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[afictionalpotato]

one of many reasons castiel spent the first year of knowing dean trying not to strangle him: dean’s weird little winchester-only dialect

i’m fucking obsessed with this right now, so buckle in for a meta. a cool fun (horrible) thing about dean’s dialogue is that a good 90% of what comes out of his mouth is:

a pop culture reference (“you’re just gonna take some divine bong hit, and shazam, you’re roma downey?”)

references to real life phenomenon (“i don’t wanna wake up missing a kidney in a bathtub full of ice” “try new mexico, i hear he’s on a tortilla”)

these also often take the form of nicknames, and dean has a tendency to give people nicknames in general or call them something besides their given name, whether it’s affectionate or rude (“easy there, van damme” “so i’m girl interrupted” furthermore castiel = cas, ezekiel = zeke, etc, see also frequent use of “chucklehead” “asshat” and on the nicer/endearments end “buddy” “pal” “sunshine” etc)

an idiom (“a snowball’s chance” “if it smells like a duck…”)

slang (“drinking the koolaid” “jonesing for some hooch” not to mention the literal endless amount of words dean uses to refer to killing - gank, waste, juice, ice, etc)

a metaphor (“power up your batteries” “fly me back to my page on the calendar”)

a euphemism (“cloud seeding” “i’d have given you an hour alone with her first”)

sarcasm (his habit of replying “peachy” or “super” when asked how he is)

wordplay (see: the entire “vampirate” and “werepire” debacles)

completely nonsensical (guessing what happened to a magical artifact: “it was dug up by tomb raiders? it was seized by the king of the dead by warlords?”)

said at lightning speed - if you pay attention, dean actually talks a LOT, usually a mile a minute (this makes me feel a way when you recall him being nonverbal for a year at age 4 but that’s another post)

slang IN ANOTHER LANGUAGE (casual usage of “guano,” etc)

a lie, a deflection, a joke, etc

or worse, something dean’s NOT saying, deliberately, because he’s one of the most repressed people on earth

the end result of all this being:

dean winchester is utterly infuckingcomprehensible. 

think about this. there’s an ENTIRE SECTION on EVERY SINGLE EPISODE PAGE of the spn wiki devoted to JUST explaining dean’s pop culture references, because the average viewer won’t have seen everything he’s talking about either. they have a whole page for this called “hunter’s lingo,” but honestly, it’s not all hunters, just sam and dean’s fucking batshit communication style. even i don’t understand dean half the time. SAM gets it, sam speaks it back to dean a lot in the early seasons, but that’s because sam and dean are 1. practically two halves of the same person 2. FREAKS. every time we get an episode that involves outsider POV is devoted to them going “what the fuck is WRONG with them?”

enter castiel. technically speaking, the show implies that angels are omnilingual. castiel should understand every language known to man, but knowing the meaning of words doesn’t help him understand the following:

pop culture references

references to real life phenomenon

nicknames

idioms

slang

metaphors

euphemisms

sarcasm

wordplay

you get the idea.

listen to me. look me in the eyes. castiel cannot understand a single fucking word that comes out of dean’s mouth. my guy laid a hand on dean winchester in hell and immediately fell in love with him and has no fucking idea what he’s talking about ever. because not only is dean winchester’s way of speaking CLINICALLY insane, and sometimes incomprehensible even to other human beings who are not sam, castiel is an angel, and someone prone to taking things even more literally than other angels do

go back and watch and watch seasons 4-5 especially. the reason cas does so much squinting and head tilting is because every time dean opens his mouth castiel has to open up his mental “dean winchester dictionary” and translate entire paragraphs on the fly, because again, dean never shuts up!

