I can’t stop looking at that microwave… ok, I’ve gotta talk about the film thing in this scene. A thing most people notice but may not know the terms for.
So most media have this attention logic called “Affinity and Contrast”. In film, it usually means either, Affinity: a sameness of editing, vs Contrast: a difference in editing. They’re both used to create an ebb and flow and to create and relax tension/attention, as well as to keep the audience interest.
Or, it means what’s happening up there^
Affinity: Blending in to the background Contrast: Popping out from the background
Affinity is often used to make a character seem invisible or to associate them with the background somehow. Like reflecting the sun on them during the sunset to associate them being part of the sun rising. Contrast is generally done to keep eye trace and to keep the characters or important things a part from the background. Both can be used for technical or narrative reasons, but there should always be some reason for either.
This is a “rule” in pretty much every visual medium in existence. A technical example is why the video game Mega Man is easy to follow and play, and why Mighty No9 is not (on the most basic literacy level, there are a myriad of other reasons why Mighty No9 is a user experience nightmare). A story example is Schindler’s List, or anything where a wall flower character’s colors just blend right into the background to make them unnoticeable.
Now… the above scene has a bright white microwave contrasted heavily against a dark wall and cabinetry. From that contrast, we have Dean, shaded lightly, and still contrasted against the background. Sam, on the other hand, blends right in. He has “affinity” with the background.
If I remember correctly, Dean just shoved a fairy into that microwave. That microwave is where the fairy was, it’s the most related to her. The next most related, and “touched by” a fairy in the scene is Dean. He had first hand experience with her. She bopped him in the face no less. Sam however, has not encountered a fairy at all yet. He’s only hearing this information second hand. He’s also soulless, but since I can’t remember the ep well enough, I don’t have a direct relation to that here.
Clap your hands if you believe, indeed. I love traceable associations. I don’t have a lot of time at the moment, but it could be interesting to see how traceable the “touch of fairies” is in the the ep. Sam keeps his outfit throughout, but Dean and other characters change or appear wearing very light or dark clothing during the ep.
If anything, SPN sure understands shot density.
*Tink wades in with Dean-is-bi meta*
I love how there is such a blatant CONTRAST between Dean being consistently associated with queer characters/metaphors (fairies, queer discussion, servicing Oberon, Obeyron = queer in GoT) and Sam solidly and consistently heterosexual (hippie chick + waitress) in this episode.
I love how much your visual meta fits will all this 🙂
Aw, you guys.
Always this brilliance on every level. *rakes it close* *clutches to chest*
The “with nipples” gesture will never not make me crack up.
I tried to read this meta and scrolled back up like 12 times to watch him do it.
I’ve been noodling over this post for the past few days, and I think it’s almost right, in that Dean throws out the sexual barb because he almost certainly knows that he’s Cas’s weak spot.
And yet… I think the person Dean’s really digging at here isn’t Cas, but himself. He’s the one sexually attracted to Cas: he’s the one who can’t stop looking at Cas’s lips, who always looks so uncomfortable when Cas crowds his personal space. And Dean hates himself for it, because he knows that this is an angel of the Lord, the holiest of the holy, and he—well, what is he? He’s the blood-stained fuck-up, the man-sized hole of Daddy issues and neediness, the demon who never deserved to be saved from the Pit. What business does he have feeling something so dark and needy and human about an entity as good and heavenly as Cas, someone who so profoundly believes in Dean’s non-existent righteousness, who talks about him in terms of “special” and “saved” and “profound bond”, who rebelled against the divine plan and the entire Host of Heaven, and sacrificed everything, just for him, all for him? Dean knows it’s disrespectful, this dark and small and petty human sexual attraction, he knows it’s wrong and unreciprocated and he wishes he could make himself stop but he can’t, he just can’t.
Remember what the Dean!Leviathan says about Dean? “He doesn’t have relationships; he has applications for sainthood”. For nobody is that more applicable than Cas (which is why Cas’s eventual betrayal hurts Dean so much). To S5!Dean, Cas is a concept, a creature so innocent and pure Dean didn’t even think it existed until it saved him from eternal damnation.
