#also also. because it would mean castiel gets to meaningfully interact with him. even if its not as god exactly.

[quietwingsinthesky]

im too tired to expand on this fully but consider: s10-11 au constructed around chuck not showing up late in s11 but instead joining up with the winchesters after Fan Fiction. specifically as chuck, not as god, though he is still that and not only a prophet anymore. but sam and dean don’t need to know that. they just know there’s a prophet-shaped hole at the bunker.

chuck being a reoccuring character in the background of s10. talking about the mark with sam, getting badgered by charlie about the books, helping to translate the book of the damned. as it becomes more and more clear that sam’s really going to destroy the mark, he. doesn’t do anything to stop sam. but there’s more and more times where chuck just looks uncomfortable. an emotion that’s a mixture of nausea and fear, that the winchesters can write off as ‘nervous weird prophet dude having an episode’.

watching sam and dean a lot, too. in a voyeuristic way, obviously, this is his whole deal, he set them up to be interesting to him, but there’s something else there. grief, maybe. jealousy, definitely.

i just think the whole ‘oh yeah he’s actually god for real btw’ set-up would be better if he was actually around for a bit more recently not being god. or pretending not to be god.

[samwinchesterism]

hi i just need to take a moment to SCREAM about how badly they wrote sam’s response to meeting god in season 11. god!!! 11x20 is fine whatever, but ohhhh boy do i have beef with 11x21 my god 

so, okay. you have sam winchester, boy with the demon blood, lucifer’s true vessel, who has always felt unclean because of this evil inside him, and you have him canonically (at least at one point in his life) praying to god every single day, and expressing his desire for there to be a higher power so that “maybe [he] could be saved” from the evil in the world and the evil inside him. okay. and then you have him meet actual angels (who are dicks) and be bitterly disappointed that this is the thing that he’d been praying to this whole time. then you have him sacrifice his life and go to hell to be tortured for averting the apocalypse, the apocalypse that was enacted and endorsed by heaven to bring god back. and then goes through a whole other world of shit and then!!!!! and then!!!!! in season 11, he STILL has faith. he still prays to god at the beginning of the season for guidance, and genuinely believes that god is with him and that god chose him to help defeat the darkness. he believes it with his whole heart. 

and THEN. THEN. then he finds out from the entity that has viciously used, abused, tortured him, possessed him -- a torture so awful that the mere memory of it made his almost lose his mind permanently, the entity that he hates having a connection with more than anything, THAT entity - the DEVIL himself - that god was “never” with him. that this holiness that he thought could finally be his mission, instead of just evil and darkness, was a ruse by the devil to possess him - violate him - yet again. and it shatters him, you can see it (the writing doesn’t really address it, obviously, ever, but the acting does, thankfully). 

and then???????????????????? that’s it for a while pretty much????????  

but THENNNNN. then. then. they meet god. they meet god. they meet god. and one of the winchester brothers gets a nice manfully teary-eyed speech, replete with sadness and anger and betrayal, at god for abandoning the world and not intervening in any of the suffering that happened. “People – People pray to you. People build churches for you. They fight wars in your name, and you did nothing.”

and it’s dean. not sam. it’s dean!!!!! my god!!!! i literally had to close my laptop and take a walk to process this!!!!!! 

and how did they decide sam’s reaction to meeting god? the very same season that he got burned, badly, for still having faith despite everything? he’s fanboying. and that’s it, that’s literally it, that’s literally literally it. it’s like a bad, bad lazy copy-paste of sam meeting the angels in 4x07, except with these writers (buckleming) i’m not sure they’re even familiar enough with s4 canon to badly copy it? so maybe it was an independently bad choice? and 4x07 was fine because following his fanboyishness at meeting castiel etc. they addressed explicitly how sam was disappointed by the idea of god and heaven in the end, and dean cutely encouraging him to keep the faith was all very well-written imo. 

like. this is. this is unbelievable. 

