Me, lazily, not looking up from Pokemon shuffle: idk misogyny?
A Horde of Angry Extreme Dean Fans In My Inbox: No Moron It Is Because She Reminds Us Of Sam Being An Ungrateful Bitch And Therefore We Hate Her Because We Hate Sam
Me, putting down my gameboy in horror: uuuh, sure, you’re exempt from the misogyny thing now i guess, but, uh… what the fuck?
Dean “I was going to kiss him at the end of our date but I panicked because he looked so gorgeous so instead I ruffled his hair, did finger guns and ran” Winchester.
Ok, so I’m sniffling and blogging with one eye open right now (hopefully raving more this weekend) but damn, this episode!!!
13×10 was phenomenally done as a backdoor pilot—the solid composition of the characters, the bad-ass feminist action, the new monsters, the premise, and the interpersonal relationships satisfied me so much! One AMAZING aspect? They utilized key parallels with Dean/Sam/Cas = Claire/Patience & Alex/Kaia. And 13×10 was one big-ass expositional Destiel episode via Claire/Kaia.
Claire and Kaia’s interactions were deliberately infused with homoerotic overtones and ABSOLUTELY mirrored Dean and Cas’ own dynamic (right down to 12×23 Dean re: Cas’ death in the AU).
The prolonged eye contact, touching (oh, the hand-holding), wordless tension, shy smiles (showing someone your scars–scars derived from personal life encounters–is an intimate act)—-
—-private conversations (three instances: 1. outside the house, 2. in the sitting room before Patience warned them about her vision [which makes you wonder what they were talking about prior to being interrupted *Claire/Kaia’s first offscreen gap*] 3. in Jody’s car), and–
Listen *addresses ‘you’re-reading-too-much-into it’ antis* this is almost word-for-word verbatim.
Their relationship “seems” advertently non-platonic because the audience is meant to read their relationship as non-platonic. They literally applied the exact same narrative tropes and visual cues of the Dean/Cas love story. I felt like I was watching an Ode to Destiel montage!! *sips bourbon*
Feel free to dismiss Claire/Kaia as familial in the context of Wayward Sister friendship because yeah, they did become friends, but they were narratively framed as having a distinct characteristic dynamic that’s different from the other girls:another Love and…Love.
Not to mention that their reaction shots held romantic potential i.e. there was time allotted to camera shots of Kaia’s dead body juxtaposed with Claire crying as she grieved, presenting the (tbh, textually overt) connotation that Claire cared for Kaia deeply unlike Alex and Patience. Sound familiar? Uh huh, the Sam vs Dean reaction contrast in response to Cas-centric problems.
Kaia also understood Claire’sfeelings without her needing to verbalize them (“You’re scared”) as well as stood with her in solidarity–a direct callback to Cas’ respective loyalty to Dean.
Bonuses: – Kaia being stabbed with a spear = Cas being stabbed with a spear by Ramiel in 12×12 – Claire’s journaling = Dean’s ‘girl journaling’ in therapy-themed 13×04
((**Note: Let’s say we exclude Destiel and observe Claire and Kaia as two female friends. It’s “”easier to see the gay”” since they are women, not men; lesbian fetishization by hypermasculine macho dudes within hegemonic heteronormative society makes Claire/Kaia blatant and it displeases me greatly because they parallel Dean/Cas WHO ARE MEN but anyway))
I LOVE IT.
EXACTLY.
And I mean… aside from the individual exact callbacks the overall set up of their story is just SO DESTIEL.
Claire, who is already established as a Dean parallel, needs softening, needs someone who makes her feel that she deserves to be saved, to be loved and that good things do happen in order to truly be herself as a whole, not just the projected Badass side but also the soft side.
Meanwhile Kaia needs someone to help her realise her true potential, understand her true self and stop suffocating who she really is and let herself be FREE.
I mean JEEEEEEEEZ! Where have we seen this exact list of tropes and ways to entwine two characters into each other’s emancipation endgames before?!
Yeah I am totally with you about all the above, the individual callbacks are great and so clear but it’s the overall storyline that I find most interesting as it’s a choice to write it like this PLUS using the individual callbacks. It’s like verbatim fanfiction of Destiel. Why?!
Because the original story works so well, it builds such a beautiful story why not reuse it and have a bit of fun seeing how long it takes people to catch on when they just condense it into one episode instead of a decade of show.
*Tink stares into the camera*
“You’re scared.” “Yeah. Jody always said I’d get myself killed–hunting. And I’d be like, ‘good’. Yeah. I’m gonna go out, then that’s how I gonna do it, doing something great.”
*waves hands around*
Also, two versions of her in confrontation calls back to 13×04 and our!Cas vs Empty!Cas, after which our!Cas came back. There was even worry that it was Empty!Cas who had come back.
