#because it's just devastating at the end there where dean is having to deal with watching him slowly die

[mlobsters]

supernatural s11e20 don't call me shurley (w. robbie thompson)

[pray4jensen]

if there's ever a season 2 of the winchesters, i need an episode where lata decides to summon dean and his magical monster-crushing impala and cas shows up too because apparently when the summoning happened, cas must've been gripping dean tight because he got flung through time and space too.

so the kids are like hey who's this, and dean rubs the back of his neck and says it's a friend.

so they're on the case and they're mid-battle when john's thrown straight through a chain-link fence and mary gets a nice face-to-face with a concrete pillar. so when they finally get out of there, lata brings out the first aid kit, except dean grabs it and rushes over to cas because cas just fell onto paper at that very moment and he's got a devastating 1/8 inch cut to his pinky (it's not even bleeding).

cue carlos looking at them with a very strange expression on his face and the heteronormative viewers watching the show laugh and giggle because haha look how funny it is that dean's mother-henning cas when john and mary are personally on their death beds.

anyway, because the rest of the gang was too busy dealing with life-threatening injuries, it's only carlos who notices the weirdness and for the rest of the episode, the camera keeps cutting back to his face every time dean and cas are together.

they head to a diner and lata accidentally drops her entire burger onto the floor. but cas still feels hungry after devouring a platter of fries so when the waitress comes up and lata's about to reorder because she's literally starving, dean butts in and orders cas an eight-course meal. lata throws him a dirty look but carlos once again has a strange strange expression on his face.

and it's like this the entire day. the monster traps them into a meat locker and cas reports feeling chilly so dean immediately takes the jacket off his body and wraps him up and he's already stripping down to his birthday suit to offer cas his body heat. meanwhile john's hemorrhaging on the floor and his temperature is plummeting and mary and lata are freaking out and carlos...oh boy, carlos. he can't even help. he just stares at dean.

finally, after several more instances of dean's cas-induced incompetence, even the others have noticed, so when they get to the motel room for the night, mary angrily lets them know that actually, they don't need dean's help because clearly dean's more preoccupied with his friendship with cas than the literal monster chasing them.

so dean shrugs and says suit yourself and as soon as they're gone, carlos, who's been having a mental breakdown all day, is like they are so not just friends. mary and john, like the heteronormative viewers watching the episode, are like what and they're confused but lata, the realization dawning on her face, says oh my god and starts looking faint.

so john and mary head to the window and to their shock, dean and cas are parked outside, making out in the impala. as it so happens, the monster they've been hunting is out there, creeping closer, except dean (with his tongue still shoved down cas' throat) picks up his gun and shoots once, the monster instantly bursting into a ball of dust, and john and mary just look on incredulously.

anyway, once they recover, they turn back and say um yeah so those two are definitely not straight and carlos just throws up his hands and looks into the camera like it's the office and the episode abruptly ends there.

but, even as the end credits play, you can see still hear the sounds of dean and cas making out though before it slowly turns into suggestive moaning.

[ididit-allofit-foryou]

RIP to my friend nixie. they stopped watching SPN after season 11. and asked about the finale. i wanted to immortalize what i sent (which includes a recap of seasons 12-15 so they would Understand.) so. read on if you wish, this monstrosity is going under the cut lol

so. in season 12 lucifer possesses the president of the united states (dont worry about it) & impregnates one of the president's staff members who was banging the president behind closed doors, republican Kelly Kline. through a series of events, cas winds up being the Adoptive Father. kid is born, but he had opened a rift to a different alternate universe the show so eloquently named 'apocalypse world'. it is a world where sam & dean were never born. through Another series of events, team free will PLUS mary winchester (yeah shes back from the dead, amara brought her back, dont worry about it lol) & cas tries to kill lucifer. he thinks he did, comes back through , and hes like there for .02 seconds before lucifer pops through & stabs cas. cas dies. mary beats up lucifer with angel brass knuckles or whatever & they fall through the rift & it closes. they are trapped there. at this exact moment, jack kline (kelly kline & lucifer/mr. president's baby) is being born. sam runs into the house to Check On That. dean however, falls to his knees next to cas's body & looks up desperately to the sky. (the cw said Not to read into this. it means Nothing. destiel who?!) also kelly died in child birth. bc spn Hates women.

thats the end of season 12.

season 13, we have jack. he popped out a fully fledged like. 19? 20? 21 year old?? bc his mom said he would have to Grow Up Fast. dean wraps cas's body in a curtain. alone. and is like crying & devastated. the bois and jack burn cas's body & dean looks like he wants to off himself (& he tries to in like. the next episode but Death brings him back). (also sorry im sooo bad at summary lol). we have the Widower Arc where dean bargains with a silent god to bring back cas, but Nothing. and dean is just fucking depressed as all shit. suddenly! cas is back!! BECAUSE jack heard dean yelling at sam about how its jacks fault cas is dead bc when jack was a fetus he showed cas a Vision of how he could bring Paradise On Earth if they allowed him to live (they wanted to kill him bc. like. Spawn Of Satan & all that). so jack uses his Powers™️ & brings cas back from the dead! yay!! a lot of other shit happens & the Empty (which is like. the Entity that encases all the angels & demons when they die, & where cas was when he was dead) Does Not Like that cas escaped. so, it wants to take jack to get back at cas. cas is like 'no fuck off thats my son lets make a deal. take me back instead' & the empty is like 'ok bitch 2 can play that game. i WILL take you. but ONLY when you experience a Moment Of True Happiness™️'. & cas is like 'bet.' bc! hes a depressed mf & figures it would take a Miracle to make him Truly Happy. (pls keep this in mind, its a surprise tool for later). ummm so yeah season 13.

season 14 had like. ANOTHER fucking michael/lucifer arc but it was Stupid. dean said yes to michael like the angels wanted in season fucking 4 & 5. & i dont Totally remember the plot but like. dean has michael trapped in a box in his mind & wants them to?? fucking?? put him in a warded coffin & chunk it in the ocean?? so michael will never hurt the world again?? also--its like. AU michael. and also mary is okay, & we get AU bobby & AU charlie & a lot of shit happens. anyway.

season 15: we get the Divorcr Arc™️!! dean & cas fight!! bc guess what? jack accidentally killed mary!! (yes! she died AGAIN!!) bc! he didnt know how to control his powers! & dean blames cas! so cas Leaves in a big dramatic breakup scene. we also find out that god (aka chuck) has been like. controlling Everything?? & free will Doesnt Exist?? & dean has a crisis & we get cas saying 'dean, you asked what about all of this is real. We Are.' (which we were apparently sooo crazy to read into!!) & also!? chuck brings back ALL the monsters salmon dean ever killed?? and rowena sacrifices herself to save the world! but! dont worry! she is now thenQueen Of Hell™️ & fucking THRIVING! anyway, season progresses, we get purgatory 2.0 and dean & cas are separated & dean lITERALLY GETS DOWN ON HIS OLD MAN KNEES TO PRAY TO CAS AND APOLOGIZE AND SAY HE FORGIVES HIM!! & then. a bit later. chuck starts poofing away Everyone On Earth bc he wants to destroy the multiverse. and also? death wants to kill dean i forget why. oh yeah! i think he stole her Death Book or whatever to try and see how to kill god. anyway. we have episode 15x18. Thee Episode of All Time. it starts with AU charlie and her gf. they are making eggs and vibing and all of a sudden her gf goes Poof. then sams gf Eileen goes Poof. so they round up as many friends as they can & put them in a warded place but they all go Poof. so sam is with the friends when this happens & also jack. and dean & cas have gone to the bunker to Fight Death. and. so. get ready for this. death shows up. she (yeah billie the reaper became death btw. long story) she starts to like. squeeze deans heart to kill him with magic. cas helps dean run through the bunker away from her. they get to the dungeon. death is literally banging on the door which cas had cut his palm to ward with a sigil of his blood with a knife he pulled from deans back pocket. (again: he cut his palm--another Surprise Tool For Later). deans like 'im so sorry man, we should have stayed with sam. shes gonna get in here, and shes gonna kill you, then shes gonna kill me' & cas is like 'well theres one thing strong enough to stop her' & he starts telling dean about the deal he made to save jack (yep, he never told him). and he says 'i always wondered what would break that curse. but i think i know now' & he. he fucking. he starts a speech about how he knows how dean sees himself, as a killer, a monster, daddys blunt instrument driven by anger, just like his enemies see him. BUT cas says dean is Not that. he says dean is 'the most caring man, the most loving man on earth' & deans like freaking out & is like 'why are you telling me all this? why does this sound like a goodbye??' & cas says, crying, but smiling, 'because it is' & then!! cas!! says !! 'i love you' !!!!!!!!! &&&&& death breaks down the door!! && the empty is materializing behind dean! & dean says 'dont do this cas!' & cas grabs deans LEFT SHOULDER WITH HIS BLOODY PALM! & says 'goodbye dean' & shoves him out of the way!! & the empty grabs cas!! && death!! & takes them away!!!!!! && dean is like!! freaking the fuck out sitting on the flooor with tears in his eyes!! && we cut to like. a bit later. hes Still there, crying, head in his hands, as his phone rings on the floor--its sam. end of the world, sam is calling, & he doesnt answer. we end the episode to deans crying. LIKE FUCK!!!!

15x19: they defeat god. jack like. absorbed him?? & he became god?? & then fucked off to do godly duties!? and did Not bring cas back????

(there are Theories that Chuck Won &thats why the next episode is so fucked and i Have To Agree)

15x20: okok. i fucking HATE THIS FUCKINGEPISDORNFMDNFNDNFNDBDND

anyway. so. cas is Not in the episode. at All. we have sam & dean? driving??? & there are like at LEAST 2 very Bad montages of random scenes that dont even make sense. sam & dean go to a pie eating festival. sam shoves pie in deans face. they Thengo on a case. its vampires. theres a vamp from like. season 2?? who was a minor charachter?? but they brought her back?? why??? idk. and. so. dean gets impaled on a rusty rebar nail during the fight scene in thr barn. he gives sam a long ass speech. they ?? touch foreheads for some reason??? && dean wont let sam get help??? & sam is like 'if cas were here...' & deans like 'yeah well he isnt.' like??? && then deAN FUCKING DIES??? && GOES TO HEAVEN??? && BOBBY IS THERE??? AND APPARENLY FUCKING ABUSIVE ASS JOHN LIVES DOWN THE ROAD??? && dean asks bobby 'so jack did all this?' (as in revamping heaven so people can be all together instead of separate like it used to be) & bobbys like 'well, cas helped' & then dean smiles, then goes?? & rides his car!?? bc his car is in heaven????? && we just see him driving interspersed with clips of sam on earth, burning deans body, and grieving dean, and later sam gets a blurry wife, we dont see who she is, and he has a son?? and he named him dean!? whixh we know bc the kid has on overalls that say 'dean' on them??? & then sam gets old and sits in the impala & cries while wearing a wig that looks like its from fucking party city?? then sam is on his death bed and his son is there?? && theres all these pictures around him of himsefl and dean & mary & john but?? no wife!? ans also!!? noone else like their friends?? & then sam dies & carry on my wayward son plays for like the second time in the episode. and we see dean on a bridge in heaven, he finally stopped driving & is staring off into the distance. and then he hears something behind him & smiles & we all thought 'CAS???' but NO its fuckingSAM somehow young again like whendean died?? & theylike. hug. and then it pans out & all the cast & crew are there?? and they say thank you to us for watching?? and then ?? its over?????? like Awhta thWHAT THE FUCK

[quietwingsinthesky]

your investement in the Castiel/Raphael au got me invested, tell me more

Okay, okay, okay so. To understand my thought process on this, you must understand that the thing that peeved me off the most about spn’s writing and what I think did the greatest disservice to Castiel’s character, is that there are no angel characters who really reoccur over a couple seasons. (Ideally, to me, some of them would have stuck around the whole time but eh, pipe dream.) Or, hell, not even reoccurring but fuck, why does Cas never mention anyone? Yes, he gets scenes where he’s sad about his siblings/his species being destroyed as a whole, but as an audience, him putting a face to that, or many, and mourning them specifically? That would have done a lot.

