#like. dean’s whole character is literally supporting and caring for Sam
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soft-pine · 7 months ago
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when i think about this scene from 15.15 it makes me want to chew glass and tear up the walls in rage.
AMARA: I wanted two things for you, Dean. I wanted you to see that your mother was just a person, that the myth you'd held onto for so long of a better life, a life where she lived, was just that, a myth. I wanted you to see that the real, complicated Mary was better than your childhood dream because she was real. That now is always better than then. That you could finally start to accept your life.
for the record i want to say i am a known amara-hater. don't like the non-con shit. don't like that she's doing what so many beings in spn do and narrativizing dean's life back at him while judging him because she drew the wrong conclusions. but i think fandom does have a tendency to take those claims at face value because that is easier than combing back through to check if it's correct or not. (see for example, rachel saying dean only calls cas when he needs him in 6.18. narrativizing, incorrectly. but i digress)
so let's talk about mary. because, through the seething rage, i think two main things about this claim. 1. dean does not have this mythos around mary and 2. mary has arguably more of that mythos around dean.
first off, we'll tackle the claim that it's a myth that if mary hadn't died, dean wouldn't have a better life. because that is absolute, utter, dogshit. OF COURSE HE'D HAVE A BETTER LIFE. while i will always maintain that clearly mary and john were far from stable before she died, her death was what speared john forward into hunting, into turning his kids into soldiers, into neglect and parentifying, and every other god forsaken thing he did. "a better life, a life where she lived, was just that, a myth" - girl, i DON'T CARE IF YOU'RE DIVINE, SHUT THE FUCK UP.
like please don't come here acting like dean grieving the future he could have had that didn't include him taking care of his younger brother alone in motel rooms for days while maybe actually being left as bait for the Kid-Eater is a character flaw on his part that he needs to learn better from.
next, amara claims dean needs to see the "real, complicated Mary."
but hasn't he? dean goes back in time and meets his mom in 4.03 and 5.13. and both times he treats her both as a competent hunter and a colleague. like to be clear, before that, i dont think he was wrong to be relying on a four-year-old's memory of what his mom was like because that's literally all he had access to. but dean actually did meet and interact with the whole, complex woman who was his mother long before amara decided to teach him a lesson with her as the homework. in both 4.03 and 5.13, dean tries to give mary advice to save her life but he doesn't belittle her experience hunting or her desire to leave and life a normal life. i don't know what more you want from him in terms of interacting with his mom as a whole, real, complex person?
this also applies wholly and completely to his interactions with her when she returns in s12. he apologizes for being nervous for her safety (AFTER SHE WAS JUST RESSURECTED) at first. mary says she wants to hunt, dean gets on board. mary says she needs space, dean asks clarifying questions to best support her request. he gets mad at her not for being who she is or needing what she needs but for lying to him for months and working with people who tortured him and sam.
in fact, s12 is what i would point to to indicate how well dean articulates and navigates the nuance of being hurt by someone's actions while still understanding and empathizing with why they did it and forgiving them. for example, he says this in 12.04
DEAN: This whole mom thing, it's... I mean, we get her back, and then she leaves. I hate it, but I get it. I do. I guess I'm just...still working through some of that crap. I'll try to be less of a dick about it.
[you're not a dick, dean, ilu]
in fact, dean's much maligned "how 'bout for once, you just try to be a mom?" isn't even about dean wanting anything particularly maternal from mary. it's about him not wanting her to ditch them to hunt alone and/or with the aforementioned torturers.
so circling back to amara's speech about expectations and myths. cause while her words do not apply to dean. amara's speech does remind me of something that happens upon mary's return in s12. these lines from 12.03:
DEAN: Mom, it's okay. All right? You're home now. MARY: No. I'm not. I miss John. I miss my boys. SAM: We're right here, mom. MARY: I know. In my head. But I'm still mourning them as I knew them. My baby Sam. My little boy Dean. Just feels like yesterday, we were together in heaven, and now...I'm her, and John is gone, and they're gone. And every moment I spend with you reminds me every moment I lost with them.
of course she has every right to grieve the time she lost with her kids. but someone in this room is having trouble really looking at the people in front of them because of their idealized memory of who they were compared to are and It Is Not Dean.
and i just think about dean's speech in 12.22. cause it wasn't dean that needed to see the real mary. it was mary, tucked away in her dream world where sam is a baby and dean is a little elementary schooler who likes pie and has never held a gun, who needed to see the real dean.
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scoobydoodean · 2 months ago
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Hello<3
I was wondering if you had any thoughts on how fandom misconstrues Dean's relationship with alcohol?
There is so much emphasis on making him out to be a violent mean drunk, but I mostly remember that he drinks and like passes out when he's grieving or stressed (iirc) (s6 PTSD, Soulless sam, when Cas dies, etc.)? It's weird to me because Dean isn't the only character to go through this. Bobby relies on drinking too. He's exactly as gruff as Dean can be. He also had an abusive father. Yet I don't usually see people judging Bobby for that (if they exist, I haven't seen them at least thank God).
I get frustrated when people say things like the MoC was a direct metaphor for alcoholism just because it made Dean sooo violent and angry, etc. And, it's like an unrealistic understanding of alcoholism irl and also of Dean himself and his actual actions and context. I just get weirdly defensive of him over it lol.
If you've already hashed this out I'm sry! At the end of the day, it's all just interpretation ig, but I wanted to know your take on it cause ik you'd look at dean with a good faith lens.
<3
One could say I have had thoughts on how fandom misconstrues Dean's relationship with alcohol. One could even say I have spawned extremely funny multi-day fandom-wide disk horses on this subject simply by giving my opinion on my own blog when an anon asked me to.
I'm tracking Dean's relationship with alcohol (and other substances bc I was too lazy to make two separate tags) through #dean and drugs during my rewatch if you care to peruse, but I think you and I are of a similar mind on this.
Prior to season 4, Dean has a very average relationship with alcohol. In season 4, Dean starts using alcohol as a coping tool to help him fall asleep because he's having nightmares about hell. By season 6, alcohol is also a coping tool for depression and stress. He drinks to deal with nightmares, he drinks to cope with hell trauma, he drinks after soulless Sam watches his sexual assault with a smile, he drinks after Cas swallows all the souls and Death blames Dean for everything, he drinks throughout season 7 to cope with Cas's death and Bobby's death. I'm up to 8.01 and have yet to see a single occasion where Dean drinking and Dean being violent co-occurred. What I do see is Dean drinking when he is sad, alone, or scared.
