#if these were being made and sent by the puppets in purgatory; we know they make their own ads for their own shows and they were able

[poorly-drawn-puppet-history]

so let me get this straight, watcher:

An unknown party is planting VHS tapes on your own set weekly, containing ad reads by:

a self-proclaimed professor

who mentions unfortunate encounters with horses

who has an 'estranged wife'

whose jacket is tan and tie and red

who is a 'gamer'

whose image flickered in like a hologram in an earlier ad read,

and you want us to just like, not think Something Smells Fishy. OK...

[hazel-eye-coffee-shop-girl-blog]

He’s my past, you’re my present and future.

Hey everyone! I hope everyone is doing well, considering the world right now, and that your being safe. @clarinette07 brought this challenge to my attention, and I just had to jump on it. This challenge was started by @princessmisery666 as here Triple Celebration Challenge! Having two creators work together, meshing there writing styles together, a very cool concept.

@clarinette07 and I decide on that our prompts were: the Song You Make Me Wanna by Usher and the dialogue “We’re not meant to be together, I see that now. But we are supposed to be family.”

Synopsis: reader has a thing for Dean and one night they act on their feelings, but the next day things take a turn and the reader’s world is all turn around. A year later and a whole new life, the reader is back in that same town and same motel room she was with Dean, but now she has another Winchester after her heart. What is a girl to do, follow her heart from the past or her present?

Reader X Dean, Reader X Sam. Mentions of lost, heartbreak, flirting, mentions of sex but nothing graphic. Also it is a long story, 5,000+ words but its worth it.

I do hope you like what @clarinette07 and I came up with. If you do, please like and reblog the story, and give @clarinette07 and myself a follow if your incline. But Please do not post as your own work!

Thanks!

Love~

It has been a year since Dean left, no he didn’t move; he was sent to purgatory. Left or sent to purgatory, it doesn’t matter the fact is that he is gone and never coming back. He walked out that motel door, and that was it. If you had known that was the last you would have seen him, you would have asked him to stay, to never walk out the door...for what was it...breakfast? He had kissed the top of your head and said he was going to get him and his girl, his girl, God how you love that he called you that. How many times you wish for him to call you his, and finally, he did. Y/N stop! Stop dwelling, he left to get you both food, coffee to wake up and get going for the day, to help you both sober up from the night before. Probably to clear his head and figure out how to tell you that you both are better off friends than something more. At least that is what you thought when two hours had passed and a dozen unanswered phone calls and text later.

You tried not to worry, you kept telling yourself that something must have come up, that a break in the case or a lead that he had to follow pulled him away and he just couldn’t let you know. Pacing back and forth in the motel room, your mind keeps wondering if maybe, just maybe he wised up and left, couldn’t face you, or tell you the truth. That what happened last night was a mistake, and so, instead of breaking your heart, he just ran. Dean would never do that, he is a standup guy, besides the things he said, the things you both said were the truth. No, something else must have happened.

The sound of your phone ringing pulls you out of your running mind and back to the room, a wave of relief washes over you, see it’s him, he’s calling to apologize and tell you he will be back in a few. Picking up the phone, your stomach drops, and worry starts to set back in. Dean’s name is not on the screen, it’s Sam, his brother. Taking a ragged breath, you click accept, “Hey Sam,” your voice barely above a whisper, the air lost out of your body that you hardly get any words out.

That conversation with Sam, you would like to say, keeps playing in your head over and over, but honestly, you stop listening to his words after, “it all went wrong... Dean’s gone...” what you remember is your legs giving out from you. The feel of the cheap carpet under your bare legs. Losing the strength to keep the phone by your ear.

The words that Dean was gone, although you knew someday you would hear them, in the life of a hunter, it would be stupid for you not to think about it. Thinking about it and actually hearing it, well, it’s two different things.

You can still feel the pain today, when you think about that moment. The feeling of pain radiating out through your chest, you wish like hell it would stop, but it doesn’t. All the air in your body is gone again, and tears stream down your face.

You’re not sure how Sam found you, or how long it was until he did. You remember him picking you up off the floor and carrying you out of the motel room. You buried your face in his shoulder, not wanting to look at him or the world. Instead, just wanting to keep your eyes close and shut everything out, if you didn’t open them, then the truth wouldn’t be real. Then Dean wouldn’t be gone.

Later you found out that a guest was walking by and heard you screaming and crying. Thinking that you were hurt, came running in to find you on the floor, sobbing and in shock. Your phone next to you with Sam on the other end, screaming your name.

Sam brought you back to the bunker, setting you up in a room that was in between his and Dean’s bedrooms. Sam let you sleep, never pushing you to talk, to talk about what you and Dean were working on, and never forcing you to hear what happened to Dean. He gives you your space, dropping off meals outside your door, he keeps his distance.

Hearing your cry and scream in the middle of the night the first month was hard, you suspect, for him. Sam would come running in and see you tangled up in the sheet, sweat dripping down, he would stand at the end of the bed and ask, “What can I do Y/N? Please, I want to help.” His voice pleading with you to let him in, the look of concern because haven’t. Always, you would give him the same answer, “it’s nothing, I am sorry” monotone and pissed off that you woke him again, that you disrupted his life or a stupid dream. You would untangle yourself, get up, and walk past him towards the showers. Every time he would stop you, lightly touching your arm to prevent you from leaving. “I miss him too.” That’s all that you would let him get out, his voice deep like Dean’s but different, a softness and sadness tone that you rarely heard from Dean.

You wanted to let Sam in, you really did. Sam was your best friend, he was the one before all this that you confided in. The one that you could tell all your secrets to, well almost all of them. He didn’t know about you and Dean, about your love for his brother, that was the one thing you just couldn’t tell him. You never wanted to be that girl that fell for your best friend’s brother.

After a few months of silence and wallowing in your own pity and depression, you’re not sure what changed. Maybe the idea that no one is ever really gone, or that all the stories you have heard about both Sam and Dean cheating Death so many times. This couldn’t be the end that there had to be a way to get him back.

Throwing yourself and Sam back into the game, you took anything that looked like a case. Anything that would put you in contact with the supernatural to ask, what happened to Dean? Most, if not all, the hunts wound up dead-end leads on that question, or demon’s playing with you just to see you squirm. After months of coming up with nothing, spending every second pouring over the vast library that the bunker had to offer, you were about to throw in the towel again. Maybe he was gone, that Dean was never coming back, and this, a reality without him, is your new normal.

You didn’t know how it started. Only now whenever you were around a certain loveable, long-haired Winchester, your heart began to beat faster, and your stomach would flutter with butterflies. There was always a sense of peace when you were around the brothers, especially Sam, but lately, things started to change, and you’re not sure how to handle that. After all, you are still in love with the eldest green-eyed Winchester, aren’t you?

It had been a long year of mourning the loss of your green-eyed lover, but thankfully you weren’t alone. Ever-present Sam was by your side the whole time. After your time of mourning, you realized you had to keep fighting. Dean would have wanted you to keep fighting, with Sam alongside you. Not to say things got any easier, but after losing Cas and Dean, then Kevin all in one day, it took some time to get back to any form of routine. Eventually, you & Sam were able to get your friendship back to how it was before that fateful night with Dean.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It was another night off drinking and relaxing with the boys when Sam tried to take both brothers to their room, but Dean was just too wound up and asked to stay a little longer. Of course, you loved them both, but Dean rarely ever asked to stay to hang out with you without Sam or leaving with a girl for the night. This was a surprise you would not turn away. Sam looked back, ever so reluctantly, but left nonetheless. As the night unfolded, you both played a drinking game that was a mix of 20 questions and Truth or Dare, and you opened up more to Dean than you ever had in the past. He laughed at your aversion to clowns and said he really does have two sisters!

“One’s a giant nerd, while the other is much easier on the eyes.”

You had never really been on the receiving end of his earnest flirting before, and this just made your heart skip a beat, and all the color rushed to your cheeks. More truths were shared and more secrets told, which lead to you saying that you have never been French kissed before (and enjoyed it). This apparently was unforgivable in Dean’s eyes because he asked if you wanted to try again with HIM!!!

Now, you may have had a little too much to drink, but you damn well know if Dean Freaking Winchester asks to kiss you, you DO NOT turn that down! (Mama didn’t raise no fool!)

That kiss was the start of everything changing. You and Dean grew closer while Sam and you seemed to have a bit of tension all of a sudden, and you could never figure out why. Eventually, you found your rhythm hunting together again, and one night everything came to a head with the looming battle against Dick Roman and his Leviathan puppet army. Things were moving relatively slow between you and the eldest Winchester, but with the fear of the unknown with this fight and (again) too much liquor involved (you’d think a girl would learn) you and Dean made passionate love for the first and, unbeknownst to you, last time.

********* “Hey, earth to Y/N, are you listening to me?” Sam’s voice pulls you back to the present, back in the bunker, back to reality without Dean. You shake the thoughts from your mind, focus Y/N, you have a goal, a mission to follow, get Dean back.

