#and the one jack idolizes most (out of sam and dean at least. cas is a whole other story)

[angelsdean]

like. listen. i'm just saying, both dean and sam are there when jack gets his soul back but it's only dean that hugs him with so much emotion. where's his hug from you, sammy, hmm??

[dyed-red]

12 and 22 for salty asks!!

12. Is there an unpopular arc that you like that the fandom doesn’t? Why?

I'm in the small minority who really enjoyed the s12 Mary storyline. I don't like where they went after with s13 and apocalypse world and all of it, and I think s12 definitely could have been better, but I actively enjoyed the bulk of the way s12 was played with the family emotions and mess with Mary.

I hate that she wasn't young and her age makes no sense, but the way she is distant from sam because of her guilt over what she doomed him to, the way she is harsh with dean over being more than just a mother, her discomfort over the way she's been idolized, the way she leaves them and the way she sides with their enemies because she's so damn isolated and so so susceptible to manipulation.

Mary is a goddamn bitch and I love it and love her for it.

that being said, i'd pay any amount of $$ to see them use their narrative threads better in terms of her and Toni Bevell, who the show goes out of their way to establish as a mother for no reason (it feels obvious to me that there was an intended foil there for mary that was just completely dropped as a narrative thread, though i have no idea why).

and i'd pay double that "any amount of $$" for the subsequent s13 storyline with mary to have gone somewhere interesting with lucifer considering she's a potential vessel, or for them to have done something more interesting with jack's parentage (can you imagine if mary was jack's mom???), but even so, i still liked it and i still think it was a good idea to bring her back and open up the board that way. 22. Popular character you hate?

less soapboxing for this question haha, because i'm not sure? most characters i dislike tend to also be disliked by others, at least in supernatural? mostly i just don't feel a strong investment in the majority of the characters.

i don't enjoy late seasons cas all that much but that's down to bad writing and the way his story has gone, not really a dislike of the character. and i mean, i can't stand ketch, but can anyone? (please don't tell me if he's popular, i don't want to know).

the one character i do actively hate is post-s5 lucifer, especially casifer and mark pellegrino's hallucifer. the only time i find lucifer interesting in the slightest in the late seasons is the cave scene in s13 with sam when lucifer is being a calmer and more sinister type of cruel. otherwise he just seems pathetic??? attention-needy and annoying and massively de-powered for no apparent reason and somehow, despite being the literal devil, bland.

tbh i blame bucklemming for like 80% of this but dabb is absolutely not free of blame either, and why gamble allowed hallucifer to be written in that farcical and annoying way, i'll never understand.

[killianmesmalls]

On your comments about Jack: ye-es, in the sense that Jack is a character who definitely deserved better than he was treated by the characters. The way Dean especially treats him reflects very badly on Dean, no question. But, speaking as a viewer, I think the perspective needs to shift a little bit.

To me, Jack is Dawn from Buffy, or Scrappy Doo. He’s an (in my opinion) irritating kid who is introduced out of nowhere to be both super vulnerable and super OP, and the jeopardy is centered around him in a way that has nothing to do with his actual character or relationships. He’s mostly around to be cute and to solve or create problems — he never has any firm character arcs or goals of his own, nor any deeper purpose in the meta narrative. In this way, he’s a miss for SPN, which focuses heavily on conflicts as metaphors for real life.

Mary fits so much better in that framework, and introducing her as a developed, flawed person works really well with the narrative. It is easy for us to care about Mary, both as the dead perfect mother on the pedestal and as the flawed, human woman who could not live up to her sons’ expectations. That connection is built into the core of SPN, and was developed over years, even before she was a character. When she was added, she was given depth and nuance organically, and treated as a flawed, complex character rather than as a plot device or a contrivance. She was given a voice and independence, and became a powerful metaphor for developing new understandings of our parents in adulthood, as well as an interesting and well-rounded character. You care that she’s dead, not just because Sam and Dean are sad, but for the loss of her development and the potential she offered. So, in that sense, I think a lot of people were frustrated that she died essentially fridged for a second time, and especially in service of the arc of a weaker character.

And like, you’re right, no one can figure out if Jack is a toddler or a teenager. He’s both and he’s neither, because he’s never anything consistently and his character arc is always “whatever the plot needs it to be.” Every episode is different. Is he Dean’s sunny opportunity to be a parent and make up for his dad’s shitty parenting? Yes! Is he also Dean’s worst failure and a reminder that he has done many horrible things, including to “innocent” children? Yes! Is he Cas’s child? Yes! Is he Dean’s child? Yes! But also, no! Is he Sam’s child? Yes! Is he a lonely teenager who does terrible things? Yes! Is he a totally innocent little lamb who doesn’t get why what he is doing is wrong? Yes! Is he the most powerful being in the universe? Yes! Does he need everyone to take care of him? Yes! Is he just along for the ride? Yes! Is he responsible for his actions? Kinda??? Sometimes??? What is he???

Mary as a character is narratively cohesive and fleshed-out. Jack is a mishmash of confusing whatever’s that all add up to a frustrating plot device with no consistent traits to latch on to. Everything that fans like about him (cute outfits, gender play, well-developed parental bonds with the characters) is fanon. So, yes, the narrative prioritizes Mary. Many fans prioritize Mary, at least enough that Dean’s most heinous acts barely register. To the narrative (not to Cas, which is a totally different situation), Jack is only barely more of a character than Emma Winchester, who Sam killed without uproar seasons earlier. He’s been around longer, but he’s equally not really real.

