#jack + motifs

[shallowseeker]

Kelly + Jack + water + taking control of the narrative

Kelly + the pool of self-reflection

KELLY: "He said he was thrilled. He said it was the only time he ever created anything."

When Kelly is calling her friend about her pregnancy, she's by the swimming pool, with the sound of water gently playing in the background.

She will be linked to water again:

when she tries to escape her fate in the bathtub

when Castiel glimpses her in The Future by the side of the ocean (script only)

and again when she lives in the house by the lake with Castiel

there are multiple "sea" and "chaoskampf" paintings hanging in said lakehouse

THREE fisherman + stormy sea paintings appear in the nursery Kelly is painting in 12x23

Indeed, the portal to another universe opens up just in front of the lake, symbolizing transition and revelation. (In particular, it will be Mary's revelation of what would have happened had she not made her demon deal.)

But what's the big deal with water?

For starters, it's an inversion of Sam, whose nursery was enveloped in the motif of fire. (Jack's nursery is notably not enveloped in fire; he only gets this motif when Dean's room is shown burning in his AU earth torture as he listens to the screams of Sam and Dean, his earth fathers.)

The pool itself is the physical embodiment and reference to the very beginning of Earth, primordial chaos, before mankind existed.

In Supernatural with its highly Biblical motifs, bodies of water can also be tied to new beginnings and resurrection. We see it with Cas and the Leviathan (when Cas walks into the lake to die, Baptism-like).

Water can also be a tremendous uncontrollable force that takes over your life, as with Dean and AU Michael. In symbology, drowning is a specific warning of doom, representing your helplessness, overwhelming emotions, or the impending death of a loved one.

The number 5:

Here, Jack is associated to room 5, the fifth element Aether: According to ancient and medieval science, aether, also known as the fifth element or quintessence, is the material that fills the region of the universe beyond the terrestrial sphere. Jack is an unstoppable life force, and Kelly's (unfairly) caught in the middle of it.

The broken mirror?

Here's an interesting shot. When Sam is exorcising Lucifer, a mirror breaks (it's above the chest of drawers and between Dean and Kelly). The common reading would be to attribute this to bad luck and offending the gods. Another SPN-common thing is to try to one-to-one link to characters. But the interpretation I think I like the most with regards to mirrors is the breaking OF Chuck's control and the beginning of Jack's usurpation. (Kelly Kline means, "war, small.")

Indeed, one wonders if Jack is already at work, protecting himself from his position in the womb. He's throwing off the narrative and making things go wrong. They're too easily able to defeat Lucifer, and after this, all the "heroes" he came into contact with start failing left and right.

Sam and Dean are incarcerated

Because of that, at least one of the Winchesters is symbolically defeated by Billie the reaper/future Death

Cas loses Kelly, and he can't hunt or find the boys

Rowena's magic won't work

and even Crowley comes up null

The only one everything's going "right" for? Kelly Kline. Jack is working to ensure he's born.

Later, we'll see Jack choose Cas as Father (and Cas's truck breaks down + Dean immediately gets to work to fix it) and in choosing Cas, Jack (symbolically) takes Dean at the same time, narratively reflected by stealing control of Baby.

(Image from WinchesterFamilyBusiness).0

[soullessjack]

[thegracefulwillow]

Ah, that's the great puzzle! – Alice in Wonderland, Chapter II

Hi @the-mad-owl I was your secret santa this year! Thanks for the alice in wonderland prompt, I absolutely loved playing with this idea :D

Thank you @i-prefer-the-term-antihero for the organization again this year!!