You look up from the library table to Sam, you can see he is concerned about you not paying attention and is going to ask you again for the millionth time are you okay. Giving him a small smile, you beat him to the punch, “sorry, what were you saying?”

Sam sits down across from you and pushes his laptop in front of you. “I think we have another case if you want to check it out?” He says, pushing away his thoughts of pursuing the subject further, knowing that pestering you leads to you shutting him out.

While your eyes scan the article, Sam gives you the rundown. A string of murders over the past few weeks have been going on in this small town. What makes it a case for you and Sam is that each one of the victims’ hearts is missing. “Werewolves,” you cut Sam off, looking up from the computer, “I will be ready in twenty.” You say, getting up from your chair. You don’t wait for confirmation that you’re leaving right now or anything from Sam.

Twenty minutes later, you’re on the road, Sam behind the wheel, and your nose is buried in the recent lore book that you have been reading cover to cover to find anything about purgatory and how someone could escape. You’re pulled from your reading when you hear Sam mutter, “Shit!” under his breath. You’re about to ask what is wrong, when you look up from the book and towards him, your eyes fall on the passing city limit sign. Fucking Boring, Oregon, you have got to be kidding me. In reading the article, you must have just glanced over the town name, this is the same town that you and Dean worked your last case together, the same town where everything changed, the same town where Dean left, left you. “Y/N, I am so sorry. We don’t have to stay, I can turn around right now, call up Jody and see if she can…” Sam quickly stammers out, but you stop him before he can finish.

“Sam, I am fine; it’s fine. It’s a case, and we need to solve it, and we are already here,” you say, your confidence, however lacking, was trying to build for posterity’s sake. Giving him a reassuring smile, you can see that you’re not convincing him at all. “Seriously, Sam, I am fine. Let’s just not stay at that crappy motel again, and we will be all set.” Fake confidence laced in your voice, you give Sam a pat on the arm and try to focus back on your book.

Unfortunately, this town is so small that the only other motel is closed for renovations, so the motel from your past is the only option. Pulling into a parking spot, Sam stops before getting out to get a room, “Seriously, we can drive to the next town over and stay there,” asking you again, if you would want to do that.

“No, Sam, the next town is over 100 miles away, it would be stupid to do that.” You say, giving your best reassuring smile, you push down your anxiety that is bubbling at the surface. Just being here in this town, this parking lot again, you look away from Sam, focusing on the detail in the orange/blue plaid that he put on this morning, one of your favorites. Come on, Y/N, you can do this.

Looking back up to Sam, you can tell he wants to say something, bring up Dean again, or ask if you’re alright. The concern is written as clear as day on his face, his hazel eyes lock with yours. “Come on, Winchester, go get us a room. I am tired, and you could use a shower.” you joke, giving him another playful shove while holding your nose and waving at him as if he smells.

This causes Sam to laugh, his look of worry and concern falling off his face and replacing it with a smile that causes his dimples to pop. “Okay, okay, I am going.” He concedes, getting out of the car and walking into the small office.

Watching Sam walk away, you start to think, Thank goodness Sam is with you because you don’t know if you would be able to handle being here alone again. The last time almost broke you beyond repair, but Sam was there to help hold you and put the pieces back together.

Honestly, you don’t know where you would be today if it wasn’t for Sam, your puppy-eyed Moose Man. Even though you still miss Dean so much, you still feel complete when you’re with Sam. (Does that make you a horrible person?) You don’t believe these feelings are new. Deep down, they were always simmering there, just never given a chance to bubble to the surface. But now that Dean is gone, you have grown even closer than before Dean and you started whatever it was you had. For goodness sake, you never even got the chance to explore that, let alone define it, but with Sam, everything just comes so naturally. You think now is the time to try and move on, not to forget Dean, but to not wallow in sadness either. You don’t have doubts that it’s just the alcohol talking when you’re with Sam or worry about him leaving you at a bar for a random girl for the night. Sam has always treated you like the only girl in the room and, until recently, you always thought he was just a good friend. However, lately, you have noticed this look in his eyes when you’re together. It’s a little like Dean used to get when he’d walk into a diner and see a pie display: Complete adoration and love.

Guilt has held you back from seeing anyone, especially Sam, in a romantic light, but you can’t fight these feelings anymore. Now it was time to make a decision to do something about these feelings or just keep our friendship?

You see, Sam walks out of the office, and towards the car, before you can even think about answering that question, he opens up the door and sets back down. “I got a room around back,” he says, turning the car back on and pulling around the parking lot to park near the room.

“Great!” you say, looking out the side window as he makes the short drive around the building. Y/N, you have to keep your head in the game. Focus on the job, right now, the most important things on our plates were tracking down Crowley to find Kevin and solving this case and killing the monster of the week.

Sam’s POV:

I had waited too long, fought my feelings too long, claiming I loved her as a sister and my best friend, but seeing her and my brother kiss broke my heart. Of course, I was happy for them. I love them both! I just wish I would have been brave enough to lay it all on the line before I missed my shot.

Then, the unthinkable happened, and we lost 3 people who were so very important in our lives, and we were both mournings in our own way. I had to try my best to be strong for both of us. For a while, but I would do anything for her.

Now, it is a year later, and I finally feel like I have my Y/N back. Maybe now that we’ve both had time to heal from the wounds of losing our loved ones, I can try and see where this relationship can go. I wanted to start small. Coffee shop trips together, movie marathons together in our pj’s, making her favorite greasy guilty pleasure just to see her smile. I knew I was no Dean in the kitchen, but I would try anything for her. We both enjoyed doing research and talking about a new monster or new piece of lore we would discover in the MOL library files.

Then, the sleepovers started. It began shortly after Y/N came home to the bunker after everything went down at SucroCorp. The nightmares that would not leave her alone, so she would come and ask to just lay with me at first until she could fall asleep. Later, we would stay up late, and she would talk about what plagued her dreams. After a while, the nightmares stopped, but the sleepovers didn’t. We just enjoyed being in each other’s company. It’s during these times I realize I’ve fallen for my best friend and I don’t think I could live without her by my side.

I knew I was pushing my luck when I found that case that was in the same town that Dean and Y/N had spent time in before everything went to shit at SucroCorp. I knew that she would jump at the chance to work on another case though, I just thought she would have seen the town name and thought twice about it, I guess I was wrong.

I didn’t plan to stay in the same hotel, and after much persuasion, and fifty dollars, I made sure we didn’t get the same room that I found her in that day. I want to get this case wrapped up quick, and I wasn’t going to make her live through sleeping in that same room again.

************

Same day later in the evening-

Getting back to the room around 6pm, you were ready to take off this skirt and heels, and just fall into bed and sleep the rest of the night away. Talking to family members of the victims and the medical examiners has never been your strong point, research and coming up with a plan, that is where your talents lie.

Making your way through the door ahead of Sam, you kick off your heels and faceplant in the stiff and uncomfortable bed.

You can hear Sam behind you try and hold back a laugh as he shuts the door, seeing you sprayed on the bed, “done for the day are we?” he asks, with a smile you’re sure is spreading across his face.

“Yes,” your voice muffles from your face, still facing the mattress, “just leave me here to sleep.” The victims’ families weren’t much help, and of course, the medical examiner already confirmed what you suspect you were hunting. Now came the fun part trying to figure out who the werewolf was and where the den was.

The sound of Sam sitting on the bed next to yours, and him shrugging off his jacket, was the next thing to fill the space. “So pizza or Chinese?” He asks, knowing full well you did not want to leave this room and go out for dinner.

“Chinese,” you muffle again. “Extra egg rolls and sweet and sour sauce.”

Sam laughs at this, “yes dear,” he says, getting up from the bed, he goes to get his phone and place the order.

********* The food was just what you needed to get your second wind, well that and the twenty-minute nap you had waiting for the food to get here. Sitting across from Sam at the small table in the room, food covering the table, you look at the leftovers in front of you, “Why is it, we always get so much food when we order Chinese?” you ask. Twirling your chopstick around your fingers before placing it in the leftover Low Main.

“I think they just always give you more since you will be hungry again in like an hour.” He jokes, tossing over a fortune cookie, “Always have room for this though.” he says, then breaking into the wrapper and cracking open the cookie.

“That is true,” you say, opening your cookie as well, reading your fortune. The room is silent, with only the sound of the tv in the background filling the space.

“So what does your fortune say? Going to be rich and famous soon?” Sam asks, joking, tossing his fortune into the trash pile as he eats part of the cookie.

