#there really aren't any textual obstacles at this point

[fromtheseventhhell]

Bran and Rickon are still alive and both ahead of Sansa in the line of succession. Wyman Manderly wants to make Rickon king. Robb disinherited Sansa and named Jon his heir. Some of the Northern lords are rallying for Arya. Sansa’s first marriage hasn’t been annulled, and Stannis refused to give Winterfell to Sansa.

How will the plot address them ? Is the plot going to get rid of Bran & Rickon ? Is the plot going to revive Lady ? Is the plot going to get the North to trust Littlefinger and the Vale lords to march North when their people are starving and winter is here ? Is the plot going to annul Sansa’s marriage and make sure Tyrion doesn’t find out ? Is the plot going to make Sansa get North before anyone else and grant her Northern support out of thin air ?

It’s amusing to see that as always Sansa fans can’t actually draw any substantive textual evidence. It’s always just hearsay and speculation and vague admonishments about traditional femininity.

Yeah, there's just...a lot that needs to be rearranged in order for Sansa to end up as the ruler of Winterfell. Not to say that it's impossible it's just very, very unlikely. I'm in the group who thinks that George put all these obstacles in her way for a reason, call me crazy. Even without getting into the specifics of succession, Sansa has no involvement in the Northern plot at this point and is stuck in the Vale for the time. She still has a plot left to play out there/with LF and the weather isn't going to allow her to travel North. It's possible she could gather support via the Vale but that would have little effect on Northern politics.

As far as a resolution to all this, they just assume that the books will follow the same lines as the show. So Bran just doesn't want Winterfell and becomes King (which they don't really like but they don't care enough about Bran to make new theories for him), Rickon just dies off insignificantly, Jon doesn't want it/can't have it cause he's a bastard, Arya isn't even a candidate, the direwolves aren't important at all, her marriage to Tyrion magically doesn't matter, Robb's will is a red-herring, etc, etc. They imagine that once she makes it North all of the lords are just going ignore their plans and support her cause #keytothenorthsansa

[mittensmorgul]

I feel like this is probably something you have a lot of thoughts on, but you don't have to go in depth if you don't want (if you do that's also great!) Do you think about cas classifying dean as family and vice versa is a hurdle to be overcome if textual d/c is a thing that's happening? Obviously family includes your significant other, but as far as fiction, I feel like it's code for platonic feelings, because I try to think of any tv couple that started as "family" and I can't. Thanks :)

Hi! I’m sorry I’ve been sitting on this message for a couple of days, but it’s not actually something I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about. At least not specifically like this.

I mean, the first thing that came to mind at your question was @destieldrabblesdaily‘s post from back during s11 (aah, s11 gave us so much...) about how they were slowly ticking off all these things from a checklist labeled “Obstacles to Canon.”

http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/145130443365/hello-all-the-episode-did-in-general-was-tick

There are four main points on Shirley’s list, only two of which I think are so completely obvious in canon now that there’s really nothing more to say on either subject:

the vessel consent issue: It’s Cas’s body. There’s no Jimmy in there. Cas has been rebuilt and resurrected multiple times by God, died and been burned, and came back from the empty with what must be yet another entirely new physical body. That is Castiel’s body. Period. There’s no “but what if...” left to argue on this point.

the concern that the show would morph into something it’s not: the focus of the show wouldn’t somehow shift to Dean and Cas’s romantic adventures. It wouldn’t become a comedy, or exclude Sam. The tone and format of the show wouldn’t need to change at all, and that was pretty conclusively proved not only back in 11.19 with the way Jesse and Cesar’s relationship was presented, but *waves hand across all of s13* the show’s gonna do what the show’s always done. Nothing needs to change about the show’s format or structure.

The other two points might be conclusively obvious to some of us (and honestly I have personally been satisfied by how they continue to handle these issues), but there’s still ground they CAN cover toward making these things more explicit for the general audience. And I’d argue that they HAVE been doing just that consistently, and even rather explicitly now in s13:

Dean’s sexuality: Shirley’s original post covered this extremely well from where we were back in s11 (so go read that right now if you haven’t already). I’ve added a heck of a lot to my Dean Is Bi tag since 11.19, so I’d argue that at the very least it’s not something they’ve tried to back away from over the last few seasons. They may not have come out and explicitly said it in so many words, but the show has continued to escalate the subtext to the point where even the general audience has been noticing it in droves.

