days ahead

I redid this older comic I made for my storytelling class based on this post. Have some cute wlw love in your day.

Even when we were squatting in an office space or hitching across the country, my mother managed to create a sense of home around meals. Whether she was cooking chicken soup on an electric hot plate or we were sitting on a log eating eggplant parmesan prepared on a campfire, Mom fed us with thoughtful attention. She showed her love daily through the food she cooked….

One morning, just home from 10 days of publicity travel in Europe, I was up at 4 a.m., jet-lagged, and a cold kept my daughter, Maison, awake, too. We were downstairs together when she stopped sorting her rock collection to interrupt my iPhone-addled trance. “Dad, you’re away so much that sometimes it feels like I just have one parent,” she said. Hearing her say that, I felt like I was failing at fatherhood — I wondered if I had become an incarnation of my own often-absent dad.

https://pin.it/2BNcn2D

In March of 2014 I met Misha Collins. As part of his Annual Melee of Kindness, a group of us, and him and his family, met on the edge of Skid Row, one of the poorest parts of America. Almost all of the buildings have been condemned, and the people live on the sidewalls. The smell of feces and wet clothing permeates the whole area.

It reminded me of when I was homeless. At least then, I had a car.

We were there to hand out food, water, socks, sanitary napkins and tampons, first aid supplies, blankets, and other items. And we did. And when we ran out, not even halfway through the Row, Misha felt bad.

This was after he’d just pulled his own wallet out and handed out some cash, to make up for it. Then we all got a collection together and got more supplies from a Walgreens nearby and finished the Row.

But just.

Look at that picture. In no way is he feeling superior. He remembers and he’s sad that this is still a problem. He wishes he had more to offer. And he wants his son (Maison was with Vicky, she was only like six months old so - stroller) to look around and know that you have a responsibility to help those in need.

(I spent half that day trying to not be super embarrassing because of my MASSIVE crush on Victoria fucking Vantoch because she was RIGHT NEXT TO ME and SO FUCKIN SMART AND SWEET and yeah. I think I may still be in love with her.)

Misha’s childhood homelessness, like my homelessness did me, affected him. Suffering doesn’t make good people, but what you do with suffering defines you.

And Misha is using that experience to make the world a better place.

That article is Something, but to me, I’ll just always see a man, remembering his own past and upset that he can’t fix it all, standing in the middle of Skid Row with his son on his shoulders.

Which is to say if you want to get better at spotting these monsters it is 100% possible. While I cannot tell you where to get the weird telescope therapy, try this:  stretch your arms out in front of you, thumbs together and only your index fingers pointing up. Then slowly, keeping your eyes dead ahead, separate your hands and move them at the same time apart. Stop when they are just at the edge of your peripheral vision.

Every time you do this, staring only straight ahead but perceiving out the sides, you stretch the ability a little, and you should be able to see further and better from the sides until you hit a max.

Dean Winchester is Bi, a fanart (ft. Castiel’s big ol’ gay rainbow wings) ~

(12/2020)

the other thing tho, the flip side, the reason my bitterness and hatred for this show rose gradually like bile in my throat, the sickly aftertaste of day-old coffee--Supernatural is about America, in its most raw white hateful glory. And it shows.

I mean, yeah, as we know, there isn’t a marginalizing trope they don’t hit. You have “magical negros” (at least 3 i can think of off the top of my head--wait, I forgot about the fetish cat-witch, make that 4), and fridged lesbians and ambiguously “Asian” typecast-neurotic nerds and sexy Strong Female Characters and queer-baiting that flips into bury-your-gays and no matter what happens next, fifteen years of mocking fans for wanting what the narrative promised will not be undone.

The lesbian dies, and the Asian prophet dies, and the maternal Black psychic dies, and the blonde girlfriend dies, and the blind psychic dies, and the Deaf hunter dies (fucking offscreen), and every one of the Strong Female Characters die, and they all die so the armed white men can justify enacting further violence.

But that isn’t the point. That’s just a side-effect of the point.

You have wendigos and skinwalkers and Indian curses, Kali and Ganesh and Zao Shen and Baron Samedi. Sacred beliefs that are stolen and framed as monsters that stalk innocent women and children.