what makes this extra hilarious to me is this gem:

this line is from 5.13. at this point cas has known dean for AN ENTIRE YEAR AND A HALF. what you see here is my guy SNAPPING. cas made an EFFORT in this scene. he asked who glenn close was. he’s telling dean that he can’t understand him. he is doing his level best to have a normal conversation with this guy he has a crush on and for the life of him he cannot do it (equal but opposite energy to cas blowing up the gas station and motel room in 4.01, tbh)

yes, cas can understand dean’s tone. he can use context clues, and he usually gets the general idea. and when cas DOES understand dean’s jokes, he laughs at them. the first time we ever see him smile is during their 4.07 heart-to-heart when dean says “it was a witch, not the tet offensive.” since cas has knowledge of human history, he knows what the tet offensive is; he got the joke, and he laughed.

but as far as actual dialogue goes, he consistently struggles to keep up. even after metatron gives castiel the pop culture knowledge in season 9, cas struggles to put it to put it to proper use (dean: “you wanna just walk right into the death star?” cas: “what does a fictional battle station have to do with this?”). whenever he asks dean to clarify it’s always when he’s most annoyed, like most of the time he knows it would be futile but he’s too annoyed to care. (dean: “i don’t know who’s on first, what’s on second!” cas: “what IS second???”) i’m pretty sure he spends seasons 4-6 wanting to shake dean by the shoulders and ask him why he is LIKE THIS. 

it takes cas - who, again, is omnilingual - YEARS to begin to acclimate to dean’s speech and start speaking that language back to him. it’s season 8 before we start really hearing him use slang, season 9 before he begins to understand wordplay, season 10 before he starts using pop culture references (to other angels, who immediately fail to understand him, which disappoints him immensely), and season 11 before he really gets into metaphors. i don’t remember what season he started using “yeah” instead of “yes” but i do know it took a really damn long time. 

and honestly, i don’t think cas truly got the hang of it until at least season 11-12. that’s something like 7 or 8 YEARS. it’s more than half the time they’ve known each other at the point of the series finale. 

so what’s true romance, fellas? it’s falling completely and totally in love with the most inexplicable person you will ever meet in your whole 4.5 billion year life, even though you have yet to understand a single thing he’s ever said to you. thank you for coming to my ted talk

[afictionalpotato]

wait have we had hbo!jo yet? ♡

we have not!! but hbo jo is just: [eyebrow piercings and pale scars from old knife wounds] [quick as a viper in a fight] [buzzes her hair off when she's sixteen and keeps it that way for years] [barely perceptible limp that she won't talk about] [drags sam to raves and smoky concert venues] [dancing under the strobe of the colored lights, eyes closed and pulse leaping] [fingers deft on the needle as she patches her favorite pair of jeans] [kills the first man who tries to pin her to the wall in a back alley] [steps over his corpse, flipping the knife through her fingers like a streak of quicksilver] [old bomber jacket with protection sigils embroidered into the lining] [trading shots of whiskey with dean, both of them sprawled on the floor behind the bar of the roadhouse] [amulets strung on a leather cord] [constantly trying to nick castiel with her father's knife, just to see if she's fast enough] [has to be healed by him once when he accidentally cuts her throat on reflex] [curled like a cat in an old armchair, watching ellen clean her guns] [peers at herself in the mirror, runs scarred fingers through her hair where it's starting to curl past her ears] [keeps falling off of chairs because she tips them too far back] [pockets always full of odds and ends: matchbooks, twine, bottle caps, a carved piece of human bone] [knows each of her knives by touch, by the weight of them in her palm] [scuffed combat boots hiding the warding tattoos on her ankles] [spinning in circles in a deserted parking lot at night, laughing softly to herself]

[afictionalpotato]

Here’s a collection of the script excerpts that are circulating

[afictionalpotato]

Also tragic is that Sam, Dean, Cas, and Jack all have hobbies and stuff they like but it all just vanishes randomly and they seem to forget they have those things. Jack loves space, he loves astronomy and one of his saddest lines is “He promised to show me the stars” (bc it was built up through the entire season) and then they just kinda… forget it’s a thing. Dean plays both piano and guitar but it’s not ever relevant and is never mentioned. Sam is a witch. That’s it, Sam is just a witch. Sam also is interested in law and policy but lmao not relevant to the justice role he has haha. Cas likes old magazines like Saturday Morning Post and goes fishing in his free time (as does Dean). Okay. Lol. 