So, okay, I am perpetually upset at spn tossing out all its interesting angel stuff and by the end, them basically being kill on sight monsters with zero nuance and Cas being ‘the exception’ to that, the one who was ‘too broken to be an angel anyway’.

This is why Raphael should survive the Godstiel arc. Not even that they don’t die, I do think Cas should kill them. I just think they should be brought back with him, too. Leave it ambiguous who brought them back, because of course they won’t believe it was God, God is dead, but who else could it be? Cas with the remnants of his Godstiel powers?

But to have them cohabitating together without knowing what they’ve done to each other… Like, if you thought Dean was jarred by walking in to see Cas married to a random lady, imagine him getting to that house and seeing Raphael. Seeing Raphael & Cas exchanging inside jokes, talking about how they picked names for each other when they couldn’t remember their own, and just being generally affectionate. (Also, personally, for me? Raphael being like v explicitly genderless, that not being something that goes away when they think they’re human, and Dean just having to Deal With That with his whole gender issues thing.)

And then the fucking devastation of that being torn down when they remember who they are. That they’ve been at each other’s throats for years. That the whole reason so much awful shit happened is because neither of them would back down, neither of them could, and it was Heaven and their siblings that paid the cost no matter how much they both originally intended to protect them.

And for Raphael to still stay with Castiel when they see him absorb the Cage trauma off of Sam like… gosh… the double whammy of them maybe seeing too much of Lucifer in him for a moment, corrupted by the Mark and his time in Hell and someone Raphael could never have healed but why wouldn’t they take the brunt of the guilt for failing… and then also like. This is Castiel. He is the biggest thorn in their side Ever. But he needs help. And the only other person offering to stay with him when he needs it most is a demon. (Some of its got to be a bit of a pride thing. You think Raphael is going to leave their brother to be nursed by a demon?? Absolutely not.)

It’s the lingering affection of their amnesia. The looming anger of their past. The guilt that weighs on them both for how far their war went and how much damage they can’t undo.

And if they make it through this, things would obv change a whole lot. For one… Raphael purgatory jailbreak anyone? Alsjfhflshkf I’m joking but also like. God, the image of Raphael saving Cas from Purgatory (and maybe just Cas, too, because they still don’t even like Dean alsjfjksjfk sorry bud it’s alright you get to have gay vampire sex). Purgatory, the catalyst for how bad shit got. And Cas is trying to hide there and be punished but also, in a way, hide from having to face what he did, having to look heaven and other angels in the eyes. Raphael stomping in there, slaughtering a fuckton of Leviathan trying to get a bite of Cas, and dragging him out kicking and screaming like! ‘No! You don’t get to wallow! We made this mess! If I have to live with it, you have to live with it!’

Anyway, I also wrote a little ficlet for their hospital time as a proof of concept? I think it came out okay. If you’d like to see.

The bed at the hospital is only built for one person.

It’s such a small detail to focus on, but for the past few months, Raphael has slept with Castiel next to them, back to back like they were expecting an attack even while they were unconscious. Now, Castiel has a bed that only he fits in, and Raphael does not sleep.

It was a bad day. They pass their hand over Castiel’s forehead and feel the tremble that upsets his vessel, the sweat cooling on his brow. He doesn’t scream, but he hasn’t, not for some time. He stews in silence. He tells Raphael what he sees or hears, though sometimes all he gives them is a description of the room itself, like he’s not sure if even that’s real and he needs them to confirm it. He trusts them to help him construct his reality. 

Raphael is a doctor who is more used to losing patients than to saving them. A mechanic who never manages to iron out the last few problems before the car swerves off the road. An archangel who could not hold Heaven together.

They are not someone Castiel should put his faith in. They haven’t earned it, but they are here. That’s more than can be said for a lot of beings, including his beloved Winchesters. Raphael stayed. 

It’s what they know.

Castiel’s hand shoots up and grabs their wrist. They still, the tips of their fingers just barely behind his hairline. He squeezes their wrist, once, twice, and his eyes open. His breathing is disordered. He’s not looking at them.

He called them Lucifer twice, once afraid and once exhausted. Then, later, Anna, three times. Balthazar, five. Uriel, eight. He always figures out that they aren’t his ghosts in the end and apologizes.

“Raphael,” he calls them tonight, or not exactly because his vessel’s vocal cords strain into Enochian. He only dips from their holy tongue to speak to their demonic guard dog, since she doesn’t understand the language and reacts to the sound of it like the grinding of metal. With Raphael, he remains an angel. It’s almost like he’s making up for the months they spent thinking they were humans. Every conversation they had circling things they couldn’t remember and didn’t have the words for. 

In a kinder world, they would have had more time to remain in ignorant bliss, but this is the way of things. Knowledge destroys. It casts them out. It locks them up.

The walls aren’t really the thing keeping Castiel in here.

“You would have made a better God than me,” Castiel says. Raphael’s mouth twists, and they aren’t sure if it’s disgust or humility.

“Or made the same mistakes.” Castiel tilts his head to look at them. He does not look at the eyes of vessels anymore. He forgets that human courtesy. He peers at souls with open curiosity. The center of Raphael’s grace sits at the base of their throat. Without thinking, their other hand follows his gaze to touch the divot of their collarbone, blocked by the high-necked sweater they’re wearing. They still feel cold, even now that they know there is something holy burning within them. 

“No, you would have been a better God,” he repeats himself. “You would have controlled the leviathans, and you would have… You would have created an end that justified the means.” He squeezes their wrist again. “Paradise.” It's been a very long time since they let themselves think of that. Long before Heaven's civil war even started, with doubts borne by Michael's failure to secure Dean's consent. 

“As many angels would have ended up dead.” Raphael may be blunt about their own failings here and not face judgment. The two of them are a pair of collapsed lungs. What stones does Castiel have to throw that wouldn’t shatter his house first?

“But the rest…” Castiel’s gaze drifts and snaps back. “You would all be happy.” He’s not including himself in that category. Raphael notices and does not argue for their ability to show mercy. “You would have accomplished something.” That lingers under all of Castiel’s guilt, empowers it, because for all that he feels he failed, he’s upset by the fact that even his failure hasn’t gotten them anywhere. No one’s death won him anything, not even his own. He’s still alone, and none of their siblings ever came any closer to understanding freedom. 

Except one, and they don’t want the knowledge. It tastes like burnt coffee, and Raphael doesn’t pull that from any vessel’s memory. They have held a mug in their hands, let the liquid roll over their tastebuds, swallowed it down despite the grimace on their face. They remember Castiel smiling at them as he accepted that he shouldn’t touch the coffee machine anymore. Only, he still answered to a false name then, identity wholly unmade into someone who could love Raphael, who could be treated as an equal and a companion in turn.

“We’d be at peace,” Raphael says and tries not to let Castiel hear the bitterness in their voice.

”What did it look like?” Castiel asks, and then he changes it, so minutely that it shouldn’t matter, but it does. “For you, what did Paradise look like?”

There are a lot of answers that Raphael could give him. If he were not Castiel, if he were still the stranger who shared a life with them, they would tell him everything.

But he is Castiel. They’re not allowed to forget that again.

”I don’t know,” they lie. “All that mattered was getting there.” Castiel tenses under them suddenly, eyes flicking away. His grip crushes. “What?”

”Wounds,” he says, quickly, points at a bare wall. He looks back at them. Raphael stares long and hard at where he pointed so that he knows they take the truth they give him seriously. It’s only a wall.

”No,” they tell him, “don’t look at that. You aren’t seeing it right.” Castiel’s relieved. He relaxes again.

”What were we talking about?” he grasps for the topic.

”Paradise.”

”Yes.” Castiel breathes in, eyes shutting, and he smiles. When he opens his eyes again, it’s like he’s forgotten the momentary disruption completely. “Can I guess what it would be like? You can tell me how wrong I get it.” Raphael lets their fingers drift through his hair again, simple preening that calms them.

”There’s no harm in it.” Or plenty, but it’s the wrong place, wrong time, wrong angel, for any of Castiel’s words to have an effect. Castiel thinks. His voice buzzes at the back of his throat, a single note lost from its chord.

”A coral reef,” he settles on, “where everyone has their niche and their role to play, and they help something beautiful grow around them. And it’s alive. All of it is alive.” Castiel has not let go of their wrist this whole time. He was a clingy fledgling, too. Of course Raphael remembers. They remember watching over all of their little siblings, the role that should have been shared between them and Gabriel eventually falling onto only their shoulders.

(Because who could ask Michael to raise more little brothers. Who could ask him to lend Raphael a hand. Who could ask him to shoulder more than he would have to in the future. Who could ask him to be there in the present.)

Castiel is one of the few left who can still cling to them and the one they should yank their wrist from and abandon.

“Was I close?” Castiel asks. He trusts them.

Raphael passes their fingers through his hair again.

Death was peaceful. They don’t know who brought them back. Only that it wasn’t their Father. A different God, perhaps, one who knew how to feel regret, dragged them out of the only rest they’d ever known to drink bad coffee with him.

“Yes,” they lie, “that sounds beautiful. That would be Paradise.”