I'll continue tracking—I'll eventually get back into the MoC arc where Dean is drinking heavily again, and obviously Dean + drinking + anger + violence are all going to happen at the same time in MoC seasons. However, correlation does not equal causation, and while someone can choose to believe that Dean's drinking causes him to be angry, I think the literal answer in season 9/10 is that Dean's been cursed by the father of murder, and on a more metaphorical level, the Mark of Cain quite overtly represents Dean's resentment toward Sam which Carver spends his entire run laying out in great detail. This is why the whole Carver run culminates in Amara (a Dean parallel) being unleashed to take revenge on her brother, and why the MoC is a brother murderer curse to begin with. Alcohol is set dressing. It shows us—just as it did in the past—that Dean feels sad, alone, and scared (in this case, of what the MoC could lead him to do—which also isn't dissimilar from the original reason Dean started drinking—after hell to cope with the trauma of not just being tortured but torturing others—the fear that he'd been made into a monster).
Looking at the matter holistically, I don't personally see Dean as an angry drunk. I see him as a sad drunk. If anything, I think he hopes that alcohol will drown his anger and violent urges in the MoC arc, or at least slow him down, while also being the traditional tool he uses during boughts of depression (which he is very much experiencing during the MoC arc to the point of suicide). I also think outside the outlier of season 9/10, the narrative supports sad drunk Dean far better than angry drunk Dean.
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shallowseeker · 1 month ago
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i know it’s used loosely as a joke (which is admittedly just as hilarious and every bit as whimsical as the character A-never-did-anything-wrong phrase)
but real talk for a sec:
caring about a person’s family and then caring about things/people they care about through virtue of knowing and being with them in a supportive unit is a lot how empathy works
i think cas’s 15c18 testament gets taken a bit too literally sometimes, as least for my tastes, and it can come off a little weird imho to use it to diminish the idea of cas caring about other things
and again, maybe this is just my taste, but i view the whole caring thread as more like… a domino effect rather than “the first thing is the de facto realest/deepest/truest thing through which everything else pales in comparison to or must connect back to” (which could… almost read as an amara-coded mentality: “then you went and made all those other things”)
living and growing up in the world is just like this: once you allow yourself to grow and care about things, your world keeps getting bigger and bigger ykwim? (that’s what the whole amara and “our little world” thread echoes for me)
and importantly!!!!
cas cares about things quite naturally on his own… that’s why torture and brainwashing happens to him so early and often… even other angels remark that cas’s heart was always too big
and like dean, i think cas tends… NOT to give himself enough credit for his own caring and emotions… cas grew up under an authoritarian regime that punished him for caring on his own merit, so it’s no surprise he seems much more comfy coat-hangering those “softer” things on humanity or individual humans
but like… consider this.
it’s clear onscreen that even as a full-powered angel, cas REALLY feels guilt, worry, and regret!!! in those early seasons, it’s very obvious! he has values that he wants to act on! he has doubts/regrets/feelings the point other angels point it out!!!
but cas himself later frames his so-called newfound empathy primarily through his human experience; he invokes being hungry and dying it as THE gateway to his overcoming an ends-justify-the-means soldier mentality
when that’s… just categorically NOT what we see onscreen! onscreen, cas had to be tortured OUT of caring. cas had to me memory wiped over and over. like dean, he can’t help but care!!!! i think maybe it’s cas’s romanticization of his own emotions at work here, retroactively tying them to humanity…
and while i do think falling/losing his grace helped cas parse his own emotions, to say being human and dying is “why he can feel guilt now”??? nooooo. hell no. (aside/// cas you are lying to yourself and putting human emotions on a pedestal again… which he will do off and on until s14-15 when he starts verbalizing “humans can be the worst kind of monster.”)
anyway my point is!!!!
i think cas sometimes gives other things or ppl credit when it comes to his own emotions or intuition.
dean tends to undercut himself in this same manner, like when he tells jody that sam is the one who’s good with emotions/talking… when that, again, is not what we see onscreen
anyway
the beauty in TFW to me is the resilience and joint effort to continue to try and support that caring heart… through the good, bad, ugly etc
it requires bravery to care! especially in heaven. you can be killed for caring about the wrong thing.
and once you care, you can lose things. you can get disappointed (and intolerance of disappointment is the chuck-coded mentality)
but caring in my head is a bit akin to the whole acting on free will is a group effort angle…
my broader point that i think i’m losing is that consider that… contagious caring does not diminish the later things you come to care openly about. these things that come after come more easily because of having a safe space to express your natural heart as it wants to be expressed…
EDIT: now if only we could conquer the final frontier…
getting the hero/soldier to care not just about loved ones and the world… but himself
he is not expendable!!!!!
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angelsdean · 2 months ago
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so i know the spn fandom was not kind to bela when s3 was airing (and probably a large portion still), but looking back at some of the things she accuses dean and sam of—it sounds quite similar to what some fans say. like that they (dean) only cares about vengeance, that they’re basically serial killers, etc. so even if fans didn’t like her, do you think they still absorbed bela’s dialogue and it was still a part of the development of certain fan misinterpretations?
hmmm ok i have some Thoughts. perhaps controversial ones.
(Prefacing all this by saying I wasn't There when the show was airing, but I have done my fandom history studies and know what the Vibe was like, and also my main frame of reference being in the fandom is with "this side" of the fandom.)
So yes, there were fans who despised Bela (and probably still do). From what I know these were largely the "brothers only" type fans (whether w*ncesties or not) who just constantly rioted every time a character (often women but also notably Cas) was introduced that could potentially "come between the brothers." These fans, however, are also the type IMO to not be critical of the brothers, and overall have a positive view of them. So these are not the types of fans I would see absorbing / parroting Bela's perspective, per se.
However, in every group there are subgroups. And there are for sure subgroups in the bro / w*ncest spaces that do not like Dean and will purposely twist things or take the words of an enemy at face value to support their misinterpretations of Dean. Many of these fans want Dean to be the Bad Guy to Sam's "perfect uwu victim." They want a Dean that is driven by vengeance, who forced Sam back into hunting and is corrupting their morally pure baby with his need for vengeance and violence. So yes, these fans definitely exist.
