#john and jack and cas

[spnwin-reader]

When going up against Mars Neto—John overdid it, displaying the "overkill" signature of a disrupted psyche.

But his anger saved Carlos. Carlos knows this, and thanks him, but he's unsettled. Perhaps he senses that this experience... injured John terribly.

Carlos just doesn't want to see it... or his part in it.

He tentatively offers this:

CARLOS: Thank you for what you did back there. JOHN: You're welcome. CARLOS: If you ever... want to talk. You let me know, okay? JOHN (an uncomfortable smile): Yeah. I wi—I will.

///

What a difference from the flippant pressure Carlos put on John to talk earlier in the episode—the very thing that triggered John and left him feeling cornered!

After delivering a somewhat more philosophical take—not a specific personal trauma—Carlos bailed to do the investigation. He spoke about how they’re all the same, but it wasn’t rooted in an intensely personal grief or loss.

It was about the shape of his life, mostly.

And then he left John to sit in the fallout zone.

Anyway, I’m just saying that why on earth would John want to talk to Carlos now? Carlos accidentally made himself an unsafe figure in John's world of emotional vulnerabilities:

CARLOS: My friend would actually love to go next, right John?

spnwin 1x04

(This is... a little analogous to how Sam Winchester operates with respect to talking it out with his own loved ones.)

///

With respect to John's overkill, I can't help but be reminded of Mary seeing Jack's overkill signature in Game Night.

Both Carlos and Mary are "big heart" characters, who sometimes unintentionally lean on others too hard in service of The Cause and The Need to Protect—until those they lean on break wide open.

(NOTE: We see Mary also do this with Cas in First Blood.)

There’s just something so crunchy about circumstances where someone’s so useful, so powerful that you never bench them—because you just need them too damn much. (But well…that kind of weight is way too heavy for anyone to carry.)

14x17

BONUS:

“You left them!” she shouts. John’s not around for her to be mad at, so she takes it out on Cas. (But also, she realizes that she left them too. Sees the error of her ways and apologizes.)

///

Sam does this on occasion:

DEAN: Oh, what? You think he's ready? He's had a pretty rough go of it lately. SAM: Which one of us hasn't? Seems insane to leave our one and only angel friend on the bench. DEAN (resigned): I'll call him. SAM: Thank you.

11x06

///

So, ofc, does Dean.

(x) (x) (x) (x)

Dean wants Cas to be invincible to both keep them safe as a family... and also to be strong enough to take care of himself.

Jack-Dean-Mary all tend to trade in having great expectations for Cas in particular.

When Dean marshals the forces, Cas often ends up with the heavy burdens—partly because of tragic circumstances of the narrative, and partly because he’s so often physically the strongest.

//

And so. The "courage" characters often get revved into overdrive:

//

Even Cas has an "overkill" signature on occasion

Godstiel is the obvious example, but the moments in 15x03 and 15x06 often go unnoticed. Respectively, they’re signs of Cas rising to the occasion—but also, like Jack and John, of a worsening psyche. We’ll see how his resilience sometimes slips into something else: the dreaded “destiny.”

Above: Cas overkills Belphegor, destroying Lilith’s Crook and Jack’s vessel in the process—cutting off any chance of getting Jack back, at least for the time being. It’s a decisive move, yes, but also a glimpse of his fraying resilience.

&

How Cas kills the sheriff in 15x05 is also... disturbing. Angry. "Savage."

And the “Take who you want, when you want”shows us Cas’s anger at Chuck. It connects to his later words to Dean: "When God took [Jack] from us…"

We get so locked in and amazed by the strength of certain characters that sometimes we miss these signs.

///

No one is unbreakable.

Sometimes, with certain people... we just forget.

///

Like:

BELPHAGOR: Funny— they didn't seem to think twice about it—

//

Just like The Cause keeps winning out over care in SPN prime, the truth is that the Core Four in SPNwin don’t really hesitate to send John into danger—whether it’s taking on a monster in episode one or facing off against a god:

MILLIE: You sent John into battle against a god who's immortal?

(She didn’t know that, Millie. But it’s true that she sent him into that minefield. That's how soldiers operate... and it's tragic.)

Above: Like Dean, Mary can at times be prone to a mission-oriented (or safety-oriented) insensitivity. She runs hot and cold—tender one moment, tough the next.

..

Mary's hypocrisy and immaturity is every bit as delicious as John's grief- and fear- induced anger:

Later in 1x06, Mary will accuse John of throwing himself into danger, and it never occurs to her that her own hypocrisy might be what chafes. "Everyone's worried about you!" she says.

Then she accuses him of "running towards danger." She says, "this isn't a game; this is life or death." But is he the one who doesn't know that... or is SHE? (See above.)

The bottom line is this: she feels that she can put him in danger, no problems. Because she trusts her own judgment. Her own judgment gives her the illusion of control.

As for John, she wants him to be strong and to be resilient and take on what she determines to be the acceptable level of danger. He should slow down when she says slow down, and most importantly... he should make sure not to actually be in danger, even when and especially when she's sending him into that danger.

