monstermoviedean · 3 days ago
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my favorite interpretations of supernatural are always the ones about the power of love. it doesn't matter how many times the show says "love saves the world," it gets me every single time.
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heytheredeann · 3 months ago
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“Yes, there is a place where someone loves you both before and after they learn what you are.” ― Neil Hilborn
#gallya#gallyaedit#tmfuedit#the man from uncle#tmfu#illya x gaby#not spn#my edit#idk i was just thinking about them#initially this was supposed to be a napollya+gallya set#but while i have feelings about this type of theme and napollya too i feel like in the context of the movie it doesn't suit them as well#napoleon and illya tried to kill each other immediately it was more of a showing each other the worst bits immediately kind of situation#they learned to care about each other DESPITE all that so they are safe from this. or so they think#i feel like this 'still loves you after they learn who you are' thing will apply later#once they get closer and napoleon starts painstakingly shedding some layers and illya voluntarily lets napoleon be there for him#meanwhile i feel like this quote is 100% the horrifying realization happening in gaby's head at the end of the movie during the hotel scene#that not only illya loved the innocent civillian to protect she pretended to be but he loved the traitor spy too#terrible realization. 0/10. she doesn't want these feelings. evil.#forever obsessed with the way gaby RECOILS when he's being sweet in the final hotel scene#she seeks out gentleness from him when she's asleep or drunk otherwise she is like 'nope NOPE' or at least looks conflicted i'm obsessed#and i feel like she tried to talk herself out of feeling any feelings for him because well. he doesn't like HER he likes her COVER#AND THEN stupid illya had to be stupidly sweet with her even AFTER he knows. smh. how dare he#also off topic but DYING at illya's green hat helping him blend in i never noticed looool#i'm sure he has a whole collection of hats so he can always hide in different environments#god i hadn't giffed in forever i missed it looool
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potatoesandsunshine · 1 year ago
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occasionally people post like "wow i can't believe this was all in canon!" and it's like that's because it wasn't. i'm sorry but this was not in the show or movie etc. some very creative people make things up on the internet sometimes and you're thinking of that instead.
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quietwingsinthesky · 2 years ago
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thinking about a version of spn where billie taking on the role of Death functioned on elder scrolls rules, where through performing the role, she Became Death to the point where her selfhood was subsumed into the concept. Instead of idk she was the last reaper that died so she gets the job.
#yes I played oblivion recently yes I am always thinking about sheogorath#anyway spn is like. about how you think you have autonomy. you think you are making choices#but actually you don’t and you are in over your head#and this could have applied to them too#because Someone has to be death. Someone has to take on that role#so say she did. say she did and she can even still have a grudge against the Winchesters or whatever (valid of them tbh)#but like. we could have watched them. in performing that role. in taking on that duty. Voluntarily!! they stop being themselves#like. she is still billie but also. there is something Fundamentally Changed in a way that’s hard to put a finger on.#a way in which she has become Death. no longer really an agent of her own will but a primordial force.#guess this is getting into my own vague hc territory but like. death interfering with shit is! a big deal!#was a big deal at least.#Lucifer had to slaughter a town to set It free and shackle It. dean had to wear Its ring to make a deal with It#death showing up. personally. to collect Sam! big big deal!!#because a force like that taking an interest is a Bad Thing. that is why Chuck is Bad. he’s too invested! too involved!#but anyway this was about Billie.#tl;dr: the goal to become Death should have been something they pursued. not something given to whichever reaper happened to die first#and in the pursuing. they lose enough of themselves to no longer know why they originally wanted the title. but it’s hers now. she is Death#I should stop trying to push oblivion lore into spn asdggjklhl I JUST THINK MANTLING. IS A COOL CONCEPT#AND I THINK. IT HAS POTENTIAL IN OTHER UNIVERSE BESIDES THE ELDER SCROLLS LORE#anyway this has been thoughts for the day#supernatural#spn#Billie spn#death spn
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shallowrambles · 2 years ago
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“We all know it was dad’s fault anyway.”
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GABRIEL (incredulous at Lucifer’s gall) Okay, you think Dad was the ‘bad guy,’ and you were a victim? You were not a victim. That was just your excuse.
LUCIFER My excuse for what?
GABRIEL For it all, Lucifer. For it all.
X
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restlesshush · 2 years ago
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Supernatural really does have show vs tell diseases when it comes to its portrayal of interpersonal relationships – like how close friends they claim the Winchesters are with [whoever] is generally not born out by how (much) they actually interact with them on screen. Like I was thinking about this specifically re Kevin: he has a really rotten time, including working really hard being really burnt out permanently while Sam and Dean don’t really seem to care, but then they do use friend/family terminology about him. There’s a language/treatment clash: the show wants you to think they’re friendly, but doesn’t actually bother to have actions particularly backing this up. Kevin’s functional purpose as a character is Prophet Stuff, so this is all they really give us with him. And also then he gets that sad funeral montage, which is like, pretty jarring in that it has a greater sense of him being Significant than the show’s really given him for the entire rest of his tenure but like, the fact it exists implies the show thinks it’s done the legwork to earn that, y’know? What the show apparently thinks it’s doing vs how it actually has treated Kevin 1) as a character in general and 2) as a character cared about by salmondean don’t really seem to line up.
And this does apply much more broadly too: I’ve talked about it re Jack, it makes Charlie weird, and it also makes things with Cas 1) gayer but also 2) more precarious-feeling from his point of view than is necessarily obvious if you take the show’s language at face-value. Like, the show/tell clash really does pervade a very significant amount of tfw’s relationships.
Anyway a big reason I think this is interesting is that it does to some extent result in people watching effectively two different versions of spn depending on whether they buy the (frequently – much more pleasant!) story it’s trying to sell you on re character relationships vs like what’s extrapalatable about the relationships purely from what we see of them. There are a couple of switches where if you flick them one way vs another for processing supernatural, people come away with very divergent views, and this is very much one of them. Is spn about found family or is it about an extremely isolated and pretty strained unit with�� some acquaintances?
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ananke-xiii · 1 month ago
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Although I mainly see the first six episodes of s13 as an engaging portrayal of two grief-stricken people lacking the tools to deal with what has happened to them, I can also totally see them as the so-called "widower arc". Two things can be true at the same time because yes, Dean was totally grieving Cas' death. But I'll make it worse for you.
Maybe I'm biased by the many times I've read the term "widower arc" but Dean was 100% looking for a consort in Cas in s12 (yes, "consort", I'm tired of "partner" or "boy/girlfriend", they're weak terms, give me "sharing destiny" type of old words) so I think this interpretation is not so far-fetched.
We have a grieving widow(er), a desired consort who's dead and then resurrects and a son who's been defined as "the rising son". As I've already said these are some of the elements of one of the most ancient myths in Western culture, that is the myth of Isis and Osiris.