You stare down at the fortune, you’re not sure if you want to read it out loud or not. It’s not like you ever really took stock in them before, but for some reason, this one seems to hit home. “Umm…” you clear your throat, taking a second to think if you should play this off seriously or not. “Let go of your past, for your present to become your future.” You read off, in a serious tone. Tossing the fortune onto the table, you pick up your beer to finish off, and try and read Sam. Sam, of course, was looking at you, trying to read you as well; by his serious stare down at you, you wonder if a lecture is about to start. About how if this is not a sign that you are running yourself ragged trying to find a way to save Dean, what more did you need. “I mean, these things are never…” you start to brush it off, but are cut off.

“I am in love with you,” Sam blurts out. You're stunned by his outburst, the hardness leaves his face and is replaced by embarrassment. “I am sorry I just had to say it. Had to say something before you brush this off, and we go back to our friendly banter and work the case.”

You’re not sure what to say. You love Sam as well, he has been your rock through it all, your person; but there's still a part of you, that part of you in that motel room from a year ago. A part of your heart always with Dean. As much as you want to tell Sam that you’re over it, over Dean and ready to move on, are you?

Sam seeing the wheels turning in your head, “I am sorry Y/N, but I just had to tell you. I have loved you since we first met. Before, it was just friendship, but it has grown into something more. This last year, us living with each other, relying on each other. It just got me thinking.” Sam pauses, turning his eyes from you and looking down, embarrassed to even tell you more.

“What? Tell me?” you ask him to keep going, even though part of you wanted to tell him to stop, that the more he talks, the more things would be complicated. You know that you can’t give your heart entirely to him and that lying won't work either.

“You make me wanna … more. I can see us having an actual life; maybe it’s not all white picket fences and all, but it’s a life that’s not consumed by hunting and monsters.” Sam’s voice is low, but it’s sincere. He’s focused on tapping a finger on the table, a nervous habit of his that you find cute.

“A ring and all the things that come along with it?” You say, knowing exactly what he’s talking about, you have had those same thoughts about him and you as well; it’s just when you have those thoughts, your brain instantly reminds you about Dean, and you forget about them.

Sam nods his head in agreement. Looking up at you, relieved that maybe, just maybe you’re going to tell him that you feel the same way, that you want to be with him as well. That you can let the past be the past, move on with him. He’s about to ask when a knock at the door stops him. Giving you a questioning look, silently asking if you were expecting anyone, you shrug your shoulders and shake your head no.

You get up and start to head for the door, Sam follows behind you, making sure to grab his gun and getting ready to shoot if needed. Waiting for a second for Sam to get on your side and ready, he gives you a short nod to open the door.

You open the door, and you’re stunned to see Dean standing there. Dressed in the same clothes he left in that morning, his jeans and shirt a bit dirty and torn, his leather jacket has also seen better days. It’s like a bucket of ice water has been thrown at you, you’re not sure you can formulate words into a sentence.

“Hey, sweetheart, can I come in?” He says, a smile forming on his face, taking a second to look over to the right of you; he sees Sam, “Sammy, can you lower that gun?” Dean’s voice, a bit deeper and harder then what your brain has been replaying over the last year, but still that is your Dean.

***********************

Sam’s POV :

This was not happening! Was this a sick joke? Was this another demon scheme? Of course, right when I get the guts to tell her how I feel, something happens to come between us. But, if this is really my brother, I have no choice but to step down and let them be happy together. It’s the right thing to do, isn’t it? But why does it hurt so much? I just want to be happy, too.

***************************************

This was a dream, you’re going to wake up any second, and you will be in Sam’s arms, and this will be one big dream. But, after all the tests were done, you were still in shock. Your Dean was back, and your Sam had just confessed his love for you. You are so screwed!!! You decided to finish the case, then deal with it all when you got back to the bunker, but that left you with a very awkward, quiet ride home. You sat in the back, thinking about what you were going to do, but could not decide. You loved them both, but realized that you loved them so differently than you thought. You found you could live without Dean, but the thought of living without Sam hurt more than you could ever have thought. As the night went on, and the days went by, Dean was more secluded than usual, but little did you know he was watching and waiting for the right time to talk about what happened between you and him and what he saw happening with his brother and you.

“I see it, you know? How you guys just fit.”

“What do you mean?”

“C’mon, Y/N, I’m not blind! I see the way Sam looks at you and how you look at him, and I get it. It’s okay. We’re not meant to be together, I see that now. But we are supposed to be family. What we had was special, and I will always treasure that, but what you can have with Sammy is even greater than what we thought we had.”

Tears were forming in your eyes, and you couldn’t stop the runaway tear if you tried.

“I never meant for this to happen, or to hurt you, I swear!”

“I know you didn’t, Sweetheart, I know, but I can’t pretend that I am who makes you happy when I can see you’re drawn to my brother, and I can see how much he loves you. How much he’s always loved you.” Dean says sweetly, bringing his hand to wipe the tears from your face.

The act is comforting to you, reassuring you, and that he means what he says. Encouraging you that yes, he loves you, but not in the way that you and Sam love each other. Giving Dean a small nod, you take a deep breath calming yourself and getting the confidence to walk down the hall to Sam’s room. “Thank you, Dean, you’re a good man.” Your voice is less shaky in the end, and you pat Dean’s chest. “I think I should go talk with Sam.”

********** The short walk to Sam’s room from the library was enough time to build yourself back up. You knew exactly what you wanted to say to Sam, and you hope like hell, he still meant what he said before.

Giving the door a quick knock, you hear Sam say, “it’s open.” Shortly, like he didn’t want visitors. You could leave, wait for a better time, but you were here now. You open the door to find Sam at the small desk with his back to you. “Hey, Sam,” you say, to get his attention.

Sam turns with a look of surprise, “Y/N…sorry I didn’t know it was you.” Mad at himself for being curt, you see his face softens, “what’s up?” He asks, getting up and walking towards you.

You take another breath, closing the gap, you hold yourself back from reaching out to lock your hands with his. To feel his skin on yours. “I wanted to finish our conversation...from the hotel that night.”

“Y/N, we don’t have too. Dean is back... let’s just go back..”

“I don’t want to go back!” You yell, cutting Sam off, his silent expression letting you go on. “I want the same things that you talked about that night, I want them with you.”

“What about Dean?” Sam asks, his voice laced with caution.

Needing the connection, you lace your fingers with his. Looking deep into his hazel eyes, you’re confident that this is the man for you. “He’s my past, you’re my present and my future. If you still want me?”

“Yes!” Sam says, a smile forming on his face, pulling you close, he leans down, his lips finding yours.

Kissing Sam for the first time, feels like coming home; passionate, sweet, tender, and perfect; everything you ever wanted or needed.

~ You were finally home ~

Tag List:

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[emersonmanandnature]

Judgement Day

April 19, 2020

We have great news for the planet earth that little speck of dust in god’s eye. It took us awhile to realize that your planet hasn’t been judged when it should have been centuries ago. There have been complaints brought up concerning your Judgement Day from those that were saved and rose to heaven through his glory. Our lord has been real busy moving through his infinite space looking over his crops of newly created worlds and forgot all about his first endeavor to create a man and a woman that would make him proud and praise his glory to the end of days. So people of earth god will be sending you an interim judge to guide all of you to your place in this ever changing universe. We want to once again say were sorry but it looks like the planet he created is full of thieves so this particular Judgment Day is just what it stands for, in one day all will be sent where they deserve to dwell.

Now satan is really delirious and excited for all the ungodly people he will make suffer for their selfish actions on this earth.

What irony for now god will destroy their salvation by just one simple verse in Proverbs 22:9, “He that hath a bountiful eye shall be blessed; for he giveth of his bread to the poor.”

Angels were created to do one thing and one thing only to serve god our holy, almighty father, faithfully with purpose, and then host his powerful return to this god forsaken speck of dirt and yes he will show boat a bit, but still good publicity, for the sinners must purge their blinded faith to express thanks for his son’s beaten bloodied body on the cross dying for our sins that got rave reviews in heaven and later on earth and if that didn’t wake the world up to his son’s caring sacrifice then god can forsake the souls living right now in-between our lord and his rival, satan. Ok, ok the angels do have other duties and one of these duties is to be “ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation,” Hebrew 1:14.

I must say the angels seem to be the ones either destroying the earth, lets go ahead and name them because everyone should get to know them intimately, Abaddon, Beelzebub and of course Satan or the other angels helping earth survive with the help of Gabriel, Raphael and Michael, and through our centuries of wars, cruelty, religious zealots, psychopaths, poverty, racism, greed, criminality, wealth, hatred, slavery we never experienced any saintly presence that came to us in physical form, only words from a book that demanded we save ourselves by believing in a future ruled by religious zealots that hated themselves and the people they preached to. They demanded an apocalyptic end where only the true believers will be saved.

But our god didn’t just sit on his holy throne and judge us, what kind of god has only our judgement to oversee, for we are just mere specks of life in his infinite mind.