BUT, and here's where it gets ummm controversial, in my first-hand experience the types of fans I see in the circles I run who tend to parrot Bela / side with her are the types that well....hate the Winchesters. Hate them and think they are "the problem" instead of literally the protagonists and heroes you are supposed to be Rooting For! They are critical of them and will bolster up any other character that is their adversary, often under the guise of "supporting evil women!" or something. But like, sometimes the women ARE the antagonists and sometimes they are demons who lie, and sometimes they are just dead wrong. Even in 3x06, later in the episode Bela takes back her whole "you're basically serial killers" line and says that was a bit much.
But I find that some of these fans who act like they're better than everyone for Being Critical (and not in the actually having Critical Thinking Skills or media literacy way but in the ~I'm being a hater and tearing apart everything abt this thing I supposedly love~ kind of way) will indeed just absorb and latch on to anything an adversary says about the Winchesters to prop up their misinterpretations and their view of the Winchesters as "oppressors" or "supernatural cops." When, as I and others have said, most of the time monsters are not actually metaphors for the "oppressed" or some societal "Other" in Supernatural. Those kinds of blanket metaphors might work in other monster media but in SPN the closest "blanket metaphor" that applies to most monsters is that they are the serial killers and the Winchesters are basically doing vigilante justice.
Either way, I find it odd when fans take what enemies and antagonists say at face value and use it to support twisted interpretations. And there is indeed overlap with this group of fans and Dean Haters from the other side. Except in this group the poor uwu baby victim is Cas (sometimes it's Cas and Sam depending on what kind of fan they are). And once again Dean is just this "big bad horrible abuser" driven by violence and bloodlust because didn't you hear some antagonist said so!
Anyways, so, those are my thoughts. Basically I think both "sides" have their subsections of fans (especially Dean hating fans) who will very much take what an adversary says about Dean / the Winchesters and run with it to support their misinterpretations. But I think one side is more "Bela-hating" while the other side is more "Bela-loving". But both subsections do similar things when it comes to uncritically absorbing the words of villains and antagonists.
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rewatching-sam-and-dean · 7 months ago
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Trying to Put My Finger on Why I Don’t Really Like MOC Storyline
I was literally just writing a different post when this idea hit me. I think one of the reasons that MOC Dean storyline just doesn’t really work for me is that it’s not really a proper heroes journey, or it doesn’t feel satisfying. I know I don’t like Sam’s treatment in the storyline, and I find it slow at times, too. But the Dean treatment of it all bugs me too.
Stay with me here.
Season 1 to 5 is a bit more Sam’s Heroes Journey. He reluctantly gets back into hunting, tries to avoid going dark, goes dark, redeems himself (with varying degrees of support from his brother). It’s a complete arc (though I’m glad it didn’t end here). And Sam is forever changed by this. And even Dean is changed from going to hell and learns to trust Sam. This arc mattered for both of them.
Season 6 is like an Epilogue to Seasons 1-5. More a Cas villain reveal, and both brothers getting kicked in the teeth, than a heroic arc.
Season 7 is the consequences of Season 6 and lead-in to Season 8 onward, and Dean is depressed, Sam is insane and Cas finally helps clean up his own mess only after being bullied into doing so. Dean avenges Bobby and stops the leviathan slaughter-house plans by stabbing Dick, I guess. So, Dean is more or less the Season 7 hero.
Season 8 is again Sam’s Heroes Journey, except he doesn’t “get to” fulfill it this time because Dean won’t let him sacrifice himself.
Season 9 is Dean dealing with the consequences of his own actions and Sam’s feelings of betrayal (Angel/Sam) in the most self-destructive way possible (taking MOC), and getting killed.
Season 10 is Dean’s gradual downfall, but his redemption is … stopping himself from killing Sam more than saving the world? He defeats Abadon, but the way he does it is almost more scary than triumphant. Sam’s actions get the mark off of Dean (through getting Rowen and co. involved, and Sam’s actions cure him from being a demon), not Dean.
So in Season 11, the Darkness being unleashed is more a result of Sam taking action than Dean (though he indirectly got the ball rolling by taking the mark). At the end of the season, Dean is willing to sacrifice himself to save the world, but he doesn't have to. He defuses the Amara bomb by waxing poetic about sibling love. While I like this for the change of pace and for how it shows that Dean has finally accepted that Sam loves him back more than anything, it also sort of leaves Season 11 ending on a whimper.
I guess the biggest issue I have with the whole MOC plot for Dean is that once it’s over, it doesn’t seem to matter. No one really holds it against him. He never even like apologizes to Sam for almost killing him for the second time in one season, in “Brother’s Keeper” (that I recall). Dean doesn’t really feel much different as a character after, imo.
For people who like the MOC storyline, did you find it satisfying? Or did you like it for the Dean focus? Did you feel it changed Dean in any meaningful or lasting way?
For others who don’t care for the MOC storyline, what was your particular issue with it?
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insufferableprotagonistpoll · 6 months ago
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Round 2
Propaganda why Charlie Morningstar is insufferable:
"Her entire personality was rewritten to be insufferable. She behaved like an idiot who didn't understand anyone or the problems they had. Her ideas were shit and so were her dramas."
"She was insufferable in the the Masquerade episode. It infanticided her so much, it ruined any enjoyment I might have had in her. She is supposed to be an adult woman trying to safe sinners meanwhile she acts and is treated like a toddler??"
"I know her whole character is naive and innocent. I even liked her at first. But with every rewatch I find her more annoying. She is waaay too naive and doesn't listen to anyone else's concerns like Vaggie's or Lucifer's, instead just believing everyone will listen to her. I might be alone in this, I just hate this archetype of naivety and innocence to this degree."