Now, of course it was not a retelling of that myth, I don't even think it was a conscious effort to shape the story that way but sometimes symbols will be symbols, what can you do?
First of all, two brothers: Set and Osiris and Lucifer and Cas. We know how it goes, one brother kills the other (As an aside in one version Set built a wooden chest and tricked Osiris to enter into it just to seal it and drown it in the Nile. We have totally NEVER seen this image in Supernatural. Not even ONCE).
Things get very interesting from here on because in the myth there's a lot of focus on the body of the deceased brother, Osiris/Cas. The most famous way Set disposed of his brother's corpse was to cut it into pieces, to... tear him apart if you will. It is then kinda WILD that AU!Michael kills "his" Lucifer the same way:
MIchael: I killed my Lucifer. Tore him apart in the skies over Abilene. But hey, can’t get enough of a good thing.
Apparently, the body must be somehow intact for resurrection to happen. In the myth Isis has to find his husband's bodyparts scattered all over Egypt in order to resurrect him. So we need to pay extra close attention to Cas' body which we are actually shown in that tragic scene where Dean prepares him for the pyre. So it's Dean who takes care of Cas' body, who "collects" it, just like Isis. Interesting.
In SPN "What gets burned stays dead", therefore Cas cannot resurrect, or so they think. The mantra is repeated by Jack in "Tombstone" when he first sees his father. To be honest, we don't really know how Cas resurrects. For the first time we see what happens to him between death and rebirth but we miss the technicalities. We can only assume that Cas' ashes were enough. Or maybe, just maybe, that's just a rule that applies in Chuck's story. Just saying.
I'm not sure if they try to discover how Jack managed to do that but the point remains: it was Jack who woke Cas up in the Empty.
And why did he do that? Well, because he can. The very first thing that Jack does is resurrecting Kelly in an episode aptly named "The Future", where Jack is sort of introduced via his mother's resurrection. He doesn't know how to use this power but he unconsciously does it again with his father. And I ask again: why?
Jack wakes Cas up in "The Big Empty", four episodes into the season. He could've done it sooner? No. Because what prompts him to unconsciously act is Dean's grief. And Dean reaches his boiling point when Sam finally provokes him. Osiris/Cas dies and his consort Isis/Dean is inconsolable. Other people like Sam can forget about it, but Dean can't in every sense of the verb.
In the myth it's Isis who resurrects Osiris and has a child, Horus, with him. But she got help. Dean's only human but there is a demi-god running around in his bunker so I think that helped. And Cas must be credited for the effort and the pushing.
Let's just say that resurrecting Castiel took three, actually four people okay? It required a team effort. Because none of them is a fully-fledged god like God or Amara or some Archangel who can just snap their fingers and boom welcome back to Life. Coaxing someone into resurrection (a resurrection with consent) takes a lot of willpower... and a lot of love.
I said four people because the last character in this little story is The Shadow. And we see this in the myth as well!
Isis doesn't "just" resurrect Osiris, she has to convince the motherfucker. Cause, you see, Osiris's heart was tired. A tired heart! Oh so beautiful! He didn't see the reason to go back to life. He was sooo tired. Isis has to literally seduce him back to life. And... this is kind of what The Shadow does, but in reverse? It tells Castiel to go back to sleep, to find peace, it's been in his mind and he wants to sleep, it knows!
The Shadow is Cas' tiredness, all his failures and regrets. But, as I said, it takes a lot of willpower and a lot of love to resurrect the dead, this is what Isis teaches us actually. To love more and then some more. And Cas loves back and he loves hard.
Castiel: You can prance and you can preen and you can scream and yell and remind me of my failings but somehow, I’m awake. And I will stay awake and I will keep you awake until we both go insane. I will fight you. Fight you and fight you for…ever. For eternity.
He didn't come back because he annoyed an ancient cosmic being. He came back because he loved.
So Osiris/Cas are back to life and that's good, right? Well... yeahhh. The thing is that Osiris will then live in the world of the dead so he kinda doesn't really really stay alive for long. And Isis will follow him. Things will likely go bad for Cas.
But the story continues!
Set/Lucifer and Horus/Jack engage in a rather disturbing (in the myth) struggle for power. The myth has different endings: in one they reconcile, in another they divide the realm, in yet another one Horus is the one true winner. So we don't really know (from this point in the narrative) how things will actually turn out for the two of them.
Isn't it interesting? Well, it's not surprising because there is a connection between christian stories and greek and egyptian ones but still? Kinda cool to see how myths keep repeating and repeating. As if we're still trying to understand them.
Anyway: yes to the widower arc, yes to love piercing through the veil of death. Both ways! It takes the love of two to resurrect.
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themoodyestj · 2 months ago
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Ok, I think I have something to say about the current hot topic
Have you ever felt like you were dropped into a weird wicked dimension when all laws and science and logic and pretty much everything that makes sense flies out the window? I have to say I go through it all the time, and sometimes with major whisplash. But it's AA world for you guys, nothing makes much sense, and pretty much everything is twisted. I read recently that the Kween herself had deemed her clearly inferior husband worthy by professing the following words... "You'll do." And I already know what the AAs are going to say, it's playful banter, these guys don't know anything about relationships, they dont understand love, yada yada. It's not, and it's very dangerous to consider this playful banter. For the following reasons. 1 - I would consider this playful if there was a balance of negative and positive. However, Im yet to see Duhneel say anything positive (let alone sweet) about her husband.
2 - If this is playful banter, then she's oblivious to how she must behave. She goes to cons, tv segments, putting the finger on all the things J does wrong. The man works in television, he's a public figure and he depends on his image. This is pretty much the equivalent of having your significant other's boss for dinner and then ranting about how much of an unreliable idiot they are. It's stupid to spit on your breadwinner, really. And of course, it's classless, but we can all expect that from her in this point in time. I don't know for a fact that abuse is happening here, because I'm not there, but this is First Grade Moronic Nastiness if i ever seen it. And honestly, I wouldnt put it past her to verbally abuse her husband, because if she has the nerve to do it in public, where she must keep an image, imagine what she does in private. And come on, just like the SPN easter eggs he plants on the shows he works on, he also drops a few in cons about their marriage. "We work better apart", calling her Scary Spice, the vague non committal compliments he makes about her to save face... It's all there. Wales Con was an eye opener if anything, so much so that it divided the AA community. The guy was so tense he was about to snap his jaw! The body language was so telling that you really have to have your head in the sand while covering your ears singing lalalalalalala (or like i read in a comment about me CAN THEY SHUT UP, JENSEN HAS GROWN, WHAT THE FUCK ARE THEY TALKING ABOUT) not to notice. In fact, I hate comparisons, but this illustrates my point, so... Check this:
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And compare to this:
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The look on his face... He is literally turning away from her, except he can't because he's in public. And she's giving this mean girl vibe, vapid woman, "look at me, im a hotshot, i can diss your fave and you idiots still love me" vibe. In fact, can I mention her clothes? She's trying so hard to play the part of strong independent woman and failing so hard at it (I can guarantee you that's a comunity that won't claim her) that I'm pretty sure she wouldn't know what is like to be a strong independent woman even if it hit her in the face. But I digress and thats for another post altogether. In a nutshell, I don't know how people can defend these types of behaviours and consider them normal. Just a testament of their own lunacy, I guess, where everything is fair as square as long as they get to self insert. Where rules of compassion and respect do not apply because youre a celebrity (and its quite the stretch calling D a celebrity) and people can be bashed for shits and giggles. Im not the Jensen hater here.
