HARD CORE TROUBADOUR

(via awelltraveledwoman)

nyokala:

happilyevernow:

So, that Sam/Dean scene at the end of the episode was some fucking bullshit, amirite?

#’I killed someone I love /for you/ because it has been grilled into me from age 4 #that you are the only thing worth protecting and keeping safe and#my only purpose on this planet is to be your guardian and look after you #my personal relationships outside of you don’t matter and they shouldn’t even exist because in the end I will kill them if it means getting #you back #and I’ll abandon everyone else I love who isn’t you if you tell me to #because I don’t matter… you matter and I exist to service you’ #ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING #what the fuck is this shit #STUPID IS WHAT IT IS #that codependence IS NOT A GOOD FUCKING THING OH MY GOD #and the show lifting it up as this ~great~ thing and a testament to how strong the ~love~ between Sam and Dean is #fuck OFF this is so gross#also seriously Sam? SERIOUSLY?? #gonna try and guilt Dean into letting you kill yourself #I… no seriously ugh fuck this show

#same #how much are you looking forward to yet another season of nurse dean who asks for sam’s permission to do things #l i ke show i thought you knew once that dean sacrificing his personhood for sam from an early age was not romantic #i was wrong i guess (via alaynestone)

I was just so disappointed in that scene — like if I felt like the issues with the scene were going to be dealt with in S9, I’d let it go. But I know they aren’t going to be dealt with b/c that’s the pattern. And the fact that this plays directly into the trauma that Dean developed as a child — not daring to ask for anything for himself b/c he had to put Sam and Sam’s needs first. That’s what John drilled into his head. And in essence, that’s what he’s being told in this scene too —You can’t have friends. You can’t love other people. You have to affirm Sam’s existence. Dean is turned into a bad guy/shamed for feeling hurt by Sam’s past actions and for wanting to have friendships/to let himself trust/care about others. And Dean never voices how much this harms him. (need more codependency and caretaker trauma meta, please)

Ok. So the only thing about the finale that made me want to cry was how fucking disappointed I was with it.

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nyokala:

bennylafitte replied to your post: also a bit annoyed by the sam/dean scene. ugh.

explain it to me pls because i feel annoyed too but i can’t figure out why exactly but i’m bothered

A mix of things for me? It was a huge regression to a S/D codependent framing that I was hoping we were moving away from finally. And Sam again got to voice his issues with Dean (you didn’t trust me!!!), but Dean didn’t really get to voice his issues in reaction to that/or his own experiences re: how Sam’s treated him in turn (I had this problem with the Sam/Dean scene earlier this season as well which was similar with Sam voicing his issues, but Dean not). So Dean had to basically suppress what his own traumas are re: their relationship in order to reassure Sam that Sam was loved/cared for. I think I’d be okay with this if I thought Dean’s issues would later get addressed, but knowing SPN, they’re not. So yeah. Also, the idea that Dean’s not allowed to have friends/trust other people outside of Sam (Cas, Benny) — I thought the guilt tripping was really problematic, and so then seeing Dean have to reassure Sam that Sam would always come first…I kind of wanted to throw things. 

Like I’ve long wanted Dean to confront Sam about Benny, ngl. About the fact that he sacrificed someone he cared about for Sam. It was framed as a good thing in this scene, when we know it’s not. So many undealt with stuff in the brother dynamic, and I am just so tired of the regression. So I know it was supposed to be a touching scene, but I was just really irked by it?

Um. Yes. TIMES A MILLION?

nyokala:

i received a couple of anons this past week asking if i still believed dean is bi, or that dean/cas is okay to ship, given that the actors and showrunners say and do fucked-up shit steeped in heterosexism. i’ve been trying to think of what advice to give you when it comes to how you approach fandom vs. the show creators, if there is something i can offer you re: how to navigate the dissonance that exists between fandom culture and the actual power structures that our favorite media is propped up by.

basically, we have to be able to acknowledge this one thing first: you can love misha, jensen, jared, edlund, carver, and all the other showrunners and actors, and still recognize that these men can do and say fucked up shit. you can be critical of the things/people you love.

the things/people/stories we love are not free of the shit we hate (see: how to be a fan of problematic things.)

let’s say it again: the shows we love, the characters we love, the creators we love, the actors we love — they are not perfect; more times than not, they will be steeped in and socialized by the same systems of oppression that are at the foundation of the modern capitalist nation state (aka our global white supremacist heterosexist cissexist homophobic patriarchy.) and they should be called out when doing problematic shit. because y’all, that’s the only way we’re going to get anywhere, to a place that makes us healthy and whole.