"Rich girl who doesn't consider other people's needs and boundaries until it gets too far. Literally builds an entire hotel to get sinners to heaven WITHOUT first seeing if her theory is actually possible. She tells Heaven AFTER it was built if they could offer some help or support instead of before it. Toxic to her girlfriend. Literally complains about having daddy issues when there's no issues to be found. Her father is depressed and although he doesn't like her hotel concept he never shoots her down for it. She acts like the world revolves around her rainbow ideas when literally noone cares. You being a princess means nothing to most people. Get off your high horse and learn what it means to be anything but princess of hell. The narrative wants us to sympathize with Charlie but gives us no reason to beyond Quirky™ and 'oh she's so nice' SHUT UP you're literally lying to the audience about Charlie. For all she claims to be, Charlie sure is a self-centered brat trying to live out some heroic fantasy with unwilling co-stars she forces to bend to her will."
Propaganda why Dean Winchester is insufferable:
"This man is racist against anyone other than humans and abused the people he was supposed to love the most. He literally abandons Castiel at his most vulnerable and never lets Sam leave the whole hunting monsters thing. Worst part is that the fandom will get behind him and defend him because what, he’s pretty? Pretty much a terrible person, more like. I sympathize with his backstory but Dean has ZERO character development during the course of 15 whole seasons. When he DOES have development it involves abusing someone. Sam tries to be a normal person and always gets punished for it. The only hint we have that Dean might’ve been trying to change is a piece of paper in the final episode AFTER HE DIES. then guess what? Sam lives out his whole life and has a family 😭 that’s very, very telling."
"misogynistic scumbag. theres also a few different times that dean finds teenagers sexy with the most recent and prominent example that i can recall being the scooby doo crossover episode in season 13 where hes super into daphne who in the version they chose for the episode is 15-16 and is interacting with her as if shes a real person cause they got magicked into the episode. he treats everyone around him like shit and the only time the narrative agrees that thats a bad thing is when he has the mark of cain put on him and hes acting no differently than he does usually its just now acknowledged that hes treating others like shit. ive been rewatching the show for shits and giggles with a friend and wow he really does not treat anyone well but i wanna focus on how he treats sam for a second cause dude's hobby seems to be ignoring what his brother wants and lying to sam about doing stuff that directly concerns him the demon blood and souless things are reasonable cause those were both Bad for sam but theyre still part of a wider pattern and the most prominent example of this being when dean tricks sam into letting gadreel possess him and actually gaslights sam about it with the whole ordeal ending when its revealed gadreel lied about who he was and while possessing sam murders a friend of theirs. his voice is just also stupid as fuck im sorry this is just petty but he just sounds like hes trying so hard to be gruff n intimidating but he just sounds like a kid pretending to be batman"
"Dean’s list of sins is crazy long because of how long the show ran, but the key thing for me is that post-locking Sam in the bunker (season 4 I think?), I just can’t enjoy their relationship anymore. I normally love their sibling dynamic, but Dean’s ultimate worst past-the-point-of-no-return moment for me was demonizing (pun intended) his little brother for being “addicted” to demon blood, which only happened because of a series of events that were either Dean’s or someone else’s fault, not Sam’s. I also really dislike how the fandom treats Dean like this angel (pun intended) who has done no wrong and even tries to justify the MULTIPLE times he’s beaten up and otherwise abused his little brother. Canon Dean is like the polar opposite of fanon Dean: he’s homophobic and racist (jokes about a Black man being sexually assaulted in prison), misogynistic (take a shot every time he calls a woman a slur and you’ll die of alcohol poisoning), and abusive."
"Misogynistic asshole and too many of the things he does get treated as not actually bad or even good by both fans and the show when he violates peoples autonomy and is incredibly abusive to the people he loves the most. And it wouldn't be as annoying if people didn't justify so many of his behaviors or if he ever changed or even just was seen as a bad guy in the show more than he is."
">Was a misogynist (loved to call women skanks, bitches, hoes)
>Used gay as an insult multiple time during the show's run (idc if he's gay an homophobic, that's still insulting)
>Beat up his brother for being possessed
>Beat up his brother for losing his soul (not his brother's fault)
>Used dubious consent to get his brother possessed in a different unrelated possession incident after possession was being used (badly...this is supernatural after all) as a metaphor for SA
>Threatened to murder his brother when he was hallucinating (yay we aren't ableist)
>Locked a child up in a box
>Threatened to kill the child he locked up in a box
>Made a creepy, sexual comment about a barely-legal high school girl
>Got the woman and kid he was living with memory-wiped"
"Really mean to Cas (called him a child, zero respect for him, calls him family and casts him out when the angels are looking for him), and an absolute dick to Jack (threatening to kill him CONSTANTLY)"
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yaosirius · 1 year ago
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I don't want to be rude... why wincest?
Well u mean why I ship wincest?
First of all it’s a show about 2 brothers, the whole 15 seasons, 327 episodes, describing how these two guys support each other fight for each other, and how they sacrifice themselves to save the other. And I gotta say, they are too close for brothers. Normal brothers, they do love each other but they have their own life, instead of bond their life together. Also, romantic love or not, the relationship between them is absolutely unhealthy. Dean died for saving Sam for so many times, he literally cannot survive without his little brother, cuz think about this, Dean has been taking care of Sammy since 4, his whole life and all his value is about hunting(trying to help dad)and looking after Sam, now dad’s missing, the only thing he owns is his brother, Sam is always his first priority that for sure. Sam, see how he react after Dean died(or about to die), season 1 the episode that Dean had heart disease, he really didn’t show much regret about (accidentally) killing that athlete, and he risked Bobby’s life to save his brother (0311). Winchesters’ relationship is really unhealthy, twisted and codependent, they not whole if they lost the other.
(Really, just see how other people react about them, sooo many characters thought they were gay, they even got slash fanfics…)
And,,,yes i don’t ship destiel, no offense but Sam n Dean just love each other too much, like I said Sam is always Dean’s first priority, there’s nothing to beat him, Dean will kill everything if it has threats on Sam.
Lastly, I’m not from western countries I’m from China, incest is taboo here in real life but it is actually accepted by some of us in fanfics, so I’m fine with the fact that wincest means incest.
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jackklinemybeloved · 4 years ago
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You know when a movie has a beloved side character, someone who’s just funny and caring and interesting, and the audience gets really attached to them? Maybe even more than the main character?You know how sometimes that character gets a spin-off or sequel because everyone loves them so much, but it doesn’t work because the reason they were so effective in the original movie was because of how they supported and enhanced the protagonist? You know how sometimes it’s a bad idea to put incredible supporting characters in the main character role because it’s not what they were built for?