So when Cas revokes his faith in him in that second GIF; when Cas says, essentially, “you are no longer worth my faith in you”, that’s when Dean snaps, because that hurts so much, too much, and all he can think to do is lash out with the one thing he thinks will hurt the most — except he doesn’t stop to wonder who he’s really trying to hurt here.
That’s why, when Dean says “Blow me”, Cas seems more confused than anything else — he can tell that Dean is angry, and he’s angry too, but more than that, Cas doesn’t understand why Dean chose to express himself with those specific words.
But to Dean, the innuendo makes perfect sense; it’s a form of self-harm, of self-torture. In the same way he bitterly tells Kevin (twice) that angels are “junkless”, it reminds him of what he wants but can never, ever have.
Because Dean trained under Alistair, he knows all the best ways to torture a man, to make him break, and deep down he knows that what he feels for Cas is what will break him; or, more specifically, what will break him is that Cas can never feel what he feels, that angels just don’t have the equipment to feel that way, that whenever they try, it just breaks them apart.
And I eagerly await the day Dean realizes he was wrong.
If you wish to take part in any fandom, you need to accept and respect these three laws.
If you aren’t able to do that, then you need to realise that your actions are making fandom unsafe for creators. That you are stifling creativity.
Like vaccination, fandom only works if everyone respects these rules. Creators need to be free to make their fanart, fanfics and all other content without fear of being harassed or concern-trolled for their creative choices, no matter whether you happen to like that content or not.
The First Law of Fandom
Don’t Like; Don’t Read (DL;DR)
It is up to you what you see online. It is not anyone else’s place to tell you what you should or should not consume in terms of content; it is not up to anyone else to police the internet so that you do not see things you do not like. At the same time, it is not up to YOU to police fandom to protect yourself or anyone else, real or hypothetical.
There are tools out there to help protect you if you have triggers or squicks. Learn to use them, and to take care of your own mental health. If you are consuming fan-made content and you find that you are disliking it – STOP.
The Second Law of Fandom
Your Kink Is Not My Kink (YKINMK)
Simply put, this means that everyone likes different things. It’s not up to you to determine what creators are allowed to create. It’s not up to you to police fandom.
If you don’t like something, you can post meta about it or create contrarian content yourself, seek to convert other fans to your way of thinking.
But you have no right to say to any creator “I do not like this, therefore you should not create it. Nobody should like this. It should not exist.”
It’s not up to you to decide what other people are allowed to like or not like, to create or not to create. That’s censorship. Don’t do it.
The Third Law of Fandom
Ship And Let Ship (SALS)
Much (though not all) fandom is about shipping. There are as many possible ships as there are fans, maybe more. You may have an OTP (One True Pairing), you may have a NOTP, that pairing that makes you want to barf at the very thought of its existence.
It’s not up to you to police ships or to determine what other people are allowed to ship. Just because you find that one particular ship problematic or disgusting, does not mean that other people are not allowed to explore its possibilities in their fanworks.
You are free to create contrarian content, to write meta about why a particular ship is repulsive, to discuss it endlessly on your private blog with like-minded persons.
It is not appropriate to harass creators about their ships, it is not appropriate to demand they do not create any more fanworks about those ships, or that they create fanwork only in a manner that you deem appropriate.
These three laws add up to the following:
You are not paying for fanworks content, and you have no rights to it other than to choose to consume it, or not consume it. If you do choose to consume it, do not then attack the creator if it wasn’t to your taste. That’s the height of bad manners.
Be courteous in fandom. It makes the whole experience better for all of us.
What have I learned after thirty-four games? I’ve learned that he likes it when I flirt. And I like it when he lets me win. We’re a match made in heaven. It reminds me of a poem I read once. You fit into me like a hook into an eye. A fish hook. An open eye.
I’m really sorry @yifera but we had a long chat with @saawek and this happened.
Well, I am so not sorry, let the pancake grow!