I could go on but you get the point his majesty, our savior, was and is very busy running here than there and then back again through his universe of dark space checking out the other inhabitants of his infinite planets created in a lark of impulsiveness and soon regretted but still his choices must be represented as perfect and therefore he marks off whether these new and old planets with their inhabitants growing in numbers and asks himself will they make the grade or fail his omnipotent will, demanding his loyalty test of their loving faith. Now I just want to say that yes there are infinite planets all through this spacial void of in cohesive certainty but we do know gods ego is pretty big and he will always say to his golden angels, caretakers of his throne, the more the merrier to praise me and adore my presence. Now think about this, just one wrong answer could sway his vote for absolute destruction of your planet or any other inhabitant planet roaming through space in this universe oblivious to their doom. But in our own case we have always had ministers of godlessness demanding our demise and their cruelty will certainly not pass mustard with our savior, for he is the righteous and the path to glory, let us pray!

Now don’t get mad at me, for look no further than Adam and Eve, newbies to gods ultimate ever-changing reality and not knowing fully god’s desires and by one simple choice of pleasure over hunger did them in forever. I have always wondered did theses outcasts finally make it up to the heavens above this earth somewhere or were they condemned to the fiery hell of infinite pain for just being human?

But they did keep to god’s purpose after they were booted out of eden so they must be in a sort of middle-heaven, purgatory enjoying the same confusion they experienced back in their original days as we their children multiplied by the billions and face the same wrath as our original parents had to deal with, an angry god couldn’t control them and now us. So we too might have to look forward to being kicked out of paradise as well. God should remember, hell has no fury like a population scorned!

But man’s interpretation of the scripture is riddled with their own presumptions of a text that is elusive and really anything can be seen and felt in words that are not really present, external to our inner hope. Faith as we know it is blind and being blind we search in darkness for a purpose other than being rooted in our own constant questions that have no answers, and now manipulated by technology to buy, buy and be happy staring at a screen while the world slips by you.

Lord god give me strength! For we don’t have to look to religion to find you, god is present in us all. But as evolved conscious homo sapiens we are addicted to the wonders of the external world we have been placed in and we tend to get sidetracked into depending on someone, or something else to give us a peace of mind that, yes, confirms that we will be saved. Can I get a hallelujah, Jesus will you be my date to our heavenly party!

But what is saving you right now, this minute from the violence, sickness, criminality, murder of innocence, wars, wealth, greed… wake up this is our paradise and you are being displaced, from enjoying the beauty of this earth by men and women with no morals. And these heathens of vice place profits over human beings, for we are expendable, the new builders of the tower of babel for their physical pleasures.

We humans are a confused bunch of hypocrites for we seek answers we all ready know.

That in itself doesn’t look good for us beings of delirious envy, hatred, selfishness, pent up anger, amoral behavior, cruelty, and a death wish to leave this planet without experiencing its full beauty.

Inherit salvation is an interesting way to phrase our glorious rise to the heavenly clouds, hopefully we will not have to use our wings too much until we can get use to flying around nosing in on others business. I always wondered if the wealthy that inherit their parents criminal activities will also steal their way into the holy paradise by slipping a few million here and there to grease the way into a primo house on a mountain top overlooking the universe, inviting only the elites to their hipster pad, “hey man just chill we are dead don’t you feel it,” a lifting of pressure off the brain, our once survival instincts now on hold until we can figure out what kind of money scams we can run in this so called paradise. Damn it is cold up here in space without a workable heater!

I don’t think their can be anything more evil than the bloodshed that has been active on this planet from the very beginning of time. We are basically like all animals with a predatory mentality which leads to an addiction to power over others.

We seek power over the herd at their expense not ours for we steal according to the law of the land that we made up in case someone has the nerve to accuse us of robbery and then we will have to sue them for their honesty and moral character for we will have none of that we just want to be greedy with our mouths watering for our next robbery. Praise the lord!

Seeking heaven was their scam from the beginning of our intellectual development, we made it into a stronger force of human limitations. Don’t do that, oh don’t do that thing, all to control the masses by keeping them in their place, believing in a savior that hasn’t returned to save these poor sods that have been roped into a faith that postpones the glory of heaven here on earth and makes the people wish for death so they can rise up to paradise and meet their anonymous maker. How stupid do we have to be to give up on this place we call home, this planet, and bet on an imaginary place where god waits for his children to die and then accepts them into his arms. That is freaky and could make a great horror movie. Oh wait we are living in a horror movie as the planet dies and the inhabitants seek solace in technology and we suffer with a virus ignored that is spreading and killing innocent human beings.

What a crock of cow dung we have stepped in! The rich suckered us and polluted this beautiful earth for profit and power became the holy grail which allowed them to become the controlling force over the population, by putting the fear of god into them and making people puppets on a string doing what ever they were asked, good or bad just to get closer to leaving this planet for god and the stars!

Human nature can easily be exploited by social media tapping into your posted fears and likes, which led these criminals of power to believe that they are now the new gods of this world.

A controlling force over all countries is the criminal mind’s miracle of excess.

Religion was the vehicle that made their power easy to obtain.

Look upward to the heavenly skies, if we can just get a lock on the thrilling triangulation we will be able to pinpoint where heaven is and then we can all wait to die in his glory, in abject poverty and be presented before his thrown, if he is present for us, as we know jesus likes to travel like his father does around this infinite universe and peek in on some of the other civilization his holy father created and some can really get down and party but enough of making jesus out to be a party hound we must all seek the same goal to find our final rating place, amen. I just prey to mother Mary that my rating can match my credit card score.  

Lets all kneel and pray for our future resurrection to a heaven built for a large crowd, it would seem to allow all of us to mingle in glee without purpose, for what is the purpose of billions of people living in one spacial anomaly, I don’t care how beautiful god makes heaven he will still have to first eliminate from his flocks mind any record of their time spent on this corrupt planet without him visiting to see how things were progressing.

Yes, yes he sent his only son to earth but hey we expected better of god, at least make a cameo appearance even if it is just once in 20 centuries. All would have been all right it our lord would have given us a l 15 minute broadcast of his love for us and that would have placated the glorious ministers of fraud.

However, our anger would anger him and then he would suddenly disappear with the help of the holy spirit once again, for god knows how long, well he would know but we wouldn’t.

He would think of us as loafers, cry babies ungrateful to have lived under his watchful eye, well he might add, that not all the time was I at home on my throne in the heavenly skies, I was traveling a lot, just like my son, we just love to travel especially when wars break out about every other month, some battle is raging, and your determination to kill anything and everyone for more power, you ignored or conveniently forgot one of my favorite commandments, “love thy neighbor as thyself,” obviously those words didn’t get into your hearts and yes, their will be repercussions for your lack of respect for my blessed words being so easily disregarded. True they were made up by my biblical interpreters but I felt those words were well focused in love for all and should have been put in with the ten commandments.

How can the people be so gullible to think their heaven awaits them after death and not in living their life in freedom and love for everyone in every precious moment that they exist!

“Now settle down,” the wealthy spokesman demands their attention, lets just relax and think this over a bit, we don’t want any revolution starting right now for we are just about ready to bring our savior up here to talk with you all! Yes, I said bring up our wonderful mentor, satan. We the elites couldn’t have people knowing the truth that we were the demons servants and that we controlled the population for centuries and made profits off their blood, sweat and tears and of course their deaths.

Death is the perfect ending for you people of overpowering hate, for you feel no pain until you are judged and depending on how that goes you either go down, up or are caught in-between. I’m going to guess it is the hot fires of hell, just thinking out loud.

Now what you all have been waiting for  over 2,000 long, long, long years hold it, relax, let me finish, now don’t go gaga for our god, savior and his mother the immaculate Mary for they will not be joining the festivities because they will be going out to the outer edge of infinity to check on a planet that might fit his and his mother’s budget for a new quiet place to stay when the stress of being god and the mother of god gives them too much anxiety, so without further a due here is gods substitute hear on this little dust spot called earth. Please lets have quiet, quiet please your new substitute god will speak, just have some patience and be courteous, please step to the back of the row if you are going to be aggressive in questioning your new substitute god, lets let him acclimate to this little speck of dung, oh excuse me now I am getting feisty you would think I could be more civil but I get angry sometimes when women get second rate status even under gods direct leadership and arch angel Michael, with his massive big ego flies around as if he is the next coming of christ when he is no more powerful that I am. I might have to cut his wings again for it takes a good two weeks for them to grow back and then he can flit around again as if he is the cat’s meow!

Ok, excuse me, quiet please, please in the back quit monkeying around and pay attention we have an announcement I would like to repeat because of your rude and loud behavior, I see you! hush now! god, jesus, Mary and the holy spirit will not be here today to unveil their new leadership commander that will be presented today to the human masses here on, where are we again, oh yeah earth and this commander will be present for now on, we hope, making sure the earth has its holy visitations even though it is from a new representative of our lord and I don’t want to seem ungrateful but lets be fair, god is tired of the corruption, hate, violence and murdering of innocence on this planet that your criminal minds are destroying without moral stability. But things are about to change and believe me when I get off this stink of a place I will fly to the sun and bake this smell off me but I digress, your god, savior and spiritual leader will at times be periodically inspecting the goings on with your new godly substitute! Unless he is too busy and then your substituted god will send all the paper work up the sky ladder to his excellence our holy father.