but then it’s like, well it’s appropriate to give dean a dimensional, nuanced response to meeting god, because it’s not as simple as just saying, well dean never believed in god and didn’t keep the faith like sam, so he’s not going to react at all to meeting god - that’s fair, i agree, because we see dean struggling with faith throughout the show, so it’s all well and good that we should see dean struggle to respond to the idea of god as this deadbeat dad basically. so if there’s only space to give one brother a complex reaction to meeting god (which is a very very stupid premise but just bear with me it’s buckleming), then there’s an argument that it should be dean except 

later in the VERY SAME EPISODE, dean gets ANOTHER WHOLE SCENE WITH GOD, which this time is a one-on-one, where he AGAIN gets to give him a speech about  “we're not just some toys you throw away, i think you owe us more than that,” etc. twice!!! two times dean gets to address the fact that god royally fucked up in the same episode!!!! and sam is just fanboying!!! what!!!!!!!!!!!!! you had two spaces in the episode for the brothers to confront god, and you give them BOTH to dean??

like from a writing perspective, the “sam is getting visions from god but surprise it’s actually lucifer” plotline basically got dropped after 11x10 and the introduction of casifer and i guess that’s fine (it’s not but it’s not the thing i’m mad about at this particular moment), but would it not make sense to call it back when they actually meet god? and have that idea of faith in god be sam’s emotional throughline for the season, since it’s BEEN an issue that comes up time and time again in the show? i don’t even know what exactly i think sam’s reaction should have been, but it should have been complex (similar to dean’s first speech), it should have reflected that broken faith that happened with the “it was lucifer all along” reveal in the middle of the season because!!! it’s the same season!!!! and they never addressed it, they never even addressed the “i’m sure it’s god giving me visions and leading me on the righteous path” turning out to be “it’s the devil tricking me.” i’m not even asking for them to remember anything that happened in the rest of the show (i mean it would be good b/c this concept and theme goes way back to season 2) but holy shit. 

like, the only aftermath (i’m not even making this shit up i really really really wish i was) of sam’s time trapped with his foremost tormentor and abuser, is sam apologizing to dean for not looking for him in purgatory (which is a whole nother can of worms im not even touching it!! i’m not!! i can’t deal!!). that’s it. that��s it. that’s all. nothing else. 

and on top of that, the whole season you have this dean-and-amara connection, which ends up being the resolution to the WHOLE overarching plot of the season while sam just sits in a bar for the finale, and you don’t think that maybe, mayyybeeee, it makes sense to parallel the god-siblings with your main siblings and give some kind of meaningful narrative space for chuck-and-sam? but no dean’s gotta have the connection with amara (which is fine by me!! have nothing against dean having the mytharc) and then ALSO be the one to more meaningfully interact with god while sam just idk. asks him if he needs water. especially when sam’s whole arc in the first half of the season involved his amazingly unwavering faith in god after all this time and all this heartbreak and suffering? unbelievable it’s unbelievable!!!! why do i watch this show!!!!! 

[thelastarchangelaskblog]

Redemption Deleted Scene 4

This chronologically takes place before the other ones but I wrote this after I wrote the others so that’s why this is #4.

This was...an opening scene where I had a shit ton of trouble getting it to sound how I wanted it to sound. I know I rewrote it more than once, and yet I’m only seeing the one scene in my scraps file... *squints*

Anyway, have a look at what I dumped because I didn’t like it?

comment?

Redemption Deleted Scene 1

Redemption Deleted Scene 2

Redemption Deleted Scene 3

Redemption Deleted Scene 5

**

(Read more for mobile users)

It didn’t take long for Gadreel to find his vessel and get his consent again. This time it was entirely consensual, and the transition from celestial wavelength to physical vessel went smoothly, Gadreel blinking down at Gabriel once he was sorted out.

Putting a hand on Gadreel’s shoulder, Gabriel flew them both back to the bunker, though he didn’t immediately reveal their presence, hanging back to see what sort of mess Dean had gotten himself into now.

The Winchesters really were a riot, and Gabriel had actually missed their hilarious antics. They were both undoubtedly dangerous, but they were also two lost boys. This was just the cherry on top of a truly remarkable sundae of bad decisions made by Dean Winchester; Gabriel had a separate one for Sam, and that one was bigger than Dean’s simply because he’d unlocked the Cage to let Lucifer out and been guzzling down demon blood.

“Are you telling me that you told an angel to possess me?” Sam shouted at Dean, face a mixture of disbelief and anger. His soul was twisting around on itself, betrayal marring it, and Gabriel blinked, refocusing on his physical face. He didn’t need to deal with double vision now that he was almost back to normal.