[tearsfordean]

IDK if it was just me, but when I watched the Supernatural finale, I was beyond devastated that Dean died. I just felt like he deserved to live a normal life, growing old, maybe even retiring from hunting or being a mentor for a next generation of hunters. I don’t care if it was with Sam, or Cas, or alone. I just wanted him alive. To watch him learn to love himself, and to love to live his life however he wanted, like when he cooked, when he slept, and when he watched horror movies while eating fast food. And for weeks, months, a whole year, and even now, I feel so stupid for the grief the ending caused me to feel, because “Dean isn’t real, so [I] shouldn’t be sad about it”. But to me, since I was seven I watched that man sacrifice everything for those he loved because he felt he didn’t deserve to live, because he thought someone else deserved to live more than him. And then, he grew, he somewhat started to want things even though there were all these terrible things happening. Most of what I am, is because of him, and I love him so much. And then, WandaVision came out and I was just: “Wanda, I feel your devastation, that’s exactly what it feels like everyday when I think about what Dean should have gotten.” And then in Multiverse of Madness *SPOILERS* when Stephen said to Wanda: “all this for kids that aren’t even real,” I was like “YES! I so would do the same thing just for Dean to be happy and alive.” Anyway, Wanda really helped me to deal with that and made me feel heard. I know she did some crazy stuff and all that, but I truly empathised with her, idk lmao. I’m still not happy about the ending, and I miss Dean more than words can say, and I feel a bit delusional, really, for allowing a fictional event to get to me this way, but it does, and I don’t think I should feel ashamed of it. I’m just grateful that Marvel showed us how Wanda was feeling, I never thought I needed it, and I’ve just been bottling it all up inside me, and the pain truly does feel the way it it is portrayed when Wanda goes to that house where her and Vision were supposed to “grow old” together. It feels like this massive darkness inside me, the grief feels so consuming and drowning but it’s also “love persevering”. Like, on one hand it feels like the death of a star bursting inside me and it destroys everything around it, but it also feels like love: like the Big Bang that created the universe. I love that Vision said “what is grief, if not love persevering” because it changed the way I felt and the way I was dealing. With every burst of pain it really does feel like “hope, and… sadness… but mostly… love.” I also felt so much comfort when SPN fans started opening up that, they also felt grief because of the way Dean’s life ended, and that their therapists said it was normal and okay to feel that way. Seeing everyone’s hopes for what Dean should have gotten is something I appreciate so much, and if anyone is also ashamed for their grief, don’t be. I understand and I would just like to hear and see how everyone truly feels: angry, upset, etc. [y’all, I still feel embarrassed writing this like Dean is some real life person I lost 😭] anyway, I love y’all. — eris 🫧

TLDR: This is a rant about the ending of SPN, dealing with Dean’s death, and also an appreciation for Wanda (and Marvel) for portraying grief in a way that I related to. Feel free to say something as long as it’s not disrespectful, pls. 🤍

[marlowe1-blog]

"An Educated American Woman" (The Stories of John Cheever)

This one concerns gender roles...

According to Paul Dean, the Jill of the story is based on Cheever's wife. In fact, it's a meanspirited depiction of Cheever's wife. At least at the end it's pretty damn mean. At the beginning, she's an ambitious woman in the wrong time period with everyone working against her. So she becomes rather brittle.

You could say that this is feminist or anti-feminist in the same way a Strindberg play can be feminist or anti-feminist depending on whether you think that the author is depicting his woman character as a reaction to patriarchy or a monster who has no true feelings.

Certainly the feminist part can be gleamed from scenes where she is watching her husband clean the house and feeling like he's not truly a man. Throughout the story, her husband is depicted as a bit of a drunk and a shlub that she emasculated throughout. Only, why does it matter so much to her that her husband is a weak man? Why is she constantly putting herself above him? Why does she buy into that "a woman wants a man who can protect her" bullshit?

Yet, she's also a monster. She can't enjoy a trip through Europe without playing tour guide. She has no natural inclinations. She judges her mother harshly for her mother's dalliance and even when her husband takes a mistress, she finds his story fake because she doesn't believe that he could ever have an affair. He's just too damn weak to stand up for himself.

Since these are rich people, there's no discussion of unpaid labor. They pay their maids and their babysitters and they send their kid off to a summer camp, just to get rid of him (he's so traumatized that the counselors assume that they are divorced).

Then their son dies of the flu. George is devastated. We don't know how Jill feels, but Jill's mother sends a letter saying that she doesn't want to deal with that mess. So Jill never really had a chance to be an emotional being.

Because George blames Jill (because mother I guess) he divorces her. And then the narrator imposes himself stating that drunk George called him to see if they could meet up sometime. But even the narrator considers George to be a loser.

That's the weirdest part of the story. The unreliable narrator shows up at the end to say that George is a loser even as he depicts Jill as a shrew.

Don't know what else to say about this story. It rolls over its characters and their foibles from their youth to the death of a child and they seem so privileged even as they are so miserable. So I guess that's a Cheever theme right there.

[stanfordsweater]

What fics make you viscerally upset 👀

i believe i've recced most of these before, but here's a list of fics that are absolutely amazing and just as heart-wrenching, bittersweet, or disturbing. a lot of them are in line with the more creepy things that happen in canon, just taken to a more emotionally devastating place than the show ever brings us. mind the tags, take care of yourself, don’t use any of these to harm yourself if any of them make you uncomfortable (in a way you aren’t looking to feel uncomfortable, in any case)

behold, a pale horse by cherie_morte, 19k+:

AU after 8x23: When Sam fails to complete the third trial, a tear in the barrier between Earth and Hell is created and hellspawn called shadon are unleashed. The only way to bind these creatures and close the gates of Hell is for a sacrifice to be made by the man who chose his own life over completing the trials, and this time, the price is even greater. In order to correct the apocalypse he's released, Sam must kill his soulmate and live with the consequences.

After years without Dean, Sam dies on a hunt and thinks he will finally be reunited with his brother in Heaven. But when his reaper appears, it's Dean himself, and he's not as willing to reap Sam as Sam is to be reaped.

i sobbed for days after i finished this fic and i woke up from nightmares about it for a few *months* after i read it. i truly think this is the worst possible ending for sam and dean, but it’s not necessarily unhappy-- it hits a lot of my worst fears, which is why it affects me so badly. i can’t say anything else without spoiling it, but i truly think this is one of the best fics in this fandom. devastating. (would love to talk about this after you read it!!!! it drives me crazy!!!!!!!! but seriously, go in without spoiling yourself, you’ll thank me later. through tears.)

a list of typos made by god by cherie_morte, 44k+:

The summer before Sam leaves for Stanford, Dean begins to forget his relationship with Sam. Every morning he remembers less, and Sam is just waiting for the day Dean forgets him completely.

iirc this one isn’t as emotionally devastating as the last one, because it’s partially dealing with sam coming of age. it’s a really interesting look at who a teenage sam could be in a world where dean doesn’t remember the things they’ve done together, doesn’t remember their relationship. what do you do when the only person who really knows you begins to forget about you? it’s very well-written and a unique perspective on their dynamic.

fly by askance, 5k:

Sam wakes up in an unfamiliar room with Dean and finds that he can't remember anything past the moment when those angels began to fall from Heaven. He has a sneaking suspicion that something is not quite right.

a what-if variation on how dean could have saved sam at the end of season eight if the angels hadn’t been an option. this is a real horror fic, so be VERY CAREFUL of the tags!! this is such a delicious character piece. ahhh, i don’t want to spoil it for anybody, but askance does a great job bringing sam’s creeping horror to life. just read it, if you’re okay with insects-- it’s that good. (and i love the double meaning in the title, haha)

the hollow summer by deadlybride, 17k+:

Sam rescued Dean from hell, but when it was over only Dean came back to earth. Every summer they steal a few months together, but Sam can never stay. Dean's figuring out how to live with that.

hnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn ;~; holy shit, i don’t even know what to say-- just read this!! it’s uniquely miserable, yet there’s a strange kind of hopefulness underneath that keeps me from wanting to throw myself off a building like the first fic on this list did. (cherie_morte, if you ever see this, this is a positive review, i swear, jgfjgf) i LOVE any fic that confronts the way that sam and dean are always paying the price for whatever slice of happiness they carve out. they’re cursed. this fic is a gut-punch, and in that way it’s the most interesting version of the sam-saves-dean-from-hell trope. i loved the way different mythologies are woven in-- there’s the persephone parallels from the prompt, but there’s also some orpheus parallels later on, and it’s written in the way that liz always writes like she’s dipping cloth into dye full of atmosphere and emotions and posting the result. we’re so deep into dean’s headspace that it’s a shock when we find out what happened, so long ago, to bring them here, and there’s no way around feeling the same things that dean does, with how rich the descriptions are. 

all the long years by nigeltde, 900+:

Nothing changes

unrequited love makes me want to cry. when it’s between sam and dean, that multiples itself tenfold. this is a beautiful ficlet that makes my heart turn over and ache whenever i return to it.

willing by interstitial, 13k+:

After expelling Gadreel, Sam kills himself to close the Gates of Hell. Dean copes poorly alone, and then they cope poorly together.

this one has what i’d consider a happy ending, but it fits here because it has a very sad premise. ...also i’ll plug it anywhere i can because it’s in my top five fics for this fandom. i looooove this fic, i’ve read it five times (and after posting this i’m going for a sixth!!!) i think the characterization of sam and dean is really compelling and it has a great take on hell politics and the shifting landscape with different rulers. love dean’s trauma-related mutism and the echo of sam post-season four running himself ragged to get dean back juxtaposed with dean, in this fic, doing his best to get sam back or die trying. if you love the codependency you’ll love this.

at least he died human by pinbitch, 2k+:

Dean doesn’t believe for a second that the detox can really kill Sam. That’s not the only thing Dean’s wrong about.

i’ll admit i don’t usually enjoy the dean-accidentally-kills-sam fics out there, but the fact that this one is written from dean’s pov made it interesting. i like the bits of what-if horror here, like the idea that they easily could have burned sam alive without realizing he had been resurrected by lucifer, and i loved this line from castiel’s section:  The only power he’s been able to muster is just enough to preserve Sam’s body, and he’s starting to think that was a mistake. Maybe if his brother started to smell Dean would be more inclined to burn his remains. i also loved the way that cas isn’t able to identify dean’s very obvious intention to commit suicide as soon as he’s put sam to rest. because i love pain and suffereing i’d be even happier with this fic if they accidentally killed sam again without realizing he had come back to life but that’s a fic i need to write myself i guess

thinking of you by deadlybride, 1k+:

February 17, 2010. Sam struggles with his addiction.

and for a different take on sam’s detox, this is a spectacular “missing scene” from the episode where dean comes to check on sam. cw for addiction, because it felt like a very accurate take on the come down/detox. phew. loved the language around vessels, the repetitive theme of sam being unable to be filled up, and the way that the abruptness every few paragraphs feels like sam suddenly comes to awareness after blacking out. 

like it was yesterday by nomelon, 4k+:

Sam can't remember a time when Dean wasn't there. Dean is always with him. Sam's whole life, there's never been anyone else.

there’s literally nothing i can say about this one without spoiling it, but god damn. the best summary for this fic is that Something Terrible Has Happened and you just need to read it, because the slow creeping realization of exactly what has happened is an experience.

[slipper007]

I can't imagine the pain.

Word Count: 3,262

TW: child loss, grief and grieving, discussion of death. See AO3 for complete tags.

Special thanks to @angelfishofthelord and @shirtlesscastiel who both asked for a part 2, as well as @featherasscas , who's reblogged part 1 more times than I can count

Companion to this, + also on AO3. [Masterpost]

Castiel stayed on the ground, broken, for what felt like hours, lacking the strength to look away from the devastation of his grief.