I know hobbies change and this is a pretty minor complaint but I wish they were more consistent. Because Dean was in a band, he has an interest in music and he plays multiple instruments and there’s never a real payoff for that. It would’ve been cute in Jack’s goodbye speech if he mentioned the stars. Cas doesn’t really do anything for himself tbh, it would be funny seeing him just reading Saturday Morning Post in the Impala while he’s waiting. Sam is a witch. 

You get me? 

[afictionalpotato]

The two BEST and most cathartic Supernatural scenes of all time are actually

“MY FATHER WAS AN OBSESSED BASTARD! All that crap he dumped on me about protecting Sam? That was HIS crap! He’s the one who couldn’t protect his family! He’s the one who let mom die, who wasn’t there for Sam, I always was! It wasn’t fair! I didn’t deserve what he put on me and I DON’T DESERVE TO GO TO HELL!!”

And

“I hate you. You lied to me. I was a kid! You promised you’d keep me safe. And then you make a deal with Azazel. Yeah, it saved Dad’s life, but I’ll tell you something else that happened. Because on November 2, 1983, old Yellow Eyes came waltzing into Sammy’s room. Because of your deal. You left us. Alone. ‘Cause Dad was just a shell. His perfect wife? Gone. Our perfect Mom, the perfect family... was gone. And I... I had to be... more than just a brother. I had to be a father and I had to be a mother, to keep him safe. And that wasn’t fair. And I couldn’t do it. And you wanna know what that was like? They killed the girl that he loved. He got possessed by Lucifer. They tortured him in Hell. And he lost his soul. His soul. All because of you. All of it was because of you. I hate you. I HATE you. And I love you. ‘Cause I can’t- I can’t help it. You’re my mom. And I understand... ‘cause I have made deals to save the ones I love more than once. I forgive you. I forgive you. For all of it. Everything.”

[afictionalpotato]

The thing about Dean is not… that he’s an All-American man who likes muscle cars and classic rock and unhealthy meat dishes and having sex with diner waitresses and incidentally fell in love with a man.

The narrative deconstructs each of these aspects of his personality. We get told that he doesn’t like these things because it’s a Manly Thing to do, or an American thing to do.

He loves his car. The car is the only possession of the Winchester family that survived the fire that killed Mary and destroyed their house and all their belongings from their life before the tragedy. The car became the only stable element in their lives. It was the only thing they could call a home in a life of homelessness and motels. It’s where Dean and Sam grew up. Yes, Dean likes to drive fast and is proud of his big sleek car, but the car has a sentimental value that goes way beyond it being a big fast car.

Classic rock is the music Dean associates to his parents. He’s heard the story from John, how his parents bonded over Led Zeppelin. It’s a story that stuck with him, to the point it’s what he uses to prove to Mary that he is her son and is telling the truth. We could argue that Led Zeppelin are associated to romance and seduction in his mind, to the point the siren uses that in their (successful) seduction of Dean.

Unhealthy meat dishes are one of few memories of Mary he has. He remembers her meatloaf (and was heartbroken to learn that it wasn’t handmade) and of course the Winchester Surprise, a horrible concoction that Dean tried to replicate only to incur in John’s anger. Not even counting in the issue of Dean’s history with food scarcity, there’s an aspect of comfort inextricably tied to Dean’s relationship with food.

Comfort is also the fundamental thing Dean seeks in sex. It’s established that the casual nature of his sexual encounters is an obliged choice, and he actually longs for more stable relationships. The “adiós” is a bug, not a feature. Dean’s relationship with sex is actually very complex, it’s repeatedly suggested he’s into kink but also seeks gentle relationships with “safe” figures (think of the blonde waitresses that “smell like food”), and that’s easily explainable with the multiple emotional needs that Dean presumably projects in sex. Dean wants to fall in love (the siren is a dark mirror for Dean, representing what Dean is afraid of being for other people). Dean falls in love easily and gets attached easily, which is a problem for him. It’s also established that he has difficulties hooking up with people when he’s going through pericularly traumatic periods of his life, which makes his sexual activity pretty inconsistent, and proves the strong connection between sex and an emotional aspect.