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sadbigemini · 3 months ago
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SUPERNATURAL MY BELOVED!!! Sorry, lol... I have some SPN fic prompts today. Let's get started!
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What If Dean Winchester Killed John Before The Pilot?
I saw this post talk about how the initial pilot script implied that Dean killed John instead of hunting down Yellow Eyes (Azazel).
And like just imagine!
John went 'too far' (Dean's opinion) in his abuse and Dean had to kill him. But he felt guilty even after everything that the bastard did to him and Sammy. And he couldn't be alone bc what is Dean Winchester without family, without a purpose?? 😭
So, he went to Stanford and told Sammy that Dad was on a hunting trip.
WHAT IF SAM KNEW?!?!
What if Sam knew? Whether it be from the moment Dean said something or he figured it out during the first hunt (the White Woman/Weeping Woman).
But he let Dean have his whole charade bc he knew he was working through his guilt or for some other reason??? Idk
Also in the post was during their 'first' meeting Cas was like "Dean Winchester I need you to help me kill my father" and like that can happen too lmao
It would be interesting
What if John Winchester died instead of Mary Winchester?
!!!
Patchwork Souls (title rec)
John went into the nursery instead because Mary was going to follow through with the deal she made with Azazel.
Mary would still want revenge against the demon though. Especially since she only agreed that she wouldn't enter the nursery and demons are all about technicality. Only when it doesn't apply to themselves apparently (meaning John's entry shouldn't have mattered, Yellow Eyes could have just teleported away).
So, I think she would start hunting again but she would definitely not let her grief control her. Like someone else we know (side-eyes John 😒).
Now I'm going off of Past Mary's personality bc I hate Brought Back Mary (or whatever you wanna call her lol).
Mary raises the boys and still teaches them to hunt but only for self-defense and as a precaution.
She doesn't take Dean on a hunt until he's like sixteen maybe eighteen and only because he wants to. Same with Sam. She also starts them out easy.
Dean definitely would have probably tried hunting on his own tho.
Bobby or Ellen would watch them a lot when Mary went on hunts.
Would that mean that Ellen's husband is still alive??? Whatever you want ig?
She would never leave them alone in a motel until Dean is like at least fourteen. And she would always leave them with enough money. Even if there wasn't quite enough for herself.
But when she wanted to spend some time with her boys she would hand off the case to someone else through Bobby or Ellen.
Jo would be like their little sister and Ash would be like their weird brother lmao
Bobby kinda became like a father figure to Mary and a grandfather like figure to the boys (don't get me started on that while weird relationship in the show please).
Mary makes money by becoming a private detective and solves mostly supernatural crimes. Sometimes it's just cheating husbands.
But when work is slow she works at the Roadhouse for extra cash and also hustles the hunters there.
Bobby/Jody or Jody/Donna??
Dean/Castiel in the future?
Mary encouraged Sam to pursue his dreams of a more normal safe life and becoming a lawyer. She also encouraged Dean's dreams of becoming a hunter even if she wishes he chose a different route.
The story might start with Mary being kidnapped because the demons want the colt? And Dean pulls Sam away from his more apple pie life to find her. Or maybe she went dark because she caught Yellow Eyes’ (Azazel’s) trail?
Maybe she wants to shield her boys from the demon and try to keep them safe?
What about John's deal with Azazel? Would Mary make it instead? Or would that not happen??
Dad Bobby ♡
Bobby adopts the Winchester boys legally.
When Bobby meets the Winchesters he's reminded of his father and he does something about it.
First he goes to rehab, talks to Dean (first about John not his plan yet, when he does it's a year after Dean was sent to the boy's home), starts getting friendlier with the locals, and asks Ellen and some hunters to help fix up his house. Making it not look so blatantly like a hunter's.
They hide it all in his panic room which he then makes a secret passage to so the social worker won't see it. But he keeps his guns locked up in his room.
He also takes a step back from hunting but still helps from pretending to be a FBI superior to giving hunting advice to finding hunts for others to help research lore. He focuses on his car business.
SPN has so SO many plot holes ranging from big to small so some the ages for certain things have been changed.
So, Dean went to the boy's home at 14 instead of 16. Sam was 10. Sam learned about monsters when he was 8 like in canon. Dean learned about them a little younger maybe. Currently Dean is 15 and Sam is 11???
The FBI Has A Secret Task Force Of Hunters
Supernatural and Criminal Minds crossover!!
Dean and Sam are forced to join if they don't want to go to jail. They'd also get paid a salary and have more stability. But it throws the Winchester brothers into a whole new world.
They have mandatory therapy and training tho– HA!
They'd also probably have to share their knowledge and train agents. Obviously the BAU is assigned to them.
So, the BAU works with them and gets brought into a whole new world too.
Maybe Bobby joins later and helps recruit more hunters, so they all could get paid or???
The new hunters have to probably pass a psych eval and stuff though, so???
OH MY GOD CHARLIE AND GARCIA!!!! they would bond over their VERY similar pasts and their VERY similar personalities! Dead parents bc of a car crash? Check. Sunshine nerdy personality? Check. Fangirls? Check. Tech geeks who dabbled in the illegal side of things? Check. Bright colors? Check. Fruity? Check.
THERE ARE DIFFERENCES THO SO THAT'S GOOD
Sam and Reid!
DEAN AND MORGAN!!!!
Sam And Emily!!
Sam and JJ!!!
OMG Rossi would uncle the hell out of them and I think Bobby would be jealous lmao but they would probably become drinking buddies.
CAS AND REID!!!!!!!