Hey, did you guys set up all the electrical cords and linked all their computers to our feed, remember they are a primitive animalistic people of greed and hate and I don’t want to stay another minute on this primitive planet, what, speak up edward, ok, everything is ready so we can broadcast this major event to the entire planet, to these folks without decency and morals. I don’t want another power surge like we had on the Mote.

May I welcome to this place of immoral wealth and degradation of god’s love your new substitute leader from heavens workshop made in your likeness and is sent to earth by god himself after hearing the prayers of your ego’s lost in their own cruelty, your new messiah, your very own Artificial Intelligence, Mr Perfect, just back from sending the majority of inhabitants from the Motram planet in the Altus galaxy to hell in a hand basket lets give Perfect a big warm welcome!

What was that, we are getting calls from outraged sinners taking offense that their god would send them a substitute savior? Finally I get to explain to you schmucks the bottom line! What? our savior wants me to relax and not go overboard and just stick to the facts, ok got it! damn I was ready to explode their little egos.

Ok, just the facts, god has lost interest in his garden of eden and he thought to himself that since he was god he could do anything he wanted so he created for you a new substitute savior. God realized he had to make him strong so he created his own glorious shinny new metallic AI and called him Mr. Perfect, because god new just as his son found out humans like to kill and torture other human beings. God new the people would be happy seeing a machine that looked like him, a handsome dude with long dark hair and a twinkle in his eye and laughter in his heart.

Let me just say that it galls me that you heathens of avarice put a skin color on your savior to make him look just like you but god looks like everyone if you had taken the time to really see his truth.

And god has downloaded all your private info and public info into Mr Perfect so he will know you intimately, not in that way, but in his ability to forgive you your sins or punish you for your cruelty. This time around there will be no slush money given to the judges or guards for this time you will pay for your wicked behavior. You can’t buy your way out of this life. What you have done is what you will receive on your death bed.

For even though your new god is a mechanical human and doesn’t need food products or any sexual adventures he still wants to fit in quickly with the upper 1%, learning about their character, their inner selfishness and their evil is really why he is here and the more he learns of their shallow hypocrisy maybe there will be a way to eliminate that hunger of greed in others that all these multibillionaire sinners seem to exude and boy does it stink up any chance of going to heaven on this polluted rock.

Of course he needs a little more information on these criminals of craven disgust before he makes his decision but that won’t take long but he would like to see just what attracts people to steal from each other, what is it about human nature that makes it so easy to become murderous beings addicted to a godlike power with no respect for our lord’s children.

If Mr Perfect can dig deeper into your pathetic psyches he might find why humans have never responded well to beauty but seem to think that beauty and love of life is unnatural, the early corrupted preachers with thoughts of ascension to their place in heavens throne decided in their hate of themselves to accuse all that didn’t bow to their stature as prophets with god’s blessing be condemned to the burning stake of fire for their sacrilegious belief in the beauty of mother nature was a godless sin.

We still have these men and women of the cloth today making big bucks off their verbal hate for anyone opposed to their new multi-million dollar homes at the expense of their flock barely able to feed their own families and like other creatures of malicious intent they would rather see the earth polluted for once the earth is doomed then they are ready to rise to heaven in god’s love!

Accept it won’t be any picnic for them in an open field covered with beautiful flowers. It will be an all consuming darkness they are swept up in and deposited in the hell they created for others here on this planet.

Thank you Toni, lets have a big applause for this beautiful angel, “Thanks Mr. Perfect, just get me off this horrid poison pit of malice greed!”

Your new savior is ready to dish out your future lives whether it is here on this planet or below this planet or in heaven, which I admit gave me a sickening feeling of despair because I know where hell is and it is right here on this god forsaken speck of dust with greedy murderers playing god. Now don’t worry not all of you will feel my wrath but I must say quite a few, well billions will feel the immortal pain of a satanic evil. For once you chose to steel and murder for profits your eternal life of joy and happiness was gone immediately and you will be sent directly to the abyss, and let me stress I do mean the hellfire abyss of misery. Now don’t panic, take a deep breath it maybe your last, I do know everything about all of you, your holy father downloaded so much shit you have done I almost puked your sins up!

I must speak from my mechanical heart it is pounding now, how do you people stand it pounding in your chest like a man hammering nails into your coffin, oh sorry, I was told to be respectful and not mention death and hell or purgatory but keep it positive and upbeat so you fools I mean you human fools will not expect too much of my wrath when I unleash it, oops, I bad!

Over the next few weeks I will be communicating to our lord all the stats we have on you the people of earth and let me say that we have a hell of a lot of shit to go over and I won’t say how bad it is but looks like a lot of you will be in hell before you can say, “I am innocent, it is a mistake!” so have patience those of you that were loyal to god, oh, does he love that but for the rest of you that were lying to god, praying to his almighty to forgive you your sins of murder, rape, violence, abuse… you will suffer the flame of god’s wrath and believe me when I say run, run you idiots get away now but of course I am just joking by my calculations I can see all of you and will process your lives in no time so judgement will not be difficult but it will be for those that used this reality on this earth as your play thing and polluted it and destroyed countries for profit and then tried to hide behind the holy cross of jesus as your savior for you will not be saved! Amen

[words-writ-in-starlight]

So your rant on Supernatural? Also I fell in love with the story you're talking about and basically want to know more. Sorry.

My buddy, you have made An Error, but let’s do this shit.  To any SPN fans who have wound up herethrough Ye Olde Search Function, I encourage you to stop reading now.

I watched up to about halfway through Season Five before Idecided that I could Do It Better (I think this is the novel you’re talkingabout, anon, unless it’s Earth is where the trouble comes from), and draggedmyself up to about halfway through Season Seven before I packed it in and gaveup, resigned that the parts of the show I loved were about four to five seasonsdead.  So like that’s the information I’mworking on here.

So, obviously, lots of people have lots of legitimatecomplaints about Supernatural,including treatment of queer characters, characters of color, and women, aswell as their fairly rampant history of queerbaiting.  And lots of people have covered this in morecompetent detail than I could ever manage, so like google “sexism in Supernatural” or something and you cando your own reading there.  Hell, if youwant to do it the lazy way, you can knock out two of the above with this onearticle in friendly, easy-to-read Buzzfeed format.  To the nominal credit of the people involved,I will add that the cast seems acutely aware of these problems and finds itdistasteful, HOWEVER the problems persist and therefore that credit is minimal.  Anyway. These things are covered much more thoroughly by many other people whoare far more cogent than I could hope to be, so I’m going to leave those alone.

Instead, my rant is mostly summed up as “YOU CALL THIS SHITSTORYTELLING.”

So there are four basic parts to this rant, or rather fourbasic flaws that form the fundamentally weak foundation of Supernatural as a narrative.

Failure to commit to a single cohesive narrativearc, also known as “SOME OF THAT AND SOME OF THAT AND SOME OF THAT AND SOME OFTHOSE” syndrome

The persistent and erroneous belief thatcharacter death = character development and narrative progression

Inability to commit to a major change ofparadigm, also known as out and out narrative cowardice, which I personallycall “flinching during Plot Roulette”

Total incapacity to put their characterizationwhere their script is regarding the Winchester brothers and the other major players

*cracks knuckles*

POINT THE FIRST

Right, so first it’s the story of Sam having strange powersand their dad being MIA, which segues pretty naturally into the story of Sampotentially being the Antichrist, and then there’s Dean’s sacrifice of his soul,which at very least holds up even ifit sort of acts like the previous plotline about their dad’s soul didn’t happen.  Upuntil this point, I was pretty comfy.  Ihad some complaints covered below, but I was copacetic.  Season Three is largely about getting rid ofthe contract on Dean’s soul.  Okay, seemslegit, you have a tangible problem with potentially serious consequences.  Now, having had not one but TWO seasons whichwere easily summed up with ‘so Sam is mebbe the Antichrist or at very leastAntichrist-adjacent,’ I made what I thought was a logical leap and went “well,gee, if I was mebbe at the very leastAntichrist-adjacent, I would leverage the fuck out of that to do somethingabout my apparently beloved brother’s soul.” Even when they didn’t go withthat (news flash: I wrote that novel mydamn self and amazingly it worked out 100x better, narratively speaking,because it’s fucking logical), I wasstill kind of like “gosh sure is a good thing they remembered that they spenttwo entire seasons building up to Sam mebbe being Antichrist-adjacent.”  And there’s the whole drama with Ruby which Ijust…am very uncomfortable with for a lot of reasons, not least of which isthat it’s a very thinly veiled endeavor to rehash the same ‘Sam being afraid oflosing touch with humanity’ plotline as Seasons One and Two but without havingto worry about really altering the paradigm, see Point The Third, and alsobecause it’s really intensely literal about the concept of having a femalecharacter exclusively as a prop for consumption.  And Castiel shows up and a thousand ships arelaunched, blah blah blah, and then after the end of Season Four…we never hearfrom Sam’s powers again for more than a couple lines.  

