#ofc it wasn't perfect

[gorkaya-trava]

actually I feel very empty now. as if it was someone from my family who was killed. I know that he wasn't our last hope, there still are good people here, but I wouldn't become who I am now without him and his words. it's a very bittersweet feeling to see how many people leave flowers for him on monuments to the victims of repression. I'm gonna go leave something for him too

[varyathevillain]

so many thoughts on "what that offer to Aziraphale means", "did Metatron manipulate/mind control/poison Aziraphale's coffee", "what is going on with the Second Coming", not enough thinking about "what exactly did Metatron mean by 'restoring Crowley to the angel status' in his proposal". because what if. what if it would mean "deleting all of his memories as a demon". and not "restoring his powers as an angel and giving him back original memories of Heaven".

and then, you all, this adds some ~fantastic~ flavour to the proposal and manipulation, and how if Crowley, were he to accept this for the sake of his angel, would be essentially lost to Aziraphale in the worst of ways. and Aziraphale would be the one to suffer the consequences. he got what he wanted! Crowley being an angel, but without the Crowley part. house with no furniture.

because, you know. when we got Jim in the show, we got Gabriel without all that he is beforehand. blank state angel. no thoughts, no plans from above to guide you, head completely empty.

then it would also imply how being a "demon" is essentially tied to the memories of the Fall, and if you delete those and all that comes after, completely erasing the "demon" part, only then you get to become an angel again.

hypothetically, of course.

[automatonknight]

me when i play the class that medics uber and i get. ubered

[prettyboysdontlookatexplosions]

controversial opinions insomnia hours with isabel: i think the internet was way too harsh on andrew garfield for saying he watched drag race to prepare for angels in america, given that he was playing a character who used to do drag and has a particularly memorable scene that takes place in a liminal dreamspace anchored by his make-up mirror. like, it would be weird and probably homophobic to prepare for playing louis by watching drag race... but he was playing prior! having seen his performance, also, i didn't think it was perfect but i thought he was very good and more pertinently I did think it was very clear that insofar as he did infuse it with a degree of what i will call for a lack of a better word flamboyance, it was not because andrew garfield thinks this is what gay people are like, but a deliberate choice for this specific character (a former drag performer!!!) rooted in the idea that performance is itself a coping mechanism, something which is IMO integral to any reading of the famously language-heavy play (louis's monologues about america are his version of the same thing) and which was also a concept obviously (arguably too obviously, but i thought it worked) at the center of this production as a whole - once perestroika commenced and especially as it stretched into its endgame, garfield dropped the exaggeration, bit by bit, until at the epilogue he was speaking to the audience quite plainly, a performance arc that mirrored the way the realistic and textured period set of millennium approaches came apart and gave way to black box style minimalism across part two as the characters get closer to being stripped of their various illusions, and was echoed as well in the extraordinary work nathan lane did with roy cohn's weakening voice as illness took from him his power.

[shallowrambles]

I actually think the Benny in Dean's Werther Project hallucination was truer than Dean's idealized recollection/memory of him.

And deep down, even though he rejected it for self-preservation, Dean knew it. That's why his anxiety manifested the way it did in the first place. TLDR: It's alllll about Andrea.

A lot of this is redundant, but here ya go.

Benny was acquiescing of the execution of corrupt loved ones. Blood Brothers is a crucial Benny episode. It's illuminating...and unflattering.

Reality check? Benny was mostly okay with "a sacred executioner (Dean)" doing the painful dirty work so he didn't have to. Benny might also be particularly sympathetic to monster-suicide, as that's what he chose for himself.

Benny directly showed us in-canon that he was resolved to kill even his most beloved "corrupt family members"--like Andrea Kormos. She was quickly deemed too far-gone and corrupt, nevermind that their conversation was too short, too condescending, and too aggressive on Benny's part to explore meaningful change and solutions.

So yeah.

I think the real Benny might be totally game for Dean killing himself so his loved ones didn't have to. Especially if Dean himself posed a risk of doing harm/attacking said loved ones, as Andrea Kormos did when she attacked Benny.

That was the "real" Benny all along. And that hurts.

///

Benny didn't try to convince Andrea. He instantly judged her, offering no validation of the emotional struggle with addiction or alternative way forward.

Benny believes in sparing loved ones the task of killing their corrupted loved ones. He was part of practicing it with regards to Andrea. See below:

ANDREA takes his hand, but stays where she is. ANDREA: Where, Benny? BENNY: What are you talking about? Anywhere. [ANDREA looks down.] You're not leaving here, are you? And you never were.