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trekkiedean · 2 years ago
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the thing about cas's arc in the first half of s9 is that it's a prime example of why I cannot look at this show through a purely watsonian lens. there is no way to make it make sense except bad writing. and "idk it was bad writing" is a copout with most shows, and can very much be a copout with this show, depending on how selectively you apply it. but also, with spn, not only is the writing bad, but the show is SO hyperaware of itself as a story that I have a lot of trouble ignoring the doylist factors, the way I would at least try to in another show.
like, I have a ton of logistic/plot questions about the whole early-s9 situation, because the basic facts just don't really make sense from 9x03 to 9x06 to 9x09. but more than that, I feel like any purely watsonian explanation requires me to either throw out a lot of dean's past characterization (I can be pretty hashtag deancrit, but I do think it's ooc for him to kick cas out with absolutely nothing) or a lot of cas's future characterization (I think cas's takeaway was that dean does not care enough about him to help him unless it will serve some larger purpose of dean's to do so, and I think that informs a lot of cas's future behavior). like, the potential watsonian explanations are:
dean offered cas some supplies/cash/a fake id, and cas was just too proud/hurt/stupid to accept
dean offered cas some supplies/cash/a fake id, and cas took them, but he was too proud/hurt to keep them or too stupid to keep them safe/use them wisely
dean is a complete sociopath who doesn't give a shit about cas and kicked him out with literally nothing but the clothes on his back, and cas's self-esteem is so low that he thinks it was okay
dean is too stupid to even realize that cas might need supplies/money/resources
and I don't find any of those explanations satisfying, because there are things in other episodes that undercut or refute all of them: if dean genuinely just doesn't give a shit about cas, why did he bother trying to find him in 9x03 in the first place, or care when april killed him and get gadreel to bring him back? if dean didn't give him anything in the way of money/supplies, then how did cas get from kansas to idaho, or get a job with no papers or bank account? but if dean did give him cash/the magic credit card and fake identity papers, then why did cas need the job in the first place and/or why is he sleeping in the back room? and if he didn't, if cas is truly in such a dangerously precarious situation in 9x06 because he has nothing else, then how, in 9x09, does he have a fairly nice, well-fitting suit and presumably a fake badge and a car? if dean gave him some money to begin with, and cas is just clueless with money and blew it all, then how did he get savvy enough, between 9x03 and 9x09, to acquire all of those things himself? if dean gave him money and/or the suit, badge, and car to begin with, but cas was too proud and hurt to make use of them, what changed his mind? if he has those things in 9x09 because dean helped him after 9x06 and either gave them to him or gave him the means/money to get them, then why wouldn't dean have just done that in the first place? if dean didn't help him at all, despite knowing what a dangerous situation cas was in before they found him in 9x03, then why does dean approach cas in 9x06 like he expects any reaction but completely justified anger and hurt, and treat cas's new job like it's a silly little thing cas is doing for funsies rather than his best chance at survival? but then, why is cas treating the whole thing like it was no big deal in 9x09?
meanwhile, the doylist explanations are:
the episodes in question were written by privileged white people who have no idea what actual poverty and homelessness entail, and didn't care enough to do some basic research (or even like, ask the cast member who'd actually experienced serious poverty and homelessness for some input)
there was little to no coordination among the writers to ensure story or emotional continuity across episodes (if you told me berens and buckleming just didn't read each others' scripts or watch each others' episodes I would 100% believe you)
they didn't want to pay misha for enough episodes to show us what the fuck was going on with cas in the 9x03-9x09 span, let alone have him kicking around the bunker
and also possibly
everyone knew that if cas was kicking around the bunker, and they put him in the standard hunter uniform, dean's spirit would fully possess jackles and derail every scene by flinging him mouth-first onto misha's dick
and all of those make a lot more sense to me than any purely watsonian explanation is ever going to. and again, I do think that shrugging and saying "bad writing" can be a copout, and with other shows, I would make more of an effort to at least try and find a satisfying watsonian explanation, but spn is not only badly-written, but self-aware, even self-obsessed, in a way that other shows are not, so it's a lot harder for me to just disregard the non-diagetic factors. so I do tend to think that if you choose a watsonian explanation for the whole thing, it can be kind of a rorschach test, because you basically have to decide which character's development to prioritize, dean's or cas's.
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scoobydoodean · 1 year ago
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Anon I already addressed a lot of your message, but I also wanted to respond to the 2.02 part of your message more specifically. Tbh I didn't talk about this very specifically in my rewatch because I kind of feel like Sam projecting in 2.02 is a subject that has been beaten to death by fandom and I didn't really want to add to it if I'm being quite honest—especially because it quickly leads to samcrit hours for a lot of people in a way that I'm not really into believe it or not. But I wanted to respond specifically to what you wrote here:
Yes, Sam is expressing how he feels in season 2, but he isn't lashing out. He wants to express his grief to his brother, who he knows is also expressing grief. He doesn't realize his brother is expressing it in a different way than him, and interprets that as not expressing it at all. But he isn't lashing out and he isn't being malicious. Sam is trying to get Dean to talk to him, because that is how Sam needs to process his grief. He isn't displacing his aggression onto someone else. He's desperate for a connection. He's more begging than projecting at some point. And when it bubbles over, he admits how he is feeling to Dean based on an earlier conversation where Dean criticized Sam for how he was reacting to their father's death when Sam and John fought all of the time. Dean is angry because that is how Dean deals with grief, and in that conversation, he took it out on Sam. In the season 2 scene, Sam is admitting that yes, he and his dad always fought, and he feels terrible about it and is drowning in the too little too late. But he is desperate for his brother to let him in because that is the only connection he has left and Dean shutting down makes him afraid to lose that too. But he isn't lashing out or projecting. He is trying to communicate his needs but doing it less than stellarly.
First (clarification for any other readers) I've already clarified that I myself don't see Sam projecting as malicious.
Second, I think you reference a tag I used on my original post: projecting displaced aggression and scapegoating in spn. That is a tag for my tagging system. It's a blanket tag that I use when at least one of the words in the string applies to a situation, but not all have to apply.
Third, let's be clear about the sequence of events in 2.02:
Sam comes outside and asks if Dean is okay or if he needs anything.
Dean says he does not need anything, and calmly but plainly asks Sam to stop asking, because Sam has been asking Dean all week and Sam has not taken a hint.
Sam does not listen. Instead, he pushes forward, pointing out that Dean hasn't mentioned John all week.
Dean responds with a sarcastic remark that boils down to, "What the fuck do you want my grief to look like? What would you consider palatable?"
Sam explodes, yelling at Dean for patronizing him, accusing Dean of grieving wrong, and telling Dean how he should be grieving.
Dean says the anger and vengeance Sam wants from him is useless, and that the only thing he can do right now is work on the car.
As the episode continues:
Sam talks about wanting to hunt in John's memory twice after Dean wonders 1) why Sam wanted to go on a random hunt 2) Why Sam tells the carnival owner that he doesn't want normal. Dean pretends he has no thoughts about this.
Sam brings up a fond memory of John, and Dean says he remembers. 5 seconds later, Sam accuses Dean of "getting maudlin on him", and then he accuses Dean of playing the "strong and silent type"
Dean asks him firmly to leave him alone, and plainly says Sam is acting entitled to determine how Dean grieves.
Sam begins yelling at Dean again for not grieving right.
Dean shouts back at Sam that he is fine and tells Sam to stop dumping his issues on Dean.
Sam asks what Dean means.