I debated on responding to this because, to tell the truth, I think we fundamentally disagree on a number of subjects and, as they say, true insanity is arguing with anyone on the internet. However, you spent a lot of time on the above and I feel it's only fair to say my thoughts, even if I don't believe it will sway you any more than what you said changed my opinions.

I'm assuming this was in response to this post regarding how Jack's accidental killing of Mary was treated so severely by the brothers, particularly Dean, because it was Mary and, had it been a random character like the security guard in 13x06, it would have been treated far differently. However, then the argument becomes less about the reaction of the Winchester brothers to this incident and more the value of Jack or Mary to the audience.

I believe we need to first admit that both characters are inherently archetypes—Mary as the Madonna character initially then, later, as a metaphor for how imperfect and truly human our parents are compared to the idol we have as children, and Jack as the overpowered child who is a Jesus allegory by the end. Both have a function within the story to serve the Winchester brothers, through whose lens and with whose biases we are meant to view the show's events. We also need to admit that the writers didn't think more than a season ahead for either character, especially since it wasn't initially supposed to be Mary that came back at the end of season 11 but John, and they only wrote enough for Jack in season 13 to gauge whether or not the audience would want him to continue on or if he needed to be killed off by the end of the season. Now, I know we curate our own experiences online which leads to us being in our own fandom echo chambers, however it is important to note that the character was immediately successful enough with the general audience that, after his first episode or two, he was basically guaranteed a longer future on the show.

I have to admit, I’m not entirely sure why the perspective of how his character is processed by some audience members versus others has any bearing on the argument that he deserved to be treated better overall by the other characters especially when taking their own previous actions in mind. I’m not going to tell you that your opinion is wrong regarding your feelings for Jack. It’s your opinion and you’re entitled to it, it harms no one to have it and express it. My feelings on Jack are clearly very different from your own, but this is really just two different people who processed a fictional person in different ways. I personally believe he has a purpose in the Winchesters’ story, including Castiel’s, as he reflects certain aspects of all of them, gives them a way to explore their own histories through a different perspective, and changes the overall dynamic of Team Free Will from “soldiers in arms” to a family (Misha’s words). In the beginning he allows Sam to work through his past as the “freak” and powerful, dangerous boy wonder destined to bring hell on earth. With Dean, his presence lets Dean work through his issues with John and asks whether he will let history repeat itself or if he’ll work to break the cycle. Regarding Cas, in my opinion he helps the angel reach his “final form” of a father, member of a family, lover and protector of humanity, rebellious son, and the true show of free will. 

From strictly the story, he has several arcs that work within themes explored in Supernatural, such as the argument of nature versus nurture, the question of what we’re willing to give up in order to protect something or someone else and how ends justify the means, and the struggle between feeling helpless and powerless versus the corruptive nature of having too much power and the dangerous lack of a moral compass. His goals are mentioned and on display throughout his stint on the show, ones that are truly relatable to some viewers: the strong desire to belong—the need for family and what you’ll do to find and keep it. 

With Mary, we first need to establish whether the two versions of her were a writing flaw due to the constant change in who was dictating her story and her relationship to the boys, which goes against the idea that her characterization was cohesive and fleshed-out but, rather, put together when needed for convenience, or if they both exist because, as stated above, we are seeing the show primarily through the biased lens of the Winchester brothers and come to face facts about the true Mary as they do. Like I said in my previous post, I don’t dislike Mary and I don’t blame her for her death (either one). However, I do have a hard time seeing her as a more nuanced, fleshed-out character than Jack. True, a lot of her problems are more adult in nature considering she has to struggle with losing her sons’ formative years and meeting them as whole adults she knows almost nothing about, all because of a choice she made before they were born. 

However, her personal struggles being more “mature” in nature (as they center primarily on parental battles) doesn’t necessarily mean her story has layers and Jack’s does not. They are entirely different but sometimes interconnected in a way that adds to both of their arcs, like Mary taking Jack on as an adoptive son which gives her the moments of parenting she lost with Sam and Dean, and Jack having Mary as a parental figure who understands and supports him gives him that sense of belonging he had just been struggling with to the point of running away while he is also given the chance to show “even monsters can do good”. 

I’d also argue that Jack being many ages at once isn’t poor writing so much as a metaphor for how, even if you’re forced to grow up fast, that doesn’t mean you’re a fully equipped adult. I don’t want to speak for anyone else, but I believe Jack simultaneously taking a lot of responsibility and constantly trying to prove to others he’s useful while having childish moments is relatable to some who were forced to play an adult role at a young age. He proves a number of times that he doesn’t need everyone to take care of him, but he also has limited life experience and, as such, will make some mistakes while he’s also being a valuable member of the group. Jack constantly exists on a fine line in multiple respects. Some may see that as a writing flaw but it is who the character was conceived to be: the balance between nature or nurture, between good and evil, between savior and devil. 

