had no chemistry. The fanart is lying guys, this book is trash. The ‘big reveal’ sucked and was super underwhelming too. Crappy ending. ‘Demon prince’ my ass. He was a watered down generic YA ‘bad boy’.

📚🧪poi/son study: super let down by this one. Good start but sort of sharted itself out along the way. Love interest was lowkey spineless and boring, MC had no personality outside of being a victim of abuse.

I really hated that the love interest was such a damn bootlicker. He was powerful and all that, but you can’t just make a character powerful, y’know? Like make us believe it. He was so far up the dictator’s ass, even at the end. His love confession made me feel nothing too🤷‍♀️ And that’s how I know a romance flopped for me. If I’m just like ‘k.’ at the big moment then the author fucked up

The world/setting was also really weird and vague. It was like a dystopian fantasy historical dictatorship? It’s very vague and lacks a clear identity. It felt like a bunch of half-formed ideas slapped together. And mind control chocolate? Really? That was the best thing the author could come up with?

🦷🦴and daughter of sm/oke and b/one: awesome concept, terrible execution. The romance was very ‘twi/light’ (romance is just them constantly gawking at and mooning over each other) but with none of the nostalgic charm that twi/light has. I also wasn’t a fan of the reincarnated lover trope, hated the flashbacks, and yeah. I just wasn’t invested in the romance, which was such a shame. The chimera and magic were cool but not enough to carry such a crappy romance and lame recycle-a-bitch trope.

Also her human life and friends were very cringey and pretentious. The author tried wayyy too hard to make them hip and funny imo

And last but also the one I’m most unsure about:

🪞📚Mem/ory of Babel and The Storm of Echo/es (last two books in the mirror visitor quartet):

It would be really weird to dump half the series and have an incomplete set. But I was so let down by the last two instalments (especially the last one tbh), and they are so tonally different and had such a dramatic dip in quality that it was like they were from a different series. The supporting cast and awesome setting/atmosphere? Gone. Poof. Here’s 500 pages of repetitive, whack-ass pseudo-science explanations that the author pulled out of her ass as she wrote it.

The issue here is that I was an IDIOT that loved the first two books and trusted Dabos enough that I bought the hardcovers. So I can’t just throw them away but I also hate looking at the last two books. I don’t think I’ll feel bad having an incomplete series because as far as I’m concerned it ended with Clairdelune anyway. The endings are identical (SPOILER A cliffhanger ending with Thorn and Ophelia separated) We have to imagine our own ending either way so it’s not even fundamentally different🧍‍♀️

[vikab]

p5 thoughts

After having drawn so much fanart of p5 (most of it being Yusuke) before the game even came out, even with my hype when I started playing on the release date, I only FINALLY finished persona 5 OTL

Below will be my mini-review and thoughts on the game?? spoilers are gonna here on the entire game