To make a long post even longer, here's the first three panels in close up & with no text :)

[jack-kellys]

here’s a short history video about black cowboys, of whom were the original cowboys along with mexican vaqueros in the southwest of america.

just something to think abt when considering artsy city jack kelly “vs” cowboy jack kelly..

anyway happy black history month

[deer-motif]

A WOUNDED DEER LEAPS HIGHEST

deer / headlight mirror, @/suitman // 13.01 lost and found, supernatural // a yiddish deer in the headlights, fabrice florin // deer in the headlights: low light awareness, teammisfits // deer survives arrow to the face, joshua rhett miller // 13.02 the rising son, supernatural // i found a baby deer alone in a field/garden/backyard – do they need help?, bcspca // 14.08 byzantium, supernatural // the deer, laurie sheck // why are new york hunters finding so many dead dear near water sources?, wgna-fm // a wounded deer leaps highest, emily dickinson

part two

[bored-platypus]

swim in circles (sniper! tim)

au where tim's parents get kidnapped by obeah man earlier on but they survive. and he becomes a sniper. :)

inspired by @yjcorefourenjoyer's sniper! tim idea, who graciously let me run around in their sandbox. :D

Turns out, when you leave your child alone without a parental figure for months, you can’t integrate yourself back into their life and just pretend all is normal.

You never wanted to parent me before, Tim wants to scream. Why are you even pretending you care now?

But he says none of it, swallows it down his throat dry where it resides in his chest, thick and cloying like a good son. His parents narrowly escaped being killed. Tim is being selfish because he isn’t used to this. It’s fine.

Jack wants him to transfer to a nearby private school and live at home instead of boarding school so he and Mom can keep an eye on him, fine. Tim can adapt, take advantage of the fact that he’s home more to take pictures of Batman and Robin. 

So Tim is twelve years old when his father brings him to a shooting range and puts a hand on his shoulder. Some good ol’ father-son bonding, his dad claims. His dad is too scared to admit what the true purpose is; so Tim won’t be defenseless in case he’s kidnapped.

But it doesn’t matter whether his dad verbalizes it or not: Tim knows, so there’s no point in saying it out loud.

(For a brief moment, he thinks of becoming Robin, of fists and swinging staffs and acrobatics. Of following Batman’s no-kill rule.)

It’s a silly thought. Tim’s parents are very much alive, and his reality is this: gunpowder and cameras and slow, choking patience. Tim is athletic, but doesn’t exactly make a point to get into fights— if he’s attacked, he would have the best chance with a gun.

But for the next few months, Tim drowns under his father’s expectations and his mother’s worried and guilty gaze. The knot in his chest tightens until he struggles for air, and Tim needs something, needs to get out of the house, needs to do something other than follow Batman and Robin because his parents keep checking on him in the middle of the night.

Tim flounders, kicks fruitlessly at the waters until another weekend, when his father brings him out again and he adjusts his stance, aligns his handgun, and waits until his hands are steady.

It doesn’t take long until he speeds through a fire safety certificate test and all but owns his father’s 9mm pistol.

For the first time in what feels like forever, Tim breathes.

It’s a hobby his father supports and something his mother, who sits in her wheelchair, loosens the furrow in her brow for. Before he goes, she quietly brushes her hand over his hair. Remember your gun safety, Tim, she says, and he nods before heading out for another lesson.

Really damn good, his instructor says, and Tim smiles, because his arms are getting used to the recoil and Tim has one of the highest accuracies among all the teens in the class, even if he takes a little longer than everyone.

But it’s no matter: Tim has experience with being patient.

It doesn't take long for Tim to start bringing his handgun out with him while he goes birdwatching. It takes even shorter for Tim to start eyeing the bolt-action rifles jealously, thinking of how much farther he could take it, what he could do. Eighteen years old, he chants, eighteen years old.

Except when Tim turns thirteen, Jason dies. Batman grieves his son’s death in a way that leaves Gotham a bloody, destructive swathe of pain. And Tim can’t just watch, anymore. He goes to Dick, pleas in his mouth, begging him to see that Batman needs a Robin. 

It doesn’t work. And now Two-Face has Bruce and Dick, and Tim has nothing but his 9mm pistol and the location of the Wayne manor. Alfred looks down at him, lips pursed in hesitation, and Tim knows, knows that Robin doesn’t use guns, knows that it would be an abomination to Bruce’s values and Dick’s legacy but he doesn't know what else to do. 