Almost being the key word since he wasn’t up to 100%. Loki had only managed to recover a fraction of his entire Grace. Everything else had been annihilated when he smote the Leviathan; what Gabriel was operating on now was still rather impressive when compared to an angel of Castiel’s rank, but he was seriously lacking on power, and it was rather annoying.

Slipping back into visibility, Gabriel put a finger to his lips when Steve and Jarvis caught sight of him, eyebrows raised meaningfully. Steve’s lips twitched, and Jarvis scrunched his eyebrows together.

“You were dying, Sam!” Dean shouted back. “What the hell was I supposed to do?”

“Let me die, Dean!” Sam’s hands clenched into fists at his sides. “How many times have we done this already?”

“That’s not happening,” Dean snapped, his cheeks flushed in anger. “No way in hell, Sam.”

“And why the hell not?” Sam stepped closer to him, clearly meaning to intimidate Dean with his greater height.

Dean being Dean, this of course didn’t do squat. “You weren’t supposed to die!”

“Then why was I?” Sam’s voice had dropped, the betrayal that Gabriel had seen earlier in his soul sinking into his words. “Why was I dying then, Dean?”

“It was the failed trial—”

“It was my time, Dean. My time. I was ready to die, and I should have. But you stopped it. And now the gates to Hell are still open”—so that’s what had caused all that damage to Sam’s internal organs—“and Heaven’s are closed. Tell me, Dean, what’s the upside to me being alive?”

“We’re together, aren’t we?” Dean asked. “You and me, fighting the good fight together. The way it should be.”

“I should be dead,” Sam repeated. Gabriel wasn’t sure he liked this fatalistic version of Sam; the one he remembered would’ve been fighting tooth and nail to live. “But I’m not, because you decided you knew better. Be honest with me, Dean. You didn’t save me for me – because you thought it wasn’t my time – you saved me for yourself. Because you didn’t want to be alone.”

Dean looked confused. “What are you talking about?”

“You can’t stand the thought of being alone.” Sam’s words were piercing. “You have Cas, but you have to have me, too. I’ll say this much about you, Dean: you’re certainly willing to do the sacrifice, as long as you’re not the one being hurt.”

Dean’s face was tight. “As long as we’re being honest here, you’d do the same thing for me if the situation was reversed, and I was dying.”

Sam took a step back, lips pressed together. “No, Dean. I wouldn’t. Same circumstances, I wouldn’t.”

Dean reeled back, stricken, the force of his emotional turmoil so strong that Gabriel could feel it. Even Gadreel flinched, face distraught at what he had caused. Dean seemed to be struggling to say something, but nothing came out.

“Dean.” Castiel stepped up to Dean’s side, reaching out to comfort him only to be rebuffed when Dean shook his hands off.

Finally, Dean took in a shuddering breath, eyes going back to Sam’s steady face. “Sam—”

“That’s enough, boys,” Gabriel said, flicking his fingers and silencing Dean. “Work out your issues on your own time. We’ve got a problem to deal with.”

Sam looked at them, eyes lingering on Gadreel. “You were the one in me?” His voice was flat.

Gadreel hesitated for a split-second before nodding. “Yes.”

“At least you’re honest.” The words were bitter.

“Sam.” Gabriel cut him a sharp look. “Not now.”

Sam shifted, folding his arms across his chest, his head held high. “Heaven,” he stated.

“Heaven,” Gabriel agreed, turning to Castiel. “Heart of a nephilim, bow of Cupid, and your Grace. Have I got that right?”

Castiel nodded, shooting Dean a pained look that the other didn’t seem to see, looking at Sam as he was.

“It’s not a spell I’ve heard of either,” Gabriel said slowly, sharing glances with Raphael.

“All that time as a pagan didn’t teach you something?” Dean asked, turning his focus to Gabriel.

“Oh, sure.” Gabriel smirked dryly. “But I didn’t spend the millennia plotting on a way to shut the gates to Heaven because I’m not a complete idiot. No, this is something Metatron came up with on his own.”

“If you don’t know what the spell is,” Steve said, “can you break it?”

“Any spell can be broken,” Gabriel said. “Just need to find the weak spot.”