He stayed there so long that the Winchesters gave up hope. They mumbled something about Chuck and the end of all things, of the ghosts that Cas’ total grief had obliterated and how they might not have been all that was released. Castiel didn’t care. He didn’t have it in him to, and maybe the Winchesters saw that. Dean tried to touch his shoulder, maybe even offer an apology, but Castiel shot him a look that ended the conversation they had been dancing around for years. They left him in that graveyard with what was left of his son.

He almost prayed, but what could an angel do to reverse God’s will? No, he needed to do something else. He was desperate enough to try anything he thought would work.

Bargaining. Maybe he could strike up another deal. Whatever the price was, he would pay it happily. He would give his life in a heartbeat, just like before, if it would bring Jack back.

He reached out to Death directly.

He felt Billie’s presence before he saw them and slowly turned as they offered a laid back “Hey.”

“Bring him back.”

“Can’t.”

“Can’t or won’t?”

“Both,” Billie replied. They raised a brow as Castiel drew his blade. “Killing me again? That seems a little redundant.”

“If you won’t bring him back then maybe your replacement will.”

“Everything has its time, Castiel and everything dies.”

“And it wasn’t his time! His story isn’t done!”

“God said otherwise.”

“You’re going to let God do your job? Kill Jack and wreck the order?”

“God isn’t wrecking anything. Every story has different endings. This was one.”

“Then change it.”

“It’s already happened. It can’t be undone.” Billie’s voice was gentler than Castiel expected when they continued. “It’s not fair, or kind, or right, but it’s life. You need to make your peace with that.”

“No.” Billie’s brows drew together and if Castiel didn’t know better, he would think that it was from pity. Even as he spoke, he felt the tip of his angel blade drop. “I can’t accept this, he can’t be...”

“He is. And nothing you do will change that, regardless of what your time with the Winchesters has taught you.”

Castiel felt the lurching ill sensation rise up again.

“What if I go to the Empty directly?”

“Then you die. It keeps both you and Jack. But you know how the Empty works.”

“I still won’t get to see him...say anything...”

Billie touched his shoulder, a rare gesture of remorse from Death incarcerate. “He’s gone, Castiel, but he can live on in you.”

Castiel didn’t answer, and Death left him to grieve.

Even as time ticked by, Castiel was at a loss for what to do. In the dust, he drew the Enochian sigil to create a portal to Heaven, paid it enough attention that for a moment he could pretend Jack was sitting in the truck playing on his phone.

Castiel almost called his brothers and sisters down to open the portal, to take both Jack and him from the Earth, to let them rest for the first time in years. He wanted Jack to know the peace that used to exist in Heaven, the safety of the place he had once called home. More than that, he wanted to be at peace, to quell the anguish and anger writhing in his chest. It would be easier to go back to proper angelhood, forget what it was to feel.

Emotions had never brought him anything but trouble. They’d lost him his family, his home, his friends, his life…

Still, his tongue wouldn’t speak the words to bring his siblings down. He remembered how they’d treated Jack, and him. The angels had manipulated Jack just as the Winchesters had, and they would do so again if given the chance.

Even dead, Jack could still be used as a weapon. His body harbored the remains of not only nephil grace, but also that of the archangel Michael. Those were both cosmic; they would endure longer than his body.

As much as it sickened him, Castiel realized a hard truth.

Not only was Jack unable to come back, but it wasn’t enough to simply lay him to rest. His body needed to be destroyed so completely that he could never be manipulated again.

He only knew one person he could even start to trust with something like that.

“Hello, tweetie pie,” Rowena answered. “Is this a social call?”

“No, I need your help.”

“Now as much as I’d like to, I’m busy. Tell the Winchesters—”

“This isn’t for them,” he said, words coming out harsher than intended. He took a breath and added a gentler, “Please, this is important.”

“More important than—”

“Yes. Can you meet me at...” Castiel faltered. The Bunker wasn’t an option, and he certainly wasn’t going to stay where he was, surrounded by death, destruction, and his son’s wings scorched into the earth. “Uh…”

“I’ll need some time to tie things up in Nevada. Could you perhaps meet me halfway?

“Yes.” Castiel breathed a sigh of relief. “In Colorado? Grand Junction?”

“Alright,” Rowena agreed. “Now tell me what it is you need so I can prepare.”

“I need you to help me burn a body.” He risked a glance to Jack, feeling bile rise up. “So completely that he can’t come back.”

“Dearie—”

“I can’t talk more; I’ll see you tomorrow,” Castiel blurted, hanging up before what little control he had over his emotions could slip.

The drive was even harder than watching him die.

He talked and played music, anything to avoid the screaming silence, the way Jack was growing cold and stiff beside him. It didn’t work. His mind still repeated the horrified knowledge of “this was your child,” a broken record he feared would never stop.

Neither of them would recover from this.

He arrived after Rowena and nearly cried as she offered him a smile in her prim and proper way and asked if Jack would be joining them or staying in the car.

He didn’t know what gave it away. The unnatural stillness and silence of the car, one that he’d grappled with for hundreds of miles, perhaps. Maybe it was a witch’s intuition, since she’d seen enough over the last several hundred years. Maybe it was because he couldn’t answer her, or even look her in the eyes.

“Oh,” was all she said before embracing him. He couldn’t return it. He couldn’t tear his mind from the hug he had given Jack in the graveyard, how he hadn’t hugged back, how he’d kneeled rather than fight, and how he’d died even when Dean couldn’t go through with it. How it felt to hold Jack, limp and soundless in his arms.

The dam broke, and all that pain and grief and anger nearly brought him to his knees.

Rowena saw it: how broken he was, how broken he’d always been. He didn’t know who he was anymore if he wasn’t a father or an angel, yet he was neither anymore. What was he supposed to do now?

Maybe she understood that. She had suffered the loss of a loved one, too. She knew what it was to watch the world die around her, to lose herself for a time.

When Castiel was able to collect himself, pull the broken shards of his being back together, Rowena asked something that almost tore him apart again.

“Dearie, are you sure you want to…”

“I can’t bring him back. I talked to Death, and I can’t bring him back,” Castiel said softly. “I can’t have someone take advantage of what’s… left.”

“But something so permanent…”

“I would do it myself,” he offered, “but I seem to have fallen.”

Rowena gave him a strange look, the likes of which he hadn’t received in years, so he explained.

“I felt it. Something in me breaking. The emotion growing stronger. I don’t know how to describe it… It felt like when the angels fell. The same kind of desperation.”

“My dear, you’re still an angel. You still have your powers.” She looked him up and down. “Maybe you’re not as powerful as you once were, and you’re a smidge weaker than last we saw each other, but you’re far from powerless.”

Castiel looked away, lost.

“Maybe you can’t do it because you don’t want to,” she offered gently.

“What I want is for him to come back. But he needs to be….” He couldn’t bring himself to say it.

Rowena nodded, understanding.

They found somewhere private, somewhere quiet outside the city. The trees stood tall and proud and vibrantly alive. A felled one became the pyre.

Castiel placed Jack on it, still wrapped in the trenchcoat.

The flames that swallowed him were brilliantly red, orange, and gold like the ochre rocks on the horizon.

It took hours, even with the help of magic. Castiel stood by Jack’s side for all of it, even long after the embers had cooled and all that was left was a small pile of ash and smudges of soot. Rowena collected it up in a jar as the sun rose, and Castiel took it in his hands.

It never should have ended like this.

The day carried on as if Castiel’s world hadn’t ended hours ago. He was grateful to Rowena for what she had done, but even sitting in her kitchen he was too lost in grief to thank her.

Standing by a whistling teapot, she finally asked, “Would you like to talk about the wee boy?”

“It hurts too much.” Castiel bit into his lip, hard. What did it say about him, that he could hardly even say Jack’s name? Shame bubbled up, hatred of himself swift to follow.

“It hurts because of how much you loved him.”

“I still love him.”

“Yes.”

The pair fell silent for a long while and Rowena set a cup of hot tea in front of Cas before settling into her own seat.

“Rowena…”

“Yes, tweetie pie?”

“When did losing Oscar stop hurting?”

Rowena bowed her head, and Castiel knew the answer.

“It didn’t,” she finally said. “Just as losing Fergus hasn’t stopped hurting.”

Castiel’s instinct was right. This was something he would never recover from, would he?

“It’s a different kind of hurt, with time,” Rowena offered. “It stops being so keen. You survive and you try to carry on without them, because that’s what they would have wanted.” She stared deep into her tea. “You learn to talk about them, and to them, even though they’re gone.”

Castiel nodded and held his tea closer. He couldn’t see that happening, not with how much it hurt, but she was right: he would survive. With Jack gone, his deal would never come due. Happiness wouldn’t kill him because he would never feel it again.

Rowena offered him a place to stay for a few weeks, but Castiel declined. He couldn’t stay there, not where the earth was scorched and the air still smelled faintly of smoke. Instead, Castiel drove for hours, not paying much attention to where he was going until he found himself parked outside of the Bunker.

It wasn’t where he wanted to be, not by a longshot, but he had something he needed to do. The door creaked as loudly as it always had, and Castiel was halfway across the library before a voice called out to him.

“Cas.”

Dean.

“I’m here for his things. Then I’ll be on my way.”

“Cas, hey. Stop for a moment, would you?”

Castiel did.

“Look, alright.” Dean walked over until they could look each other in the eye. “I’m not proud of how everything went down. And I’ve given what you said some thought. You’re right. It is our fault, but it’s Chuck’s, too, man. You gotta see that.”

“What I see is that you’re finding any excuse you can to get the blame off yourself.”

Dean’s eyes darkened.

“Chuck has been toying with us—”

“No, you made the decision to kill him, just as I made the decision not to. You told me to get onboard or walk away, and I left you and Chuck both of my own choice. Because you taught me that people and families and love are worth fighting for, and I was going to fight for him!” Castiel tried to keep the waver out of his voice as tears brimmed in his eyes. “Chuck couldn’t have changed that even if he’d tried.”

“Maybe he didn’t want to, huh? You think of that? Maybe he wants us divided.”

“You should have thought about that before you tried to execute him in front of me.”

“Cas—”

“You had a choice and you made the wrong one.”

Castiel left him there in the library and locked himself in Jack’s room. Almost instantly, it proved to be too much, and he slumped down against the door, sobbing.

The room was holding its breath, waiting for Jack to come home. A half-read book sat on the desk, a few stray papers underneath. A pile of clothes waited patiently to be returned to a drawer. The nightstand was bare save for a pencil. One good deed….

Castiel packed it all away. He hated himself for destroying the illusion, for leaving the room as empty as his chest felt, but what he was waiting for would never happen. Jack would never walk through that door again. The decoder ring in the drawer would never be used. Everything had fallen into ruin.

He managed to get the first box into his truck with no issues, no run-ins or confrontations. The second box was smaller, and he rested it on a hip as he closed the bedroom door for the last time.

This time, he wasn’t so lucky. Dean watched him cross the room and quietly said, “You’re not the only one grieving him.”

“It’s not the same, Dean. You never felt his soul. You never took the time to know him: you spent your time trying to make up for wanting him dead. Well, you got what you wanted.”