“Please,” he begs.

Surprisingly, it is easier to convince Alfred that he can protect himself with a gun. Tim suspects that Batman will have a different reaction.

–

Bruce and Dick are safe, Two-Face is safely in jail, and Bruce looks at his guns with poorly concealed suspicion and apprehension. And that’s the crux of the matter: Tim uses guns, Robin does not. Tim cannot be Robin, not with his parents so closely around and his only method of protecting himself being a lethal weapon. The worst part is, it all feels like a waste. The hours at the shooting range, his father’s proud smile, his rising accuracy rates, and it sucks, because Tim doesn’t want to feel this way. 

Tim never meant to be Robin. But he needs to become Robin now and Tim has never trained in hand-to-hand combat or swung a staff before. His way out has become another trap, and Tim has never shot a dart gun before, nor is it sustainable to use tranq darts. 

Funny. Tim never seems to be given a choice. But he can’t complain, so he does the next best thing. Tim throws himself into convincing Bruce, tries to prove that he can be Robin, even if he’s fighting a losing battle. There’s really only one way Bruce will accept, and Tim knows it. 

He screams until his voice is hoarse after Batman nearly dies, but he can't be Robin, not until he gives up Tim Drake. Timothy Jackson Drake holds tightly onto a hope that isn't sustainable, thinks of his father who looks at him in the eye and makes him promise that he'll keep his life over everybody else's.

TIm is selfish and he’s drowning again, but so is Gotham.

–

“Tim.”

His dad looks angry, flickers of worry shining from behind his eyes. Tim knows he’s been acting suspicious: too many bruises on his legs and cuts on his arm, coming home later than usual.

Tim shrugs self-deprecatingly. 

“Please, dad? I know it’s not what you want but it’s getting to be a lot and I need to move around my schedule to fit in more.”

“Tim… This wasn't brought on because the boys in your class have been roughhousinging you because you’re better, right?”

“No! It’s not, it’s not,” Tim shakes his head, face burning with mortification. That would be so embarrassing. It seems so juvenile, quitting because he was bothered by the envious comments, rather than quitting because he wanted to take on a vigilante mantle that had a fifty percent mortality rate to make sure Batman didn’t go off his rocker. 

Tim is so grounded when his dad finds out. His father sighs, running a hand through his hair, and Tim guiltily shrinks under his gaze. 

“You spent so long practicing,” his father accuses. There’s the hidden panic Tim was expecting. “I really thought you were into it, Tim.”

Tim flinches. 

“It’s not that,” he mumbles, trying not to feel like he’s wasted so much of his and his father’s time. “I’m just not that interested anymore and…”

And the truth is, Tim hates this choice. But it’s still his decision, to pick up Robin and put down Tim Drake. He goes for the low blow.

“Let me make my own choice for once, okay? You always want me to do this and that and I’m trying, but I want some space to figure out what I like instead of just balancing what you want in favor of what I want.”

His dad freezes, frustration playing out over his features, but Tim knows he’s won this one. 

“I’m going to check up on your mom. I don’t want to talk about this tonight, but we are talking about this.” I can’t stand talking to you right now.

It’s fine, because Tim has won. 

The situation will blow over, and Tim will prove that he can protect himself in other ways, to both his father and Bruce.

And once again his reality shifts: swinging fists and lies and the fast, spiraling rapids of life.

He thinks of steady hands and the quiet click to the loud bang of a gun. He will wait it out, he foolishly thinks. He has practice being patient.

a/n:

so basically this could go a NUMBER of ways, holy. i had so many plans that i derailed and thought over and whatnot

i originally was going to go for tim being a sniper wayyy earlier, like shooting bruce with tranqs post-jason death (which, by the way, tim would've gone through SO many hoops for that, dude is way too tiny to pass as over 18 and has to be a pretty damn good liar to his parents), never becoming robin (prob would've become a vigilante, just with guns)

but oh man in this version i haven't even GOTTEN to sniper! timmy yet...

also! discussed another cool idea with my wonderful beta @pinkcowzz about reverse robins where tim comes back from the dead as a sniper would also be fun. there are many ways that this au could branch out lmao

[patrocles]

When I find myself become a devil, he reminds me that underneath I am a poet.