(And of course this only makes my comments worse)
How does pancake!Cas kill enemies? Does he fly to their faces and suffocates them to death? Is his true form an empire-state size pancake or another piece of breakfast? Team Free Breakfast?
OH MY GOD WHY DIDN’T I SEE THIS EARLIER THIS IS AMAZING
@yifera I’d pay to see Castiel the pancake of the Lord smite his ennemies with a butter knife :’D As for the pancake!cas true form, this is clearly @saawek‘s thing, I request a true form painting darling ! An Eldritch pancake ! AND YES TEAM FREE BREAKFAST !
@sassy-pistachy (I was just telling saawek yesterday night how cool your name was btw) I FUCKING LOVE IT, DEAN’S FACE AAAAAH !!! You even DID THE FRECKLES xD
@sassy-pistachy NAILED IT, as always! I spent like an hour squeaking and laughing when she showed me bacon!Dean!
So what do you think Sam would be? We can’t really decide
I’m looking at you @saawek for that true form pancake!
@yifera@sassy-pistachy@elnawen WHAT THE FLAMING FUCK. It’s getting out of hands. BUt I couldn’t let SUCH BEAUTIFUL OPPORTUNITIES PASS. And why the fuck didn’t i get all these notifications?????? fuck you tumblr.
Whats does trueform pancake cas looks like??? HERE IT IS.
It was that at the beginning. Now i think it’s better. Bacon cape the size of the Chrysler building, dayum.
@elnawen, @saawek, I love shitpost, sorry I’m joining for all I can apprehend… I love the butter knife idea, also : melted butter halo, and mapple syrup wing of the ded… *SPLAT*
Yeah it was one of the beings he invoked, but nothing seems to happen from it, I think it’s just a bit of nice foreshadowing they threw in there knowing he would come up later on 🙂
To clarify, they actually had no idea that angels would be a thing later on, let alone Castiel. Sam’s invocation in 3.06 actually comes from a very old book on necromancy (the 15th century is pretty old):
(I googled Lamisniel, who is the third angel Sam invokes there, because obvs searches for Castiel bring up millions of fan sites and not this original source…)
Sam’s invocation:
SAM: Aziel, Castiel, Lamisniel, Rabam. Ehrley, et balam, ego vos conuro, per deum verum, per deum vivum (pause) cuivos cuiaves eos supermontes et per eum, qui adam, et avum formovit. Et per eum, (SAM shouting more Latin)
The first part of the invocation is word for word taken from this ritual.
But also remember that this episode (and all the episodes through 3.12) were also written before the Writer’s Strike. There was a good, long stretch where it looked like 3.12 might actually stand as the series finale, and Kripke had always insisted– right up until they returned to work to break s4 in the writer’s room– that angels would never be part of Supernatural.
The fact that they did eventually settle on Castiel as the primary angel who pulled Dean out of Hell was the simple fact that there was not a lot of lore attached to him in the real world, and he was an angel of Thursday. Which meant they could create their OWN lore for Cas more than they could for, say, Sachiel (the primary angel of Thursday in our world).
me: if we don’t get a montage of Important deancas scenes in 13×01 i’m going to cry
also me: if we get a montage of Important deancas scenes in 13×01 i’m going to cry
Watching a super hero movie directed by a woman is like putting glasses on for the first time.
I didn’t realize how much I had to squint through the “male gaze” till suddenly, miraculously, I didn’t have to.
There were absolutely NO eye candy shots of Diana. There were Amazons with ageing skin and crows feet and not ONE of them wore armor that was a glorified corset. When Diana did the superhero landing, her thigh jiggled onscreen.
Did you hear me? HER FUCKING THIGH JIGGLED. Wonder Woman’s thigh jiggled on a 20-foot tall screen in front of everyone.
Because she wasn’t there to make men drool. She wasn’t there to be sexy and alluring and flirt her way to victory, and that means she has big, muscular thighs, and when they absorb the impact of a superhero landing, they jiggle, and.that’s.WONDERFUL.
Thank you, Patty Jenkins, for giving me a movie about a woman, told by a woman,so I can see it through my eyes, not some dude bro who’s there for boobs and butts.
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