Dean flinched at that, but Castiel didn’t care. His son was nothing but ash and a box and a half of belongings. Anger flared again.

“You think angels can’t feel.” He laughed bitterly. “Even though I’ve proven that wrong. Did you think killing him wouldn’t kill me, too? As if I haven’t given more for him than you could possibly imagine. As much as you’ve given for Sam. My life. My happiness… I signed away my future in a heartbeat so that he could come back and I would do it again. I tried to do it again.”

If only it would have worked.

“Wait, what?”

“I made a deal to save him. When I’m happy, the Empty will take me forever.”

Dean gaped at him in horror.

“Cas, what’ve you done?”

“What I had to. What any father would do. Don’t give me that look. You’ve done worse for Sam.”

“And it’s always come back to bite me in the ass.”

“Well, I haven’t been happy in years, so don’t worry about the deal.”

“You shouldn’t have made it in the first place.”

“Oh, so now only you get to make deals to save the people you love? Only you get to cheat death time and time again while the rest of us suffer?” Castiel looked at him incredulously, anger seeping through him. “Do you know how many brothers I’ve lost? Sisters? Friends? Now Jack. Why can’t I save them? Why should they stay dead when you and your brother have been raised so many times?”

“That’s not what I meant and you know it. We would have figured it out without making the deal!”

“We didn’t have the time! If I hadn’t made the deal I would have lost him forever, right then and there. I couldn’t stand by and watch him die!”

It would have killed him. And it had.

“We would have figured it out,” Dean maintained. “Like we always do!”

Castiel shook his head. “Then you figure it out. If you bring him back, I’ll be back, but until then…” Castiel looked around the wide expanse of the Bunker with a strange longing. This had never been home, but it could have been, just as his friendship with the Winchesters could have been more. He was leaving behind an almost.

“Jack’s dead. Chuck’s gone. You and Sam have each other. I think it’s time for me to move on.”

“Cas, wait.”

As angry and tired as he was—as they both were—Castiel wanted to. A decade of comradeship, of camaraderie and pining, did that, made him reluctant to leave. Then he remembered standing between Dean and Jack, realizing that if that gun went off, he’d lose them both. He knew now that he’d lost them both long before that.

“Goodbye, Dean.”

It was years before they saw each other again.

It took longer than Castiel could ever admit to find peace.

He still ached for Jack to come back, felt the pain in every drawn breath, but Rowena was right. Billie was right. The anger lessened and the pain dulled. He missed his son but Jack would have wanted him to try to move on. He would have wanted Cas to be happy, despite the deal still hanging over his head even if Castiel couldn’t see it ever coming to fruition now. He owed it to Jack to try to be happy.

And he would. He had to. No matter how much it hurt, even if he still wanted nothing more than to bring him back or follow him in death. Jack survived through him, in his memories and his love. He couldn’t let what was left of his son go like that.

He’d moved to Washington, made a home of where Jack had been born and Kelly had died. Where he had burned. It was a little too empty, full of broken promises and loss and regret, as if it, too, struggled to let go. One day it would. Another family would come and clean it out, fill this home with love as it always should have been. Children would run out to the sand, oblivious of the ash mixed in, while their parents painted over Kelly’s mural and took down the pale yellow curtains that had reminded Cas of honey.

One day, all memory of Jack and the world his parents had tried to give him would be gone. But it wouldn’t be today.

Castiel made his way outside, stood where the rift had first appeared. If he looked closely, he could still see the imprint of wings in the earth. This was where he and Kelly had both burned.

Cautiously, Castiel looked to the sky, the twinkling lights of stars against an unpolluted sky. Jack loved space. He would have loved it here, able to see the stars every night without fail.

It was time to let go.

Gently, Castiel let the ash catch in the breeze, wander everywhere it liked and more until it was gone. Jack was gone.

Castiel swallowed hard and tilted his head back up to the sky, to the light of a thousand stars. If he looked hard enough, he could see the golden twinkle of Jack’s grace reflecting back, his eyes glowing against a sea of blue.

“Hello, Jack.”​ 

[mittensmorgul]

I feel like I should be posting more original content. I’ve been here for so long, posting original content analyzing every detail of this show, and posting literally millions of words on the subject, and the show has gone and done exactly the thing I’ve been writing about, confirmed in text that the story I’ve been watching in the subtext is really the story they were telling all along.

And I could be posting gleefully about the beauty of the most intense metanarrative, the absolute bananapants layers of meta in any piece of media I’ve ever consumed in my 46 years. From the self-referential and universe-bending plotlines to just how deeply embedded ALL of this has become as the central core narrative of the final season, as the characters grapple with what is even real when they’ve been characters in a story beyond their control or understanding for so long only to come so close to earning their freedom and “becoming real” by using their OWN words and declaring for themselves their truth and their happiness and their love.

It’s... mind boggling that everything I’ve ever written about this show is coming back around in a final grand swoop of the narrative arcs that I honestly don’t know what else I can do aside from waving one hand at canon and inviting everyone to just read the entirety of this stupid blog while looking smugly satisfied with myself.

It’s about love. The whole story is, was, and always will be about love. And not just destiel, but the whole damn show. The character of Dean Winchester, for all the jokes about being emotionally constipated, is essentially the embodiment of selfless love and has been since the start of the show. But because of the story itself, he had to become hardened to it, to accept that it wasn’t something he could have for himself if he lived the life he did. And yet he never let that destroy him, despite now understanding that that’s exactly what Chuck spent the last 15 years (and really the entirety of Dean’s life) attempting to do-- to break him for the sake of the story.

Cas’s confession in 15.18 wasn’t just about how Cas loves Dean, but why. Cas, the only version of Castiel in any of Chuck’s infinite universes who broke free of Heaven’s command, did so because of the love he saw in this selfless but self-hating man. Years of crack posts about Dean breaking angels cannot even begin to touch how deep this goes.

One line in Cas’s monologue about Dean thinking of himself as “daddy’s blunt instrument” was a line from season THREE, before Cas ever even MET Dean Winchester and began to know him. It was a phrase that had never been spoken aloud in reality. It happened literally inside Dean’s dream, where he knew he was doomed to go to hell and was confronted by the demon version of himself. Dean said this line TO HIMSELF, IN A DREAM, TWELVE SEASONS AGO. And then yelled down that demon-dream version of himself with this:

DREAM DEAN: Dad knew who you really were. A good soldier and nothing else. Daddy's blunt little instrument. Your own father didn't care whether you lived or died. Why should you?

DEAN: Son of a bitch!

DEAN pushes DREAM DEAN hard, knocking him into the wall above the desk.

DEAN: (screaming angrily) My father was an obsessed bastard!

DREAM DEAN tries to get up and DEAN kicks him down on the desk again. DEAN holds the weapon as a bat and hits DREAM DEAN once and then pins him to the wall with it.

DEAN: 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-

DEAN steps back and swings the weapon again, hitting DREAM DEAN twice.

DEAN: He's the one who let Mom die. who wasn't there for Sam. I always was! He wasn't fair! I didn't deserve what he put on me. And I don't deserve to go to Hell!

DEAN shoots DREAM DEAN twice in the chest. As he lowers the weapon and looking at DREAM DEAN, we see the latter is dead. Blood is splattered on DREAM DEAN's face and his eyes are closed.

--

And then after that, spoiler alert, he went to hell and Cas pulled him out.

Dean: Right. And why would an angel rescue me from Hell?  Castiel: Good things do happen, Dean. Dean: Not in my experience. Castiel: What's the matter? You don't think you deserve to be saved?

It took him YEARS to truly get past this. He didn’t really get to confront his own father until season 14, in a sort of “It’s A Wonderful Life” sort of episode where he could see what his life might’ve been like if things had turned out differently. And oh, Cas isn’t in his life. But he gets to confront John with his own self-acceptance, his own confidence in the life he’s made for himself and the people (including Cas) who have become his family. He gets to hear from John that he never wanted that life for Dean, and Dean gets to say, well I would choose this life anyway.

Until Chuck’s revelation pulled that rug out from under him. Dean had been-- if not deliriously happy, at least content with his life. Because it was HIS. And then he found out it wasn’t, that Chuck had always been writing the broad strokes of his life, had always been the one throwing catastrophe after apocalypse after cosmic crisis directly in his path because he wanted to watch Dean struggle to save the world yet again, and finally give him the ending to the story that Chuck wanted-- a broken and devastated Dean who’d sacrificed everything for the story yet again. And suddenly NOTHING about anything made sense to Dean anymore, and even Cas showing up in his life and then weirdly sticking around all these years was suspect to him. He trusted nothing, not his choices or his feelings or his own happiness.

But now? We know (and Dean knows) that Cas was one thing Chuck just couldn’t control. That he was never supposed to think for himself and rebel and fall in love with Dean. And Dean knows that too. He knows all of it. And ALL of that just went wooshing through Dean’s central processing unit in the span of two minutes and came up error messages, because it was too late now and Cas was gone again, and there might not be any getting him back this time.

So unless Dabb era has been entirely about destroying everything that was ever good about this show, and about their own storytelling, and the metanarrative and the subtext and the character arcs, making Dean and Cas’s relationship the main emotional arc of the entire season demands that Dean get a chance to answer to this.

If love is truly the ultimate weapon of their salvation, as the show has been screaming since s11, then Dean gets to keep Cas. Because anything less is failure at this point.

I’m sorry I haven’t been replying to many people in my inbox, but honestly I’m too tired to deal with anxiety over how the story will end. I only care about the story, and I’ve written more about it in the last howeverlong I’ve been at this than I can possibly reiterate before the next episode airs. All I can do is point and gawp at the fact that the story is what I have always thought it was, and be content.

Revenge of the Subtext, indeed.

[bogunicorn]

there's a better version of spn season 14 (really all seasons with jack but especially 14) living in someone's head where the writing actually dives deep into how dean, despite his efforts to be his own person, is so poisoned by the way john treated him and so devastated with the same grief that so destroyed his own father that he literally cannot stop himself from becoming just like john when he has jack to care for. he sees himself reacting to things like his father, speaking to jack like his father spoke to him and to sam, drinking more like his father, and he can't swerve. he has his moments of kindness and protectiveness and suicidal parental actions, but he thinks back on his life and realizes that that's like john, too, john wasn't all bad or all good or all anything. but dean is failing the way john is failing, and no amount of rationalizing or cold examination will fix his emotions unless he deals with them as emotions.

and then nearly killing jack in the s14 finale and losing cas in the process - not to death but to his own words and a shared grief that he can't figure out how to experience with a partner instead of just lashing out - is a wake-up call for him. he has progress in fits and starts, working through genuine emotions and truly growing even as chuck is relentlessly playing on all his worst fears and instincts and torturing him with the idea that none of it matters, that this is inevitable, that being a bad person and bad father is somehow swimming in his blood even as he's used as a puppet to enact and re-enact his own grief.

somewhere in the same reality as the Really Good Season 14, dean gets to the end of season 15 having figured out "why he's so angry all the time and can't stop it", because he finally, finally confronts the emotional ghost of john winchester in all its ugliness and shame and grief and resentment.