it takes a lot of body armor (emotional and physical) to exist in a society that on a daily basis is constantly erasing/invisibilizing/killing folks they don’t want (i.e. communities of color, queer communities, women, the poor…). it’s hard to turn on the tv and to see and hear things that are about upholding the very shit that is killing and oppressing us. so let’s be honest with each other: the things we love can and do hurt us. so that’s why folks have a right to voice their hurt/disappointment and to ask people and institutions to do better. and we have to create supportive and safe spaces for people to do this.

so where does that leave us in fandom? even though there has been a breaking down of the divide between fandom and tptb over the past five years, make no mistake: fandom is ours.

let me repeat that one too: fandom is OURS.

and simply put: these characters are now ours too.

so anon, i believe dean is bisexual not because any show runner or actor or canon script told me this. i believe it because that’s how my friends and i have interpreted the character for the past eight years given what we’ve seen and understood about this character. we’ve read and written about a bisexual!dean since S1; we’ve spent hours meta’ing about dean’s complicated and fascinating relationship to men, about his performance of gender and sexuality, about his working-class machismo, about the roles dean’s forced to play and the masks he wears to protect himself. we’ve spent hours creating fanon and fanworks about dean’s fluid sexuality.

dean is bisexual because we say he is. it’s really that simple.

okay, we’re not going to get dean/castiel in canon, but so what? the dean/cas fandom has read and written thousands of words where dean and castiel are given the chance to be a couple, where they’ve taken epic journeys and come out stronger together, where these two very manly tough bamfy male-bodied iron woobie big damn heroes are given a chance to love the other in ways that go beyond just friendship and bromance. fandom has given dean and castiel EPIC, world-ending love stories that leave us all breathless.

so, the show writers piss you off? put your characters through shit you never wanted? say stuff about the characters you totally disagree with?

then take the characters back. give them the story you wish you could give them on screen. that’s what fandom is for, yo!

and don’t be afraid to have your favorites fall in love with people of the same sex. heck, i’ve been queering the text for almost a decade now and i don’t plan to stop anytime soon, hetero-patriarchy be damned.

i’m rambling now, but in thinking about fandom being ours, i’m reminded of one of my favorite fanvids about fangirling/fandom culture and our POWER: “kill a man, according to fanlore, is:

“A meta Supernatural vid by the vidder zimshan. Vid summary: “And you can’t understand, how I could just kill a man.” Kripke might have created Sam and Dean, but it’s fandom that knows how to play with them [Otherwise known as Fandom Power, FTW!] The vid attempts to provide an overview of Supernatural fandom and our relationship with the screenwriters and show creators by reclaiming the show and reshaping it to meet our desires and needs. The inspiration from the vid came from a statement by Killabeez in 2009: “Sam and Dean are ours, now. The show can go wherever TV-land takes it, and they are still ours.” Killa was, in turn, quoting Syn Ferguson talking about fandom’s relationship to Star Trek decades earlier: “Gene Roddenberry invented the Universe and Characters of Star Trek. Paramount/Viacom currently has the right to make money off of them. The rest of us have the right of love. We hold the katra of Star Trek now. We Remember.”

As the vidder says in her vidder’s note: “This idea sorta took on a life of its own as the season progressed and more and more fans became upset, disheartened, or just fatigued by the show itself, whether it was the state of the brothers, the treatment of women, or the pacing of the apocalyptic storyline. And while personally, I’ve been able to salvage my show love to keep watching, I’ve gotten past the idea that the show owes us something anymore. After five years, take what pieces you can still love, and the rest, well, that’s what fandom is for. No matter what Kripke does, he can’t take back what he’s already created. It’s out there, and in the words of killabeez, ‘Sam and Dean are ours, now’ too. We can take the canon we like, and make our own happy ending. Whether that’s through fic, drawn/digital art, vidding, picspam or another medium, we all enjoy the pieces we enjoy in our own ways. And inevitably there will always be other fans out there to enjoy it with us, as is the magic of fandom.”

So yeah. I get so mad at fandom sometimes because we can be so damn awful to each other. But the truth is? I fell in love with SPN because of its fandom. Because of what we’ve given these characters — the life, the stories, the possibilities — beyond the script. It’s friggin’ powerful.

Y’all are powerful.

And Dean and Cas are ours now.