Other people’s religions are pillaged for monsters, gods rebuilt into depraved beasts that, without fail, hunger for white flesh. Christian beliefs and Christian values are grappled with for seasons, rebelled against with gravitas. Even when God is a deadbeat novelist named Chuck with an evil twin, the rosaries and rituals and holy water and prayers are still wielded as weapons to kill the wicked “pagan gods,” the foul, foreign, savage spirits and beasts.

You have shapeshifters, creatures that are somehow always evil: perhaps they’re assaulting innocents for their perverted pleasure, or they’re angry at being locked away and rejected because of their nature. Their nature, which is in itself no threat at all. Hunters, sure as American men always are with their guns and their black-and-white codes, call them “unnatural,” and we’re told they’re deserving of death. Their anger at being outcasts condemns them. Embracing the label of monster condemns them too.

You have families (always white families) trying to live their lives and being attacked by inhuman, awful things, over and over again. The family business, things that need to be eradicated with guns and fire and bloody stakes.

Supernatural is an American fantasy.

Supernatural takes place in a nation that doesn’t exist, backwoods Canada calling itself Las Vegas, a nation beset with inhuman threats that creep like rot from within. White, gun-toting alcoholics drive around in their car from the 60s and heroically, valiantly carry on the fight against the foul things that infiltrate their American dream. They kill walking, talking, feeling monsters with human faces, some of which have done no evil at all, and they are heroes.

Shapeshifters, witches, skinwalkers, foreign gods, these are things that do not deserve a trial. By their nature, they are evil. Our heroes roll through town in a muscle car and worn jeans, and shoot the monsters dead.

Saving people, hunting things.

(The white men with guns decide which is which.)

This is why I love Supernatural: it was fun to watch, still is really, if only for nostalgia’s sake; and I thought for a time there might be room in its story for me.

This is why I hate it: because it hates me. Because it hates everyone who is not a straight, cis, American, abled, culturally-Christian white man.

Guillermo Rojas - Spanish Dubbing actor for Dean since season 12 until 15x18 (he contracted Covid and was unable to record 15x19 or 15x20 - he has yet to record those) 

INTERVIEWER: “Memo (nickname for Guillermo), I am not sure if you knew, but you broke the internet” 

MEMO: “Yes, a lot of people sought me out when this happened. I am so sorry I wasn’t able to answer at length all of your questions, but I was right in the middle of dealing with Covid. I couldn’t speak without feeling like I was drowning. Right now I am going to (voice) therapy. While it is not too dreary, there are 2 continued effects, so I couldn’t answer everyone who contacted me through various ways - through FB, instagram and an old youtube channel that I haven’t used in years - with respect to the situation that occurred between Dean and his friend (Cas). 

MEMO: “We try to follow (our lines) in what we see of the acting. Remember that dubbing is something where we must make a parallel alignment in our own language. Under the guidelines given to us by the client, we try to expand on all possibilities and all the alignments and - as actors - they permit us to give 100% of ourselves. So there isn’t a limit per se, so long as you don’t go off track (from what was requested from the client)” 

INTERVIEWER: “What were the guidelines for the line that broke the internet” 

MEMO: “It’s curious because neither the director nor us the actors knew much about the tendency that existed. Because we didn’t have much previous information that suggested that something like this would happen. To be honest when we recorded it, we were asking wait what’s happening? I mean we did it, but no one knew this was coming neither in the production studio nor amongst the actors.” 

INTERVIEWER “I need to ask for a clarification here. I mean we are talking about the love declaration Cas made to Dean after 12 years of intense eye-contact. But the big question is Dean’s answer. Because EVERYONE heard in your voice that clear “And I you, Cas”

MEMO “And I you, yes.” 

INTERVIEWER “Where does that “And I you” come from? Was it you? What happened there?” 

“The adaptation came entirely from my director (Adrian Fogarty). He adapted it and gave us our acting guidelines, and I performed accordingly - I gave what he asked of me. We all loved it. We never saw it coming so overtly…. If you remember across all seasons, we rarely see Dean get involved with any women. It just didn’t happen, unlike his brother. He just never got involved. It wasn’t his thing, especially because we have his brother to compare him to. We saw (Sam) in a relationship in the past 2 seasons with Eileen which was a very intense relationship, and very painful in the end. Dean never had to suffer through that. They tied Dean’s pain to the loss of his mother since he lost her more than once.” 