“Which needs us to be closer to the spell,” Raphael said. “But since it’s located in Heaven…”

“Inspired guess, it’s your Grace that’s holding it together,” Gabriel said to Castiel. “That was the last ingredient, wasn’t it?”

Castiel nodded again, eyes dim. “It was. He—” His breath hitched, and he shut his eyes, dragging a hand down his face in a very human gesture. “He tore it out of me,” he started again, voice soft. “And then cast me down to watch them Fall.” He met Gabriel’s eyes, desperate. “I just wanted to help.”

“Cas…” Dean’s voice was whisper soft.

“I just wanted to help,” Castiel repeated desperately. “But I didn’t. I made things worse, like I always do.”

“We’ve all messed up, Castiel,” Gabriel said, slightly awkwardly. It had been years since he had interacted with other angels beyond brandishing swords menacingly, and it had been longer since he had acted like an older brother.

“You’re not solely responsible for what’s happened here, Castiel,” Raphael said. “Metatron has a way with words; it was his job as the Scribe of Heaven.”

“It’s a mistake that can be fixed,” Gabriel said briskly.

“How?” Castiel looked expectant.

“Eh…the details on that still need to be worked out.”

“Best be done quickly, Gabriel,” Raphael said. “Metatron will have noticed your presence.”

“But if he’s up there in Heaven, how would he notice what’s going on down here?” Sam asked.

Raphael’s mouth ticked up in a smile. “You were there when Gabriel regained his Grace. Tell me – what was it like to be at point zero?”

It was Steve who spoke now. “Breathtakingly powerful. I could barely breathe.”

“The earth shook and the air split,” Loki added quietly, eyes on Gabriel.

“My electronics went haywire,” Jarvis concluded, fingers tapping on his helmet.

“Those were just the physical hallmarks of what you felt; imagine what every supernatural being on Earth felt when an archangel became himself again.” Raphael tipped her head back to look at the ceiling. “As angels, we’re linked to Heaven, even if the gates are locked. Metatron will have noticed an archangel’s presence on Earth, and he will be looking.”

“We’ll need to use that to our advantage,” Gabriel said. “If he’s focused on Earth, then he’s not in Heaven.”

“Heaven’s locked – how’s he supposed to get out?” Dean demanded.

“Tell me, Dean,” Gabriel said, sighing, “are you stuck in your room just because you locked the door? No? That’s because you have the key.”

“And Metatron has this key,” Gadreel said simply. “Are you going to steal it from him?”

“Since that would probably involve tearing out his Grace in some shape or form, no, I’m not.” Gabriel’s lips thinned. “I’d rather not kill him if it can be helped, which means we need to get Castiel’s Grace. It’s probably the lynchpin.”

“You know that if we get our hands on him—” Dean started.

“You’ll gank him, yes I know,” Gabriel finished impatiently. “But he’s not going to let you do that. He’s got the entire force of Heaven at his fingertips; you think a human’s going to make him shake in his boots?”

Gadreel shot him a sharp look. “You cannot face him then, Gabriel.”

Gabriel put up a hand, forestalling anything else he might have said. “I’ve got enough for this,” he said in a clipped tone. In Heaven he would have the energy there to draw from, but for right now he was stuck at recharging at a snail’s pace; nowhere near enough power to deal with Metatron the good old-fashioned way. But Gabriel wasn’t just an archangel now.

Steve shot him a curious look. “So what’s the plan?”

“We need to get into Heaven,” Raphael answered for him. “Or incapacitate Metatron while he’s on Earth, but given his current power levels…”

Gadreel was still looking at Gabriel. “It is inadvisable to do so.”

“I’ve done a lot of  inadvisable things in my time,” Gabriel said wryly, rolling his shoulders. His wings brushed against the tattered edges of Gadreel’s, who recoiled reflexively, his Grace ringing with sudden terror; it was gone as quickly as it had appeared. Gabriel shot him a sharp look, but Gadreel averted his eyes, staring fixedly at a point on the floor.

“Let us not have a repeat of the last time, hm?” Loki said.

Gabriel shot him a grin, bright and quicksilver. “Worked, didn’t it?”

“We thought you were dead,” Jarvis said, subdued.