Total playtime - 87 hours 40 minutes

OK this is gonna be disorganized mess but i will try to be .. not messy Story: The story unfortunately was very weak :(  Like the game had an AMAZING start and it was tackling really important issues. I really started to care about Ryuji and Ann and their goals. Then Yusuke joins and I thought the game was just heading in perfect direction. Then I felt off during Kaneshiro’s arc as Makoto did not really feel .. really into the whole PT thing?? sorry Makoto fans i love her but she felt rly overrated... anyway Futaba’s arc no doubt was my favorite but then the game really started falling apart. like lets not talk about the whole series of events that were Morgana leaving the team that was straight up BAD. the pacing picked up a bit for the Casino dungeon and it was really intense then its Shido and thing kinda... fell back into this weird pacing ... Ah yes, let’s just wait 20 days to see if Shido has a change of heart or we die. After that the pacing was still all over the place then the huge plottwist happens. I knew about it but still liked it! The last arc had on point emotions and feels so it felt like a good ending to the game.  SEVERE PACING ISSUES KILL THE GAME FOR ME THOUGH.   I get that they still wanted the calendar system but honestly i dont think it worked any huge favors for the game . .. anyway yeah the game started amazing then dropped close to death then picked up again but not as good as the beginning Characters: I have not managed to finish a lot of confidants so near the end the parts where confidants help out it was .. very lacking lol .. . if that part wasnt so depended on the confidants that you have finished.... But overall the characters were good. Pacing of the story and the story itself did not do any justice to them I think and it feels bad bc everyone had so much potential but having a big cast it was obvious that not everyone was getting the attention they deserved Ryuji - good bro and I loved him but the middle part of the game and the constant “we gotta get the girls!” moments were so . . ugh ...  confidant rank and beginning of game ryuji was absolute best though Ann - same goes for her as with ryuji that the beginning of the game was best characterization moment for her. I liked her a lot and she’s pretty bro for female heroine! but the constant fanservice kills me guys Morgana - boy did i dislike morgana for the most of the game. he really felt like teddie 2.0 at times and i just did not have a lot motivation to like him. Last arc of the game tho?? i love morgana??? i wanna cry tbh those parts near the end really resonated with me so my final verdict is that i like morgana a lot now Yusuke - I LOVE THIS BOY. while i get the beef that people have with his recruitment arc (the whole nude modeling thing) I thought it was ok since my interpretation is that he was just pissed and really needed that inspiration he found in ann but idk. otherwise his arc was good but goddamn fuck you atlus for continuously treating him like a weirdo?? PT is supposed to be a gang of misfits and yet even the teammates keep treating him like a weirdo. . that was just really bad like come on  let me kiss yusuke and feed him. also will never forgive atlus for not letting yusuke move into leblanc. He’s a very good character and very level-headed so i love him sm. he has really great moments Makoto - I liked her a lot! i do think she’s a bit overrated and that she doesn’t fit well with PT but I think that’s just the issue with Atlus pacing of the story, because her issues during her recruitment were really good (as in i did feel like she would fit into PT well) Futaba - I LOVE THIS GIRL!! I played with jpn dub which I think does much better justice to her characterization. Her entire arc was so so good and I felt like she was a really solid character going through growth. her confidant was very very good. She has a lot of funny moments and I love her antics with Yusuke. they are the blessed characters of this game. too good for this game. Haru - love her too!!!! she was so nice and sweet but damn atlus did not do her justice at all. she is the “last” party member to join and it is so sad she does not get a lof interaction with PT. like I wish PT interacted with her somehow throughout the game before she joins, be it like help her out sometimes or something bc they go to same school so when she joins later the team dynamic can easily accept her. Goro - we dont talk about goro jk but honestly he was handled bad. his link was automatic and I get why but his initial personality just makes me hate him a lot. he was cool as a party member but not for long. I expect him to appear in spinoffs bc wtf was that ending for him goddamn atlus. i like a lot his potential as a character but everything else? hate Sae was for me quite funny during the interrogation (when you start the confidant parts) but after her casino her involvement in the story I really ended up liking Sae. she’s good Also gonna mention Sojiro bc i love that coffee dad. His dynamic with Futaba and protagonist was extremely good!!! such a solid family. I loved that he finds out the truth and how he handled it. love u sojiro Speaking of protagonist, I really really really wish atlus would ease up on the “silent protagonist” a bit more. for a game as huge as this, the silence does not do justice to the protagonist. idk i just wish there would have been a bit more voice to him and solid characterization other than some off-hand comments that imply the underlying personality. i get the whole “self-insert” part but it sucks stop putting it in games Overall character summary: pacing sucked so characterization suffered a lot. a lot of characters don’t get their time to shine and while I love them a lot it really sucks to see how they were treated. Pacing ruined a lot of things including team dynamic. Palaces: (in chronological order) Kamoshida/Castle - IT SUCKED I HATE IT. being the first freaking dungeon it sure was extremely hard and damn long. also not knowing about the calling car system really hurt lmao. i just hate this dungeon and i got stuck there a lot too Madarame/Art Museum - THE BEST ONE! Honestly I think it is the only palace that really did feel like a heist! It is a very beautiful palace and im probably also biased bc its Yusuke’s arc but this palace was legit fun to get through. Kaneshiro/Bank - it was ok, good music. i don’t really feel much for it and I was just mostly annoyed how long the vault part was. Futaba/Pyramid - I loved it  a lot too! 10/10 music I had a lot of annoyances with coffin shadows and the puzzles for a bit but overall the music and aesthetics really made the palace work well with the story Okumura/Spaceship - we don’t talk about the “lunch break” parts.... overall it was ok and I liked its aesthetic. also the implications about the workers there was good sad material. Sae/Casino - 10/10 music. overall i disliked it a lot bc some of the parts really dragged and I hated gambling in there to progress. Shido/Ship - 10/10 music. overall i liked it / it was ok. the mouse mechanic was a bit fun, the last part being ... 3 boss fights in a row without saving was sure something. 10/10 creepy outside aesthetic of sunken city. Mementos Depths - not to be confused w/ p3/4 style dungeon we know as mementos (which were pretty much mindless fun to progress thru), the depths was ... so good. mostly for the creepy aesthetic 10/10 would suffer again. the music track Freedom and Security, that plays during goro’s bad end credits, plays as the theme for this dungeon and jeez did it make me feel so emo. the parts where you can talk to locked up people who are apathetic to the world just gave me depression and i loved it.. . i didnt really like the later part of it (when tokyo merges with mementos) To rank the palaces overall its:  Art museum > Mementos Depths > Pyramid >> Ruse Cruise > Spaceship > Casino > Bank >>>>>> Castle Gameplay mechanics were very solid and fun. Movement a bit could be clunky (or that’s what i felt like) and stealth mechanic in dungeons was ok. The gameplay has A LOT of attention to detail and i appreciated it a lot. UI was cluttered but it worked and was quite Aesthetic. I think the game would have benefited if the stats weren’t so important to the social aspect or if the calendar system was revamped. Final boss imo was not as bad as P4 but still ... sucked. P3′s final boss fight is still ultimately my favorite. P5 comes close but once again, pacing issues. Protagonist summoning freaking Satanael was cool af though. Honestly my big issue with P5 was the PACING that made the story and characters suck a lot of times but overall the game was extremely solid and memorable.  Of the persona entries i played i think P5 is special so I can’t really rank it. I am really attached to the game despite its heavy flaws that kill me. P3 and P2 are still quite my favorites but P5 is like really close to them so I guess it’s a fave too i love those phantom thieves