[kmnco8]

do you think theyve been in a situationship..?(guys from different pieces of media)

[raayllum]

Brought down to his knees

[octo-senpai]

voila! a just some doods of my favorite secondary characters!! I'm actually really proud with how they both came out! ESPECIALLY JACK O BONNIE!! HIS GLOW WAS REALLY FUN!!

a bonus doodle under tha cut <3

definitely gotta redesign the rest of the mediocre melodies!

[eileensdress]

“I don’t want to break you.” “Did we break you here?” Actually. What if I went insane. What if I bit a hole in the wall.

[shallowseeker]

My fave thing about Jack on rewatch was realizing how internally unlike Sam he is, despite the symbolic, structural blocks of being a “gifted kid.” Emotionally? Nah.

Not if you’re paying attention.

I feel like @dawg-motif really helped me puzzle that out re: Jack’s valuation of blunt honesty and need for space and processing. And after that, it’s like Jack’s entire arc clicked into place for my brain.

There is such a temptation in fandom to assume he’s a copy-pasta of Sam because of his “doomed child” motif, or that he’s like Cas because of his literal-mindedness and sass. But emotionally? Not even close.

Or worse, there can be as assumption that his “performing!Jack” is how how he actually feels about things... Falling for Jack’s sunshiney ditzy act is like falling for Dean’s mythical Marlboro man act.

[soullessjack]

another tally on the “things about jack that have been almost erased by the baby au” is how genuinely fucked up and weird and scary and violent and horrifying he is. the body horror of his existence is so. Palpable.

he looks human, but he still fundamentally is not human, and the thing that separates him from being human or belonging or being normal and loved and accepted without strings attached is his own bloodline. his own family, his own father. the blood that runs through his veins is the blood of the devil and he wasn’t fed it like Sam. the anger and rage and capacity for violence inside him isn’t an ancient curse like it was for Dean. It’s just who he is. It’s his neurology. Jack enters a guilt/grief-induced psychosis so bad he starts hallucinating his own dead evil father who proceeds to say “I’m in your head, your DNA,” and goes on about how Jack’s place with the only chosen family he ever cared for is that of their little pet monster who’s only kept around to kill things for them. And this is his subconscious, remember, these are all Jack’s own thoughts being given a hallucinatory voice.

When jack is first born he doesn’t even register that he’s not a full human. It’s not until he catches dean telling the sheriff that he’s a Nephil and gets stabbed all the way through his entire heart to the hilt of the angel blade and survives, that he realizes he’s Not Normal. Jack stabs himself 18 times with “grim determination,” dedicated to making a wound stay open in his body, but nothing happens. He doesn’t know what any of this is, but he knows it’s dangerous and he’s seen firsthand what he can do, because he sent the sheriff careening backwards into glass when he didn’t mean to do anything more than push her away. He tells Dean he will hurt someone again [whether he means to or not]. And he tells Sam, using his powers is like breathing; it’s a subconscious, physical, neurological part of his system that he cannot (currently) consciously control or stop.

He’s literally a living weapon. These powers of his that hurt people are akin to breathing. His violence and his evil is deep seated and runs through his heart and bleeds out of him. But he can’t bleed the evil out. He can’t escape what he was born into or what keeps him alive. He can’t even live without this nuclear power that ostensibly others him from everyone forever. He’s foaming at the mouth and seizing and fainting and bleeding and going into total systemic failure and subsequently dying as a human because he just isn’t human and he can’t live as one even if he wants to, even if that is a part of him it still isn’t the only part of him. The other half that makes him untrustworthy and violent and angry and dangerous and nuclear and evil and feared and hated is the one part he is left dying without.