[destieltropecollection]

Destiel Trope Collection 2021 | Day 19: Enemies to Lovers

Pile Of Quarters | @vampamber

Rating: Teen & Up Word Count: 1,752 Main Tags/Warnings: ABO, alpha Cas, omega Dean, high school AU Summary: Somebody keeps beating Dean's high score on his favorite video game at the arcade, and he will have none of that. So when the chance to have a showdown with this CAS person comes along, of course he's gonna jump at it. He just wasn't expecting the alpha to be so nice. Or so hot.

A Bag of Richards | @ms-josephine

Rating: Mature Word Count: 4,241 Main Tags/Warnings: Human AU, Enemies to lovers, Misunderstandings, Prank wars Summary: A misunderstanding leads to an all-out prank war between Castiel and his new neighbor, Dean.

Build It Up! | @verobatto

Rating: Explicit Word Count: 5,062 Main Tags/Warnings: Architect AU, Architect!Dean, Architect!Castiel, rivalry, rivals to lovers, light angst, happy ending. Summary: Architect Dean Winchester has just one goal in his life: win contracts and defeat his biggest rival, Castiel Novak. Bad thing is, Novak is the one always winning the heated competitions. Dean hates Novak with all his heart. If only that bastard wasn't so handsome ...

Dance Real Close | @maleyah-givemetomorrow

Rating: Explicit Word Count: 5,920 Main Tags/Warnings: Alternate Universe - Spies & Secret Agents, Christmas, Yule, First Kiss, First Time, Enemies to Lovers, Flirting Dean, Sassy Castiel, Fluff and Smut, Soft Boys Summary: For the umpteenth time tonight, Castiel swallows and clenches his teeth, hard enough that he might just need a dentist appointment once this horrendous evening comes to its inevitable end and he has what he came for. Good thing the company has excellent health care. He forces his gaze into a faux-thousand yard stare, a wilful attempt to get lost among the many twinkling lights and ornaments. Just off of the shoulder of the man who is his current, last and most annoying obstacle. Dean Winchester. Dressed to the nines in a suit of snowflake white, he fits in at this high-end Yule Ball as if he hasn’t done anything else in his life. Top of his class and generation, ten years Castiel’s junior, much too skilled for his own good at nigh anything from close combat to subterfuge to extraction, his competition, who is, for some unfathomable reason, flirting with Castiel on the mission.

When Duty Calls | @verobatto

Rating: Explicit Word Count: 6,654 Main Tags/Warnings: Sci Fi AU, Commander Dean Winchester, Angel/Alien Castiel, strangers to friends to lovers, space ship, working on a mission together, top!Dean/Bottom!Castiel Summary: Angels devastated Earth 30 years ago and Dean lost his mother in that battle. Now, when his father the Ambassador John Winchester dies, Dean is assigned to a very important mission to restore the Earth. Bad thing is, Angels want to redeem themselves by providing the technology to revive the planet and by doing that, they pretend to be part of the Federation. Dean accepts, despite of his hate for them, and he meets the Angel Castiel, a Commander Scientific that will work with him in one of the labs stations placed on Earth.

Vampire Hunter! Starring Castiel Krushnic | @friendofcarlotta

Rating: Teen & Up Word Count: 13,612 Main Tags/Warnings: Alternate Universe - TV show, Actor Castiel, Production Assistant Dean Winchester, First Kiss, Enemies to Lovers, Vampires, Canon-Typical Violence, Mild Gore, Inspired by Fright Night, Garth Ships It Summary: Straight out of college, Dean gets hired to work on his favorite TV show, "Fright Night." It's a dream come true until the network orders an overhaul to boost ratings, giving the show a new name (“Vampire Hunter!”) and a new star: a grumpy bastard named Castiel, who seems determined to make Dean’s life miserable. Dean just wants to hate Castiel's guts in peace, but then an offsite shoot gets them both trapped in a creepy mansion with a very real, very angry vampire. Can they overcome their differences long enough to kill the monster?

Cheers | @notfunnydean

Rating: Explicit Word Count: 23,685 Main Tags/Warnings: inspired by the movie: the proposal, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Misunderstandings, Fluff and Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Homophobia, Homophobic John Winchester, Dean Winchester Wears Panties, First Time,First Kiss, Top Castiel/Bottom Dean Winchester, Soft!Dean, Cas blackmails Dean into the relationship at first, Past Lisa Braeden/Dean Winchester, Minor Anna Milton/Dean Winchester Summary: Dean hates his boss, after they attempted to date but failed miserably. But when Castiel suddenly has to go back to Russia because his visa expired, Dean finds himself in a very awkward situation, because Castiel blackmails him to marry him. To make it worse someone from the immigration department is already hot on their trail and they have to show off their fake relationship at the ninetieth birthday of Dean’s grandma.

Elevator Music | Aketch-22 (AO3)

Rating: Explicit Word Count: 25,017 Main Tags/Warnings: Top!Cas/Bottom!Dean, Dom/Sub Overtones, Mechanic Dean Winchester, Lawyer Castiel Summary: Sam is about to become name partner at the law firm he's worked at for years. He invites Dean to the celebration, but Dean gets trapped in the elevator with Sam's pompous, dickbag, too-good looking coworker Castiel. Stuck for hours with someone he hates and a boatload of alcohol, what could possibly go wrong?

Let Your Heart Hold Fast (WIP) | @destiel-pirate-in-middleearth

Rating: Mature Word Count: 35,857 Main Tags/Warnings: Roomates/housemates, enemies to friends to lovers, slow burn, angst and hurt/comfort, college au, mutual pining, happy ending. Summary: Castiel is a simple guy with a simple plan who enters college after a lot of hard work. He's looking forward to the new beginning and endless opportunities. After surviving the worst through high school, Castiel has a good feeling about college and thinks he is gonna do fine, but, then, his life takes an uneasy turn, which leads him into meeting Dean, who doesn't remember him and has evolved into a very flirty, obnoxious man. Castiel hates Dean. For almost a month, Castiel does a great job at avoiding Dean on the college campus. Everything is going fine until the day they have their first encounter, which is close to a nightmare because, apparently, Dean decides to shove an apple frigging pie on Castiel's face, which isn’t even the single worst thing he did to him that day. Or The one where Dean and Castiel hate each other and are forced to live together.

Angels of the Sea | @envydean

Rating: Mature Word Count: 53,616 Main Tags/Warnings: Alternate Universe - Pirate, Minor Character Deaths, a little violence, non graphic scenes of corporal punishment, sexual scene of mature nature, Hurt/Comfort, Stowaways, Angst, Happy Ending, BAMF!Cas, Pirate!Cas, Stowaway!Dean, Tattoos, Magical Elements, Fluff, Enemies to Lovers Summary: The Archangel – a pirate ship run by young Captain Castiel Novak – is unknowingly boarded by two stowaways. Sam and Dean just needed to get away from their father’s killers and are found stashed away in the storage room of the ship. Raphael is adamant they are killed but Castiel’s heart is too big to dispose of them both. Lives spared, they join the crew, Dean taking up navigation and Sam to the galley and an adventure using Dean’s amulet to find a mysteriously hidden island begins.

Unmasked | @ellis-park

Rating: Explicit Word Count: 69,348 Main Tags/Warnings: Superhero AU, enemies to lovers, secret identities, graphic depictions of violence Summary: Years ago, the infamous vigilante Halo disappeared from the public eye. The new Halo, Castiel Novak, is struggling to pick up the pieces of his own life and his mentor’s tarnished legacy as a new rival, Hellfire, arrives on the scene. It would help if Cas weren’t so distracted by pushy reporter Dean Smith, who reminds him of everything he’s lost — and the life he could have if he’d let go of the mask.

angel in black | @dothwrites

Rating: Explicit Word Count: 95,325 Main Tags/Warnings: Canon-Divergent, Enemies to Lovers, Bounty Hunter!Cas, Hunter!Dean, Canon-Typical Violence, Demonic Possession, Angst with a Happy Ending Summary: Bounty hunter Castiel Novak has simple rules for how he conducts his business. Get in, get out, deliver the fugitive, and do it all with the least amount of effort possible. Never become emotionally involved. When he takes on the job of hunting down Sam and Dean Winchester in order to bring them to justice, his rules start shifting. Threatened by supernatural forces as well as his attraction to Dean, Castiel soon has to decide what he’s willing to stand for…and what he’s willing to die for.

Wicked Game | @expectingtofly

Rating: Explicit Word Count: 104,077 Main Tags/Warnings: Western AU, Canon-Typical Violence, DubCon, Top Cas/Bottom Dean, Angst, Pining, Hurt/Comfort Summary: The year is 1889 and for the past year and a half, Dean has traveled alone from town to town, drinking to ignore his guilt and gambling to make a living. Today, he’s especially down on his luck. He’s broke, was just thrown out of a saloon for cheating at poker, and has now been woken by a blue-eyed man trying to rob him. When he learns that the thief, Castiel, is just as broke as he is, they strike a tenuous deal to help each other rob a stagecoach, share the spoils, and split up. Turns out splitting up is the most difficult task. While Castiel is cold and cruel, Dean refuses to back down from a fight. The two are at odds more often than not, but their relationship only grows more complicated the longer they travel together. They may have more in common than they thought.

[starlingflight]

@thisismegz as requested, the missing scenes from Everything I Wanted of Ginny dealing with her guilt over how things went between her and Dean. 

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The sun felt especially bright contrasted as it was by nearly a full day in the dungeons with no one but Snape for company. Harry savoured the way the light summer breeze tickled his uncovered arms and the way Ginny’s hand felt in his as they made their way out into the grounds. 

It seemed the majority of Hogwarts’ population had decided to take advantage of the good weather, for the lawn beside the lake was crowded with huddles of students. Their usual tree was already taken by a noisy group of fourth-year girls and so Ginny led him to a free patch of grass not far from the lake's stony shore. She sat cross-legged on the ground, pulling Harry with her. 

He went to position himself beside her but Ginny clearly had other ideas, she shuffled slightly, placing her hands on his shoulders and smoothly guided Harry’s head into her lap so that he was lying on the soft grass with Ginny above him, her fingers tracing lightly across his forehead. 

“If your brother sees this he’s going to lose his mind,” Harry warned, though in truth he was finding it difficult to care. The headache that had been building behind his eyes, caused by a long day in the dark, stuffy dungeon was receding with every stroke of Ginny’s fingers over his skin.

Unsurprisingly, Ginny seemed to care even less about Ron’s reaction than Harry did. Her only response to his warning was to gently slide his glasses off and place them carefully on the grass beside them, making it easier for her fingers to trace the features of his face without obstruction. 

Neither of them said anything for a while, Ginny was now little more than a blur of creamy skin and striking red hair above him. Eventually, Harry let his eyes slowly drift closed, revelling in the feel of her fingers on his face and the sweet, floral smell of her shampoo drifting to him on the summer breeze. 