Now, I was also frustrated Mary was “fridged” for a second time. It really provided no other purpose than to give the brothers more man pain to further the plot along. However, this can exist while also acknowledging that the way it happened and the subsequent fallout for Jack was also unnecessary and a sign of blatant hypocrisy from Dean, primarily, and Sam. 

And, yes, Jack can be different things at once because, I mean, can’t we all? If Mary can be both the perfect mother and the flawed, independent, distant parent, can’t Jack be the sweet kid who helps his father-figures process their own feelings on fatherhood while also being a lost young-adult forcing them to face their failures? Both characters contain multitudes because, I mean, we all do. 

I can provide articles or posts on Jack’s characterization and popularity along with Mary’s if needed, but for now I think this is a long enough ramble on my thoughts and feelings. I’m happy to discuss more, my messenger is always open for (polite) discussion. Until then, I’m going to leave it at we maybe agree to disagree. 

[tibbinswrites]

Hi! If the slots haven’t been filled yet could you do prompt #635, Destiel, something in cannonverse (so preferably not au or endverse) and angst with happy ending? Thank you! I love love love your writing, you are one of my favorite Destiel writers! You capture the characters so perfectly! I hope you have a nice day!

*grovelling, so much grovelling* I am so, so sorry that this took so long Anon, especially as you picked a prompt that I was hoping someone would pick for ages! When it came to actually WRITING for it though I drew a huge blank. I wrote 4000 words then scrapped them all, then I cycled through about three other possible ideas but none of them did this prompt justice, and THEN I got an email about my big project deadline that I had completely forgotten about so I had to sort that, and then I was in that horrible mood where I was hating everything I wrote so I had to take a break and THEN I came back with fresh eyes and this happened. Thank you so much for bearing with me. I hope it’s worth the wait! You are far too kind! I’m so happy you like how I write. I still have one prompt slot left. I have now done prompts for: #1, #2, #4 and #16, #9, #10, #20, #26, #33, #77, #78, #170 (part 1), (part 2), (part 3), #327, #502 and #635 Anyway, ON WITH THE FIC!  635. “I can’t be mad because I let you slip away…”

Things had been kind of weird since Jack got his soul back. There were more tears than Dean was comfortable dealing with and more apologies than he knew how to forgive. There was only so much he could push aside for the kid’s benefit after all, and only so many times he could hear his mother’s name emerge from the mouth of her killer.

He hadn’t yelled yet though. He’d been trying so damn hard to keep his temper in check ever since Purgatory had him sobbing on his knees. The realisation of what his anger had almost cost him—more than once on reflection—had been burned into his very lungs. It had been a pretty big wake up call to say the least. So he hadn’t yelled at the kid. It wasn’t Jack’s fault. That was his new mantra and he replayed it every time he saw Jack start to tear up, every time he tried to (not so subtly) get Dean alone, as though it was the presence of Sam and Cas that was bothering him and not the fact that he couldn’t forget the weight of his mother’s body in his arms, or the all too familiar stench of her pyre as she burned for the second time. Dean had so far managed to dodge him, but he knew it wouldn’t be long before one of the others intervened on Jack’s behalf.

It had been a couple weeks now and Sam was starting to give him pointed looks whenever he made his feeble excuses about needing to make a grocery run or how he’d love to stay and talk but there was a special sci-fi movie marathon at the local movie theatre that he’d been wanting to go to, or how the washing machine had been acting up and he’d really need to concentrate while fixing it. Those looks were slowly inching from understanding towards judgemental, but he just wasn’t ready yet. He couldn’t look Jack in the eye and tell him honestly that he forgave him for killing Mary, because he didn’t. He might not exactly blame the kid anymore, but that didn’t mean Mary was forgotten.

It didn’t matter that Jack needed to hear the words from Dean’s mouth, this was something he couldn’t compromise himself on.

He hated that everyone else seemed to have a timeline for how long he was allowed to grieve, now that he had the time to grieve. It was different for Sam. It felt petty and resentful to think it but it was. Sam hadn’t missed Mary the first time, not really. You can’t miss what you never had after all and while Sam had definitely felt the absence of Mary growing up, in the spaces that Dean had been unable to fill, and he had peppered Dean with questions about her more than once, they had been more curious than sad. He hadn’t lost her the same way Dean had, nor did he remember the fire like Dean did, nor did he truly understand how different John had been before Mary died.

He wasn’t sure why that made a difference but it did. And sure, Mary had never been the idol he’d imagined her to be as a kid, but now he was struggling so hard not to put her back on that pedestal. He’d sorted through so much of his childish crap. Having Mary alive and well and fiercely stubborn had helped him to do that. Her unwillingness to compromise her independence and love of hunting in order to fulfil Dean’s fantasies of having someone tuck him in at night and tell him that it was all gonna be okay had helped Dean grow up in the way that he should have grown up the first time; not forced into it at four years old, confused and scared, the only thought in his head watch out for Sammy, but in the healthy way that Sam already somehow managed, true maturity instead of faking it because he had to.

Not just a mom, were the words he remembered most clearly.

But now he’d lost her again, and with her any chance of showing her how far he’d come. A foolish, selfish notion perhaps, but one that he’d been nursing in his chest for a very long time: the desire to prove his father wrong, to prove to himself that he wasn’t broken beyond repair, to prove to Mary that it had been her, not John, who had been the one to lay the foundation for the person he wanted to be. The person he could choose to be.