[elizabethrobertajones]

About Destiel... Someone close to me who loves Spn and chat with me and all that but doesn't involve in Tumblr, or fanarts or whatever bc of man stereotypes (those are crap, really) told me yesterday that Dean was egocentric. I was like Are you fúcking kidding me, but he explained that there is a very thin line between hate and love, and for Dean to hate himself he had to have loved himself before, or something like that. I think it's interesting, so i wanted to know your opinion about this

Pfft, Tumblr cooties. 

I have to say I didn’t expect that logic to go where it did :P

I think Dean has a lot of anxiety and obvious self-esteem issues, but if I was going to look at him as being egocentric I’d be much more interested in examining his personal relationships than that… I’ve been musing on this while drinking my morning coffee (and sorry, this is going to be a headache & coffee reply :P) and thinking about Dean would ever have loved himself for that to turn into hate by that logic. 

I could think of 2 suggestions for how you could get to self-hate from there - the acceptably selfish love he’d have learned for himself as a kid while Mary was still alive (someone deserving of hugs and having the crusts cut off his sandwiches) and would have been destroyed under the burden of having to put himself second or third in the family unit, especially to Sam, once they’re on the road and he’s sort of raising Sam as the stand-in mother from age 4 onwards… Dean suffers from more and more extreme arcs about the loss of self, but the first “version” of Dean is one he lost early on and might have been the only Dean really able to uncomplicatedly love himself and believe himself worthy of that love, even if it’s in that way where to a 4 year old of course they’re the centre of the universe :P

There’s also a more complex thought I had and sorry, this is first thing in the morning for me so I hope I can explain properly… (Also this reply gets really long because of that… Sorry :P)

Looking at Dean’s self-loathing backwards, in how he ever expresses positive things about himself, I’m coming up mostly with all the snarky cutesy comments about how awesome he is and so on, which is pretty much always a great big helping of performing Dean. His self-worth is tied a lot into being a hunter (and he is occasionally sincerely proud of himself there), but overall that’s another persona, and the one he grew up into instead of the happy Dean with a normal childhood who might not have so many reasons to hate himself (Dean in 2x20, what you can gather about his personal life in the dream, is still completely affected by Dean’s own perception of himself so I don’t think it’s good data on how he’d live his life if he grew up with no monsters). 

Performing Dean, which that sequence at the end of 3x10 still shows best of any moment in the show, is all (when it comes down to it) something Dean acts under the expectation of what John would want or self-policed by what he thinks John would approve of. There’s an idealised version of Dean in his own head who is basically John or what Dean thinks John would have wanted him to be, and Dean’s lack of self-esteem is sometimes (dramatically) expressed in relation to feeling like he’s disappointed this spectre of John’s memory, and a great deal of his self-loathing comes from falling short of these standards. He’s definitely got better over time and learned to express himself more (by Dean standards) but his progress is always being interrupted, and this is such a core part of Dean I don’t think he can ever completely change it without altering his life in such a way there wouldn’t even be a show any more :P It’s not strictly “love” but it’s an idealised version of himself and also a key part of Dean’s sense of self and at least in the early seasons (before 3x10 let’s say :P) the version of himself he would want to love and live up to.