Yeah. That’s why shifting the protagonist of Supernatural from Sam to Dean was a bad fucking idea.
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musclesandhammering · 3 years ago
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Supernatural Opinions That’ll Have Me Burned At The Stake Pt 1.
• John Winchester is more sympathetic than Dean.
• Literally every single angel in the series (except maybe Ishim) had 100% justifiable and understandable motives, and none of them were genuinely evil.
• The demons deserved 97% more sympathy than they got (yes, all of them) because they were literally tortured into being the way they are.
• The hunters on the show are the real villains. The supernatural creatures were just existing as they instinctually should have.
• There was absolutely no reason to bring Mary back at all, and they 100% only did it to provide Dean specifically with more personal Angst. Because everything’s about Dean.
• They did Bela so so dirty and there was no reason at all that 432 other boring ass characters got storyline after storyline and resurrection after resurrection when she didn’t even get mentioned post-death #1.
• Anything to do with Ben/Lisa/Dean was legit just the most boring thing I’ve ever seen, like I literally skipped past those parts cause I cared 0% about any of that.
• Claire was cool at first but they put everything into making her a mini-Dean and she ended up being a whiny annoying rude trying-too-hard-to-look-badass mess (surprise surprise).
• Alex was way more likeable and interesting than Claire, she should’ve gotten the lead storyline in that arc.
• The whole Claire/Kaia thing was nice from a representation standpoint I guess but there was zero chemistry and only like 2 scenes of lead-up and the entire time I was just thinking “what in the hell are they supposedly falling in love for, this feels so forced” lmao.
• Metatron was my fav even before his big redemptive scene, I stanned one petty weirdo full-stop all the way through his dicking around with Cas and everything, y’all simply do not have Taste.
• Same with Amara. Loved her even when she wanted to destroy the known universe. Stanned her. Supported her, even. And also she had an incredibly heartbreaking and sympathetic and dynamic storyline, but some of y’all couldn’t see the substance in her cause you were too busy being pissed that she flirted with your trash monster (Dean).
• I’m very sorry, but Charlie was annoying as all shit.
• Not only did Dean abuse Cas, but Dean abused Sam literally throughout the entire show, from the very first scene.
• Speaking of Sam, he’s probably the most caring, kind, empathetic, genuinely good person on the entire show. He’s an actual cinnamon roll, and every single person that holds him even 1% accountable for the leaving for college thing, or the demon blood thing, or the not looking for Dean in purgatory thing… y’all can eat my shorts.
• Cas was better friends with Sam than he ever was with Dean. They have more of a profound bond too. He was ordered to rescue Dean from Hell and had an army of other angels with him, but he chose to rescue Sam and went in completely alone. If that’s not more profound idk what is.
• I like Balthazar better than Gabriel, fight me on it.
• Hannah and Cas were actually hella cute together. And so were Cas and Meg.
• The Winchesters did not deserve Crowley. They also didn’t deserve Rowena.
• Sam and Dean aren’t actually heroes at all tbh because 75% of all the major apocalyptic problems that have happened on the show was literally their fault. And they almost never solved said problems themselves. They coerced supernatural beings into doing it for them.
• I liked the angels way better in season 4, when they were terrifying mythical beings of eldritch proportions that even the demons were scared of. Held more gravity, I think.
• After Bobby was killed off, the whole vibe of the show kinda fell apart. Like the team/family feeling was just never quite there after that, and it sorta killed it for me tbh.
• Chuck being a mega douche wasn’t the mind blowing plot twist they thought it was. Like that was predictable. It would’ve been more meta and more unsettling and more profound if, instead of being a raging narcissist, he had been portrayed as they described him in season 4/5- an actual father/creator that was jaded with his creation. He still could’ve been absent and all, just not a total heartless jerk.
• I didn’t even watch half of seasons 7-8 like wow that was not interesting in the slightest.
• Season 2 was also dull as hell, but it gets bonus points for the gritty midwestern horror aesthetic. 10/10 immaculate vibes.
• Anything past season 10 I just picked out the Cas episodes to watch and I didn’t even really love those :/.
• I don’t like how the storylines started getting too big for their britches around season 11 or so. Like purgatory and heaven and hell and the apocalypse, ok sure. But alternate dimensions? Heavenly extinction? God’s literal sister? Babe you’re just a cute lil country show from the CW go back to drunks killing vampires.
• This whole series actually started being trash less than halfway through, and the only reason it stayed on so long was because die-hard fans were invested enough to subject themselves to mental and emotional torture week after week just to stay loyal to their old favourite show.
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tvxcue · 2 years ago
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i think it’s really funny how underdeveloped bobby is. one of the few characters that exists in the winchesters’ world consistently and has some kind of significance to their story and he has no real moral center or code for HIMSELF. he’s literally just dean’s yes-man. like his whole hunter origin story is that his wife was possessed and he killed her trying to kill the demon. he’s the one who introduces the winchesters to the fact that possessed people are still THERE, are still alive unless they themselves kill them. and then the winchesters find this fun little knife that allows them to kill demons instead of just exorcising them but that also means they kill the person and what does bobby have to say? nothing. sam uses his powers to kill demons without killing the person being possessed and what does bobby have to say? well dean if you think this is the right call, i guess we’ll just lock him up.
LIKE i don’t even think he would necessarily be against the knife or supportive of sam bc he’s a hunter, he kills “monsters” already, he could see it as being for the best, but there is literally no attempt to work through that. he kills his wife trying to kill the “monster,” he kills his wife again when she comes back from the dead before she can become a “monster.” like bobby is pretty clearly against the monster side of all of this. he literally forces a mother to lock her child away for her entire life just bc the child is a shapeshifter. how often do i talk abt the fact that shapeshifters are not inherently dangerous according the show’s own mythos! they’re literally just people who can change their shape, it is being “monsters” that makes them monstrous, it is a self-fulfilling prophecy, it’s circular, it’s whatever you want to call it but it’s the biggest argument against the show’s premise. and bobby plays right into it and perpetuates it, he doesn’t need to be against all of the shit the winchesters do but the show does not actually care to delve into it. bc bobby is at the end of the day bobby is more a plot device than a character, in the same way his house is more a prop than a setting.