Without her he was struggling to remember why he should bother. Doing things for his own gain felt stupid and narcissistic, another lesson that John had imprinted in him. If somebody else didn’t need it from him then what was the point? Not that Mary had needed to see Dean figure out how to become a person but when she was alive at least he could lie to himself.

He’d retreated since Jack got his soul back. From everyone. Sam had been giving him space, Jack he actively avoided, and whatever progress he’d made with Cas had backslid into tiptoeing on eggshells around the guy, not wanting to hear how much he hated Dean for not showing his son the courtesy of accepting an apology, and definitely not wanting to risk a fight that led to him taking off again. He didn’t know how to fix any of it. How could he make himself forgive Jack? How could he make himself come to terms with everything he’d lost that his mother had represented to him? How could he stop missing Mary herself? The empty hole inside, imperfectly shaped, moulded around the two different Mary’s that he’d known just seemed to grow more ragged at the edges.

He was out in the woods, of course, at the spot Mary’s body had reappeared. This was where he came now when the air felt too stifling inside. It was like a grave, he supposed, a place to come and think about what a person meant to you. He’d never really had that before. He’d only been to Mary’s grave in Lawrence twice, on the day she was put in it and the day, twelve years later, that he’d had to go back. They’d moved around too much when he was young and though Bobby had offered to take him more than once when John had dumped them at his place, Dean had always refused, knowing his dad wouldn’t like it and not really seeing the point anyway.

He understood the point now. Even without a marker he still felt her here. Which he knew was dumb, because she was in Heaven with a husband who’d never really existed and two children who she’d never got to see grow up and hopefully, hopefully the two adult sons who’d grown up without her, the ones she could be proud of.

He sniffed. He always cried when he came here, he’d stopped trying to fight it. He didn’t talk to Mary, of course. She couldn’t hear him and he didn’t have anything worth saying anyway. He just came here to try and untangle the mess of thoughts in his head, maybe so he could figure out what to do next, how to fix everything without undoing whatever progress he’d made for himself.

“Dean?”

He froze, the age-old tactic of ‘if I don’t respond it’ll go away’. It didn’t of course. And to make matters worse, it wasn’t an it, it was Cas.

“What are you doing out here?”

Dean shrugged, casual. “Just needed some air.” He didn’t turn, but he heard the sound of recognition Cas made when he realised the significance of this particular spot.

“Avoiding Jack?”

Dean turned to automatically deny it but Cas’ face was calm and without judgement. A small smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “I know he’s coming on strong,” he continued. “I’ve tried to get him to dial it back a little but he really wants to talk to you.”

“I can’t do it, Cas.” Dean said, looking back to the place his mother’s body had materialised, his voice little more than a scrape. “I can’t look him in the eye and tell him that that I’m over it. I’m not. I might not ever be.”

There was a click in Cas’ throat as he swallowed. Then, “Your forgiveness is only part of it,” he said slowly. “Albeit a major part, but he understands, Dean. He understands that what he did can’t be written off, he just wants to hear it from you. If you explain it to him, tell him that you just need time and you’ll go to him when you’re ready, he won’t keep apologising. He’s just trying to get a reaction, I think, though sometimes even I want to snap at him.”

Dean chewed that over for a moment. Cas made it sound so simple. Maybe it wasn’t so black and white as either lying to the kid or yelling that he’ll never forgive him—the only two options that Dean had been able to come up with so far—of course, it meant talking, which Dean was notoriously bad at, but the way Cas broke it down, it didn’t sound so hard. Jack was a smart kid for a three-year-old after all, and he could definitely understand ‘I don’t hate you but I need time’, which was basically what his feelings boiled down to. He didn’t have to explain everything. Hell, he’d never even tell Sam everything but Jack deserved at least the basics, what with the way he’d been freezing the kid out lately.

“What’s the other part?” he asked suddenly, remembering the first thing Cas had said, he twisted his neck around to see Cas frowning at him, his head tilted adorably to one side (yeah, he thought it, so what?).

“Isn’t it obvious? He misses you.”

Dean just blinked stupidly. “Huh?”

Cas huffed and walked forward to stand at his side. Somehow he knew not to walk in front of him and obscure his view of the clearing, but instead stayed a solid presence next to him. Cas was good like that, Dean thought, he just knew things so they didn’t have to be said; he understood in the quiet kind of way that meant more to him than he could ever express, but he was pretty sure Cas knew that too. Still, sometimes he toyed with the idea of saying it aloud.

“He misses spending time with you,” Cas clarified. “You took him fishing once, let him drive your car, taught him how to fire a gun and got him hooked on those horror films you like. He loves you, Dean, and he hates that he hurt you.”

Dean looked down then, and he dug the toe of his boot into the soft dirt. “Oh.”

A comforting weight landed on his shoulder and he didn’t need to look up at the sudden touch. Somehow, Cas had become a safe person even to his subconscious. He didn’t know when that had happened, honestly he tried not to look too closely at it, but he’d arrived at a place now where he could admit to himself, however briefly, that he really, really liked that it had.

“You’re his father too, Dean. Just as much as and me and Sam. You know that, right?