So, yeah. Okay. He's clocking her intentions here, but he's also doing a lot of heavy lifting assuming her thoughts, ascribing the most uncharitable mode to her motivations. (Using an always-and-never statement to boot.)

It comes off so condescending. It's an accusatory mode of communication.

He jumps straight to the vibe of, "you never wanted to leave here, you're corrupted!" whereas her "Where, Benny?" speaks more of desperation and fear. (It reads to me more like: "How, Benny? Why should I fight what I am, Benny? I can't do this, Benny. Can't fight this. It's too hard.")

But he...doesn't seem interested in helping her rediscover herself. He doesn't validate her feelings or illuminate a path to redemption using his own past sins to help pave the way.

He doesn't even talk about another way forward. (Nevermind that he himself did some pretty awful crimes on the high seas for decades before "redeeming" himself. (Rules for thee, but grace for me?)

ANDREA: We have everything we need right here. The operation is still perfect. We can ride the high seas, plunder together. We can have the life we always wanted. BENNY: What I wanted was to leave a burning crater behind. I wanted to put your memory to rest. ANDREA: But I'm not a memory. Benny, I'm right here. BENNY: What I loved – it ain't here anymore. It was snuffed out a long time ago by monsters like me... like what you've become.

I just want to emphasize how this conversation is barely a conversation. It's an attack on Andrea before a real conversation can even begin to take place.

The mere act of being afraid of leaving, of having Stockholm Syndrome and losing her "father," of feeling connected to the Easy Mode of vampiric hunting is met with an over-the-top attack on her character.

(You're not you. You're corrupt. You've become like me, because of me, and I don't want you anymore. You're dead to me if you're like me. You can't be redeemed...even though *I* was.)

It's a flagrant dehumanization.

///

What could he have said? Is this a tonal argument?

I guess it could be if you squint, but he directly insulted her, denying her existence to her face. That's why she reacts with a desperate, "Benny, I'm right here."

She's not a memory. She's monstered.

He could start with acknowledging how hard it is to be a 'human-ethics-centered’ vampire. He could share his own struggles. Show some empathy, or at least some sympathy! At bare minimum, he could discuss a new way forward. ("Anywhere," isn't a discussion.) Instead, we get...zilch.

He's much too busy being horrified by the apparent corruption of The Perfect Woman.

He goes straight to the vibe of: "you're an irredeemable monster."

///

Is it worse to go too far...or not to try at all?

And here's where the Sam-Bobby-Dean triad of demon detox takes on a more positive light. Their methods may have been cruel and harsh. (Detox is an ugly, horrific, twisting, screaming-and-lying thing. Detox tells you that drug dependence is who you are. It tells you you like the disease. That you perhaps ARE the drug/disease).

But anyway, Bobby-Dean-Cas did not give up on "corrupted/addicted/overly righteous" Sam.

Likewise in season 10, the methods of Sam-Cas-Charlie were evil, but they did not give up on "corrupted/disinhibited/unfeeling" Dean. Although Sam and Cas started out being resolved to kill Dean, they realized they couldn't. Wouldn't. (In season 10, perhaps Sam is in his mind resolving not to trigger the abandonment Dean got so unhinged about in season 8.)

So I guess the question is, what's more evil? In SPN, is it worse to go too far...or to barely try at all? They're both bad, perhaps, but one is driven by hope, and the other by nihilism: "we're all damned."

Benny’s arc is rooted in nihilism from start (Andrea, revenge) to finish (torn apart in Purgatory, as he probably intended to go out).

///

I think Andrea's feelings were obviously hurt; she was insulted...and with very good reason.

I mean, it's no wonder she attacks him. She cries, "You think you're better than me now?" He says he thinks they're all damned, and that certainly enrages her.

She senses, perhaps correctly, that it's really just lip service.

His actions imply that he really does think he's better than her. He did crimes and got redeemed. She's not even gonna get that chance. Not really.

(She has the "chance," I suppose. Technically. Sorta. But he purposely agitates her with his nihilistic lamentation of man-woe, spending much of his time judging her, not trying to convince her.)

You see, even when he messes up, Benny still "gets to be" himself. Even if that's a corrupted vampiric self. He's still "Benny." Not Andrea. When Andrea is a struggling addict, a vampire, Andrea "just is a memory."

Andrea is immediately disallowed her own identity simply for voicing that it might be easier to stick to the vampiric ways of hunting to live. It's black-and-white, abruptly cruel judgement, even before Dean gives the killing blow.

///

Later in the season, via deleted scene, Benny completely falls off the wagon, insisting "Dean doesn't wanna know (about his feeding off innocents)."