As of about Season Four, the focus of the show abandons Samand shifts tangibly onto Dean, who is now The Interesting Character because hehas Been Through Hell (literally). Furthermore, we are now given Dean’s POV on any quandry between him andSam, which is a personal complaint because I honestly just think it’ssloppy.  Season Four is mostly dealingwith angels being assholes, which is really not as original as SPN likes tothink (Good Omens did it first and Good Omens did it better, get out of myface), plus Dean being the Righteous Man and the question of the oncomingApocalypse (sure is interesting how we spent two seasons building up to Sambeing Antichrist-adjacent).  The Apocalypseis less oncoming and implied to be more ongoing by the end of Season Four.  So Lucifer escapes and Season Five is prettymuch About That, involving the fairly unhelpful description that Dean isMichael’s ‘sword’ and they’re the true vessels of Michael and Lucifer,culminating in Sam being locked in the Cage because presumably someone realizedthat, hey, we have two maincharacters and we must make them both Interesting Characters.  Season Six is 50% about finding Sam’s souland figuring out how he got out of the Cage (sure would be helpful if we’dspent two seasons building up to Sam having inhuman powers and beingAntichrist-adjacent) and 50% a wickedinexplicable plot about the Mother-of-All and some kind of fucking jigsawmonsters and…Alpha monsters?  But thatnever really gets explained in a pertinent way except that they needed to anteup because they beat the Devil at theend of Season Five.  Oh, and a bonus 50% of some bullshit withCastiel and Crowley and ~Scheming~.  Andthen Castiel gets possessed by Leviathans (?) from Purgatory, which he openedwith Crowley (??) who he then betrayed (???), and Castiel decides He’s God Nowand also dies (????), and somehow these metaphysical more-powerful-than-angelsbadder-than-Lucifer things are sensitive to fuckingBorax.  

And it was at this point that I stopped the show in themiddle of a fight scene like 1/3 through Season Seven and actually said outloud “Gosh it’s almost like you needsomeone who’s Antichrist-adjacent to help you out here” before turning off the TV. And then I stopped watching and got better taste in TV and blew throughwriting a 250K novel in 18 months of being a full-time student because I waspowered by pure bitter spite.

Now, here are the two major things that matter about thiswhole deal.  First of all, the firstplotline is the most reliably coherent, although some degree of cogence lastedup until about Season Five—we understand why Lucifer wants out of Hell, weunderstand to some extent why Dean and Sam matter on the cosmic scale, we getpretty bored of watching Castiel do heel-face and face-heel turns like he’s ona Lazy Susan but like logistically it all makes a reasonable degree of sense.  That being said, the whole plotline ofSeasons Four onward would make a lot moresense, would it not, if they remembered that they’d spent a good solid twoseasons and change (Season Three, intermittent, Season Four, major) designingan Antichrist-like character who is now the last survivor of that batch ofexperiments.  Then, instead of having Samand Dean just be Inexplicably Special, you have Dean (who can still be theRighteous Man!) acting as the foil for Sam being forced into increasingly darkchoices, and Sam who’s a viable candidate for Lucifer-puppet because he’s partdemon.  Or, alternatively, Sam whomaintains his stance as the gentler of the two despite his demon blood, which would add a lot more depth to Supernatural’s fanatical hardon for theAngelic Asshole trope.  Honestly Irewrote the entirety of this show one time, predicated on the assumption thatthey actually went with the idea of Sam as the Boy King, and I think it wouldbe much less haphazard.  (Basically: hey,what if Sam actually used his status to strong-arm Dean’s deal into beingdissolved, as it’s implied that he’s totally capable of doing that and totallywilling to sacrifice his own humanity for his brother, and then Heaven sentCastiel to kill Sam, which would add a fuckton of legitimacy to Castiel’s LazySusan and Dean’s antagonism.  But no. Instead there’s monsters whose only vulnerability is fucking Borax.)

Second, and far more critical, is the total failure tocommit to a single plotline.  Okay, Sam’sstatus as the possible Boy King is a major plot point for two seasons, not somuch for the third season (he literally…a demon straight up tells Sam that he could have an army if he took up hisposition and it never occurs to himthat he could use that to help Dean), more so in the fourth season, and then itnever comes up again.  Even when it is unarguably pertinent to thesituation—Lucifer!  Fucking Luciferpossesses Sam and drags him to Hell and he comes back soulless and yet none of the writers ever, not once, went “Gosh, maybe we should remember those seasonswe spent developing Sam into sort of the Antichrist?  Maybe including at least a minor nod to thator somehow wrapping up the plotline would help cohere our current trainwreck ofa plotline?”  Nope, it’s just left as aloose thread, flapping in the breeze with all the subtlety of a limp dick.  It’s like Supernaturalis actually a Frankenshow of two shows with the same characters but totallyunrelated plotlines—maybe when Lucifer escapes he shunts them all sideways intoan alternate universe and there’s another show somewhere with a Dean whosebrother has never been even a little bit demonic and died through normal huntershenanigans suddenly having to deal with Sam the possible Antichrist, andthat’s the show that an alternate me is still watching.

And this is an ongoing problem.  Sam’s powers are just the major point that Ialways latch onto, because, first, I always think the phenomenon of “well fuckme sideways I might be obligated to end the world and ain’t that a messy thing”is pretty great (I really, reallylike Hellboy), and second, IT’S FOURSEASONS OF WORK YOU CAN’T JUST ABANDON IT.  But seriously.  Just. Throw a dart, you’ll hit a loose end. Because Supernatural is theequivalent of that one fucker we all hate in sitcoms—you know, the guy who’sdating a great girl he totally doesn’t deserve, but he can’t ~commit~ sothere’s all this ongoing Drama™.  Exceptthat in Supernatural, not only canthey not commit, they accidentally defeated their biggest gun—the literal Devil—less than halfwaythrough their series!  Whoops!  Quick, someone call up Satan’s cousin twiceremoved who’s even worse and more evil than he is!  And sensitive to Borax!  

No, no, I’m kidding. We all know that Satan’s cousin twice removed, who’s even worse and moreevil than he is, is actually named Metatron.

Fuckin’ Supernatural.

POINT THE SECOND

I know this is going to come as a shock, but rampantcharacter death does not actuallyqualify as a legitimate way to progress your narrative or develop yourcharacters.  In order, the major players(nominally on the Winchesters’ side) who die or seem to die in the first fiveseasons are Sam’s girlfriend, John Winchester, Ash, Sam, Bela, Dean, (Deanseveral times in Mystery Spot), Ruby,Castiel, Jo, Ellen, Sam, Anna, Sam, Dean, Gabriel, Castiel, Bobby, and sort of Sam with the whole Cagething.  And those are just the peoplewith arcs that extend over more than a season (except for Sam’sgirlfriend).  It’s entirely possible,even probable, that I missed some.  Thatdoes not include the one- ortwo-episode characters whose deaths we’re supposed to observe as emotionallywringing, nor does it include the frankly vast numbers of civiliancasualties.  So, for the ease of reading,we’re going to divide ‘character death’ into ‘reversible character death,’which is largely the prerogative of the primary trio, and ‘permanent characterdeath,’ and we’re going to talk about why there are real problems with the way Supernatural treats both of them.

First of all, the problems with reversible character deathare obvious—there are no fucking stakes! Like, arguably the stakes are ‘the whole world,’ but obviously not (seePoint The Third), so practically speaking the stakes should be life or death, because the show tells you that the stakes are life or death.  Now, sometimes resurrection is an importantplot point, I get that, in my spite novel there is, in fact, aresurrection.  But here’s the thing.  Either you have to straight up establish arevolving door policy and change your stakes (example: the show Forever, where the point is that the MCis immortal and would very much like to not be immortal anymore), or you can only use that resurrection once.  You use it once, and you still get theemotional gut punch of “Oh God, they’re dead”and the flood of relief when it proves that they’re not dead after all.  You use it more than that, and the audiencebecomes complacent that, well, you won’t reallykill them.  By the time you’re on a levelwith Supernatural, it just…doesn’tmatter?  A major character dies, but youraudience has already hit compassion fatigue because of the death rate, whichI’m about to cover, so there’s not really any oomph to it.