Snape became nought but a distant memory under Ginny’s careful attention and Harry was vaguely considering that there was a strong chance he was going to fall asleep, warm and content as he was, when Ginny broke the silence between them. 

“I think I'm going to apologise to Dean," She declared. 

It took Harry a moment to register what she’d said, his brain felt fuzzy from the heat. When his wits finally caught up with him, Harry almost asked her why but he immediately realised he didn’t need to. 

He’d seen the guilt on Ginny’s face last night and he’d felt the same thing himself. They’d both admitted they’d been in denial about their feelings for each other for a while and maybe that was no one’s fault but it didn’t change the fact that Dean had been caught up in it. 

“If I tell you I think it’s a bad idea are you going to think it’s because I’m jealous or threatened or something?” 

Ginny's fingers were still stroking lightly across his cheeks, over the bridge of his nose, across his forehead and Harry found that it was almost impossible to feel jealous given his current situation. 

“No,” She said mildly. “I’m going to ask you why you think that, though.” 

He’d rather she didn’t but if Harry was being honest with himself, he knew her better than to expect Ginny to blindly accept what he was saying. “I’ve been in his position. I watched you with him for months, and I didn’t expect you to break up or begrudge either of you your happiness or anything but…” 

Harry trailed off, still not used to telling anyone his deepest feelings and still not entirely comfortable with it. 

"But?" Ginny prompted, one of her hands working its way up into Harry's hair, massaging his scalp. He felt himself relax immediately. 

"But there isn't anything you could have said to me to make me feel better about the situation, to make me not want you." 

Ginny's hands didn't stop their slow exploration of his hair for even a second. "It's not the same thing," She said without missing a beat. 

"How isn't it?" 

"It was never like this with Dean," Ginny unwound one of her hands from his hair in order to gesture between the two of them before quickly returning it, much to Harry's delight. "I was never this happy, not even at the start. The thing that you were waiting for is so much better than what Dean lost." 

Secretly, Harry wholeheartedly disagreed with this. The thing that he'd been waiting for, the thing that Dean lost, was Ginny and there were no words on the planet that could ease the devastating blow that Harry already knew would come from ever losing her. 

"You really want to talk to him?" Harry asked, knowing it was pointless to argue with her when she'd already made her mind up. 

“I really do,” Ginny responded and Harry knew the matter was settled. 

“Okay,” He agreed. “Did you want to go now?” He added reluctantly, he could quite happily stay in this spot for the rest of his life. 

“No,” Ginny said quickly, leaning forward and placing a soft kiss to Harry’s lips. “I’ve been waiting all day for you to get out of detention, you’re staying right where you are.” 

**

Ginny and Dean did not cross paths for the rest of the weekend. Nor was he anywhere to be seen at breakfast or lunch on Monday. Ginny was beginning to strongly suspect that he was avoiding her when she quite literally walked into him on her way out of Ancient Runes on Monday afternoon. 

“Sorry - oh!” Dean’s apologetic smile faltered as he took Ginny in. 

“I’ve been looking for you!” Ginny said with as much enthusiasm as she could muster, though Dean still didn’t look cheered at her pronouncement. 

“Er, have you?” 

“Yeah, do you mind if we go somewhere and talk?” 

Dean’s eyes narrowed suspiciously in a way that made Ginny’s heart sink. They’d been friends for years, they’d been close since the first D.A. meeting and now the two of them had reached a point where the prospect of holding a conversation was enough to set Dean on edge. 

“It’ll be really quick, I promise.” Ginny tried again, hoping her face held as much sincerity as she currently felt. 

“Alright,” Dean said reluctantly, gesturing for Ginny to lead the way. 

There was a low wooden bench halfway down the corridor, under a row of mullioned windows which revealed the sweeping vistas of the Hogwarts grounds and the lake. If nothing else, at least the view would be pleasant. 

Ginny took a seat on the bench and Dean followed her lead; she couldn’t help but note he was sitting as far away from her as physically possible. One good shove and he’d topple over onto the castle’s stone floor. 

“How have you been?” She began cautiously. 

“Fine,” Dean responded. Ginny raised a sceptical eyebrow. Dean had always been forthcoming with his feelings, one-word answers weren’t his style at all. “I’ve been good, Ginny. I’ve been working on my art - I’ve had a lot of emotion to channel into my drawings, I think I’ve got some really good ones for my portfolio.” 

Ginny nodded, trying not to think too hard about what emotions Dean may have been using to fuel his creative pursuits. “You were always very talented.” 

It was Dean’s turn to raise a dubious eyebrow at Ginny now. “Is that what you wanted to say to me? You like my drawings?”

“No, I wanted to apologise,” She said slowly, half-expecting Dean to shut her down before she’d explained herself. When he said nothing, but continued to look at her expectantly Ginny took a deep breath before continuing. “I should have ended things between us long before I did. I knew your feelings were stronger than mine and I shouldn’t have kept stringing you along.” 

Dean listened patiently as Ginny spoke, but he began to shake his head in disagreement as she finished. “That wasn’t what bothered me. It was that I could clearly see where things were going between the two of you, but you were so adamant that I was seeing things that weren’t there. It was frustrating.” 

Ginny began to fiddle nervously with the ends of her hair, slipping the long strands between the ends of her fingers. “You’re right,” She said quietly, looking not at Dean but out of the window where she could just make out the Giant Squid’s tentacles rising out of the water in the distance. “I know it probably doesn’t help, but I hope you know I wasn’t lying to you on purpose - I really believed our banter and joking was innocent, it was unbelievable to me that Harry might actually have liked me.” 

Dean made a noise halfway between a snort and a chuckle; Ginny looked back from the window to find that he was smiling at her. “Of course he liked you, have you seen you?” 

“Stop it!” Ginny exclaimed, reaching out and shoving Dean lightly enough that he didn’t fall off the bench as she’d been worried he might earlier. “I’m trying to have a serious conversation with you!” 

“You stop it!” Dean argued through a laugh. “Serious conversations don’t suit you at all!” 

Ginny grinned, it had been so long since they’d joked with one another. Even in the weeks before they’d broken up all they’d done was argue. “Does that mean we can be friends?” 

“Honestly, I think friends will suit us better than a relationship ever did,” Dean said sincerely. “No offence, but I didn’t find the constant fighting particularly enjoyable and I don’t think you did either.” 

Ginny chose not to answer, there was no point in going over their old fights now. When she looked back on her time with Dean it was as though she was remembering something from a different lifetime. Instead, she pushed herself up from the bench and waited for Dean to join her. “Come on, let’s go and set the Hogwarts rumour mill alight by walking into dinner together.” 

Dean fell into step beside Ginny without protest, the cautious, guarded look that had been upon his face at the beginning of the conversation was no longer in sight. 

[mostlysignssomeportents]

We promised this vaccine waiver 20 years ago

The world’s 125 poorest countries (2.5b people) have received zero covid vaccine doses to date. The 85 poorest countries project vaccination in 2023/24. This is vaccine apartheid.

https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/21/wait-your-turn/#vaccine-apartheid

It’s not that poor countries can’t make their own vaccines. The Global South has a lot of vaccine production capacity. The problem is Big Pharma, which refuses to transfer the patents and know-how to repurpose those facilities for mRNA production.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1IhL-aGt5dEOVegy4eksgs4T6vDl6L6NbY_YJdvDonBI/edit#gid=0

South Africa and India have petitioned the WTO for a vaccine waiver. We should all want this: first, because it is monstrous to doom millions to die in order to preserve the regulatory privileges of a handful of hugely profitable, heavily subsidized pharma companies.

But second, even if you don’t care about being monstrous, a waiver is needed to ensure all our survival: the longer and wider the virus circulates, the more mutations we’ll get, with the mounting risk of a more virulent, more lethal, more vaccine-resistant strain.

The pharma industry has an army of high-paid lobbyists (including Howard Dean), and volunteer simps (like Bill Gates) who are pushing the story that a waiver is unfair and counterproductive, a betrayal of the fundamental patent bargain.

https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/15/how-to-rob-a-bank/#roll-the-dice

They say that the pharma companies committed their capital to vaccine research because we, the people of the world, had promised them exclusive rights to those discoveries (notwithstanding that we also paid for the vast majority of that R&D).

If we alter the deal now, how can pharma trust us next time?

Of all the lies told by the pharma industry about the pandemic, this is the most insidious. Because that’s not how the global patent system works at all.

Gen Xers and their elders will remember the summer of 1999 and the Battle of Seattle, where anti-globalization activists fought for weeks to block the signing of the WTO agreement and its chapter on IP, the TRIPS agreement.

The WTO agreement fundamentally changed the way global patents worked.

Prior to the WTO, it was common for poor countries to completely ignore the patents issued by rich countries (unless the World Bank or a former colonial power coerced them into recognizing these claims).

That’s because countries that are net importers of finished goods have no reason to honor their suppliers’ claims — doing so merely burdens their own struggling manufacturers by forcing them to pay rent to rich foreigners.

This creates drag on local development, ensuring that importer countries stay importers, never becoming self-sufficient.

Ignoring other countries’ exclusive rights regimes — copyright, patent, trademark, etc — is a tried-and-true method to gain self-sufficiency.

That’s why the Framers of the US Constitution decided that America would ignore foreign patents and copyrights, a policy that persisted for over a century, only ending once the US became a net exporter of ideas and inventions, and thus stood to gain more than it lost.

Not just the US, of course. Many European nations spent a century or two a-pirating while their developed their capacity. The Dutch, for example, abolished patents during much of the 19th and 20th centuries.

It doesn’t make sense for a poor country to pay a rich country for rent on ideas. At least, it doesn’t make sense from the perspective of the poor countries.

It’s easy to see what rich countries get out of the deal.

That’s where the WTO (and specifically TRIPS) came in.

TRIPS proposed a bargain to poor countries: if you pay rent on rich countries’ ideas (by recognizing their patents, trademarks and copyrights), we’ll engineer the system so that you become the favored manufacturing contractors for rich countries.

This creates jobs in the short term, and, long term, it builds capacity, by teaching people how to build and operate complex systems.

It’s a form of “technology transfer” that replaces the old adversarial system of rent-collectors and tenant states with global cooperation.

This was a dubious proposition, but the WTO threw in a sweetener: a provision for emergengy waivers. These meant that if there was ever a situation where honoring foreign patents would result in domestic mass-death, those offshore obligations would be immediately suspended.

Think about that for a second. The pharma industry wants you to think that a vaccine waiver reneges on the bargain the world made with it.

But that was never the bargain.

The bargain the Global South struck was, “We will pay rent on rich countries’ ideas. In exchange, we’ll get capacity-building help. In case of emergency, all bets are off: not only will we get access to ideas for free, the WTO will use its might to force tech transfer.”

That’s the bargain pharma signed up for. The claim that a waiver reneges on the deal is truly Orwellian, a heads-I-win-tails-you-lose proposition where poor countries pay rent on ideas and get NOTHING in return — save death and the option to pay yet more rent.