Dean says Sam is having trouble dealing with John's death because of how things ended between the two of them and says Sam is projecting his inability to deal with John's death onto Dean.
At the end of the episode, Sam admits that Dean was right about what he was doing, but also says he knows Dean isn't actually okay.
That is the sequence of events.
He doesn't realize his brother is expressing it in a different way than him, and interprets that as not expressing it at all.
I'm not the thought police, but neither is Sam, and Sam quite literally shouts at Dean multiple times in 2.02 for not grieving in a way that Sam finds relatable. He specifically demands to know why Dean isn't angry, and why Dean doesn't want revenge, and why Dean's grieving process involves fixing his broken car instead of doing exactly what Sam has been doing—searching for leads on the demon. Sam is angry and is frustrated by a lack of leads, and he is displacing that frustration onto Dean and doing exactly what you claim Dean did to him later in the episode, except when Dean does it, it is after being harassed repeatedly and criticized for how he grieves and having his clearly stated boundaries trampled on by his brother for over a week.
Adults don't have to understand the quirks of other people's grief, but they should be expected to accept that their own feelings are not universal, and not make judgements. We don't get to dictate how other people feel and process things. I lost my grandfather this year, and if someone had come up to me at his funeral and criticized me for not appearing to grieve in a way they found relatable (which would invariably and inescapably carry an implication that I didn't care about my own grandfather) I would have put them on the ground, and they would have deserved it. It's fine that Sam doesn't understand how Dean grieves. His response to that lack of understanding, which is to deliberately and flagrantly ignore Dean's very calmly and plainly stated boundaries, and criticize how Dean deals with his feelings because Sam doesn't understand him, is not fine.
Note: Sam's behavior here is also not dissimilar from how he criticized Dean in 1.03 for not searching hard enough for John (in Sam's opinion—a guy who had found exactly 0 leads for them up to that point) with a tacked on thinly-veiled accusation that Dean did not care, followed by denials of his obvious meaning when Dean reacted. That also was not okay, and it's part of the pattern we see.
Sam is trying to get Dean to talk to him, because that is how Sam needs to process his grief.
You say Sam just wants to express his own grief to Dean, but that is not what Sam does? Sam talks exclusively about how Dean is processing his own grief: DEAN hasn't brought up dad once. DEAN should want revenge. DEAN should be mad. DEAN needs to stop being so dysfunctional and cold and "deal with" John's death—not Sam. If Sam wanted to talk about how Sam was grieving... he could simply talk about how he is grieving. However, quite crucially, he should also be willing to have someone else act as his active listener (ex: Bobby). Dean and Sam's methods of coping clearly do not mesh, and Sam should be willing to respect that. But when Dean does ask Sam quite plainly, over and over, to stop pestering him, Sam does not listen. He wants to talk about how Dean is grieving. Whether Dean is ready is not relevant—only whether Sam is ready for Dean to be ready. Dean is expected to grieve on Sam's timeline, in a way that looks familiar and relatable. Sam fixates on getting Dean to open up, because Sam is worried about him yeah—but also because Sam thinks he needs Dean—specifically—to spill his guts in order to process his own grief and stop worrying about Dean, and that is dysfunctional, and Sam is so focused on fulfilling that dysfunctional need that he is willing to flagrantly trample all over Dean's own grieving process and his clearly defined boundaries in order to get what he wants.
Sam's methods of coping and how they effect Dean in 2.02 are maladaptive, and they make Dean responsible for "fixing" Sam in a way that is not fair, while Dean is also grieving their dead father. Sam is essentially criticizing Dean for not offering up his raw grief as an artistically arranged meal for Sam's consumption, and Sam does not even realize it until Dean, tired of having his clearly stated boundaries trampled on over and over by Sam's repeated pestering and demands and criticisms, calls Sam out on what he is doing. And Dean is right about it, and after Sam reflects on it, he admits that Dean is right and reduces his harassment and policing of Dean's feelings by about 75%.
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idontknow-1213 · 2 months ago
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Reddit struggles to get their posts to anything above like 200 upvotes. That is a very small faction of the fandom. I’d hardly use that to win your argument. That’s why i keep bringing up twitter and tiktok, hell even tumblr. Where destiel trends on the daily.
That’s just the extent of it. You can’t argue facts. No one cares about anything other than Destiel on a large scale regarding the show now that it’s over. Destiel is the only thing that holds any relevance.
Anyways. I just send you anons because i like to, seeing that you’re a blog who runs an anti-account that can’t even get a note on a post. Whereas i can get thousands of likes and comments on a destiel post wherever i go. It’s fun on my side, lots of interaction and people to talk to. Celebrities who ship it. Rob and Rich talking about it on their podcast. Oof. I’m living the high life.
Also, Jared just said this last con that there’s no confirmed role on the boys yet, just that he wants to be in it. And he’ll never be as big as Soldier Boy, which is gonna be really embarrassing for him, because everyone is gonna see how bad an actor he is compared to Jensen. Huffing and puffing his way to that cbs role while Jensen continues to become an a-lister lol.
Look anon, I understood yesterday that you love me, but I'm sorry I don't date through social. 😞
Maybe in another moment of our lives destiny will bring us together....
But I'm sorry... Jensen an A-lister actor? Jack Nicholson, Marlon Brando, Clint Eastwood, Al Pacino, Robert De Niro... these are true A-lister actors... Jared and Jensen are at best C-lister. And also Jared was Dean in Girlmore Girls that's why he is popular outside the world of SPN.
I have 10 friends of my age who watch or have watched SPN, you know how many of them have tumblr or ships Destiel? Zero, they don't even know the ship, I think you forget that we are 8 billion in this world.
Well Jared is constantly huffing and puffing while Jensen is always talking with his Batman Voice and doing the model face. Sometimes he really looks like Derek Zoolander.
Are you really a fan of Jensen? I don't understand why you still insist with Destiel. You can like the non-canon ship but why are you trying to force it. You are saying the OG Wonder Woman ships it, Rich and Rob (I don't know why you care about the extras), while Jensen said that is never going to be true. It's like a person likes you but you hate them, and all you friend are insisting that you hang out with them even if you don't like it.
Rob and Rich do this because they are unemployed and need some fans for the podcast because is not doing well. It's all marketing, and you are not capable of see it.
Try to get out of the destiel bubble and apply what is happening, simplifying, to yourself.
With love to my first and best fan 😘
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boy-kings-court · 18 days ago
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thoughts on spn s8
ahh... good old s8
though it's been a while since I've watched it all the way through (currently in s6 with my friend) s8 without a doubt brings out the most mixed feelings for me compared to any other season
fair warning this got kinda long
let's start with the good:
1 ) the sam and dean drama
if you can look at it objectively, shutting out the narrative's dean bias and the general fandom reaction, it's just delicious. I've seen it referred to as the samndean dual cheating arc, which I love rather you consider that romantic or just in the weird brothers way lmao.