FB question: “So It wasn’t a rogue translator, it was a rogue director”

MEMO: “Look, Fogarty has some really intense abilities and one of them is to adapt the dialogue. When you see him translate a script, when he has the time to do it - even when he is not the one directing - and he leaves it in Spanish. The dialogue said, if I remember correctly, “me too” or something like that and then we switched it to “and I you” due to effects of lip movement, rhythm, etc… We don’t all have the ability that Fogarty has, that speed which he has, to think and translate immediately. We are a team and we work together, and pool our collective abilities, and of course Fogarty does his part. You need a Fogarty in every company.” 

(The interviewer mentioned that her cat hates Sam Winchester and loves dubbed Dean’s voice). 

INTERVIEWER “Do you know what Dean said in the original script before Fogarty got his hands on it?”

“Yes, of course. It made allusions to that. (Fogarty) made the right translation. It said and so do I or me too or something like that. It said it in the (original) script.” 

INTERVIEWER: “When you heard the english version while you recorded yours, did you hear Dean say I love you too?” 

MEMO: “No. If I would have, I would have taken the earphone out and gone what the fuck? *laughs*” 

INTERVIEWER: “What was your favorite episode to film?” 

MEMO: “With my short-term memory, I would say this last one (15x18), because it says so much. In one scene, it says it all. It was impressive, and so beautiful. I never saw it coming.” 

Interviewer “Well you have broken tumblr again.” 

MEMO: “Okay *Laughs*. Well, that’s good. Thank you very much.” 

MEMO: “I think it’s clear to everyone that the fact that he (fogarty?) broke the internet, with this information was a surprise for everyone. Absolutely everyone. Because we all say that if someone wants to be a “real man” we have to be like Dean. In fact it’s something very beautiful for me because it has nothing to do with gender and everything to do with feelings. It was a play by the writers that was marvelous. You didn’t see it coming, but damn do you like it.” 

MEMO: “Nothing was left out of the translation… No I was not called to re-record the “and I you”. I have not been asked to remake the dubbing. My director perfectly understood the texture of the text.” 

INTERVIEWER “Do you know if Supernatural has a quality review for the dubbing through Warner Bros?” 

MEMO: “I would be lying to you if I said yes, but I have been working for WB (LatAM) for many years as both an actor and director. And there is some specific material where they do have “filters”, but with something like supernatural I doubt it. I would assume the one left in charge of all decisions was our director (Fogarty).” 

INTERVIEWER “Have you been interpreting Dean as in love with Castiel this entire time or was it a surprise for you?” 

MEMO: “No, never, it was a surprise. In fact, to be entirely honest, to my closest friends - of the same gender - I do use the phrase “te amo”. I don’t have any issues with that. So I actually thought it went that way - but then I found out it was romantic.” 

INTERVIEWER: “Guillermo, what is your opinion, of destiel now that you know the nature of their relationship.” 

“Well it was a revelation for everyone - including me. I love how they handled it because we didn’t see it coming. And I think, of our understanding of the character’s traits and psychology, we know that if someone knows how to repress their feelings, it’s Dean Winchester. *laughs*” 

INTERVIEWER: “What would you say to Cas if he came back from the empty?” 

MEMO: “He came back?! (he hasn’t seen 15x19 or x20)

INTERVIEWER: “No I am saying what would he say IF he did” 

MEMO: “Oh, okay. I was under the assumption that I said I loved him so long as he wasn’t planning on coming back! *laughs* Well if he returns I guess I would say “Hello, Cas”.  

INTERVIEWER: *Tells MEMO about the not for nothing cas but last person that looked at me like that I got laid” 

MEMO: OKAAAAY *laughs* That was too much. *laughs* 

INTERVIEWER: Would you be this fandom’s Godfather? 

MEMO: But of course *smiles* This was a big thing, from what I see. 

INTERVIEWER: “What message would you give to the fans who are descovering the spanish dub?” 

“first, thanks a lot of being part of the mexican dubbing. We do this job with all the heart and all the passion that we have. And I think I speak for all involved in this industry. We are glad to note that there are so many people from other countries that are watching these new projects in another language. So I have no words but thanks a lot.” 

INTERVIWER: “What would be your ideal ending for Dean Winchester” 

MEMO “I think, for all of them, they have sacrificed their lives and that of their loved ones for the safety and well being of everyone else. I think if anyone deserves to be well, happy, and calm, at least it’s those three (Sam, Cas, and Dean).” 

INTERVIEWER: “What about jack?”