#which I guess is why that one anon did actually bug us talking about how we played Souji

[akumanoken]

So many of you who have followed me for a while may understand the meaning of Makoto to Souji and why it's been used as the name of Sakura's kingdom.

Makoto 誠 means sincerity, and it was the symbol emblazoned on the Shinsengumi banner

I don't do a lot of canon/historical stuff anymore, but I always like to call back as much as I can, with sincerity themes and Souij's favorite color is a very specific light blue

[zmediaoutlet]

so i know we just have to accept certain retcons, but the big one that bugs me is yellow eyes's plan for sam and how it doesn't fit with all the vessel stuff. how do YOU make that work in your head?

hallo hallo anon, you have hit on one of the Great Big Bugaboos of spn canon and also the #1 evidence we have to throw in the face all those goofs who uncritically repeat the "Kripke had a 5 year plan!" factoid. He clearly did not, he was flying by the seat of his pants, and while he managed to put stuff together in a fun way the pants are Not Coherent.

Nevertheless, we can make it work, and the way we make it work is that the various members of the angelic and especially demonic hierarchies do not have complete information. Let's do a rough timeline:

In the beginning Chuck created the universe. This is widely regarded as a bad move.

Then, you know, handwaving on him setting up some version of a 'destiny' story arc which will inevitably end in his two sons fighting to the death, via characters he'll create called The Winchesters.

After inventing demons and being a real jerkface, Lucifer ends up in the cage.

In the 70s or whatever, Azazel goes to Ilchester to butcher a bunch of nuns and talk to daddy Lucifer -- Lucifer says "you have to help get Lilith out of her pit so that the seals on my cage can get broken." Azazel says, "But how, Evil Daddy?" Lucifer says, "This really special child." -- HERE IS WHERE THE RETCON APPEARS TO HAVE HAPPENED, BUT WE CAN WORK WITH IT

Sam Winchester is fated in the demonic archives among the true higher-ups, but lower-level demons don't necessarily know about him and his importance.

Azazel starts seeding the earth with special babies. COMPLETE CONJECTURE TO FOLLOW: While he knows that Sam is the one who will be Lucifer's vessel, he also knows that a series of events will need to occur so that Lucifer will get out of the cage to take his vessel in the first place. The first seal is the most important: a righteous man must shed blood in hell. How do we get that to happen? CONJECTURE TWO: I think that Dean must be the Righteous Man because of his place within the tripartite celestial structure: God-Michael-Lucifer mirroring John-Dean-Sam. I do not think that John could have ever actually been the one to 'spill blood' that would allow the first seal to break. (Ethical conjecture three: perhaps it's the weakness itself which has its own kind of righteousness? John's implacable; Dean is not.) CONJECTURE UHH FOUR I GUESS: Azazel is designing an elaborate scheme to ensure that Sam will die on a particular day (maybe bc it works well for opening the door to hell?) specifically to ensure that Dean will sell his soul to bring Sam back, and thereby doom himself to the hell where he will break the first seal.

This should be 6b but tumblr doesn't work this way: now, would it be a hell of a fucking lot easier for Azazel to just ensure Sam dies somehow? Yeah. But given everything we know about him and the dorky-ass demons who hang out in s1 and s2, Azazel is clearly a dramallama and does stuff for the lulz. Plus, I think there's an element of 'proving' to Sam how much destiny has a hold on him, because that is so important for his grooming into saying yes to Lucifer. If he was just hit by a car or something it doesn't have the same effect than if he's part of the emo hunger games.

Sam dies; Dean sells his soul; Sam lives, and wants to save Dean. But of course, he can't save Dean, because Dean *must* go to hell to ensure the first seal is broken. This is why the angels don't help Sam at all, and why Ruby is allowed to run around with impunity. Happily the writer's strike intervened and gave us a miserable fucking s3 finale where that happened, because that is WAY more interesting than Hero Sammy Saving The Day.

Ruby has been getting instructions from Lilith the entire time, presumably since she became a demon herself, and gets launched literally as soon as Azazel is out of the way to continue the Sam-grooming.

CONJECTURE FIVE(?): Azazel and Lilith fucking hated each other, lol. But it's Lilith who's the *actually* important demon, so she wins and Azazel gets sacrificed for being really bad at teaching drama.

It's not actually that complicated, but you do have to take "the special kids were just sacrifices on the altar of let's see what we can get Sam to do" as a given. If Sam had actually started killing all of them, that'd be one thing, and Azazel could have turned that to his favor before maybe having Ava stab Sam in the back regardless. (Then, a Special Kid will go and open the devil's gate for him anyway, so the demons can get out there and start their important seal-breaking prep.) Since Sam was being such a Good Guy -- well, so what, Ava will kill all the rest of them, and then either her or Jake will get turned easy-peasy and kill Sam too. Dean will make his deal either way, and the apocalypse is off with a bang. Or a sick crunching of knife into bone.

Anyway, that's my theory. It fits alongside my ironclad theory that all of history and fate and destiny was leading toward two brothers standing in front of each other in a cemetery, and the only real free will starting once Dean could choose what to do when Sam-as-Lucifer stood in front of him, and what he chose was to be there for his brother. Thereby giving Sam a solid space to grasp and overcome Lucifer, and then save all the days. The Righteous Man who begins it is the only one who can end it, as they say.

[champagnepodiums]

I agree with your last anon about this perpetual victim complex surrounding Daniel (it was going on before DTS was even a thing, but it is nice to see other people finally catching on). But I think the ONE thing that really bugs me about it is how fast his fans will use that victim complex to excuse actual problematic behavior that should be acknowledged.

Take, for example, the problematic podcast he went on last year and chose to be misogynistic on. And I'm not even necessarily saying like OH MY GOD WE MUST OSTRACIZE DANIEL FROM F1, HE'S THE WORST PERSON IN EXISTENCE because like, F1 and motorsport in general is full of privileged men. most of them have said/done something misogynistic in their pasts. yet the thing that blew me away was there were posts that garnered just as much agreeing notes/attention as the ones talking about why Daniel's behavior was wrong, that were basically excusing his behavior because "he's been in motorsports his whole life, he's never communicated with women outside his mother and his younger girlfriend, nobody ever taught him how to respect women." like, besties, respectfully, W H A T? there's been 20-somethings in F1 that have faced (deservedly so) harsher criticisms for being a lot less problematic than daniel was in that instance, yet a 33-year-old (at that time) man gets a free pass because apparently he needs someone to hold his hand and tell him women are people worthy of respect too?

It sucks because despite all of his faults, there was a point in time I actually did like him. But it also seems like I watched a lot of the drivers that were also around when I first started watching F1 — take Lewis and Seb for example, actually grow up and at least try to stand for something instead of keeping so much of the "it's a men's world" mentality that was around back then. Daniel's gotten older now too, and doesn't really seem to stand for or represent anything other than like, still giving off that Frat Boy Attending His First College Party vibe. which i guess i can understand why that might appeal to some people, but it mostly just gives me the ick and I'm certainly not going out of my way to defend someone's problematic behaviors when they've decided that's essentially going to be their entire public persona: Not giving a single damn about ANYTHING that actually matters, just radiating cool vibes or whatever. It just gets kind of old and cringy the older he gets and still tries to maintain the maturity level of like, an 18 year old if I'm being completely honest.

To be fair, I do think every driver fanbase does their own handholding when drivers do/say questionable things so it's not like he's really That Special in that regard but it does feel like DR3 fans are the first to make noise about what other drivers are doing... Maybe it's just my experience but yeah.

Daniel not maturing at all and now being in his mid-30s acting like he's a decade younger is just not cute to me? Idk but yeah.