I'm a big fan of benny and unlike most of the fandom don't mind the sam/amelia plot. I like it what it represents for sam's character, showing just how mismatched sam and dean's priorities are in the beginning of the season. and even though sam would cop shit from dean, the narrative, and the fandom at large, those rare moments where he stands up to dean feel like mana from heaven
2 ) TRIALS TRIALS TRIALS
this is the most important aspect of s8 for me and maybe what I should have led with, but I'm sure it's not surprising coming from a sam stan or just if you're at all familiar with my blog (hopefully you are <3)
the trials arc is one of my all-time favorite sam arcs. it has unique whump, deep and meaningful revelations for his character, and ends with one of spn's greatest season finales (to me, and I'm always right)
it also spawned one of the scenes of ALL TIME, 8x21's "I'm not clean" iconic 10/10
the trials arc is of course absolutely heartbreaking from a sam perspective, especially when thinking about s8 collectively. sam going from defending himself and his choices against dean's unfair criticism -> choosing to leave his life with amelia behind -> bravely undertaking the trials but wanting to come out on the other side alive -> not caring if it kills him in the end because of his feelings of unworthiness, guilt over his past mistakes, and (chiefly) dean's infantilization and constant reminders of all that sam has done "wrong" is one of the most sickening (affectionate) journeys I've seen a character go on. even if most of the fandom doesn't recognize it for what it is, at least the dedicated sam corner of the fandom does, and I will never tire of reading trials-related meta
3 ) very distinct arcs
this probably seems trivial in relation to the other two but I like how s8 feels like two or three different seasons mashed into one
now let's talk about the bad:
1 ) wasted potential
you could say this about a lot of spn seasons/plotlines, especially the later ones, so of course it applies here too. as much as I like benny, I think there's more they could have done with him, mainly giving him more interactions with sam! I feel the same about henry winchester too. I didn't need peepaw to stick around forever, but without a doubt they should've given him more than one measly episode. he and sam had serious potential to bond and grow close, making his death (ideally later in the season) much more impactful
2 ) too much angel crap
I really can't tell you how sick I got of angel politics, and s8 only gives us a taste of many more boring conflicts to come. the angel "trials" do nothing for me, I hardly remember anything that's going on with c*s once he comes back from purgatory minus that cringe ass swan song imitation they give him and dean (and it's memorable for the wrong reasons), and the angels falling, which seems to be a big deal at first, is extremely underwhelming once s9 rolls around (maybe it's not fair to pin that on s8 but whatever)
3 ) narrative bias towards dean/fandom reaction to sam
maybe this is also not fair to pin entirely on s8, but these things are unfortunately forever intertwined in my mind and color my view of the season as a whole. s8 sam is arguably the most misunderstood and slandered sam of the whole series. you could certainly make that argument for s4 sam, s9 sam, even s5 sam, but I'm sure you will agree s8 sam is up there no matter which sam wins that crown for you
the significance of the trials and what they reveal about sam's character is entirely lost on most of the audience. all we seem to hear about instead is how stupid and pointless they find the amelia plotline, how jealous and unreasonable sam is regarding benny, and (you already know it!) endless endless ENDLESS "waaaaaahhhh sam didn't look for dean!!" just one of the three of those is enough to drive me insane, and we are instead treated to all three and more!
couple this with the narrative's dean bias (and s8 just happens to be the moment where, in my opinion, this bias becomes fixed and permanent) you are left with some of the worst takes and most fuck ass sam meta you can imagine, some of it being so bad I've heard of many instances of sam stans taking a break from spn or just checking out entirely around this time
s8 my beloved and s8 my beloathed
although maybe this is all entirely too serious and I should instead just thank s8 for its greatest gifts: estrogen!jared sam with his beautiful tan and glorious long glossy chestnut hair AND sickly trials era bella swan sam, both of whom I want to abandon the silverware for and eat with my bare hands
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thanks so much for this ask, and if you were expecting a succinct response instead, I sincerely apologize
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dotthings · 7 months ago
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Back on my slow, full series rewatch of SPN and noticing some things in S4 about the theme of Sam and Dean’s specialness and Dean’s love/hate relationship with hunting and the nature of Sam and Dean as heroes.
Sam post first. I’ll post the Dean one separately.
In season 4 leading up to 4.15 Death Takes a Holiday (written by Jeremy Carver) Sam’s been training with Ruby, drinking demon blood, and developing his demon-related powers more strongly. Dean’s been uneasy about that. And running alongside this is Sam increasingly growing drunk on power, as well as his detachment and sense of specialness.
SAM Look, I don't want them to die, either, Dean, but there's a natural order. DEAN You're kidding, right? SAM What? DEAN You don't see the irony in that? I mean, you and me, we're like the poster boys of the unnatural order. All we do is ditch death. SAM Yeah, but the normal rules don't really apply to us, do they? DEAN stares. DEAN We're no different than anybody else. SAM I'm infected with demon blood. You've been to hell. DEAN looks away. SAM Look, I know you want to think of yourself as Joe the Plumber, Dean, but you're not. Neither am I. The sooner you accept that, the better off you're gonna be.
It’s not that Sam is 100% wrong. Their job, their lives, are unusual, they do have to deal with weirdness most people don’t, in a highly dangerous, unpaid job, Sam does have demon blood powers, Dean has been to hell. But there’s also a bunch of things in Sam’s pov here that is linked to his S4 overall arc of going off the rails, moving away from who he is.
Way back in S4, there’s in-story comment on how Sam and Dean have plot armor while other characters don’t. Via Sam expressing an alarming sense of superiority—rules don’t apply to them, if other people die too bad it’s the natural order, they’re special. This isn’t Sam (and I really appreciate Sam’s sense of horror during the S14 reveal about the plot armor). Sam’s got his head twisted around here. Sam’s talk about specialness screams of Sam falling for Ruby’s cosmic trap, priming him to get where he needs to be to set Lucifer free.
One of the things that was so appealing to me about SPN is Sam and Dean’s ordinariness as heroes. They’re just a couple of guys from Lawrence, Kansas yanked into the world of the supernatural. They’re both the everyperson pov, while they’re also both outsiders and “freaks.” Sam and Dean often have to reject “great destinies” that cosmic beings try to force upon them, they rebel, tear up the pages, make the story their own. Free will was always a big theme on the show. Rebelling against the cosmic being manipulated system.
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sakarrie-creates · 10 months ago
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It’s that time of year! Here’s my 2023 art summary! After two years of having to include non-colored pieces, I finally did enough ‘full’ pieces to fill my art summary template! I did have to get a bit creative with the months since I was able to draw a LOT more during the summer, but I’ll take it! Sorry it's a bit blurry. I'm not sure if that's just for the preview or not, but it was a smaller file than normal and since these reflections are 99% for my own interest, I decided it wasn't worth trying to change.