Dean shrugged the shoulder Cas wasn’t touching, not wanting him to remove his hand. “I was thinking of myself more like the fun uncle,” he said, trying to keep his tone light through the ball in his throat.

“No you weren’t.” Cas said, soft but firm, not letting Dean joke his way out of this. Which, actually, he was okay with. Cas always knew how far he could push, how far Dean needed to be pushed. Even when Sam couldn’t get the balance right, Cas always could. Still, he wouldn’t be Dean if he didn’t try.

“Prove it,” he said, flashing a grin at the angel, who merely rolled his eyes and let his hand drop. Suddenly, he was the one toeing at the grass, a hint of pink on his cheeks.

“I’ve missed you too,” he said. “For what it’s worth.”

“I’m right here.” Dean said, and then it was too late to take it back, because this wasn’t how the conversation was supposed to go. He was supposed to make another joke, a playful jab, not admiring the way the freckles of sunlight through the trees highlighted the chestnut in Cas’ hair, nor heeding the gentle warmth in his belly that only happened around Cas, nor stepping forward to place his own hand on Cas’ shoulder because he needed the contact, he needed to be grounded in these last few moments before he fucked everything up, again, and that pleasant warm feeling was beginning to twist into panic.

But then Cas met his eyes and he breathed again, even though the look in them was melancholy.

“You haven’t been,” he said. “You’ve been avoiding me as well. Or, not avoiding but you’ve been different. I wonder if perhaps you’re unable to forgive me either, but too kind to say so.”

Dean almost snorted. He was a lot of things, some of them even good, but kind wasn’t even in the top fifty. Cas gave him a look that said he knew what he was thinking and not to respond to it, so instead he pushed through his instinct and went with pure honesty.

“I can’t forgive you because I never blamed you, Cas, not really. I was just lashing out because… I dunno, because I expect more from you than I should, I guess. And it’s not fair, I know that, I just… I’m used to you fixing things, and I don’t know what to do when you can’t. And you left because I was being a dick and I can’t blame you for that. I can’t be mad because I let you slip away.”

Cas’ expression shifted then, and it was only that moment that Dean realised they were standing so close. One of Dean’s hands gripped at the arm of that damned coat and Cas was so close that he could probably—fuck—he could probably see the small tracks his tears had made. Dean was so close that he could make out the hope in Cas’ eyes, and for the first time, he wasn’t scared shitless at the sight of it. Or at least, he wasn’t so terrified that he could let Cas slip away again.

“I’m right here,” Cas echoed.

“We could be something.” Dean said, his voice a very unattractive croak, well aware that talking about this shit was so far from his wheelhouse it had a different zip code. His breath hit a few errant hairs on Cas’ forehead and they flinched in rhythm to the slight bump at the crest of each inhale where their chests nudged together. “If, you know, if you wan—”

Cas was already kissing him.

[bradycore]

12 14 25 for Sandy's ask game

12. thoughts on mary: i really like her. more as a character than a person, i think. the way she was idolized in her death--"their marriage wasn't perfect until after she died," how she represented normal/safe life to both sam and dean and even john after he left that life himself--is much more interesting once we find out she was actually a hunter. she in turn saw her husband and sons as the symbols of her safety and normality once she broke away from hunting, and there's both irony and tragedy in that two-way idealization. as it turns out, sam and dean are both mirrors to her, and it's not in the way any of them would have wanted.

speaking of sam and dean, this might be an unpopular opinion but i think she had every right to distance herself from them when she came back to life. up until her resurrection and actual screen time, she existed in the show only in the context of her family, not as a person but as what they needed to imagine her being. that's how we knew her and i really enjoyed seeing her break away from that simply by existing as a proper character. and yeah, she was grieving for her baby and four-year-old, and yeah, she had to adjust to a world decades past her time, and yeah, she came back younger than sam and dean. i'm with amara on this one, mary needed very specifically to not be a mother in s12 and on (at least not primarily)--for herself and for the show.

14. thoughts on the bunker and men of letters: the bunker is very cool and pretty but it also takes away most of the liminality of the show. we still get to see different places depending on the ep but i do miss when there was a different motel for every episode. i honestly liked it better when sam and dean didn't have a home base--it felt more raw that way. the bunker makes things feel...heavier. i don't know.

aside from that, the whole men of letters thing felt like it was placed kinda awkwardly in the spn universe, as are many things in the later seasons. on the more positive side, though, knowledge! books! secret societies! the vibes aren't bad.

25. thoughts on jack: babey!! i adore him. he strives to be good--more than that, he chooses to be good, and to learn from people he thinks are good. thinking about how he considered cas his father presumably before he was even born makes me want to go lie down in a meadow and cry. i do think it's kind of sketchy that sam and dean are two of his role models lmao, both jack and cas learned what humanity meant partially through the winchesters and they aren't the best representatives, but they were good for him too and i love that jack is surrounded by so many people (including mary!! there's more to be said about them in the apocalypse world, soldiers and parallels and etc etc, but the main thing about them is that they cared about each other in a really good way). one thing that's interesting to me is how his naivety manifests in him mirroring the people around him. he absorbs absorbs absorbs, and if we want to get meta, the way he drains energy from the plants around him in 15.19(?) could be reflective of that (not the energy part, but taking the nature of what he encounters onto/into himself). i wish he had more chance to be a kid and grow up. he has never done anything wrong ever and he deserves to be given a kiss on the forehead and tucked into bed at night.