Anyway… idk about linking any of that directly to Dean being egocentric? I mean, that’s a reading you can make of him, I’m just not sure what part it plays. I should probably say immediately that I think Dean is very empathetic, and so that necessarily means in general he’s putting himself in others’ shoes when we’re looking at generic interpersonal relationships, plus the whole saving people thing, mean anything else I talk about, I’m giving Dean huge allowances here because I do think he’s kind and IN GENERAL puts others first, all the time. 

I know I have a tag about Dean being the centre of the universe, but for the most part I treat that as a joke on Dean where he doesn’t know it. On the other hand, the one major major time he exerts that power, in 5x22, he absolutely makes the entire apocalypse about him and his feelings and his need to talk to Sam before Michael and Lucifer fight, and uses that to save the world, so… Idk :P It’s not strictly a bad thing at all on a grand scale? Staying in season 5 for a minute (and sorry, Superwiki is not working right now so no quotes >.>), 5x11 explores Dean’s sense of the burden of the entire planet, and I think you could argue either way that he has an altruistic sense of having to save everyone, or focus on the “but why does it have to be him” thing, about how much he’s internalised that burden and in a way made it about himself. I feel like between his conditioning growing up to save people (and in season 1 he was altruistically the “saving people” side of “saving people hunting things” while Sam was the latter and revenge-focused) and the huge burdens the world puts on him, I don’t really think it’s fair to consider that Dean just happened to absorb this message because he’d be inclined to the idea of the world being on his shoulders, but that he is what the world made him especially with all the talk of Destiny and the feeling like no one else is remotely stuck in the cross hairs like they are. His reaction to being resurrected in 4x02 is skin-crawling horror that he’s been centred out for this sort of attention. When in big plot situations, his response can be read as egocentric, it’s not necessarily a criticism, especially as Dean is usually right, and it mostly gets the job done.

… Dealing with people, though. Idk, then it gets tricky :P Dean’s got a very strong moral centre and he expects others to hold up to his standards all the time. (I just watched through the end of season 6, and for example Dean arguing with Cas after the reveal is asking Cas to trust him and do as Dean says just because Dean believes it’s completely right and Cas is wrong. He doesn’t have any answers to help Cas this late in the game when they’re so deep into all these plans and disaster is looming and they’re out of time to deal with it, but in a way it’s almost like in 4x21 where Bobby’s telling Dean that Sam will die if they keep detoxing him, and Dean yells that at least Sam will die human - better to go out honourably than to betray yourself/Dean’s expectations of you. Being the moral core of the group DOES make it revolve around Dean’s principles, especially as he has a natural leadership to him and he can get used to what he says, goes. Like, in the latest episode, he makes the deal with Billie, and expects it to be about him when it comes to time to die… Mary getting between that abruptly shatters Dean’s centrality there, because the family unit is bigger than Dean and with so many more people involved in it, Mary and Cas hog all the drama of that moment, and in a way Dean only brought it to them. (And Sam, who only agreed to the deal, aside from badgering Dean to talk about it and getting shut down because Dean would clearly not want Sam to be the one to die, is also most used to operating under Dean’s rules and as the assumed survivor in Dean’s ideal scenario for that deal, had basically nothing to do with it aside from agreeing to a sketchy blood pact in the first place >.>)

Anyway watching through as far as I have (just watched 7x03) I do feel like I’ve been watching Dean’s moral authority grow and grow - as a response to trauma and to all the unimaginable situations he’s found himself in. Like the other characters, all the stuff that got them to the finish line in season 5, once in season 6 becomes much more dangerous and under the microscope for character development in a different way as the story switches from being sort of mythical to more about the interpersonal stuff. Dean by 7x03 has been shaken up by the ongoing problems with Sam, and Cas’s betrayal, and monsters that they don’t know how to kill, to the sort of place where his need for control, which was nurtured by all the apocalypse arc stuff by putting the burden directly on him, kind of now is definitely crossing over from a positive to neutral character trait to a definitely bad one… Honestly I feel like him ditching Sam and driving off to kill Amy because he doesn’t trust Sam is the real moment Dean snaps and sets off his arc that eventually leads to the Mark of Cain stuff, or Gadreel, which were all about Dean’s sense of control and his problems maintaining it that all play into his downfall arc as demon!Dean. (I honestly believe he’s so much more well-balanced in season 11 and 12 after all the character development Dean went through in season 10 - he was getting alarmingly zen and full of self-acceptance just before they pushed him  back over the edge… although it really needs a long view on it, like, I wasn’t certain for sure until 11x23 about how this was going for Dean, and he keeps doing stuff like these deals so it’s sort of like… he’s getting BETTER I’m not saying he’s perfect now :P) 