His body dies a first time because it couldn’t live without its own hereditary disease, he died as a human and goes to human heaven and sees and rekindles with his human mother, the part of him that he wants to be and loves but can’t exist as. He’s brought back but now he’s a time bomb, a nuclear reactor internally melting down. he’s a weapon, but he’s alive because he was born as a weapon, and neither of these things were his choice.

and then a second time his body dies because he was only registered as a threat with no humanity. his eyes are burned out of his skull and instead of heaven with his mother, instead of humanity, he wakes up in the pitch black abyss where other nonhumans go when they die, then he’s brought back and he’s a weapon for the third time. He’s a living bomb, a collapsing black hole, and he has to eat human hearts ripped straight from the chest to keep his bomb body alive and ready for detonation, ready for collapse. He’s so far from human, further than he ever wanted to be, further enough to make his deep rooted fear a reality that he’s too suicidal to bother rebuking. Why rebuke the truth? The absolute truth that the devil, the evil of all things is in his blood and he is evil and he was a born weapon whose body exists to destroy and kill and not even his own love or will can stop it.

He is a gun that doesn’t want to be a gun and hates that his body is made to shoot and kill, but he has no choice in being anything else but a gun. He cannot ever be good, he was never good to begin with, he was just malfunctioning, glitching, experiencing an error and virus and flaw that he wishes was his entire programming. His eyes glow yellow like the corrupted Star Wars Sith and Rosemary’s Baby and a whole slew of evil things that are evil and meant to be rejected. When he gets angry, people stare at him as if he’s a cornered animal, because that’s what he is to them. To both sides of the equation, he is an animal. A foreign creature, a thing, he’s not human enough to be human and he’s not angelic enough to be an Angel. He’s some weird mixture that nobody can understand or accept. He’s unpredictable and violent and wild and born that way and only in his subsequent domestication, only in the extension of personhood and humanity can he be deemed worth loving. He’s like a dog, detrimentally loyal, old yeller going rabid while saving his family and having to be shot in an act of mercy. Barking and biting at people who might hurt his loved ones and killing them as an act of love. Sam wanted Nick to burn so Jack burns Nick and that’s why Jack says they would be grateful. He did what Sam wanted. Same for the other biblical killings. He’s the cat sinking its fangs into rodents and birds. Leaving the punctured corpses on the doormat as a gift, I did this for you because I love you, don’t you love me too?

I haven’t eaten well in the past two days does this click click anyone’s boom. Saliva

[chodoyodes]

[ow-old-men]

I’m actually so invested in the SEP having body horror like effects

I want their irises to be enormous, allowing for better natural night vision. In daylight it’s unnerving, slightly off and unnatural. In low light the whole eye is drowned in black

I want the rapid and overwhelming muscle growth to necessitate moving precisely and measuredly, almost birdlike in its twitchy adjusting - fluttering and distinctly inhumane

I want them to move effortlessly without a sound, popping up like shadows beside you out of nowhere

I want a general decay from the get go. I want a body that is outgrowing and performing itself at all times tearing itself apart. I want wild growth spiralling into decay, wisdom teeth after wisdom teeth removed, broken bones healed unalterably crooked in the mere hours it took to reach medical assistance. I want muscles torn and ligaments shredded with no regard; part of becoming like this is lowering pain intake to be able to do this

I want Reyes coming apart and flickering to have started long before Moira. What if it made you both strong and malleable, what if his skin was becoming loose and faint around the edges even before she pushed it to new extremes? I want that

I want the process of making humans into weapons to alter you in ways that makes you scary, I want it to leave your teeth on edge to be in the room with them for too long. I want the violence to spring from their agency being robbed

I want them to catch glimpses in mirrors and think ‘what it is there I cannot seem to recognise?’

[dozydawn]

Green and White Glass Stretch Jack in the Pulpit Vase