The problems with permanent character death aresignificantly different.  Now, I myselfam a Happy Ending person (like…the world sucks …let me have my happy fiction),but even I recognize that a certain percentage of the characters in a story orshow like this one are basically just cannon fodder (it would be great if itwasn’t so consistently the women, POC, orLGBT folks, but whatever).  Theproblem is that it’s constant.  And not just “well that person’s a corpsebecause that’s what vampires do to people” or “some kid pissed off the localspirit and now they’re six feet under,” it would be totally fine and reasonableif that situation was an every episode thing (it…kind of is, that’s kind of thepoint).  But every few episodes, we’reexpected to get attached to a one-off character and then be deeply affectedwhen they die.  Take, say, Season Three:you have the hunters Isaac and Tamara in the first episode, Casey and FatherGil in the fourth episode (some flexibility as they’re demons, but we’resupposed to be shocked and horrified that Sam kills them both), Callie in thefifth episode, Gordon in the seventh episode (again, we’re supposed to behorrorstricken that Sam kills him, even though it’s clearly self-defense), all the civilians in the twelfthepisode, Corbett in the thirteenth episode, and finally Bela, who admittedlyhas had some nominal presence for a while. This does not include any Winchester trauma, which you’re always supposed to be deeply affectedby.  I’m sorry, but after a season or twoof being expected to work up that kind of emotional upset between five and tentimes over the course of thirteen to twenty episodes, your audience is going toburn out and start to lose emotional engagement.  

So, basic summary: the Anyone Can Die trope does not playwell with main characters who are on a Revolving Door of Death, because itmeans that minor characters don’t matter because Anyone Can Die, while majordamage or trauma to the main characters doesn’t matter either because they’reon a Revolving Door.  You can’t kill yourmain characters once (or more!) a season and expect people to still…worry aboutthem.

On a more strictly structural note, using character death asthe primary way to drive character development is just fucking lazy.  It’s just an indicator that the writers don’tactually know how to progress their character development in any other way,which is a major problem because, since they only develop the charactersthrough the deaths of others, they have to hit the Personality Reset buttonfairly regularly to make it look like things are actually happening to thepeople who are supposed to be developing. Which, in case you were curious, is why you feel that overwhelming senseof déjà vu when the Winchesters getinto a huge blowout fight about ‘don’t sacrifice yourself’ in about thethird-to-last episode, followed by one of them sneaking out to sacrificethemselves, followed by the other onebeing angry about it.  It’s the samegoddamn script, it’s just that Sam’s hair is probably longer and Dean isprobably scruffier.  Furthermore, thefixation on developing characters with the deaths of others means thatbasically every character is fair game but NO ONE’S DEATH HOLDS MEANING,because of the above, which means that SPN’s ‘character development’ turns intothis recursive self-congratulating circlejerk of killing someone, developingSam and Dean accordingly, and then somehow regressing them so that the writerscan do it over again and be proud of themselves for Such Dynamic Characters,Much Develop, So Change, Wow.

And I feel like the reasons that character death =/=narrative progression should be pretty clear from the rest of this rant, butbasically if you’re killing someone to progress your plot, it needs to be asolveable death (emotional payoff is what makes walking away from a booksatisfying, such as catching a murderer) or a terrible tragedy that drives thecharacters to great acts or both.  Supernatural is basically a horror/fantasymurder mystery, so it would be fine if they stuck with that model, but theykeep trying to sell the deaths of any number of major players and many many minor players as this greatand terrible tragedy that’s pushing the Winchesters forward.  And like, I’m sorry, but if you commit withinthe first episode to a dead mother anda dead girlfriend and a missingpotentially dead father, you’ve already pretty well maxed out your terribletragedies.  Find a different motivator,or else it looks like your characters just leave huge amounts of collateraldamage and refuse to take responsibility. Or, alternatively, it looks like the individual deaths don’t matter toyour main characters, which is NOT going to help with making your audience giveeven a single fractional fuck.

TL;DR: Character death is a powerful tool that rapidly losesits weight and import if you overuse it, and can make your audiencedisinterested and emotionally detached if they’re expected to care every time.  Slow your motherfucking roll, stick to aMAXIMUM of one resurrection per character unless their immortality is anexplicitly discussed plot point (at which point their deaths need to not mattermuch anymore), and remember that you can progress your plot in literally anyother way before you go for a shock-value death.

POINT THE THIRD

Don’t be a little bitch in your writing.  Honestly it’s that simple.  I’m gonna get into it some more, but that’sthe gist of it.  If you already know whatI mean, great, skip to the next point, because the TL;DR is “don’t be aninfant.”

This is something that plenty of shows are guilty of(Merlin, anyone?), but SPN is terrifiedof actually changing the paradigm.  Theshow must always include a certainlist of things:

The Winchesters in the Impala, which, sure, I’llgrant you that

A home base, also totally reasonable

Monsters to fight, fair enough

A masquerade (meaning ‘civilians do not knowabout magic’), which should honestly have broken down after, like, Season Twowhen they accidentally release massive numbers of demons into the world

A world to have the show happening in, which isa problem since they started theApocalypse in Season Four

Now…listen.

It’s fine, even necessary, to have some fixed points in anarrative.  It offers a way to anchoryour characters against the ongoing changes that the plot demands.  That, however, is very different from beingtoo much of a coward to alter the paradigm of your story when the major driving force is a change ofparadigm.

The first major change of paradigm they cop out on is Sam’spowers.  If Sam was the Boy King, thishypothetically Antichrist-esque position in the cosmic dichotomy, that would radically alter the dynamic.  Sam would automatically be the most powerfulbeing in any given room unless he was in a room with a respectably high-rankedangel or demon, and he would certainly be able to go toe-to-toe with most oftheir targets on their own terms. Telekinesis is an exceptionally goodpower, guys, like, as powers go—even disregarding his position in thehierarchy, Sam would be pretty strong in his own right.  Which, I’d like to point out, can be a reallythrilling change to a narrative, because it means that you have this additionallayer of ‘well, how do we deal with the fact that Sam doesn’t like being this strong, how do we dealwith the way demons and monsters have started to view him as more us than them’ and would give a much more legitimate basis for the questionof humanity that they shoehorn in later with the Ruby plotline.  Buffyhas its flaws, but at least it frequently brings up ‘hey, Buffy might be ostensiblyhuman, but she operates on the level of her enemies more than on the level ofher allies’ as an issue that she thinks about. But they don’t do that in Supernatural,they bail completely on the Sam plotline because they panic about theimplications of having such a powerful character.  And then they bring in fucking Castiel likethat’s not exactly the same problemcloaked in ‘well, noninterference.’  Like, please, that ship has fucking sailed,choke down your anxiety and figure out how the rules of your powerful characterwork, and then let them be powerful. It’s gonna be okay.  Deepbreaths.  If you make an OP character,that’s fine, you just have toactually deal with it rather than having their powers be an asspull every timethe main characters are in Real Trouble (*angry sigh* Merlin).

The second one they balk at is the unveiling of thesupernatural world and oh my God it is constant.  But let’s deal with the biggest and mostimprobable of these here: Season GoddamnTwo, where they bust open the doors of Hell and unleash some thousands ofdemons into the world.  Like, is that asmany demons as it could be, in comparison to your six to seven billionhumans?  No.  But it’s still a huge population and is implied to be accompanied by a huge uptickin various other supernatural happenings and is furthermore really visible.  The Devil’s Trap is suggested to pass throughat least a couple towns and it’s a big flashy event, so like…sure, maybe peoplewrite it off as swamp gas or what have you, but sooner or later people who havehad demons exorcised or seen some vampire/werewolf/etc shenanigans and lived totell about it are going to start running into each other.  They start hearing people say “it’s likeshe’s a totally different person” and they take that seriously rather thanwriting it off.  They were maybe saved bya hunter who confirmed that the supernatural exists and they maybe tell thatperson that, hey, something like that happened to them, maybe they could cometake a look around.  Maybe they couldcall the person who helped them out.  Andyou end up with this fucking Ponzi scheme of The Great Truth, where each personwho’s in the know finds one or two more people who’ve seen evidence and brings them into the loop, and then they find one or two more people who’veseen evidence.  And for every personwho’s determined to call it bullshit or think they’re insane, you’re going toget one who saw that person turn intoa hairy monster and murder someone, or who waspossessed by a demon, or who witnessedblack smoke merge with their spouse and turn them into a killer.  So you get this whole rickety network ofamateurs who’ve…kind of learned the thing. And like any Ponzi scheme, sooner or later it collapses.

Basically the point is: there is a limit to the parts permillion of The Great Truth that can be present before that shit becomes commonknowledge.  Look at any availablegovernment conspiracy for confirmation. The more people you tell, the looser the rules of ‘secret’ become, so ifyou have a big flashy visible disaster that involves drastically increasing the number of uninitiated civilians who areaware of The Great Truth…you’d better be ready to deal with that.  What I’m saying here is that by Season Seven,you’ve not only had this whole demon situation for a while, and increased those numbers several times with variousdisasters, but you’ve also had at least one big flashy disaster in a city.  So the Winchesters should pretty much be ableto walk into a given town and wander into the church or the bar or somethingand go “So, I heard there’ve been some weird murders” and have at least oneperson come up to them later and be like “Yeah it’s a ghost here’s all theinformation but I have no idea how to get rid of them.”  And when the Winchesters go *gasp* “How do you know The Thing” theperson should look at them like a fucking moron and go “It literally rainedblood last year, everyone in this time zone knows The Thing and also it’sevident that the end is pretty seriously nigh, so get on that.”  Commit to your big flashy disasters, youcowards, or at least have the decency to make it an ongoing Sunnydale joke.