The narrative does not present Dean as a stereotypical manly man to which queerness happens. Dean is fundamentally a deconstruction of the stereotype in all its aspects.

[afictionalpotato]

hbo spn is shot in a very mundane and slow and boring way in a way where you see a shot of sam and dean waiting for a bus covered head to toe in monster goop bc the impala broke down or smth and it’s just a 10 second shot that’s completely silent. barely any ambient sounds. it’s just on the edge of awkward and that’s the vibe for the whole show

[afictionalpotato]

some hbo jack thoughts

• tics. a lot. it isn't exactly a constant thing (he can go days without ticcing at all). all of his tics are abrupt and unexpect. slamming his hand down on the table. throwing whatever is in his hand. (he once got threw at fork at the wall and it stuck. he only uses plastic now.)

• he's very crooked. his left leg is very slightly longer than his right, and you can tell that something's off by the way he walks.

• he owns a various assortment of knives. he doesn't use them, he simply likes seeing them. he'll steal knives off of those sam and dean kill.

• he cries a lot. he may not know exact what's going on but he knows that there is something wrong with him, something that shouldn't be there. eventually, it's cas that sits him down and tells him what he is.

• jack is furious. he feels as if he were robbed of something, unable to be human, but never being anything more. he runs away for a week before he comes back, blood in his hair and a scar on his collarbone. they never ask what happened. he never tells.

[afictionalpotato]

hbo spn is shot in a very mundane and slow and boring way in a way where you see a shot of sam and dean waiting for a bus covered head to toe in monster goop bc the impala broke down or smth and it’s just a 10 second shot that’s completely silent. barely any ambient sounds. it’s just on the edge of awkward and that’s the vibe for the whole show

[afictionalpotato]

hbo spn takes the consent issues involved with vessels 100% deadly seriously and devotes hours of screentime to it

[afictionalpotato]

Hbo spn: Sam sharpens his rosary into a point. He also has a long scar down his cheek from a time that a creepy witch kidnapped him.

YES!!

I wish CW (degregatory) SPN had more scars because after all these hunts and all their deaths you’re telling me they look like that?? nuh uh!

Sam’s got a long list of scars- a long scar along his cheek (thank you)- and he still has a gaping wide knife mark on his back from when dean made a deal for him. he’s like Frankenstein all, needled and stiched up. sometimes, he thinks he likes the scars because they remind him of everything he’s overcome. othertimes, it reminds him that he is a freak freak freak not normal. Even at Stanford, he hides his arms in sweaters to hid that long gash from his first hunt at 14. he has major head trauma and stitches on the side of his forehead that are only visible in bright daylight. but he cuts his hair so that no one sees them.

john tells him to be proud of his scars. and sam asks if mom would’ve wanted him to look like a monster. dean yanks him out of the motel and asks sam to apologize, but tells sam that maybe he can get tattoos over his scars if it helps (and if he promises to not bait john into a fight). sam agrees to the first at least.

[afictionalpotato]

cw sam: listens to the authority, respects the police, is nice to old women who are creeps,

hbo sam: has an authority problem, wears acab-shirts, is nice to old women but if theyre creeps just leaves immediately,

[afictionalpotato]

hbo spn but Alex Jones dreams in blood, Alex who doesn’t know how to be loved other than be useful, who does everything Jody asks and more, who is so scared of being hurt the first time Jody gets upset. Alex Jones who is convinced she’ll never truly be human, who finds a checklist of how to test for vampires on her mom’s desk, tries every single one of them until Jody walks in on her, palm wrapped around silver knife. Alex who parties on week nights, balances mathletes with smoking weed, does anything she can to stop remembering, takes Claire out to the woods to drink before either of them hit twenty, and when Claire smashes a bear bottle, cuts her thumb on the shards, Alex has to pretend she doesn’t wonder what blood tastes like

[afictionalpotato]

hbo spn: they use google docs/word/their phone's notes app to record stuff they know about monsters. also what tattoos would sam and dean have?