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angelsdean · 2 years ago
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ok ok finally watched the last half of the ep and !! many thoughts. another moment where a character is trapped in a room thinking they’re gonna die while someone is banging on the door trying to get in. john figuring out how to loophole his fate !!! like hello hello. 
but thennn. there’s another little thread throughout this ep I caught on and haven’t seen many talking about, which ties into last week’s ep where John and Mary decided to “live with the consequences” of their life or death heat of the moment kiss because they do not !! want !! to sweep it under the rug !! they WANT to acknowledge and confront that thing that happened when they thought they were gonna die in that room where there was no way out (literally despair parallels be louder) 
So this ep we see them navigating their new relationship after acknowledging that they want to live with the consequences of their life-or-death kiss. And one of the central “issues” (small but there) throughout this ep is them sneaking around, trying to keep their relationship a secret, one of the main reasons for this being Mary (Dean’s mirror) is concerned that having the others know will change the group dynamics. so, lets just look at this with some destiel goggles on for a second. 
Say, Dean gets Cas back and they decide to acknowledge Cas’s love confession. Because Dean wants to live with the consequences of it. And say, Dean, like Mary, ends up reciprocating (Mary kisses John at the end of last week’s ep and tells him she wants to be with him and ‘live in the moment’). And okay! Now they’re together. But it’s still secret! Because maybe Dean’s scared or anxious abt telling other people. Maybe he’s worried them knowing will change things. especially thinking abt team free will and their group dynamics. Like, how will Sam and Jack react ? will they care? will it be an issue? like, even if Dean’s pretty sure they’ll be accepting, this is still new! He’s never done this before, not really. And not talking about a relationship with a man, but a steady long-term relationship that he can really see lasting. Like this is IT for him. 
Anyways, so we see Mary and John sneak around the whole episode until finally the cat’s out of the bag. Carlos and Lata find out and they are incredibly supportive and excited for their friends. And then this is Mary and John’s closing conversation. Destiel goggles back on, Mary is Dean, John is Cas (sorry Cas): 
John: So now that everyone knows? No more hiding, right? Mary: Yeah, the cat is definitely out of the bag. John: Do you think the group dynamic's gonna change? Mary: I don't know. But we're stronger together, with no secrets. And, I don't mind getting out of the moment thinking about the future as long as I know you're in the picture. John: Hope looks good on you, Campbell.
SO. No more secrets. Dean’s ready to think about the future, as long as Cas is with him. Hope looks good on Dean. HI. HELLO. 
And thennn they go out on a proper date. A very Dean-style date, if you ask me: 
Mary: Okay, so, how 'bout dinner and a movie. But it's your treat since you scared the hell outta me.
(like. dean is LITERALLY narrating this story. he is telling it to us, do not think for a minute his narration is not being influenced by his own experiences and feelings!) anyways. I feel normal. 
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restlesshush · 3 years ago
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Godstiel vs Angelus vs Casifer
Ever since I saw this very fun post by @trekkiedean several months ago I have had had many thoughts stewing but now I’ve actually seen the Casifer arc I’m actually in a position to lay them out. So:
The big thing that interests me about the idea of Casifer being an attempt to redo Godstiel by making it more Angelus-y, is that as character explorations of the character involved go, Casifer is (on paper) the least interesting but arguably the most love interest-y. On the surface, it sounds like trying to have another go at a very interesting concept (Godstiel) by making it more like a slightly less interesting concept (Angelus) resulting in an even less interesting concept (Casifer). Except, of course, that’s not actually quite what’s going on because this isn’t about Cas in his own right.
The optimal Godstiel (or, indeed, Dark Willow) arc (an exploration of how the character’s traits manifest in an extreme situation designed to bring out the worst in them) would be a more interesting piece of character analysis than the optimal Angelus arc (all of the dark impulses of the character, with no agency from their regular self), which would be a more interesting piece of character analysis than the optimal Casifer arc (where aside from having the opportunity to explore the reasons the character would put themselves in this situation, it’s literally just some other guy). However, the thing is that while character analysis of Cas is ostensibly sort of the point of Godstiel (in order to justify killing him off) as Cas and Angel are both supporting characters, they are really not the focus for Casifer and (btvs s2) Angelus in their own right. I do think it’s informative to touch on, but they’re not really what we should be comparing in order to look at what the story’s trying to do with them, especially not for a show as pathologically protagonist-focussed as spn.
What we should be looking at instead, is comparing the ways in which Angelus and Casifer are designed to impact our leads, so Buffy and Dean respectively. An ideal godstiel arc has to have Cas as the focus, so by default isn’t going to be (and shouldn’t be) tailored around the effect on Dean in the way that btvs s2 Angelus is re Buffy. Casifer kind of falls in a middle ground, because purpose-wise, it is also a way to facilitate having Lucifer around again (not that there couldn’t also be other ways), and unlike Angelus where torturing Buffy (although also in the process her friends) is his whole raison d’être, Lucifer really doesn’t give a shit about Dean. However, in the season where Dean is suddenly strikingly nicer to Cas again it is definitely worth looking at the plausible story logic behind Casifer through the lens of what it shows about Cas and Dean’s relationship, and the primary function it seems to serve on a character level is simply damselling Cas.
Angelus instead is all about the ways this relationship gone bad hurts Buffy, while Angel himself is entirely absent (because yeah, schoolgirl, your boyfriend is dead). Buffy’s feelings about Angel serve no practical function anymore, they only make it more difficult for her to do what needs to be done. They’re also not new information for us: we know Buffy loved Angel, that’s why this happened plot-wise, and why we care as an audience. On the other hand – in contrast to Angelus which does still tell us things about Angel and also the rest of the Scoobies – the main thing Casifer does on a character level, is give opportunities to show that Dean cares about Cas and avoiding him being hurt, to an extent that goes both beyond practicality (Dean, why saving Cas step 0 in your apocalypse-stopping plan when it’s not even necessary?), and beyond the way other characters feel (“it’s not an ‘it’, Sam, it’s Cas”). Aside from briefly touching on Cas’s horrifically low self-worth, it is simply all about Dean’s focus on Cas’s well-being, which I find particularly fun to run through the lens of this illuminating post by @autisticandroids. Just as much as the Angelus arc, the Casifer arc is one that it makes most sense to give to a love interest, but specifically when you, the spn writers’ room, are looking at the relationship through the perspective of the male other party. What if not only was someone evil wearing your beloved’s face, but you also had to rescue your beloved from them?? Delicious.