[incarnateirony]

I went off on a rant to a friend about things like Gamble Era, and miscellaneous idolized past authors, and you know what, fuck it. I'm going to say it out loud. And listen, listen this is NOT going to be my normal "Whatever you like :)" post like, this is literally an accumulation of horse shit I've seen talked about in any and all lanes for years that have been driving me fucking bananas for years. Don't just read this going HAHA I HATE GAMBLE TOO and then be shocked when I slap at inexplicably favorited authors in this fandom beyond that.

------

God how can anyone genuinely like Gamble, like, literally, legitimately and 1000%, not even about her killing Cas or whatever, what kind of pure trash TV do these people intake in mass that they think Gamble was good at her job I can not emphasize enough how cripplingly disappointing the shift from S4-5 to 6-7 was I know art is in the eye of the beholder or whatever but JESUS. FUCKING. CHRIST.

Fuck constructivist theory there's a point when things are just clearly trash Benefits S7 had: Just da bros uhhhh *flips through pages* Anything else? Are dick jokes art?

Her era was overrun by plot holes you could fly boeing jets through -- and I don’t mean shit like when fandom goddamn made up in their own damn head about an angelreaper retcon even though the reaper in the same episode they said was a retcon said the deadass opposite of what everybody fucking wound themselves up about, just deadass yawning voids -- it had unstable mechanics on previously established species shit, the villain plot was one giant monster of the week that tried desperately to go back to how they handled shit like Azazel as a threat but miserably failed, the monster had the dumbest weakness possible, the characters themselves were unstable in their characterizations and not even in that general "I don't like what the show is doing with them" but episode to episode Sam flipping from ripping Dean with laughter over gay jokes to woke-sounding sentiments

The cinematic style was gone and just vacant, it was neither the overexposed horror desaturated film nor the vivid fantasy of Carver, it just sat there like an unpolished lump

While later seasons also lost the classic rock vibe for budget reasons, that too disappeared in her era so we had no film energy, no story energy, no character energy, no villain energy, no structure energy, and we didn't even have the fucking cool tunez but we had dicks allergic to windex

It even lacked the elements that gave Kripke era value

Dusty americana died, all we had left was teenage girl fuckin emo sad boi drama And even that was miserably piss poor

I have never seen such a visionless fucking disaster successfully air an entire season on my fucking TV

I will never, EVER be able to outline what a fucking disappointment it was to go from S4-5 level show maturation into this negative embarrassment by season 7.

S6 Kripke was still around to some extent and that's the only reason I can deduce, S7 minded, there was any substance to it, even if her writing and editing crew at the time were a goddamn tire fire. And then people turn around and yell feminism if you criticise the giant fucking blazing slag heap that was her era and blame anyone and everyone but her and here you FUCKING go and she does half the shit all over again in the Magicians

(The friend replied: "The season only works in reverse, which is a crime on serialised TV (and just bad screenwriting)." )

That's just it though, it's like S7 we were suddenly back to fucking episodical TV like S1-2 because enough fuckbats yelled about Good Old Days. Only instead of ʷĤε𝕣є'𝓼 đα𝒹 or 𝐓Ħⓔ DεᗰＯᶰ 卄𝓐ｓ Ƥl𝓐𝓝Ş ℱⓞｒ Ⓜ𝔢 it was   ħ𝔞ⓗａ 𝓓ＩＣ𝐤ᔕ  🍆

I mean fucking sure this show started targeting late teenage women but Kripke had started maturing it forward and then Gamble fucking rolls along and it's like she's writing for 13 year old boys suddenly

Well I say that's what she seemed to be writing for but at the time the marketing was gross objectification going LOOK PRETTY BOYS WITH GUNS and that was it, that was the substance of what they gave a shit about and apparently the kind of demographic they thought constituted the sum of the SPN audience which, go get fucked guys, seriously. No fucking wonder the ratings got gouged in half over the course of a year. And fandom yells BUT FRIDAY DEATH SLOT but go sit and spin, S6 was friday deathslot too but before Kripke disappeared as the last thread holding SOME kind of cohesive value in the piece together in S6, that went to shitfuckhell in a handbag at light speed. People migrated to SPN Fridays S6 just fine. They LEFT season 7 and then people plug their ears if they don’t like that. And Carver had to fight all S8 to get it back, /but succeeded, and then-some./ 

oh and lemme head off fandom dumbfuck argument #72 about “well Dabb’s ratings are lower than Gamble’s were so he sucks and ruined it worse” go take your fucking ass and google “national primetime ratings decline” and enjoy exploring the last fucking 70 years of TV history. Pointing out a show crashes within a year because of massive failure is not the same as people being intentionally fucking daft sods to the TV universe’s decline over the last decade so like, don’t. Don’t be that person. Because you’re still embarrassingly wrong.