Benny is a symbolic perfectionist here. (As Dean himself can be when it comes to hero-worship and people.) Benny wants to remain idealized, just like he wanted Andrea to remain idealized. They're eaten alive by the symbolic, cooing Empty: "Wouldn't you rather remain a fond memory than a constant, festering disappointment?"

Benny's okay with that. And in the end, Dean's okay with that, too. That's why both Amelia and Benny feel like mirages. If Benny is "away," Dean can fantasize that maybe Benny got to be “King of purgatory,” and most importantly, Benny gets to live in the idealized space Sam could never live up to: "brother who never let me down."

(Dean is struggling to cope with life in this season. I think his hero worship of people is something he tends to do to help combat the abandonment he feels is inevitable. And yes, as I've said before, I think this is because John was a hot-and-cold caretaker!)

The deleted scene implies that Dean could perhaps be content not knowing all the ways Benny fails to live up to the cartoon of Benny he's drawn in his head (as a means to cope with the disappointments of living). Benny was good because he was at arm's length, not close enough to wound, hurt, or disappoint. And as Benny's organ donor/blood donor/drug dealer, there's a comfortable dependance Dean can fall back on, giving him control and feeding into his specific brand of abandonment-neuroses.

Benny never clawed his way back the way other characters did, because the writers decided to strip away his complexity and cut out the meat of him. Give me the guy who fell off the wagon. Give me the guy in The Werther Project. That's the real Benny, and he's great. He's, to quote Amara, better than the false ideal. He's real and complicated.

//

As for Andrea's redemption, perhaps in Benny's mind, if Benny's not *immediately* enough on his own to change her behavior by *checks notes* coming at her with the least charitable assumption and denying her personhood, then she's a Lost Cause (TM). If Benny's not enough for her to change, as she was enough for Benny to change, then "no one/nothing is."

So, he goads her with harsh, black-and-white words. "It was snuffed out a long time ago by monsters like me... like what you've become." I.e. I'm a monster reformed, but you're a monster that deserves to die before we even validate your pain or talk about the chance of recovery/healing. (You were ruined/corrupted by my father in our game of war. Ouch.)

She is hurt and ofc attacks, and the sacred executioner (Dean) strikes her down (so Benny doesn't have to).

It's also potentially a kind of family annihilation/self-nihilism. That in Benny's mind both he and Andrea deserve to die for being "damned." (Indeed, Benny will submit to his own murder with nary a complaint.) I think this latter one is perhaps more charitable, that Benny was always in a bad place--suicidal.

Again, Benny’s dependence on Dean as drug dealer was comfortable for Dean, allowing him to both keep Benny at arms’ length/not let him close enough to be de-idealized and hurt him the way his family and loved ones have, while at the same time being forever on the hook of blood donor/organ dependency (the symbol of the in 8x03 cooler). Benny’s life on the show was like Benny’s death: a figurative open door that you never intended to open. And Season 8 is all about surreal, idealized figments.

ANDREA: You think you're better than me now? BENNY: No. I think we're all damned. ANDREA snarls and her fangs descend. DEAN stabs her from behind and then cuts off her head. BENNY and DEAN look at each other before BENNY looks down at ANDREA’s body.

Anyway, that's why I wanted Andreas Kormos for Purgatory II. I still do.

I was also so partial Andrea's rage, disappointment, and confusion. I wanted to see Andrea versus Benny. At minimum, I wanted Andrea back as The Stockholm bookend to the Nihilism, even if Benny was ripped to pieces (as his nihilism would predict). Andrea still had a will to live, even if it was evil/vampiric, and that's far more interesting to me.

///

All in all, it would be completely in-character for the nihilistic Benny we got to know to be comfortable seeing Dean go the way of a corrupted Andrea. We didn't see Benny’s nihilistic worldview develop or shift in a meaningful way during the course of the show. Indeed, his nihilism actually became more severe the longer he drifted.

If "one friend" (Dean) abandoning him and some hunters tailing him is enough to get him to fall off the wagon, he had a very tenuous grasp on resilience indeed. We should all support one another and not seek to violently undermine (Hi, Sam), but at the same time we are not responsible for another person’s addictions.

Benny can be an off-key parallel like how Sam sometimes shifts the burden of his "wellness responsibility" to others? (The Benny-as-idealized-surreal-brother and Sam-as-real-imperfect brother hits hard. Benny’s addiction is excused and enabled as necessary; Sam’s is framed wholly as a choice, which...addiction is complicated. We're much less kind to family about it.)