Okay I love this for a few reasons:

Sam has a shitty broken Motorola phone from when he was in college and he keeps using it because he bought it with money he earned himself and he’s petty about asking Dean or john for money.

It has a cracked screen, all sharp glass edges and if he puts it to his ear, sometimes it nicks him. he doesn’t mind. it’s not like anyone calls him much anymore.

dean on the other hand adores his phone, because he prizes all his possessions and this was the phone john bought him before he was headed out alone on his first hunt. it’s a little less cracked up, and banged up because dean is more careful of his belongings. after all, he doesn’t have many that are solely his. even his car wasn’t always his... the phone is.

sam loves to keep organised folders of lore on his laptop that he keeps on a drive and he’s obsessive about digitalising everything he learns because he has a fear of things burning down (material things go up in flames way too easily). but he’s also very paranoid so all of his research is always done on cafe and motel internets, and his cloud storage belongs to some 54 year old whos email he hacked a while back so that the piles of latin text wouldn’t be readily available to anyone but him.

Now onto tattoos!

Sam has many. so so many. around his ribs, like some sort of cage. and perhaps they are. it’s warding symbols and devils traps, and anything that will make sure that nothing could ever possess him. there’s nothing that scares him more than the idea of someone else waking up in his body. 

so he carves tattoos onto him since he’s twenty. and he looks up spells, and bindings at libraries solely to learn more protective sigils. dean thinks he’s obsessive about it, but he doesn’t mention it. he remembers when meg wore his brothers face, and dean thinks sam’s onto something.

but for dean. his skin is his own in a very different way. he doesn’t like being covered in reminders of who he is because the only times he feels like someone normal is when he’s in bed with a stranger and they don’t ask him about weird latin on his skin. but when he gets out of hell... it’s different. he likes to remember happy things, things that make him smile. and what better than a reminder of that on his skin? so he gets tattoos of his favorite led zep songs, and he gets a tattoo of his cars number plate on the side of his arm... sam sees them and he never makes fun of them either. he knows his brother is holding on by a thread and every time dean gets a new tattoo, sam knows he’s getting better.

[afictionalpotato]

everyone shut up hbo sam goes to slam poetry nights and reads something so primal and personal and raw about the nature of humanity and faith as a body and the disconnect from both of them and all the lesbians with a complex relationship with religion in the crowd go absolutely wild snapping and eat every word up but sam never goes to an event in the same town twice so for the rest of their lives the regulars are just like who WAS she

[afictionalpotato]

hbo but mary is a ghost, attaches herself to the impala after the boys hunt the poltergeist in lawrence, sees what a mess john has made of her babies. mary as a ghost, slowly turning vengeful spirit watching what her children do, trying to save them but she can’t, wants to hug them and tell them it’s okay but it’s far too late for that. mary, who haunts them, angry at the hate filled, vengeful people they’ve become, can’t see they take after her as much as their dad

[afictionalpotato]

Hbo Dean follows Sam into the panic room

Not right away, of course-- but as Sam becomes more and more desperate, and as Dean starts to realize just how heavily he's leaning on alcohol, the door opens. Dean decides that he's going to get clean, too

And while Sam screams and cries out in pain, Dean kneels beside the cot. He strokes his baby brother's hair. He sings to him

It's not unlike when they were young; when John would leave Dean alone with Sam, far too young for the responsibility. When Sam was sick and Dean would sit up with him, trying to bring his fever down and get him to sleep. When Sam would have nightmares, and Dean would dutifully check in every book and cranny for the monsters he knew were just outside. When Sam would cry for no reason at all (and every reason at once), and Dean would have to try not to cry along with him

They made it through those nights

They'll make it through this one, long as it may be