“The TRIPS Intellectual Property Waiver Proposal: Creating the Right Incentives in Patent Law and Politics to end the COVID-19 Pandemic” is a preprint of an LSE Legal Studies Working Paper by a group of Anglo-Irish legal and poli sci scholars.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3851737

First published yesterday, it delves into a detailed account of this dynamic, and opens with a devastating argument:

If the pharma companies are right and poor countries truly don’t have the capacity to build vaccine factories, then the WTO is a failure.

The whole point was to build capacity.

If it’s not there, then all the rents the poor world paid all century were a lethally squandered opportunity — they should have followed in the footsteps of America and the Netherlands and ignored the rent demanded by wealthy lands.

The authors describe how pharma gamed the system in the WTO decades. For example, companies devote enormous energy to patenting small variations on their processes and products, allowing them to extend the life of their patents long beyond the 20 years they’re promised.

This produces some genuinely hideous outcomes. In Patrick Radden Keefe’s EMPIRE OF PAIN, the author documents how the Sackler family contemplated seeking regulatory approval to prescribe Oxycontin to children in order to extend the life of their patents.

https://www.inverse.com/mind-body/patrick-radden-keefe-empire-of-pain-interview/amp

It’s hard to imagine how we’ll survive the pandemic crisis without a waiver. COVAX, the “voluntary” system that lets billionaires, corporations and rich countries offer vaccine doses to poor countries as charity, is a total disaster.

COVAX has only raised pledges of 20% of the needed doses — and it isn’t delivering on those pledges.

The system isn’t just failing by accident — the pharma companies are actively sabotaging it.

C-TAP, the WTO’s own scheme for pooling vaccine production know-how, has failed, largely because companies like Pfizer and Biontech have forced NDAs on their contractors that prevent them from participating in the program.

https://contracts.justia.com/companies/maravai-lifesciences-holdings-inc-11469/contract/137780/

The pharma companies have refused to license for mRNA vaccines for production in both in the rich world (Canada, Israel and Denmark) and the poor world (Bangladesh).

The deals pharma struck with the global south don’t just bump the world’s poorest to the back of the line — they also charge the poorest people the highest prices for vaccines. Astrazeneca is charging South Africa twice the going rate in the EU.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/22/south-africa-paying-more-than-double-eu-price-for-oxford-astrazeneca-vaccine

This price-gouging is papered over with misleading claims of charity — for example, Moderna says it won’t extract profit from Brazilians Fiocruz until the pandemic ends — but the agreement allows Moderna to declare the pandemic over in July.

https://www.ft.com/content/c474f9e1-8807-4e57-9c79-6f4af145b68671O

Pharma’s claims of acting in the public interest are pure fantasy.

Pfizer says it makes a 20% profit by selling vaccines it makes for $3/dose at $19.50/dose (“the pandemic price”) — and promises that this price will go up to $175/dose for boosters.

https://s21.q4cdn.com/317678438/files/doc_financials/2020/q4/PFE-USQ_Transcript_2021-02-02.pdf

The very idea of pharma patents is surprisingly new. France instituted pharma patents in 1960; Ireland, 1964; Germany, 1968; Japan, 1976. Pharma demanded these patents to produce the “incentive” to invest, but the bulk of basic pharma R&D is still publicly funded.

Take the Astrazeneca vaccine, developed at Oxford. Between 97.1 and 99% of the funding for that research came from public sources, not Astrazeneca’s profits.

https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.04.08.21255103

The WTO agreement promised the Global South that in a global pandemic, the same might that was used to coerce them into passing laws enforcing rich countries’ patents would be brought to bear on rich countries to force them to help make medicine where it’s needed.

The pharma shills who claim that waiving the patents on mRNA vaccines actually have a point: pharma companies have gamed the patent system so that much of the know-how is never disclosed in patent filings, and the filings themselves are sealed for 18 months.

In the face of this sabotage, the WTO could order rich member states to uphold their obligations by forcing their companies to transfer patents AND trade secrets to poor countries — just as the US forced pharma companies to pool their research on pennicillin during WWII.

That would be the fair thing to do. The right thing to do. The rational thing to do — if we want to ensure the continuation of our civilization and even our species in the face of new mutant strains.

The WTO claimed that poor countries that honored the TRIPS would become tech exporters, building their own domestic capacity. Twenty years later, they’re still importers — and on track to stay that way forever (or until we’re all killed by covid).

The US has no standing to complain about a TRIPS waver. A country that built its fortune and capacity by refusing to pay rent to rich nations for their ideas deserves the same treatment once it becomes rich itself.

[autisticandroids]

hi i'm trying to keep up on spn fandom drama without actually watching the 6 seasons I don't care enough to watch so could you tell me what on earth "why lamp" means? tysm

ok so this is a long one. 

so the way i see it there are three major pieces of evidence, in the last two seasons, that dean is going to reciprocate. 

i’m not talking about like, evidence that i would use as a textual analyst if the author was dead: if i use everything that looks to ME like dean being queer then i would have mountains. i’m talking three pieces of evidence which i am absolutely convinced were intentional on the part of the people who write the show, meaning that they suggest deancas might actually go canon officially. 

that’s also why i’m only counting the last two seasons; cas made his deal with the empty in early season fourteen and it was definitely intended to come off as romantic. why do i know this? because it has the same goddamn terms and even wording as angel’s curse from buffy: angel experiences “one moment of true happiness” and he loses his soul, cas experiences “one moment where he is truly happy” and he dies. on buffy, angel’s true happiness is..... well.......... sex with buffy. so when i heard the deal i was like hm. at the time i thought they were just fanservice/easter egging me, but now i know better: they intended that. so i think mr. dabb has been planning deancas endgame since at least them lol. i’m pretty sure they knew the show was ending at that point so they could do it.

anyway the first piece of evidence is dean’s michael fantasy in 14x10. this is imo the second strongest. in it, he’s a bartender, accompanied only by a woman he can never sleep with because she has a boyfriend. they flirt endlessly, and she comments “how come you only want what you can’t have” which is a mirror for what cas says in his confession: “the one thing i want, it’s something i know i can’t have.” she also later comments “besides, you don’t want me, you just like to flirt. i’m psychic, i know.” suggesting that dean is faking his interest in her, which could be normal but reads to me as intentionally suggestive that he’s either uninterested in women or simply hung up on someone else. like “dean pretends to be interested in women to show off his flirting game and flex his dudeness muscles” is a subtext that’s present in a huge amount of the show; like, there are a few female love interests he has chemistry with, but mostly his sexcapades read like i-need-to-prove-i’m-manly bedframe notching or showing off for his buddies. this is even explicit-ish a couple of times, like i said in this post here. but they’ve never explicitly pointed it out in words i don’t think. and like. “pretending heterosexuality” is pretty queer lmao (even if dean is bi he’s still faking ultrastraightness to prove he’s manly/straight). 

also, it’s weird as hell that they picked pamela barnes for that scene. she never had a particularly close connection with the boys or anything, why not someone else? but she’s 1) psychic, so she can say that line about dean not wanting her, and 2) much more importantly, she’s intimately associated with cas. like, she first appears in lazarus rising, and she’s the one who gets her eyes burned out looking at cas’ true face. like that’s her biggest deal: Woman Who Got Her Eyes Burned Out To Show How Dangerous Cas Is. and then she died off pretty quickly because she was a woman on spn s4.

also, in the scene, she wears an angel wing necklace and a shirt that says “to hell and back” (pointed out to me in the same post). plus the guy who wrote the episode also wrote lily sunder has some regrets which i hope we can all agree is an ICONIC destiel episode.

the second piece of evidence is the purgatory confession in 15x09. this is the strongest evidence. i don’t really have much to say about it because it’s so blatant? like, when i first saw it, i was literally like “this is intentional deancas fanservice jesus christ.” like i lean towards generally interpreting deancas stuff as an accident on the part of straight writers and the purgatory thing did not feel accidental to me. and then cas cuts dean off at the end of the confession, before dean can say some final thing, and dean looks devastated, and then we never find out what the final thing was. like, it’s pretty blatant.

the third piece of evidence is the lamp dance. this is the weakest of the three. basically, dean has a dream sequence in 15x10 where he dances romantically with a lamp. given that one of the things that’s going on in 15x10 is that dean is realizing that he could be allowed to have domestic bliss, the apple pie life, and still be a hunter. the dance with the lamp does kind of come off like it’s implying that there is a partner shaped hole in his life. he has no female love interest in s15 and he hasn’t for years. here is a really cool, if way too smart for spn, piece of meta about it, and here’s another which is less cool but acknowledges that spn is dumb and doesn’t think that hard and is therefore imo more correct. also, andrew dabb himself wrote the lamp dance episode, which makes it stronger evidence than it would be otherwise imo.

anyway when i was Feeling the Madness on saturday, i decided to make this joke post based on the format of that one alvin and the chipmunks meme, you know, “if women are oppressed then why ___” (i would not suggest looking at it on my actual blog because tragically that breaks the format, open it in dash). i was basically using the lamp dance as slightly-ridiculous synecdoche for all three of these pieces of evidence because it’s the weakest.

then later that day, because i treat my blog as a deeply self-referential internal monologue, i made this post documenting the madness i was experiencing, and i ended it with “then WHY LAMP” as a reference to my earlier post. that one got popular, and now “why lamp” is a common way to refer to the lamp dance meta.

[sinnabonka]

The end: wild speculation time

It’s called a wild speculation time for a reason. Let’s get really wild this time and see, how much I’ll get wrong.

The story ends, just as it starts, in a Garden. It was set in motion with the first human finding free will in there, it will become the place Chuck finds his death

The second symmetry - Dean saves Cas, because “Don’t you think you deserve to be saved, dumbass?”

We get to see Uriel, Gabe and Lucifer. Power trio + Michael help Jack to defeat God (just as they helped with Amara). Jack takes Chuck’s place in being God

Redemption arc for Lucifer, for the sake of “maybe not so evil after all, maybe it was just Chuck’s design, propaganda”

Everyone Chuck yanked away from Earth was in the Garden (I have no idea how I got there, but where else could they be?)

Empty needs her beauty nap, and with everyone up and rolling that’s not gonna happen, so I’m thinking jail break/deal

All the angels from the empty go back to heaven, Michael leads them (takes Adam to Heaven, of course, they are bros now)

All the demons go back to hell, Jack slams the gates closed for good

Cas loses his grace and becomes human (he is already the most human we’ve ever seen him + the photos with the grey in tfw hair? All three of them?)

Jack “fixes” the world, heals monsters or something, so here we go - the world without the supernatural. This perfect world Cas believes Jack was destined to give humanity (I don’t believe in world reboot, the fresh start is a bitch, it would just devalue the whole story)

Saileen and Destiel endgame full on

Also things I’d like, but probably won’t get:

I’d kill to see Balthasar rooting for Deancas and telling Cas he’s proud of him for finally figuring out he loved Dean

Crowley, too? (I’d love to have Rowena and Crowley reunion, she was so devastated to lose him)

Bonus point:

And if we are getting The kiss and there is no update on what I got right, eventually, be sure I am dead