//

In 1x06, she asks to be let into his head, but she turns cold the minute he does. "I don't need you using me as an excuse to avoid your issues," she says, even as she verbally minimizes his anger and fear, and sidesteps that the root of his running is loss. (Loss of his father and the terrible fear of losing her too.) That's an approach that shuts down conversation, even if she is right.

Best part? She's doing all this while avoiding her own hypocrisy re: John's safety and her role as his battle commander.

Far from a warning sign, this is actually a sign of the maturing love between John and Mary: namely, that it's scary to care about each other. They want to be stronger for and more cautious with each other’s safety.

(SEE: Dean and Cas in Lily Sunder Has Some Regrets: -> "Wow, this Benjamin seems like he's pretty cool, you know. Like he wouldn't make any half-cocked, knee-jerk choices.")

It's an impossible tightrope. The pot and the kettle!

It's the duality of being a comrade-in-arms with him and the burgeoning desire to be his lover. She wants to be protected by him and protect him from harm.

///

John the weapon

Eventually, in SPNwin, they’ll have to reckon with how they use John (and they will, in 1x06 The Art of Dying). It's about the fact that they know John’s struggling, but they lean on him anyway because he's strong and they need him. (Ironically, they do this even though John's the newest to the hunting world!)

It's so interesting to me that in SPN prime, John starts out as an innocent civilian—lied to, unarmed, and unprepared to protect himself or his family. Afterwards, he overcorrects, becoming the hardened, cruel father we know so well.

But in SPNwin, he steps into the life and becomes John the weapon almost immediately. And right away, Mary starts to lean on him in ways that echo how her Season 12 prime counterpart instinctively tried to lean on Cas.

Like Henry before him, John seems unbreakable—like "nothing can kill the guy" (SEE: Larry in 8x12: "So, Henry is dead. I was so sure that—that he had survived.")

In SPN, characters like John—and especially Cas and Jack, sometimes Dean—are often lost to that same sense of duty. Not because they aren’t loved, but because they were so often needed too much to be protected. It's an agony, really.

DEAN: So you're always thinking to yourself, he's indestructible. He'll always be around, nothing can kill [him]. (2x03)

///

JACK: Since I've been alive, everyone assumed I would be this special person who goes on forever. (14x07)

[kinky-cas]

i’m rewatching s2 and being reminded of how much dean’s guilt over john’s death ate him alive and it’s making me wish all over again that dean had found out about the empty deal.

because dean would have seen the parallels in “your dad makes a deal trading his life for yours (and asks you to keep a secret about it)” and been deeply upset on jack’s behalf that cas wasn’t using his extra time to try to find a way out of the deal. and I think he’d have been downright PISSED at cas for making jack keep the deal a secret just so cas could avoid dealing with the emotional fallout.

i think cas expected dean to be mad if he found out and has counter arguments lined up in his head for those theoretical objections. and i think he’d be totally blindsided when dean comes at him with “you’re his dad, and he loves you. do you have any idea what you dying from this deal is gonna do to him? because i do, so let me lay it out for you.”

it would have been so juicy to see cas forced to confront the ways his assumptions of his own disposability hurt the people who love him!

[soft-pine]

so much supernatural discourse boils down to claiming a thing we actually see dean do on the show is something he would not do, claiming a thing we see dean specifically not do on the show is something he would do, claiming something all the main characters do is something dean alone is doing, or claiming something sam does on the show is something dean did.

and im so confused. because the answer is comically simple and it's a thing we all allegedly love doing and that is... watching supernatural?

[shallowseeker]

I know it was a little weird, but does anyone else have big feelings about how the end of The Winchesters features Bobby, Dean, and Jack standing together?

That’s Dean’s father. That’s his son. Three generations of family—not by blood, but by choice. And that means everything!!!!1111

[-hiddlesdweeb-]

I am not normal about yearning. Yearning fears me. Inject it into my veins. I YEARN FOR THE YEARN.

[lucillesremains]

more absurd spn headcanons because i love making stuff up☆

Charlie wears hello kitty socks, i think Jack would wear hello kitty or sonic the hedgehog socks too

Crowley is a bathroom singer

(tw)Chuck has an extensive manga collection

Dean “gifts” Cas pretty looking rocks like penguins, because Cas likes collecting pretty rocks and sticks (as mentioned in my old hc list)

Dean was dropped on the head by Mary as a child

Sam likes board games but no one would play with him, also conjoined hc: Sam and Cas played board games together

(tw)John has punched holes in walls (basically canon)

(tw)Becky voted sans in the sexyman tumblr poll

Cain has a roblox account, all those years alone? he knows his way around roblox

Azazel can’t read, he gets one of his little storm clouds to do it

Sam had a deviant art account, i dont make any rules

Jo sleepwalks, idk why but she does

Garth likes watching my little pony, he watches it with his daughter now

Rowena is a very very good singer, she’s also a cat lady

Claire needs nightlights to sleep, she got it from Jimmy because he needed nightlights to sleep