Anyway when it comes to Destiel, which I guess was the original reason you asked this based on your opening line… I think Dean DOES sometimes come across as egocentric - times when he puts himself or his problems first (the worst example being kicking Cas out of the Bunker). I’ve seen it argued a lot that Dean doesn’t really understand Cas to a certain level of Cas being vulnerable and/or someone he can really hurt this way, mostly because he has expectations literally to high Heaven about what Cas is and what he can do, and Cas is getting more and more human (only sometimes literally) but Dean has a lot of trouble bringing Cas down to his level. That “applications for sainthood” line about Dean and relationships is one of the best for looking at Dean and interpersonal relationships. That mixes HIS expectations (the egocentric side) with adoration and an expectation from others that he projects onto them, which is a much more selfless love but I guess no less dangerous when it comes to people disappointing him, because it comes as a blow to his entire world view. Like in 6x20 where Dean refused so long to think that Cas would betray them. Not just because Dean selfishly thinks everyone should do what he says (which is how it can come across) but because he truly believes those he loves would not do bad things. (Which also can explain his really extreme reactions to the bad stuff Sam does and Dean’s absolute reactions to it. In 4x22 when Dean’s moping about Sam to Bobby, Bobby calls Dean out on sounding like his father, which I think says a lot about where this behaviour in general comes from, again, all the absolutes and black and white thinking.) 

Anyway Dean said himself in 11x23 to Cas in the beer run, that he and Sam can get very caught up in their own stuff and forget to care about the things outside their problems, acknowledging how Cas had got a bit left to the wayside. I think that means Dean does genuinely struggle with this - and it’s now finally something that maybe they can really address after it was allowed to escalate so far over many seasons… historically almost every time there’s something wrong with Cas, Dean is slow on the uptake or it comes to smack him in the face he can’t be objective about it and generally makes the situation worse before it gets better (or swept under the rug into the growing pile of trauma Cas deals with >.>)… 

Now we’re getting some real Cas-focused episodes/a whole arc, and Cas’s problems are really out there again, I hope that means for Dean getting to face them properly as well and NOT reacting in the same way he often does. If there are far fewer issues around because all the plot has de-escalated a bit, HOPEFULLY that will let him focus on stuff outside himself? Like, though he didn’t react great to Cas leaving afterwards, when Cas actually announced he was going, Sam and Dean chased after him, and it was clear in that moment Dean genuinely was tuned in to something being up with Cas and without any other major problems to worry about that could take priority over that, and was concerned about Cas. 

I’m really hoping when it comes to Dean’s awareness of Cas’s issues he’s just had a huge wake up call, especially about how much Cas cares about them all, and while that was all about “the Winchesters” the show endlessly puts Dean n Cas just a little notch above everything else in that dynamic (Dean getting the more dramatic reaction to seeing Cas, sitting with him in the car, being the one to phone him, Sam as an outside observer to that and what Dean did and didn’t tell Cas… Even when all the language seemed to be very generically about the family as a whole, they are still singled out within it…)

But yeah, I’m not at all a bitter Cas fan who thinks Dean is cruel to Cas so I’m saying this out of wanting them to be better than they already are, not like this is a barrage of accusations levelled at Dean for being self-centred :P I try to always follow both their perspectives on a thing because there’s always huge misunderstandings. And sadly when Dean has a misunderstanding with Cas  he often lashes out at him, and that also makes it look in a lot of circumstances like Dean is being self-centred, where from his perspective he feels just as wronged by Cas and is already desperate and angry when they start a conversation (still thinking of season 6 and I guess their epic miscommunication in the end of season 7, or Dean’s lack of understanding in season 8 after the crypt scene, which is a moment that piles on a huge mess Dean’s already feeling so he doesn’t react out of the blue to randomly be angry with Cas when he shows up again…) Dean’s kind of terrible all round at interpersonal relationships… I’m very sympathetic to him there so it doesn’t upset me as long as I can understand WHERE he’s gone wrong. 

… I should probably stop talking here because I have no idea what you actually wanted here but I have been spewing way too many thoughts at you to no real conclusion… This reply is way too long but I can’t think how to cut it down aside from just not making entire points or not answering :P