Anyway, I love it when spn does things that won’t allow me to parse Cas as anything other than Dean’s love interest, and the Casifer arc thoroughly does that for me. This is strengthened not only by the parallels with the Angelus arc, but specifically by the effects of the fact that in contrast to Angel, Cas isn’t dead – Dean can still try to help him. And then most entertainingly the fact that the Casifer arc is less conducive to interesting character work otherwise, means cementing Cas’s position as at the very least someone Dean cares immensely about, but really as his love interest, is absolutely the primary thing it’s doing on that score.
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soullessjack · 2 years ago
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Absolutely. Jack is constantly characterized by being detrimentally selfless and always thinking of others first, and while I think it’s a natural element of his personality given that he really does just Care So Much, it’s another one of those elements that he exaggerates to keep up his front. Jack also tends to attribute every other negative trait in himself—his anger, his impulsivity—as being proof of his true evil nature (largely because those specific traits are the ones that often lead to him hurting others). It doesn’t help that his surrounding environment basically reinforces that idea, like this part in 14x01:
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“Cas is a little shocked by how calmly Jack says this, and Jack says he knows what Cas is thinking: that this is Lucifer’s gene pool talking. It’s not.”
Despite his unconditional love and support for Jack, Cas is not exempt from the fear of Lucifer’s influence or the fear of what Jack is capable of. As an angel himself, he’s far more understanding of Jack’s struggles with controlling their power and trying to figure out who they are, beyond being a weapon. He’s also extremely forgiving, partially because it’s the forgiveness he’s wanted for his actions in the past, but even still he lends to the idea that certain behaviors or actions are Bad or Dangerous, and therefore Jack should strive to avoid being like that or else it means they are also Bad and Dangerous.
Now, each member of Team Free Will has had their share of weaponizing themselves for an affixed greater good; Sam drank demon blood to kill Lilith and seal the apocalypse, Dean took on the MOC to defeat Amara, Cas swallowed leviathans and became God to defeat Raphael, stashed the Demon Tablets in his gut, and a plethora of other things I can’t remember off the top of my head. But this also lends to the idea of weaponizing yourself being framed—not quite as “good,” because it’s still just suicide with magic and monsters—but as a better alternative to being weaponized by someone else.
“They can’t weaponize me if I weaponize myself first!”
I mean, going all the way back to John and Mary, the Winchester love language has always been about violence and self sacrifice: “I will die for you, I will kill for you, and I don’t matter beyond either of those goals.” And even without the influence of the world’s three most violently suicidal men as his caretakers, Jack is still perfectly fine weaponizing himself as a means to protect the people he cares about or to do what he believes he right; killing Michael’s soldiers, destroying the monsters in the bunker at Maggie’s insistence, killing Duma’s targets and of course becoming a living bomb.
I have a really long post about the body horror aspects of Jack’s character, and you’re free to read or not read it, but suffice it to say that the horror in Jack’s body and whole existence is that he is literally the biological, genetic, blood offspring of the Devil. He’s not cursed like Dean, he’s not poisoned like Sam, not corrupted like Cas—he just is what he is. Like Hallucifer says, “…you are a part of me. I’m in your DNA. Locked in your head and heart forever.” Every time Jack hurts someone or, as the script puts it, ‘causes violence,’ he takes it as substantial proof that he’s truly evil. That, basically, it’s just his nature to be violent and destructive and every tendency for violence or anger is Lucifer’s gene expression. So, not only does Jack have all that to burden himself with, but it also makes his efforts significantly more…heartbreaking? insane? because he’s actively fighting against something he believes is a biological inheritance….
….of course until we get back to the bomb thing. I’m reiterating, but by this point in time Jack’s given up on trying to be good or redeemed and resigned himself to accepting his doomed fate and using his violent nature more pointedly. and what’s more tragic is that even at this level, Jack still cares about other people and makes efforts to help them—like Sylvia from Gimme Shelter, and of course Sam and Dean. he’s not exactly trying to be good anymore, but he’s still carving himself out into a weapon for a good cause as a last effort to amend what he did.
I don't know if this is an unpopular or rare perspective on Jack, and I'm a huge over-analyzer, but I think that he purposefully makes himself more naive as a way of making himself likeable/less intimidating.
Like at first he's genuinely new to everything and doesn't understand what's going on, but I think he starts "masking" fairly early as he notices people react well to certain things and react poorly to others.
An example that stands out to me is his expression and the way he holds himself.
At the start, he has a "scary" expression reminiscent of the Kubrick stare. His head is tilted down, chin in, and eyes furrowed. It seems to be his default state, as he reverts to it when he's overwhelmed or just focused strongly on something else, like when he uses his powers.
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However, at the police station he ends up getting his first positive feedback (lack of fear/nervous response) from his body language
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Being down on the ground, he looks up at the officer and ends up with his head tilted up and his eyes unfurrowed. With his mouth full his expression also changes compared to how slack his face was before.
Then when he wakes up in the cell with Sam, he's back to his normal expression and angry about Sam tazing him, and Sam apologizes and explains why.
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What's interesting to me is what Jack does next -
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He sits crosslegged like he did earlier, despite being on a bench, and apologizes back. Because he just learned from Sam that if you hurt someone and regret it and want them to forgive you, you apologize and explain why it happened.
And he gets into the last pose that worked for him - legs crossed and tilting his head up, because it makes him look less threatening. And it works, it relieves some of Sam's obvious fear.
(part 1)
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maipareshaan · 2 years ago
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I feel like i wank about this every week but ppl who are hung up on 'narratives' of the show whining about positivity because they do media right by hating the narrative and wanting the correct narrative and hating anyone who doesn't want what they want and hate what they hate then being all #positivity and #silenced and #domediaright when they are vocal pro censorship and harrassers, idiotic, to have no self-awareness about it when whining about how a creator needs to think about and create for your poor mental health bcz the 'narrative' hurts you and only what is good and healthy to you is allowed and how you can't show something and be about something and must be about thing you want.