(The friend replied: "That's why I don't get why people care about what the vocal minority have to say. They *already* got what they wanted. It crashed and burned. Nobody in their right mind in corporate world is gonna be like, let's try that again, let's throw more money into that burning pit That's just not happening. Gay angels or no, it just ain't." )

I mean that should have been obvious when 1. Carver brought back Cas and pretty much immediately promoted him to Regular 2. Misha then got promoted to lead credits in S12, no matter what circles of intentional, willful ignorance fandom argues about what the credits mean for petty piss fights

"LOL & MEANS HE'S LESS IMPORTANT" Shut the fuck up and sit down you basement dwelling shitlord, go watch the A-Team, tell me how Mr T is the least important character

Also unpopular fuckin opinion Robbie Thompson and Ben Edlund are not That Great. Compared to what they were SURROUNDED with they were exceptional but Berens and Yockey could run circles around them both. They just happened to give fandom shit they liked during dark times so it made them fun. Robbie Thompson and Ben Edlund are basically the baseline value of our current writing team on random names. Give me Robbie Thompson and give me Davy Perez and I see no fucking difference. People compare Edlund to Yockey because of certain shit he pulled off but like, no? If there WAS a comparison it’d be like, Meredith, and even then I can’t see any way Edlund is substantially better than Meredith but could list the other in reverse?

But if we're talking about being able to write pieces with more than 1 or 2 layers of impact I'm sorry, it's rose colored glasses that makes people idolize them

Like if people seriously objectively fucking sat and reviewed the methodology and substance of their past idol authors to the demonstratable level of the current crew where I am DEAD ASS HAVING DISCOURSE WITH THE EXEC PRODUCER ABOUT BAUDRILLARDIAN CONCEPTS AND DELILLO in the middle of a hypercomplex postmodern two-directional commentary piece on some scaffolding of sociopolitical representation commentary that SAILS past the level the ‘activists’ in this fandom think about, literally, what people like is Gay Shit They Got lobbed at them or shiny visuals. And you know what, whatever, sure, like what you like IDGAF but don't sit here like Thompson was some fucking Shakespeare. No, your fucking "meta" you -- you, in any lane, anyone, any ship, anywhere, ever -- wrote by COMPLETELY randomly associating whatever storyline you could staple on to try to pretend the text was doing what you want at the time -- is not the same as author intent and actual weight and merit to the cohesive structure of what they build.

YES YES I KNOW, Death of the Author, someone just popped that up in their head, like the ten thousand posts I've made over the last 209349 years addressing how people abusive the fuck out of the term and that's fine, interpret shit however you wanna make it do jumping jacks but don't sit here entering the time you attached Little Bo Peep as some sort of intrinsic value to Dean trying to find Sam in 1492 and act like that's some deep critical shit the authors thoughtfully laced into the piece, these are not the same fucking conversation.

Big hollow voids of statements doesn’t make a better author, it makes you bust your ass harder to actually give any sort of consequential meaning to the piece, and that has nothing to do with the quality of the author or text themselves, that has to do with your interpretation in a piece devoid of genuine thematic subtext so people desperately try to bobby pin some bullshit together. Which also is probably why this fandom can’t tell the difference between coding, interpretation, subtext, and text for their fucking life anymore.

Protip the entire goddamn writing room is pouring that gay shit in your cup that's been triple brewed above Robbie or Edlund’s pots and people are still complaining it isn't enough

Another point that drives me up a wall, "LAZARUS RISING IS THE BEST EPISODE EVER" okay like lmaooooo what the fuck are you smoking Was it impressive as fuck at the time yes it was. But again, fucking perspective. I literally went back and watched it like a month ago and I realized it was a fucking void of content compared to our modern writing, it just had one of the most impressive entrances, it DID have good directing (YES MANNERS WAS GOOD, NO DISRESPECT), and it introduced a character everybody loved. Dean was still a halfass caricature

You wanna know why everybody made that shit gay right away Because there was no fucking substance around it it was a wallpaper of a cool looking episode that was otherwise blank space to run around in on dialogue they should have thought to construct better if they didn't want it to be gay

And sure since then the author room has picked up the big gay ball and started actually turning it into some shit which, great, but this is yet again a matter of structure and intent versus throwing rotten pasta at the wall and seeing if the mold makes it stick. I don't care if you have a vegan recipe that converts the fucking mold on the pasta into a healthy sauce base that isn't what it was thrown at the wall like, and no amount of complimenting the original chef's moldy pasta means it was some tasty shit before you added 10,000 ingredients they never fucking thought about or at least a second chef came along and figure out what to do with the pile of goo.

Fandom would stop being this miserable fucking putrid stinkhole if people would collectively apply some goddamn perspective to the content they argue about before even bothering to engage with uwustiel/cest dot tumblr dot com in irrelevant argument #9238428934 they use to fence off whether they should enjoy the content or try to explore it for its value or not because there is NO. MORE. PERSPECTIVE.

YOU KNOW WHAT? IT’S FINE TO EVEN ADMIT YOU LIKED THINKY-FREE TV, THAT’S FINE, THAT’S YOUR RIGHT.

But don’t SIT here acting like a lot of these former train wrecks were “better authors” or somehow objectively “better content.” No like, you like not thinking about shit that much and staring at pretty boys or whatever, good on you, but you literally like, objectively, some of the shit I’ve seen go down is like genuinely trying to compare a toddler’s fridge art to a Vasarely and hold them both up in front of people who do art for a living. They ain’t gonna shit on the kid’s fridge art, but they’re gonna go “awwwww she’s gonna grow up to be a great artist!” before breaking down on Vasarely’s vector illusion shit, sorry, that’s just how it be. I’m sure the kid had some sort of vision to drawing the triangle over the square that kinda looks like a house but the hypercomplex thought processes simply aren’t there. 