The Bromance Zone: Back in Shirley’s original post, this was accepted as fairly conclusively evident from Dean’s pining for Cas back in s11, and how it was made painfully and explicitly clear in 11.18... but whoa have we ever had a lot of logs thrown on the bromance pyre since then. And I think this is the point you’re concerned about in your question above.

You stated you couldn’t think of a single romantic couple in fiction that began as “family” or, I suppose in this case as “found family,” or “family of choice.” But I’d like to suggest that most successful romantic couples do begin as friends, regardless of whether they consider each other “family” before their relationship becomes romantic.

Confession time: I have never watched the show Friends, but I believe they considered themselves a sort of found family, right? And there was at least one pair of them that were actually brother and sister? And didn’t several of them become romantically involved by the end of the series? I remember seeing posts to this effect, but correct me if I’m wrong...

Another canon ship that’s often been paralleled to destiel is Castle/Beckett. If you’ve never watched Castle, they’re a pretty textbook enemies to friends to lovers to HEA, and it took like five seasons for them to get to that point. Thing is, the nature of the work they did together (police work) created the same sort of “found family” feelings that the Winchesters’ collection of allies and friends has. And their relationship included so many of the same tropes that Dean and Cas has... right down to the “deathbed love confessions,” amnesia, miscommunication, mutual pining... you name it... And we thought FIVE YEARS was a slow burn. Thing is, every time they seemed to get close to making some sort of dramatic love confession, for years, they’d back down at the last moment for one reason or another. For YEARS, they settled for what could arguably be considered a sort of familial closeness, because that’s all they thought they could have. Circumstance just kept stepping in the way...

So on that note, I’d argue that practically EVERY slow burn romantic endgame story progressed through this “awkward found family” stage. They’re closer than what could be called “friends” in the strictest platonic sense of the word, but short of confessing undying romantic love and attraction, the strongest word in their vocabulary for the care and affection they feel they’re allowed to demonstrate to one another is family.

So back to Supernatural...

S12 approached this issue from two directions for most of the season, with a Compare/Contrast using Mary’s story paralleled to Castiel’s for most of the season, showing us a distinct difference between what FAMILY feels and does for one another, and whatever the heck it is that Dean and Cas feel and do for one another. On the other side of the coin, they doubled down on demonstrating the blatant differences from how Sam sees Cas as a brother, and how Dean sees Cas as a /////brother/////. It was demonstrated over and over again that despite using the same word to describe what Cas is to them, it’s unequivocally DIFFERENT for Dean. That leaves us to wonder WHY.

12.10 makes it clear what the angels believe Dean is to Cas, his “human weakness.” We were shown Dean’s feelings for and connection to Cas, that Dean refused to save himself from Ishim when he knew that using the banishing sigil could possibly have injured Cas further, or even killed him. It wasn’t a risk he was willing to take. That moment may have been a small part of that episode, but right there, Dean had no reason to believe that Ishim wasn’t about to murder him. He surrendered his own life for Cas.

12.12 has Cas’s deathbed love confession, which people are still debating from a linguistic standpoint. But I’d argue that the fact we’re able to debate it at all is even further evidence that it’s something that we’re supposed to be thinking about, and wondering about. Or else why would it even be a debate in the first place.

12.15 has Cas disappearing back to Heaven, the ambiguous phone call moment where Sam hangs up with Mary and signs off with “Love you,” while Dean hangs up with Cas. Loads of us had a holy hell did Dean just say that??? moment and had to rewind to confirm that it was Sam saying it to Mary. Because of that debate left over from 12.12. Again, the fact that we all had to stop and blink at the implication shows that something is definitely different now.

Which brings us to freaking 12.19 and the goddamned mixtape. No amount of Bro and Pal and Buddy on Dean’s part can negate “It’s a gift, you keep those.” Sorry folks, them’s the rules.

