Storytelling Vs. Real Life

Storytelling vs. Real Life

Part of the Slash and Subtext Series Follow-up: It’s Not the (Salted Caramel) Pudding, it’s the Pattern! Follow-up: LOL straight-splainers!

What they say: “OMG liking salted caramel doesn’t make Dean bi! What desserts people like has nothing to do with their sexual orientation!”

What I hear: “OMG it’s pure coincidence that the words ‘Positive’, ‘No Smoke’, and ‘Wing’ were visible the first time Cas tried to communicate with Dean! Whatever signs happen to be posted on a gas station have nothing to do with Dean’s rescue from Hell!”

Cause here’s the thing – storytelling and reality follow different “rules”!

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I very actively stops hanging out with people who talks this way to me. I just find it very uncomfortable, but it happened a lot growing up. 

Dating Problem #4

Friend: Why do you always wear baggy clothes? 

Me: They’re comfortable?

Friend: But you have curves. Show them off!

Me: Why would anyone care about my curves?

Friend: Guys like your butt.

Me: Gross… why?

The best thing to wake up too 💖

UNCLE JENSEN is cheering Maison on! ❤ 😭 So precious!

Incredible <3 

supernatural au where everything is the same except every time dean says ‘buddy’ to cas he says ‘baby’ instead

The “close bond”-requirement can happen very quickly or very slowly, it’s a very individual thing, and is different from person to person. There is no time-limit, if it feels right calling yourself “demi”, call yourself that. 

I struggled with this myself. I felt like a fraud, because I had experienced primary sexual attraction once a couple of years back. But then it hit me, that it was probably more a case of “the exception confirms the rule”, more than “proof” of allosexuality. 

I call myself demisexual, because  it feels right, and nobody can tell me, or you, that what you identify with is wrong. It’s really only your decision what you call yourself, and you don’t have to explain yourself to anyone. 

Am I still demisexual if I don’t require a super close bond?

Like, what it’s someone I’ve been friends with for a few months?

Would I be gray-asexual then?

Narrative Mirror Characters in Supernatural – An Overview for the Uninitiated.

Mirror characters have always been a classic story telling device. The purpose of a mirror character is to reflect on the main characters journey and emotional state and to provide lessons for the main character to learn. Mirror characters in TV and movies can also be used for foreshadowing purposes and encourage the audience to question the main characters path.

A famous example would be Frodo Baggins and his narrative mirror Gollum in The Lord of the Rings. Gollum is a dark mirror for Frodo in that he represents everything that Frodo could become if he succumbs to the power of the One Ring. Frodo’s present is Gollum’s past as Smeagol, and throughout the books Frodo becomes more and more aware of his fate as he grows closer to Gollum/Smeagol and makes the decision to try to save him as a reflection of his desire to save himself.

Narrative mirrors are everywhere and widely used in all forms of storytelling. To deny them, is to deny basic storytelling tropes. Sometimes the narrative mirrors are extremely, painfully obvious, and other times they are quite subtle and have only a very minor meaning in the greater story.

Supernatural is a series which has used narrative mirror characters quite extensively throughout its long history. It frequently uses mirror characters to provide an additional layer to the emotional journeys of its lead characters to encourage emotional growth. Supernatural also often uses mirror characters to highlight unspoken main character storylines which support subtextual themes as well as foreshadowing potential future plot outcomes.

Supernatural relies so heavily on its narrative character mirrors, that recently in episode 14x04 Mint Condition it gave its viewers a textual lesson on character mirrors straight from its lead characters mouths:

Gif Source: (x) 

DEAN (Pointing at Samantha): She’s like your twin.

[SAM pushes his hair back just as SAMANTHA does the same.]

SAM: What? What are you talking about?

DEAN: Soft, delicate features, luxurious hair. She’s like your wonder twin.

SAM: Yeah.

[A man, DIRK, is crouching in front of the comic book stands picking up comics. He has a lollipop in his mouth. SAM points to him.]

SAM: Well, okay, if that’s me then that’s you over there.

DEAN: That guy?

SAM: Yeah.

DEAN: Yeah, we have zero in common

(The scene then proceeds to show just how much Dean has in common with Dirk)

Following this fun scene, the episode continues to show how much Sam and Dean have in common with their mirror characters in many ways, including a moving moment between Dirk and Dean in which Dirk talks about how important his friend Stuart is to him. (Stuart who was first introduced in this episode wearing a tan trench coat similar to the classic coat worn by Castiel – Dean’s best friend).

From this blatantly obvious in-show commentary, we can infer how the Supernatural creators like to present their mirror characters and how we, the audience, can keep a look out for them. The key indicators are as follows:

Similar clothing - Character clothing choices are very important in this show. The brothers are almost always dressed in plaid and what Castiel would probably call “lumberjack chic”. Castiel always wears a tan trenchcoat, formal attire, white shirt, blue tie. His mirrors are pretty much the easiest to spot. Arguably any side character wearing a tan trenchcoat is a mirror for Castiel.

Siblings – Where side characters are siblings, they are mirrors for Sam and Dean.

Parent/Child pairs – Less common, but also often a comment on Sam and Dean’s dynamic, Dean being the parent to Sam.

Immortal characters with a sympathy to humanity – usually a Cas mirror.

Tastes/interests – Like with Dirk, if a side character appears who the main characters bond with over mutual interests, the chances are they are a mirror for the main character in question.

Storylines; depending on overarching season plots – less obvious, but sometimes the most interesting. Characters that appear in standalone episodes that have an emotional tie to the mytharc plot of the season usually serve to give lessons to the main characters. Those characters will stand in for the main characters when dealing with their own emotional turmoil, which will usually be similar in theme to the emotional turmoil that the main characters are going through. Consider Ed and Harry from 9x14’s #Thinman episode - such a blatantly obvious Winchester mirror that it should need no explaining here.

By taking all these various indicators into consideration when watching any episode of Supernatural, it becomes rather easy to spot the character mirrors and depending on the actions and plot purpose of those mirror characters, we can usually conclude their purpose and the connection to the overall mytharc, or in some cases character development plot.

I’m about to pull out some big examples so you can use those as templates to go forth and find the mirrors! But my main point in this post is to argue that meta writers aren’t pulling this stuff out of our asses. Character mirrors are a story telling technique that is used frequently and with clear author intent. Don’t ever let anyone tell you that you are seeing things when you believe that characters are meant to be mirrors. It is far more likely that they ARE intended mirrors than not.

I recently came across these tweets on Twitter:

Mark Harris is a former Entertainment Weekly executive editor and author of several books on Hollywood and the film industry.

Brian Koppelman is the co-creator and showrunner of the TV show “Billions” and has worked in the TV and Film industries for over two decades.

I would hazard a guess that both of these individuals have a greater authority on the inner workings of TV show production than YOU or I or anyone else in this fandom about to scream those immortal and highly ridiculous words “yOu ArE rEaDiNg InTo ThInGs!”

But by all means, if you are going to disregard my post as nothing more than a “crazy” fan trying to claim author intent where there is none, perhaps you could first take a look below the cut, because these mirror characters in SPN are hardly coincidence, and the general motto to run by is that if some characters are definitely mirrors, then the chances are that wherever you THINK you see a character mirror, and it makes logical sense, the INTENT was for you to see a character mirror all along. 

So therefore, never disregard a fan interpretation of a narrative character mirror when they see one. 

If you do, you are going to look like a huge jackass.

Please keep reading for glaringly obvious Destiel character mirrors along with some nice brother character mirrors for comparison. We ain’t kidding around folks.

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