It only makes sense that our!Kaia also comes back to complete the parallel. With her backstory, the two Kaias being both her in some way and getting rejoined, either via the spear or some later MacGuffin, currently seems the most likely scenario.
And as @elizabethrobertajones pointed out, that conversation with Claire in which they compared scars looks an awful lot like Chekov’s gun, with knowing the sources of the scars as proof of our!Kaia. I mean, it’s a cool scene in and of itself, but in retrospect, it looks like revealing that info was foreshadowing.
Adfjkshgd
Idk if our Kaia comes back right away but it’s clear she’s not been fridged never to be seen again as a person because introducing Bad!Kaia clearly means that Kaia herself is salvageable and there’s an ongoing relationship hidden behind whatever conflict Bad!Kaia brings, because this is the beginning of something huge for them all. Kaia is an intrinsic part of Claire, immediately… I love the parallel as well of Patience’s vision meshing dead!Claire with grieving!Claire which also parallels how Dean ended up passing into death and back through grief for Cas in 13×05… Gah, there’s so much going on and I am LIVING because oh my god I knew something was gonna be up with them but I’m FLOORED at what it turned out to be 😀
I mean the fact that we’re supposed to be shipping it is pretty blatant when Bobo literally tweeted “Dreamhunter” so… parallels ahoy! For people looking for the writer’s statement on whether these tropes are being intentionally used as part of an ongoing romantic narrative, the writer has effectively confirmed that these tropes are being intentionally used as part of an ongoing romantic narrative.
So it’s Flu Season again, and this recipe for Tea To Fix What Ails You was given to me by a Christian friend, and I’ve taken to calling it JESUS TEA due to it’s miraculous properties. Even though it, technically, contains no tea. This tea is as caffinie-free as anything processed in a US plant can get, but be sure to check the provenance and all ingredients in case of allergies.
You will Need:
A Bigass Pot, becuase this is something you make in large quantities
working stovetop
those lil cloth sachets you use for wassail/empty teabags/those lil reuseable loose-leaf tea steepers.
Recipe:
about a quart of water
1 cup apple cider
about half a lemon’s worth of juice
a shitwhack of honey- try to get as local as possible and generally the less-processed the better if you want to build a resistance to local allergens. If you have allergy concerns or don’t like the taste of honey, go ahead and use more processed stuff/another sweetener instead.
three tablespoons/three bags chamomile tea
three tablespoons/three bags rooibos tea
teaspoon crushed cloves
1 cinnamon stick (more if you like it spicier)
¼ tsp nutmeg
1/8 tsp cayenne or white pepper
Bring water to a simmer in the pot. Add the chamomile, rooibos and spices to steep about 4-5 minutes or longer if you like tea-flavored tar which given you have the flu you probably do. Add Cider, Lemon Juice and Honey until dissolved. Drink all of this in the course of an hour to stay hydrated, make more pots as needed or until you pass out.
FOR MAXIMUM EFFECTIVENESS: gargle warm salt water first for as long as you can, it’ll break up the mucus in your throat and soothe the soreness.
This stuff is hecking delicious, and my dad claims it cured his cold. I’ve taken to drinking it just because it tastes good! Thank you for sharing! 😀 I also found that you can freeze this stuff in convenient single serving sizes, ready to be heated in the microwave when you don’t have enough spoons to make it fresh. Granted fresh is usually best for most food and drinks, but it’s still good.
I also calculated a single serving version, which I’m putting here in case anyone wants to make it that way:
1 cup hot water
¼ cup apple cider (or more, I prefer 1/3 cup)
1 tbsp honey (or more, to taste)
a dash of lemon juice
½ tsp spice mixture
1 ½ tbsp tea mixture
Mix the spices together in one container, and mix the two kinds of tea together in another. Measure out of these the above amounts. (Don’t try to store the two things together, the spices will sink to the bottom and you won’t get the right measurements.)
Use a tea infuser/tea bag/cheesecloth/whatever to keep the herb bits from floating off into your drink. Steep for the usual 4-5 minutes, then add the cider, honey, and lemon.
Side note: ground cloves is cheaper for me so I use ½ tsp of
that instead of 1 of whole. I also like cinnamon a lot so I use ¼ tsp
ground cinnamon instead of a stick (also sticks are really expensive here). If you use a stick, break it into
little pieces. The downside of ground cinnamon is that it
kind of congeals if you don’t stir it periodically, so keep a spoon
handy as you drink.
Since people have been asking for this (I guess the flu/common cold is going around agian), have it again, NOW WITH SINGLE SERVING SIZE, THANK YOU @snowfox102 for doing the math for me!
Is it possible to substitute the chamomile for something else?
Pretty much any herbal tea but mint will work? Rose hip’s good, or you can just double the rooibos. You can even put in black or green tea. I don’t becuase those both have caffiene and I want to be awake as little as possible when I’m sick.
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