And can we talk for a moment about how explicitly clear s13 has made Dean’s feelings, his grief that he textually admitted by yelling it all in Sam’s face was all about Cas. Grief so powerful it somehow activated Jack’s powers (which he had no control of at that point and didn’t even understand that his powers had any part in Cas’s resurrection even after 13.06) and poked Cas awake in the Empty.

And then we have 13.06. I still haven’t recovered from 13.06.

The connection between Dean and Cas intensifies in 13.07, both through Dean giving Cas that same line from 12.10 (Don’t do anything stupid) which he clarified back in s12 wasn’t borne of anger, but of worry. Worry that 12.12 had honed into love, and 13.01 punched us all in the face with as Dean broke down and screamed his grief at God. I mean, the differences between how Sam considers Cas “family” and how Dean does is inarguable at this point.

I’d suggest that the definition of “family” isn’t so much something the show needs to clarify at this point, but something that’s been written all over the last season and a half in invisible ink, and all they need to do at this point is hold it up to a light bulb for the entire text to become clearly visible to everyone.

[ocegion]

Okay, so here's some thoughts I've had for some time. One of the things that just don't quite click for me in the newer seasons of Doctor Who is the companions. More specifically, the way they're just that, companions.

I mean, the show is called Doctor Who, and the Doctor is definitely the central character that ties it all up together, but I feel like at the beginning, that was just a device to enable the companions to shine. I mean, if you look at Rose, Martha and Donna, I feel like they're the real protagonists of their respective seasons. It's the story about Rose growing, about Martha learning what her priorities are, about Donna learning her self-worth. The Doctor has his own stuff going on, but that doesn't stop them from having their own arcs that are what marks a beginning and an end to their seasons.

And I mean, at the end, they're the ones who save the day, aren't they? Rose does what no human is able to endure and becomes the Bad Wolf, saving the Doctor, creating a time paradox. The Doctor is the one who comes up with how to defeat the Master, but it's Martha who spends a year walking a dystopian Earth, doing the heavy lifting. carrying out the actual work, saving the world with her own human effort rather than any sci-fi devices. Donna is textually called the most important woman in the whole wide universe, and despite the world being saved, that arc ends in tragedy because she has to forget just how important she is.

In the early seasons, sure, the Doctor is always there and he's the central character of the overarching plot, but each particular season is how about much a normal human can grow and learn and shine once they get the chance to. They're not there to fill up space next to the Doctor; it's the Doctor who's there to give them that chance. It's possibly what I love most about this show.

Then came Moffat, with all his problems, and companions took a side step. Amy and Rory still there, they're important, you can see what they've got going on, but they're just that, companions. The Doctor becomes the unmistakeable central figure, rather than part of a combo. And while that's not bad, per se, it did leave a bitter taste in my mouth. Possibly because Moffat's writing when it comes to characters leaves a lot to be desired, and this just got mixed up with a lot other problems.

(I'm not gonna lie, I didn't watch half of Moffat's run lmao, so I can't really say what happened with Clara and Bill so I won't get into that)

And here's the thing... Thirteen's seasons have been good. I've REALLY enjoyed them. I don't necessarily like all the plot twists and such, but it's intense, it's well written, and well carried out. It's good.

BUT.

Dear god. What are the companions even doing there. Like. I really, really, really want to get invested in Yaz and the others, but it feels kinda hard, when every time there's a Big Plot Point, they get conveniently carried off somewhere else while the Doctor is doing the important stuff. Thiese newer seasons are definitely HER story, and Yaz and company are nice to have in the meantime, but they've got no business getting involved in the big stuff. Yaz is never there when the Doctor is facing the big reveal, she's never there to even hear it and the doctor never tells her anything, either. She is never the one to save the world, if anything she briefly holds it together while the Doctor gets the actual solution.

When the Big Moment comes, the companions aren't the key anymore. They're an obstacle to remove so the Doctor can get her brilliance in. And while I get it, that's the new way the show is structured, I can't help being bitter at it. Because I'd love to love Yaz, but the show keeps reminding me that, ultimately, she's unimportant.

All of this to say; now that RTD is back, PLEASE make companions the central figure again. Doctor Who is about how good mere lowly humans can be when given the chance. Give them that chance again.