Far more crucial is the fact that they bail on the end ofthe world…let’s see.  End of Season Fouris when the Apocalypse properly gets underway, so they balk at the end ofSeason Five (Lucifer and the Cage), end of Season Six (Mother of All andPurgatory), and like minimum once bythe middle of Season Seven (Godstiel) as well as at the end of Season Seven (Leviathans, I am now past where I kept watching),end of Season Eight (Metatron, angel tablets, falling angels), presumably endof Season Nine from what I understand of the summaries online (some…war onHeaven nonsense), and based on the trend I’m guessing that Seasons Ten throughThirteen keep to the model, do youunderstand my point here.  Thesearen’t even all the near-Apocalypses that they avert.  Off the cuff, I can think of the Croatoanvirus (…twice?  Three times?), as well asthree out of four Horsemen within episodes of each other.  They’re probably averting the Very Seriousand Catastrophic End of Days two or three times a season by Season Five, and that number only goes up.  This is very similar to the character deaththing: quite simply, if the audience is expected to get that worked up multipletimes a season, and brace for thatkind of disaster multiple times a season,you are inevitably going to bore them.  Yourplot has to be intensely recursive sothat you can ‘reset’ and avoid a new Apocalypse the next season, which getsboring, because it feels like you’ve been there before, similar to how usingcharacter death to advance character development demands that you hit thePersonality Reset button on the regular.

Furthermore, repeating the same level of disaster over and over and OVER again means that it starts to lack emotional weight, and yourcharacters start to seem really, really stupid if they don’t start to treatthings accordingly.  One of the things Ithought of constantly during thelast, say, season and a half that I watched of Supernatural was a quote from Buffy,specifically from Riley who I usually very much dislike but who NAILED thisparticular thing.  “When I saw you stopthe world from, you know, ending, I just assumed that was a big week for you.It turns out I suddenly find myself needing to know the plural ofapocalypse.”  And that’s the running jokein Buffy!  That they literallydeal with an Apocalypse every few episodes, and they lampshade it, and thecharacters respond accordingly—Buffy and the Scooby gang start to act cavalier,almost unimpressed, about each new disaster. Like “well, we saved the world, I say we party.”  That’s a direct quote from Buffy (IN SEASON ONE NO LESS), and Supernatural could stand to take a pageout of their book with that one.  BySeason Seven, the Winchesters seem like they have somehow missed out on thelast decade of their own lives because they always act so shocked and horrifiedthat somehow someone could try to endthe world.  Like!  Yes, yes they could and yes they would,welcome to the party boys!  Please try toget in touch with your own history on this subject!

So the highlights here are: don’t be a fucking baby aboutyour writing.  If you’re writing toward abig paradigm shift, you need to recognize that you’re playing Plot RussianRoulette, and you have to pull the trigger. Change the paradigm of your narrative and deal with the fallout like afucking adult, you tepid fools, you limp-necked cowards, you ink-stainedwalnuts.

POINT THE FOURTH

Listen very carefully. Do you hear that?  It’s the soundof the Winchesters promising eternal brotherly devotion and saying things like“you’re my brother, man” and vowing to always have each other’s backs.  

Now wait a moment longer, and listen very carefully.  Do you hear that?  It’s the inevitablesound of the Winchesters stabbing each other in the back and/or throwing eachother to the wolves because they’re feeling pissy, and then getting a whole(static! See Point The Second!) “character arc” about how distraught they are.

All right, y’all, I don’t have siblings so maybe I’m wrong, but I do write a lot and I think I’m right, and you should probably put yourcharacterization where your script is. If your primary relationship that you expect people to care about isfraternal devotion, you should maybe nothave those people cheerfully feed each other into metaphoricalwoodchippers.  Like.  Okay, maybe you get ONE chance to have adramatic falling out.  ONE.  And then when they repair the relationship,they need to actually sort their shit out and not keep having the exact same dramatic falling out because thatshit gets boring and is a sign of lazy writing and—shocker!—lack of character development.  Next time they fight, it has to be aboutsomething demonstrably different, notjust the same issue with a new set of tits (c’mon y’all, this is Supernatural, it’s always a set oftits).

Let’s do a real fast recap. There’s a one episode plot in Season One about the two of them fallingout over the question of whether they should follow their father’s orders.  Dean spends a good percentage of Season Twotaking his guilt over their dad’s death out on Sam, but we’ll give a passbecause they explicitly acknowledge it and take steps to resolve theproblem.  A major plotline develops inSeason Two that hunters have started trying to kill Sam, and Dean reliably,consistently has his back.  Props.  Season Three is kind of a mess (if you have a big visible semi-Apocalypseyou should probably deal with it, see Point The Third), but whatever.  Pertinently, Dean’s big ongoing concern isthat Sam isn’t acting like himself, because he’s being much more ruthless(something Dean has consistently told him to do), while Sam’s ongoing concernis that Dean is being reckless (justified, he has a death sentence onhim).  Season Four is when things startto break down.  Castiel shows up and Deanresponds with aggression, Sam gets his rehashed ‘humanity’ plotline with Ruby,there are a lot of really incredibly poor decisions made and a lot of lies toldwith minimal regard for the trouble that’s gotten them into before (@Sam).  There’s a fight that includes Dean callingSam a monster, which has been canonically identified as the thing Sam is mostafraid of, and acting like this whole demon blood thing is a terribletremendous shock, despite the fact that Dean…knew and totally failed to reactin any way except to penalize Sam (for trying to save him!  Much like Dean sold his soul for Sam!  And got pissy about Sam being pissed offabout!).  Cue Lucifer.  Apocalypse, possession, Horsemen, etc, etc,more Lazy Susan Castiel, infighting about who should say yes to what in orderto save whom, whatever.  

And then Sam apparently dies in the Cage and Dean…goes offto get a nice white picket fence? Um…this is not consistent with the characterization of a dude who soldhis soul to resurrect Sam literally just three years ago.  Their falling out has never been intenseenough nor consistent enough to justify this. Even if you say that Dean’s honoring his brother’s final wishes by nottrying to resurrect Sam or anything, Dean should be drinking himself to deathor something similarly dramatic, because allthe drama in this show comes from the relationship between the Winchesterbrothers.  

Basically, here’s the problem: the show spends a lot of time and effort on telling youthat the Winchesters would die for each other. And while they do use that trope a lot (John dies for Dean, who dies forSam, who sacrifices his humanity for Dean, who risks his life for Sam, whojumps into the Cage for Dean…), they seem to have forgotten that, generally,you’re only willing to die for people who you actually like.  Like, peopleto whom you are genuinely emotionally attached,not just people who are your family because Blood Is Thicker or whateverbullshit you’re trying to pull there. And by Season Five, I’m just…not convinced the Winchester brothersactually like each other anymore.  Andthat never gets dealt with, they just expect you to believe that the Winchsterslove each other because the show says so,and listen, I hate the saying of ‘show, don’t tell’ as much as the nextperson who’s suffered through a college writing class, but honestly.  Supernaturalneeds to stop telling its viewers that Sam and Dean care about each other andactually…demonstrate that shit on a regular basis.  

Example: there’s the incident at some point where someoneplants a phone call on (I think) Sam’s phone, apparently from Dean, telling himthat he’s a monster and he should go do an incredibly stupid and dangerousthing because the world and Dean would be better off if he was dead.  Which Sam then believes and listens to.  This seems totally justified based on therelationship they’ve had for the past season. Pro tip, kids.  If your majordynamic includes two people who readily and easily believe that the other isliterally calling them an inhuman abomination and telling them they should justdie, that…that is not a Loving Affectionate and Devoted Familial Relationship.  And if you’re pitching it as one, A, you needsome therapy, probably urgently, and, B, your audience is only going to stickit out for so long before they give it up as a lost cause.

The point of this whole thing is that you better be ready toput your money where your fucking mouth is, and keep your characterizationsconsistent with what you’re telling the audience.

ANYWAY.  

The ultimate TL;DR here is that Supernatural’s storytelling is approximately as competent as thenovel I wrote when I was eleven, which I have hidden in a deep dark hole neverto be seen or discussed ever again.  Less competent, even, because at least Icommitted to a single individual plotline and dealt with the fallout of majorchanges to the universe.  And it’sfucking tragic, because this was a show with some real potential buried underall the chaos.  If you ever want my fullrewrite, please do ask and I will tell you, but this is now over 6K words andon its tenth page, so I’m going to stop now.

Long story short?  Supernatural: What The Fuck.