Gabriel is a theatre kid

Lucifer would’ve be an incredible guitar player and musician

Ash’s favourite hobby is evading taxes, obviously

Balthazar has a SHIT LOAD of stuffed animals

Jess and Sam had a pair of matching socks that Sam still has in his closet somewhere

[spn-con-cliffnotes]

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[thenameisgul]

Spn characters and their political ideologies:

Sam is a liberal democrat

Dean is the anarchist

while Cas is the socialist of the group

Jack is a utopian socialist (for obvious reasons)

John is conservative/Repulican

Mary is the anti-war, 60s american communist

Charlie is the environmentalist

Crowley is the Facsist

Rowena doesn’t believe in human ideologies but if she were to identify to one it’d be feminism and identity politics.

[lazarrusrising]

Idk if this is anything but Dean's decision to let Jack sacrifice himself because he cannot withstand the suffering of being a puppet to Chuck's whims any longer reminds me so much of Dean, Righteous Man, breaking under the torture of Hell and turning to torture himself.

He's reached his limit. His family is already splintered, Mary is dead and he's struggling to forgive Jack for it, but there was hope, there was supposed to be rest in sight, they were supposed to have a plan and then time for grief and healing and forgiveness after they won. But no, Jack has to die. And I truly believe that snuffed out Dean's hope. Not even in what is supposed to be the last fight can Dean have peace on the other side because the future he was supposed to have will never come true. There will always be a piece missing.

And Dean is so so so tired, he needs it to stop. If he could give himself as the sacrifice he would, he's tried so many times. And he has, for decades, sacrificed his own happiness because the world needs someone to save it. Chuck has once again bled the Righteous Man dry of all he has to give. So Dean took himself off the torture rack and that part of himself that had hoped to reintegrate Jack back into his family with time and healing was dead, so he picked up his torture instruments and he let someone else take the suffering for once. He let someone else be the sacrifice. And he let his rage block out all the pain so he could get the job done like he always has.

[maliciousmagpie]

Trying to figure out if a post with the names Sam, Jack, Jo(h)n, Mary or Michael is about Supernatural, Red Dead Redemption 1/2, The Magnus Archives/Protocol or Hannibal is really a wild time

[wetsocksinbed]

AU where Jack didn’t fuck off and abandon his family at the end of everything, and instead brought back Amara and gave her the power to be God, and stayed a hunter.

Amara pulls Castiel out of the Empty, and at special request of the Queen of Hell, a very confused Crowley is plonked back onto earth too. Sam marries Eleanor and has Dean Jr, and because Castiel is still around, Dean doesn’t die to a stupid metal rod in an old barn because his (fully reinstated) angel heals him. Crowley goes back to hell and finally gets to spent time with a mother that actually loves him. Amara, being god, figures out a way to let Dean and Sam come and go from heaven without dying, so they get to see Bobby, Charlie, Mary and John whenever they want. Dean and Sam finally form a relationship with Adam, and he moves into the bunker with them. Adam is surprisingly good at hunting. Kevin is finally freed from the Veil and actually goes to heaven. Claire officially starts dating Kaia, and Jody actually legally adopts the girls. Cas raises bees in his spare time when he’s not helping the boys on a hunt, and at some point he definitely adopts a cat for the bunker.

It’s called Clarence.

[magpiewithinternetaccess]

A little something from a short and sweet post-canon thing I’m writing.

In it Jack is a little kid again rather than a literal god and Dean is adjusting to domestic life with Cas. It’s terribly sappy but I needed the catharsis lol.

May or may not post it to ao3 someday,, for now hope u enjoy <3

It is indeed now in progress on ao3, link on my profile xx

[kinky-cas]

ooooh buddy if your husband ever finds out about this conversation you are gonna be in SO much trouble. and somehow i don’t think dean “my dad traded his life for mine (leaving me with a secret promise) and the guilt ate me alive until i sold my soul and wound up in hell” winchester will accept “i didn’t want you to worry” as an excuse here.

[cten0phora]

dean shouldnt be considered as one of jack’s dads tbh

[lucillesremains]

my absurd supernatural headcanons that have no explanations ✩

Sam once spent hours building a lego set only to realize his instruction manual was wrong

Dean knows exactly how many licks it takes to get to the centre of a tootsie pop

Cas likes collecting pretty rocks and sticks

Jack has a very bad spice tolerance

either Metatron or Chuck has committed tax evasion at least once.

Crowley got swarmed by a group of 7 geese once

Garth watches HGTV and tried to get Kevin into it.

Gabriel only ever drinks flavoured water/drinks, specifically fruity stuff, cause he’s fruity.

Charlie likes eating popcorn with a fork.

ducks hate John, ducks always attack John.

[celestial-castiel]

alright it's not great but here's my last minute mother's day thing for Dean. because I love him and he deserves to be celebrated on mother's day

yes it's just random ass plants but pretend it makes sense