Just people STUCK in weird idolization of shit that is so far past irrelevant to the current piece in play and fighting to win arguments while trying to convince themselves they're right and secretly dreading how titanically failboat wrong they are ignoring the sound of the glacier having ripped through their hulls SEASONS ago. The ice water has already leaked onto the fucking DECK and people are still arguing about completely ridiculous shit or fancying things that were 1/10th of the value of the current content they're claiming isn't good or enough or valid compared to the shallow specters that birthed them out of old aeons. 

Dead-ASS Kripke picked shit because it “sounded cool.” I’m sorry if there weren’t some model guys fandom wanted to hump everybody would be making fun of the fedora-tipping mindset that probably is where the fucking trenchcoat came from and may have debated giving Cas -- sorry, “CASS” because “COOL” -- katanas. But sure. Way, way deeper and more intricate than the Jungian intertextual post modern piece that’s so tightly knit it’s making fandom unwittingly comment on themselves.

I thought people grew out of that shit when they were like 16 unless they were incels

(My spidey senses detected someone unironically preparing to inform me about stealing borrowing the imagery from Constantine on reflex, because you know, that’s some peak intertext right there.)

Dead ASS that writing logic is that motherfucker that wanders into your freeform RP server with Spawn knockoff miasma chainsaw arms under his leather trenchcoat shooting twin Deagles with a vague story of wanting to face his demon overlord father that’s written like a looney tunes villain, in the middle of you cowriting with your lit-savvy friends trying to make a fun fantasy adaptation rendering fascism and corporate america and then he gets upset when nobody wants him to shit lightning -- /fight me/.

SERIOUSLY FOLKS. WANNA ENJOY THE SHOW AGAIN? GET SOME PERSPECTIVE. LET GO OF FETISHIZING WEIRD WARPED MEMORIES AND LINES OF ARGUMENT INSIDE YOUR OWN HEADS ISTG IT'LL HELP.

The day I find an argument that makes season 7 legit good TV rather than, at very best, “fun junk TV I had a cool ride on”, that does NOT involve evoking arguments distinctly born out of petty shipping culture arguments and/or (generally the same) attaching their own shit with a stapler to MAKE it have some sort of meaning at the time it was airing (rather than later showrunners making it add up to something), I’ll eat my fucking arm.

𝓯𝓾𝓬𝓴. Carver era had already gone through dramatic changes that deepend the scope of the show and even then, 15.09 Bobo’s The Trap held more ACTUAL commentary on this fandom than Thompson’s Fanfiction episode did as a supposed fandom-commentary episode much LESS 15.04 as an actual meta framed episode. Fanfiction was like 4 years behind and completely fucking unplugged, whereas the base of the show itself is more integrated now in these dynamics than any attempt at meta episodes back then were.

old days it took one goddamn episode of dreaming for people to 1. start talking about Freud and 2. pretend the whole everything after that was some Freudian masterpiece even when, if it were, it would have been an entire avalanche of dropped balls. But two seasons of direct citations and literal manifest avatar-bodies of Jungian psychology elements and it’s hard to pull more than a peep out of the fandom about it because they’re too busy yelling about tulpas or sirens from before most of the people around here hit puberty.

𝓕 𝓤 𝓒 𝓚

furthermore why does anyone that idolize season 7 for what they think fits their bill think season 15 is gonna end how they want when they’ve been taking the piss out of season 7 over and over and over and over again IN THE TEXT as being dumb as SHIT

𝕀ℕ 𝕋ℍ𝔼 𝔽𝕌ℂ𝕂𝕀ℕ𝔾 𝕋𝔼𝕏𝕋

WHY SET YOURSELF UP FOR DISAPPOINTMENT

TO WIN TEMPORARY ARGUMENTS? THAT YOU’RE ACTUALLY LOSING FROM START TO FINISH?

actually you know what

rolling back to the whole “empty/subtextless stuff making people bust their ass” seems to be what you miss. Saying, “I miss empty, shallow, shitty writing” doesn’t really sound as good though so we change “what I like” into “this is talentless trash” it postures better, but it seems to be the people who have objectively fucking refused core tenets the show has evolved over the last 7 years, most explicitly the last 3-4, and absolutely refused to soak them in the form they deliver in. And they’re mad. Because it isn’t hollow. They can’t run around in fucking blank space and plug absolute horse shit into the voids and then posture like they’re supreme in this noncommital wasteland. Because everything’s built out and structured in and loud as fuck and people are debating the actual installed and even dogmatically cited work of philosophers driving the ideology of the show now and they can’t get away from it, and/or actually have to pay attention to the whole show and think about it all as a picture instead of the parts they want, so it’s “bad.”

I just sensed like 50 readers shoving their foot into that shoe. Good.

Jesus christ I’m pretty sure that’s what it is in hindsight after yelling all of this. These characters can’t be used as sock puppets anymore that people can win bullshit arguments unless they literally delete the entire principle of the modern show -- and this goes for MULTIPLE lanes really, each in their own way -- so now it’s “bad.” And that’s just not how this works.