All in all, I think it's foolish for Dean (and the audience) to think that Benny would treat Mark of Cain!Dean in any way meaningfully different than he treated Andrea Kormos.

Dean's hallucination in Purgatory was more in-keeping with what we saw out of the real Benny. The box knew that Benny was in fact the most likely of Dean's friends to argue for suicide, and it was probably uncomfortably right about that because Benny did not arc towards growth on any occasion. Dean's self-soothing narrative was the false one. Hopeful, maybe. But false.

Makes you wonder if the killing of Andrea was something that was subconsciously actually haunting Dean in a very real, gloriously complicated way. (The way I think Cas's taking of a human vessel subconsciously haunts in him 14x10 Nihilism).

I think Andrea haunts him especially in light of his own newly devolved disinhibition/loss of free will/corruption.

(The real Benny wouldn’t encourage a friend to die? We saw him do just that: tell someone they were too gone…and then watched Dean kill her so he didn’t have to.) Deep down, I think this is an example of Dean’s anxiety over the reality of what happened with Benny and Andrea. Charitably, he’s not seeing through an illusion so much as choosing to live for himself in this moment! Which is fine. We all need our fictions.

Disclaimer: I like Benny. I think all of this makes him crunchy and interesting. And it makes him make SO MUCH SENSE. He, like so many many characters in SPN...fell to nihilism. :(

[landwriter]

as someone who thrives on deadlines there's this special thrill to a scheduled power outage for line work especially when it starts in the morning and your sleep schedule is a bit fucked so you end up having only fifteen minutes to cook breakfast and you're watching the clock and there's five minutes left and you turn up the heat so the potatoes will be done faster and then you bustle upstairs to load up Some Good Reads On The Internet in case you get desperately bored and then back downstairs to refill your water and reply to emails and messages because you won't be able to for another three or four hours and say things like 'this is my last transmission before The Darkness'

this is my last transmission before The Darkness

[transingthoseformers]

So, i was discussing with my brother who the third Prime Soul could be (we know 1 was King Minos, he's pretty sure 2 is gonna be Sisyphus, but 3 is unknown)

Soooo I'm searching through Dante's Inferno for famous members of Greek mythology that fit with the level theme, which is minos on lust and Sisyphys on greed. So, logistically it would be the next even layer (which is Fraud)

So far, I've got Jason of the argonauts, Antaeus, and Ulysses (though who are we kidding ourselves it could be any number of the other people in it because Dante's Inferno is dante's crossover fanfiction, and it Does seem like Ultrakill is inspired by the book)

[nibwhipdragon]

joseph joestar reblogging that tsukasa suou gif for the 200th time and pissing off all his follwers

per ms request pwease

Stares at you with ADHD eyes as he proceeds to flood his followers' dashes with Tsukasa your world and universe and your rock and keeps you sane every single day

(I forgot the keyboard and mouse, but Joseph is powerful so he simply commands the computer to mass reblog the post ok)

[ephemeralgalaxies]

I think what hurts the most about Jiang Yanli's death is that she truly did want to understand her a-xian. She never gave up on him, even when everyone believed her husband's death to be wwx's fault. Even if she herself might have believed it, to some extent, she still wanted him to see her son. Upon hearing that he was at the conference after the death of the Wens, she put herself in the middle of the battle for a chance at reaching him one last time. Hell, when he first started showing signs of the "demonic cultivation" hurting him, she confronted LWJ (who wasn't even on talking terms with WWX at that point) about just how serious this would be on WWX and how to help. It was never about how "evil" WWX is now, how these methods could hurt the cultivation world. Rather, she just wanted to keep her little brother safe. She so desperately wanted to understand him, consulting the person she knew understood wwx best, the only one she could trust to simply want the best for wwx without judging him so fast. She really did want to try. She just never got the chance to tell her a-xian that.

[dylan-blake9]

How y'all look complaining about plantasm:

[chamaleonsoul]

.

[lith-myathar]

.

[adore-gregor]

🤯

[sunnysduet]

woke up to a video of a girl playing final duet on the piano in a public mall and it was literally SPOT ON like EXACTLY how mari plays it and it was so gorgeous and now i'm like trying not to cry at 10:30 in the morning

[mrfoox]

Idk if it's gotten old to people but I'm still... So happy for feeling GOOD

I've had a great day today. Why? No real specific thing! I started my day with cuddles and then I've just been in a good mood since

I worked almost 6 hours today and I am tired obv but I'm still happy...

[lewishamil10n]

does anon know they can just not like Daniel without trying to convince Daniel fans he sucks

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ tumblr, man.