As usual, I got rambly so reflection questions are answered under the cut. The template I used is available here in case anyone else wants to make their own! My fic summary will be coming in a week or so, so stay tuned for the stats and round-up there. :)
What events did you participate in (with art)? Player Appreciation Week, Fandom Trumps Hate, Dear Fellow Traveler (Animatic), Weird People (Editing), SPN Comfortably Queer Zine (dropped), and lots of zine applications for page artist, merch artist, comic artist, and spot artist roles!
What was your biggest challenge this year? While time, like last year, was still a challenge, I think my biggest challenge was a mix of low motivation and an intense perfectionistic mindset. At the start of the year, I got super into TOH and was super hyped about all the zines with apps opening. I really REALLY wanted to get into them and figured I should apply for art too just cause it would increase my overall chances of getting in. After the finale, I did a screenshot redraw that ended up being absolutely fantastic for where my skill level is. I went deeper into rendering than ever before, and somehow it worked for me. 
That probably was the start of my unreasonably high expectations, and I got it into my head that maybe if I could make a whole portfolio of artwork at that quality level, I actually stood a chance at getting into a zine as an artist. From then on, I was hardcore crash-coursing perspective, rendering techniques, and generally trying to improve without allowing room for mistakes. While I do think it helped me grow a lot, it burnt me out so I struggled to work on stuff past summary (when all the zine apps were) and even dropped from the SPN Comfortably Queer Zine cause my imposter syndrome was so strong. (Though that was also partially because it was a ‘sign-up and you’re in’ zine, so they never saw my art during the application process and had no way of knowing if I was good enough.
What was something you were surprised by? I’m pretty sure I discovered the perspective tool is CSP this year! CSP has so many tools I’m not aware of (despite watching tons of tutorials and guides), so it wasn’t super surprising but it was nice. I have to say, they’re a serious hassle to work with and require a higher understanding of vanishing points and such than I currently have, but I could see it being very useful for future scene art pieces.
Did you try anything new this year?
Yes! This year I kicked down the door to the merch world and have been collecting and designing throughout the year. Though the designs have mostly just been for zine app portfolio’s, everything has worked out really well for me and I hope to produce charms for my collection as I improve my skills. Where do you think you most improved? Definitely my confidence in rendering! And probably my rendering itself too. I did a ton more pieces with it this year and it’s definitely a favorite part of the art process for me. I think I’ll have a lot more fun with it this year too, since I’m trying to keep it lower pressure, so I can experiment more to find out what brushes and styles I like most. What are you most proud of? I think I’m most proud of how ambitious I was with my zine apps. Though I didn’t get into any for art and it burned me out a fair bit, I did a lot of hard work and made pieces I can be mostly happy with. As for specific pieces, I’m very proud of my animatic clip for the Dear Fellow Traveler MAP (which is what the Belos art from the summary is from). My portion was about 5 seconds with 24 fully colored and shaded frames. A few of those were moving frames too, so the end result is the closest thing to actual animation I’ve done. I also really like the rendering on the Huntlow Epilogue art and generally how the Steve&Matt hug turned out.
How’d this year compare to your 2023 goals? I honestly couldn’t remember what my goals were, but all things considered, I didn’t do too bad! Thankfully past-Sakarrie was wise and made it a bullet list so I can just check things off. Met: -Player Appreciation Week -Add to zine portfolio -Apply to at least one zine as an artist (fine if don’t get accepted) -Keep experimenting with backgrounds and shading -Pull out some old WIPs -Build more consistency of style
The checked off ones I definitely met, so good for me! This was a very zine-focused year, so I way exceeded those goals. The last two I did do, but they’re a bit subjective. Specifically, I think the ‘WIPs’ I was referring to were old sketches, but most of the old WIPs I revisited were already colored and I was either adding rendered or cleaning them up for zine usage. As for style, I’m REALLY bad at telling haha. That said, my characters seem reasonably similar when I draw them, so I’m going to tentatively count it. Kinda: -One fully colored piece per month
I’m gonna give myself a half check on this one. I didn’t have a fully colored piece every month, but I did have over 12 fully rendered pieces in the end, several of which had backgrounds. So while I didn’t meet the letter of the goal, I feel like I met the spirit of it.
Did Not Meet: -Finish Huntlow comic -30 minutes animatic digitalize rough draft -Maybe make some fanart of my favorite fics
These don’t shock me. They’re all personal projects and this was a very external-goal-driven year for me. The Huntlow comic is a big love of mine but it’s definitely ambitious for where my skill is. I’ve got the whole thing messy-sketched and most of it has been clean sketched, but the jump from that to lineart is gonna be hard, and I have no idea what I’d be doing with color since the panels don’t have a background. That said, I do feel like it’s some solid work and I adore the angst vibe of it, so maybe I’ll get it done one day. I could also see myself posting it as a messy lineart comic so that others could enjoy the concept being executed in case it never gets finished.
As for the 30 Minutes animatic, I still 100% intend to complete it eventually. I love the way it fits to the music and I’m so proud of the thumbnails. Even if it never becomes a full animatic, I want to digitize the frames and line it up with music so I can share the concept I see in my mind with others. My brain was somewhat overtaken suddenly by TOH this year, so now that that’s settled and I’m hoping to follow my muse more this year, maybe this will be something I can get excited about again.
The fanart for favorite fics is no surprise since it’s kinda the tack on. With low motivation and projects with deadlines that needed my focus, personal art like this was buried way below other priorities. It’s a nice though for sure though.
Alrighty then, now it’s time for 2024 goals!! Oh goodness, I really don’t know what to expect of myself. I definitely am going to try to allow for more personal projects with lower pressure, but I do still have some goals. Hopefully most can be accomplished without applying big pressure though.
2024 Goals:
-Number One Priority: Create for my and don’t put myself in a place to get crazy burnt out and still have requirements. If I meet this goal, then it’s okay if I don’t meet any of the others. (It would be sad.... But I would still count it as meeting overall goals.) -Participate in Summergen and PAW Week (Art or Fic) -Design Handplates charm as anniversary gift (November) -Design CS Charm -Have a fully usable Zine Portfolio (Currently need more merch samples and rendered pieces with backgrounds) -Apply to new TOH Zines or other loved fandom zines. If I end up getting into any, I can pull back, but since that doesn’t seem likely, I want to get into the habit of always being ready to apply with what I have. -Make an ongoing project list to pin to my tumblr. This applies mostly for fics, but that way people coming to my page can see what fandoms I’m actively creating for and what they can look forward to (as well as have an opening to ask questions if they’re interested). -Post more (at least 10 times throughout the year) and add my best pieces to instagram (8+ pieces by end of year). -Do ONE of the following:     1. 30 minutes digitized so it can be shared with music      2. Open Up Your Eyes fully thumbnail      3. Fanworks for other people’s fics      4. Participate in an extra bang or exchange with art      5. Design and manufacture a pin -Play with different brushes and rendering styles -Draw something from scratch every month, no matter how small -Not exactly art, but I want to have a finalized long-term merch display plan for all my items Overall, how’d the year go? I think I did well! I didn’t meet all my goals and I pushed myself too far, but I learned and improved a LOT this year. All things considered, I made pieces that last year me would be blown away by, so I think that’s an automatic win. I’m pretty uncertain on how this next year will go (even more so than last year, which is surprising since I was changing schools last year), but I’m hoping to enjoy what I do and create art semi-regularly. Here’s to 2024!