The practically stricken tone of his youngest quickly sobered Gabriel, his grin disappearing. “I know. And I’m sorry; I wouldn’t have done it if I didn’t have another choice.”

“We know,” Steve reassured him, a tight edge to his eyes the only sign of what the subject was doing to him.

Castiel looked between all of them, brow furrowed in concern. “So how do we do this?” he asked. “How do we break into Heaven?”

Gabriel tilted his head. “There are back ways… I’ve used a few of them back in the day when I was a pagan.”

“They’ll be locked as well,” Raphael argued.

Gabriel grinned, manic excitement running through him. “Then we’ll have to make our own.”

“If you mean to create a door from the outside, you don’t have the power to do that,” Gadreel protested. “Not right now.”

Gabriel’s grin turned sharp, his eyes cutting to Gadreel. “Like I said, I’ve got enough to do this. Maybe not the old-fashioned way of cutting right into it, but that was never really my style. But a little misdirection…” His voice trailed off meaningfully.

“Creating a door from the inside?” Raphael sounded distinctly unimpressed with this absolutely brilliant logical leap from him. “There’s no one who can help us, Gabriel. Metatron certainly won’t, no matter how many illusions you feed him.”

“Wait…” Sam had a manic gleam in his eyes. “Does it have to be an angel to help?”

“Mm…not technically speaking, no. Anyone who’s able to traverse Heaven and can get the materials we need will do.” Gabriel eyed him curiously. “Why? You got someone in mind?”

For the first time since the conversation had started, Sam looked at his brother. “Dean, what do you remember about our trip to Heaven?”

“Zachariah being a dick,” Dean said, huffing. “Joshua.”

“Not only that.” Sam’s eyes were bright as they met Gabriel’s again. “Hunters. There are a ton of hunters up there.”

“Human souls can’t travel through Heaven the way we need them to,” Raphael said sharply. “They’re restricted to their own little personal heavens.”

“Not Ash,” Sam said eagerly, looking so much like an eager puppy dog Gabriel had to dearly resist patting his hair. “He had this whole little setup up there, even listening in on angel radio. It was because of him that we avoided Zachariah for so long. And he’d worked out how to travel through personal heavens.”

“Sounds like a guy I’d like,” Gabriel mused, eyes narrowing in thought. With Sam’s suggestion, his plans reshuffled and reorganized themselves with the inclusion of human souls. “You say he’s gotten into angel radio? Does he understand it?”

“Taught himself Enochian.”

“Definitely a guy I’d like,” Gabriel muttered, ruffling a hand through his hair as he thought, compiling and discarding plans in seconds. “Okay…what kind of setup does he have?”

“Computers,” Dean answered, sitting back against the edge of the table, arms folded across his chest and expression inscrutable. “They’ve also got Pamela up there – a psychic.”

“They’ve got every hunter up there,” Sam said, excitement coloring his tone. “Bobby, Henry, Jo, Ellen…”

“Winchesters,” Gabriel murmured, rubbing his face. “Okay, this should work. I need a laptop.”

“A laptop?” The question came from several different directions, though it was uttered with an equal amount of incredulity.

Gabriel snorted, dropping his hand to his side. “Oh, come on. I could take over the world with nothing but this phone.” He pulled out said phone, flipping it through the air and catching it. “A laptop will get me better access to this Ash and keep me off angel radio. Just a little Grace”—he wiggled his fingers—“and hey, presto!” He spread his hands demonstratively. “I’m still Tony Stark,” he added wryly.

“Yeah, you’re not getting mine,” Kevin said after a moment, shaking his head.

“Fine,” Sam huffed. “I’ll get mine.” He shot Gabriel a pointed look. “Don’t fry it.”

Gabriel widened his eyes. “Would I?”

“Yes, yes, you would,” Sam said definitively. “Especially if you thought it was funny.”

Gabriel snickered. “Okay, sasquatch, point taken. I promise not to fry your laptop, though I can’t promise it’ll work the same way once I’m done.”

Squinting at Gabriel, Sam’s mouth twisted unhappily.

“That’s the best you’re going to get from him,” Raphael told him. “There’s nothing he can do about it once he starts altering it with Grace.”

“Fine,” Sam conceded. “I’ll be right back.”