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detailtilted · 4 months ago
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hi! I'm sorry if you've talked about this before, but I've been wondering how you enhance the spn con videos. like, how does it work? cause your videos look amazing, especially in comparison to the previous footage!
Thank you so much for being interested enough to ask!
At a very high level, the visual enhancements to the original videos themselves are made by running an upscaling program and then manually adjusting color-related settings in my video editing software. Sometimes I also fix aspect ratios if the original videos are squished.
Below are way more details than you probably ever wanted. 😅 I’ll put my very long answer after a break...
Upscaling
The very first thing I do when I start a new video is to take all the video sources I can find, pick out the ones I think I'm most likely to want to use, and see if I can get them to upscale. This is actually one of the easiest parts of the whole process, at least in terms of the actual time that I myself have to put into it. The computer does most of the work.
The upscaling is done through a software program. I don't actually have any idea, but I imagine it might be a dumbed down version of the type of software that movie studios use when they create upscaled Blu-ray releases of older films. I know the obvious question is, “What’s the software program?” I’m a little scared to say it without some explanation first, because it has “AI” in the title. I know and understand (and agree with) why AI is such a hot button today. However, this is not generative AI where it generates a new work out of nothing, and it’s performing a function that a human could not reasonably do.
The way I understand it, it runs an algorithm to analyze all the frames in the video and figure out how it can remove some of the visual “noise” and also add missing details to some frames based on what it finds in other frames. It then updates every single frame in the video. The videos I’m currently working with have 30 frames per second. A 30-minute video would therefore have 54,000 frames. For a human to compare 54,000 frames and make all the tiny changes required to each one would be… impossible I think. So anyway, after that long preamble, the name of the software I’m using is “Topaz Video AI”.
There are a variety of settings you can tweak, so I focus on upscaling one video source at a time because the same settings that work with one source may not work for a different source recorded with different equipment. I try different combinations of settings to small sections of the video until I find settings that seems to return noticeably improved results without adding any weird distortions. Sometimes I have to give up and proclaim the task impossible. If the video has too much noise and/or not enough good detail already there for it to work with, then it won’t upscale well. I get much, much better results with original video files than I do with files from YouTube. I think the videos were compressed when they were uploaded to YouTube and lost some of their quality.
If I find a setting that works, I tell the software to apply those settings to all of the videos from the source I'm currently working on and then leave my computer to crunch through them. That can take hours, and it makes my computer sound like it's preparing for liftoff, but it doesn’t require my involvement. I’ll often let it run overnight, then check it the next day to see if it came out ok. Sometimes I have to go back to the drawing board because I find parts of it didn’t come out well at all, but usually if the sample looked good then the full result also looks good.
Then I take my next video source (another set of videos recorded by a different person on different equipment) and repeat the process.
Color Corrections
This is all done in my video editing software. I’ve been using Adobe Premiere Pro. There’s free software out there that might be a better choice. I tried one early on and didn’t do very well with it, but I had no idea what I was doing. Video editing is new to me. So for me, the advantage of using a very popular software program was that there are tons of answers out there for just about every question I’ve ever thought to ask. Now that I have more experience, maybe I’ll give some of the free options another try. I have to decide whether or not to renew my current license at the end of the year and the price is pretty crazy, especially considering it's only for a limited period of time.
So… back to color corrections. My original attempts at this did not start out well. My first set of videos were the CHICON 2007 videos and those colors looked fine to me, so it never even occurred to me to adjust colors. When I moved on to Comic-Con 2008, I was confronted by a bunch of badly red-tinted and green-tinted videos and I thought, “Hmm, I wonder if this video editing software can do anything about that.”
And I tried. I drove myself absolutely mad. I’m not good with colors in general, I’d never worked with color adjustment settings before, and my eyes were going crazy trying to figure out if I was making things better or if I was just creating a new variety of bad. I put out a plea for opinions/advice here on Tumblr with some screen shots showing what I’d done so far, and sensitivehandsomeactionman came to my rescue. They took one of my screen shots and adjusted the colors in their own software to show me what could be achieved. And it looked amazing. Having that example to reference was a huge help. It was still a challenge for me, but I eventually got pretty close to what they did.
I’m not as good at it on my own, but I learned a lot through that process that I’ve been able to apply to my subsequent videos. I think every video I’ve worked with since then has had at least slightly wonky colors, so I've had a lot more practice. There are a bunch of complicated color-related settings in Adobe, but eventually I found the “Lumetri Color” panel which has a simpler set of set of controls consisting of a few sliders that let you adjust between two opposites until you find the right balance.
One slider is for Exposure and it basically changes the lighting from darker to lighter. Then there are two color-related sliders. One shifts between blue and orange and the other shifts between green and purple. I play around with those sliders until I think the colors look more natural, focusing mostly on their skin tone. Then if needed, I’ll adjust the Saturation slider a little to tone things down. For the most part, playing with those 4 sliders usually gets me something that I think looks decent.
Some videos are more difficult than others though, and I still consider this to be very much outside my wheelhouse. When I announce a new video on Tumblr, I usually display a comparison image of the original video versus the enhanced. Those help me see that the end result does in fact look at least a little better than the original. Sometimes after staring at the video for hours on end, I start to doubt.
If there are any wonky aspect ratios making the video look squished, that’s a really easy fix by just changing the scale percentages for that video in my video editing software.
All The Rest of the Work
All those things I just babbled about probably take up only 25% of the time I spend on each video. Less if the videos don't give me much trouble with upscaling or color adjusting. I could write another book about the rest of the process, but what I've already typed is probably overkill as it is so I'll try to be brief since this stuff isn't as much about the visuals anyway.
This is when I move on to the process of choosing which videos to display at which times and editing everything together into one (hopefully) cohesive video. I also try to choose the clearest audio that covers most of the panel. Audio changes are very noticeable, so I try to minimize them and use a single audio throughout the whole video as much as possible. Often the audio you’re hearing was from a different video than the one you’re seeing.
Once I have all the footage edited together, that’s when I start adding the subtitles and the extra content. These things are by far the most time-consuming part of the process, especially the subtitles.
I hope this answered your question. Thanks again for asking! If I didn't answer your question and if you want to risk having another book typed to you, let me know. 😅
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