Literally my problem is the whole positive uwu schtick, nausea inducing idiotic hateblogs who don't even know that's what they are.
And they are so obsessed with how other people are not having positive and supportive feelings for their hurt feelings. It is literally how they fully conduct themselves after the finale. I am not saying the dean crit thing isn't idiotic at times and also you aren't obligated to care, the reactionary whining is just obviously coming from a place of narrative obsession, has nothing to do with fandom when somehow the rules are that character must be decent, like Dean, bcz you can't at all be a bad character stan, you can't like the brother's dynamic, you must want their narrative which is how Dean DESERVES better by breaking free of his duty to Sam to be idek happy free most likely via Destiel.
I mean if i just talk about Destiel, like why are you whining about people too into Castiel's positive independent narrative or Sam's, when all you do is whine about your narrative want, somehow these people get so offended at any s9 wank but will not cannot stop finale wanking, is it not the same thing? Narrative wank? Also can't stop s8 homophobe Sam finale wanking, weird, what a weird way to conduct yourself in fandom and be so not aware of being a wanker with negative feelings who whines about being above the wankers with negative feelings.
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Umm, wait. It's more a 15x20 rant than an analysis. I'll call it... a ranalysis. 😏
I just saw J*reds last online panel again, where he called the finale "magical full circle storytelling". 15x20 is his "favourite episode ever" because he "is a fan of good storytelling". Uh-huh... Okay. So the following just was built on pure rage. This makes it more of a rant than an analysis. As usual. You guys know me.
Well. There are various possibilities here, Jared. Possibility A is, you are lying, what I do not believe. To lie that obvious you have to be a talented actor, which you are not. Possibility B is, you really think that way. You believe, the finale was "magical full circle storytelling" and you actually loved it, it was indeed your favourite episode. This again brings me to the only conclusion: You have no fucking idea about good storytelling, not even decent storytelling.
Lets look at every single ending, shall we?
Dean. We all know you think Deans death was a "success story." You think that Dean "ultimately gave his life for his number one on planet." I am sitting here, laughing in pain. First of all, let me say that Dean didn't died for Sam, Jared. He didn't took a bullet for Sam or sacrificed himself or whatsoever. He died in the most ridiculous accident I've ever seen. But lets go back to the very start.
Dean’s childhood was highly abusive. Dean was 4 years old when he saw his mother burning alive and learned that monsters are real. In that age he developed PTSD and stopped talking. Dean had a childhood with a father that was an alcoholic and physically and mentally abusive, who had believed that Dean had a “killer instinct". When Dean was about 6 years old, John forced him into a nurturing role for Sam. In the same age Dean was forced into the soldiers role as well when John taught him how to shoot and hunt. Dean had to obey orders without questioning. If he acted “out of line,” (aka something John didn’t like) John chewed him out or left them alone. Dean was trained to be Daddy’s blunt instrument. Dean gave up his own life to keep Sam safe, because he had no other choice. More than a brother Dean had to be a father and a mother to Sam. He suppressed everything, every psychological pain, every emotion, he just lived to protect Sam and to obey as Johns blunt soldier. Short: Dean gave up HIMSELF for Sam and John. Not because Dean wanted to, because he was forced into it! Dean hated himself, he was suicidal. He was convinced he isn’t worthy of anything, especially not being loved. Dean never had a life for his own, never had a choice, never had a chance, never had own original thoughts, never felt safe or loved. He was used to being left. He felt like he was nothing. Worthless. He was dead inside. Broken. You get what I mean, Jared? Since you own a mental health campaign, you should. And guess what Dean did? He kept fighting. Despite everything, he kept fighting. And his mindset slowly changed. He understood that his father was an abusive bastard, he unterstood that he was forced into a life he never wanted. He understood that he is more than that, that he is not like John. He changed. He opened up. He even wanted to retire. And now it gets interesting, because something happened that REALLY is the start of magical full circle storytelling. Something in Deans mind clicked while Cas' confession. His confession was fundamental to Dean to finally accept his own goodness and the value of his life and love, of his identity. It was the moment of breaking free of the structure that had controlled and corrupted him his entire life. It was the only way out of his abusive and traumatizing cage to experience something for his own the very first time. For the first time in his life he had a chance. A choice. The start of his very own life. Free will, baby! Well, no. Because exactly in that moment he stumbled into a nail and died. Do you even realize how dumb this is? Do you even realize what you did? Wait, it gets worse. Yeah, that's possible, even if you dont believe it. In heaven he goes right back to the life he has spent his whole journey learning to free himself from: Left only with the persons he had been forced, time and time again, to sacrifice his identity, goals, and soul for. None of the family, support, or love, nothing he has built or chosen for himself remains. This is not magical full circle storytelling, Jared. This is abysmal pointless butchering. This has NOTHING, not a single percent of magical or good storytelling! YOU call that magical? YOU call that a success? Seriously, what shit are you on? If it would've been full circle storytelling, there is not one single fucking possibility that Dean would've died in the end. I don't know whats going on in your twisted brain, but Deans death never was and never will be a success. To make it magical full circle storytelling, he MUST have been the one who survives and overcomes his trauma (and raise a certain someone from perdition.)
Sam. He's actually the one who kinda got the best ending, huh? I mean, it was fucking horrific, but it was the best if you compare it to the others. When Sam was young, he wanted a normal life far away from hunting, while the truth is, Sam always was more like John than Dean ever will be. Over time his mindset clearly changed. He even said: "When Dean came to get me at school, I told myself, one last job, you know, (...) it was always one more job and then I was gonna go back to law and to my life. I guess, I really understand now that THIS is my life. And I love it." Sam couldn't imagine a normal life anymore. He had the chances for that and he declined. He loved hunting. He loved working and making progress with the BMOL, he very much enjoyed being a MOL and even took the lead often. I can clearly picture Sam as the lead of a rebuilt version of the MOL, that would've made sense. What did Sam get? Right, the ending he didn't wanted anymore, but since we yeet every single development of every single character out of the window, Sam has to be Season 1 Sam again, BUT with a fancy party wig! And there he is! And what a happy life he lives, exactly what he wanted, woohoo! So much joy, so much fun! Oh look, there is BlurryWife™, who Jared made sure is not Eileen, because “Dean wouldn’t want Sam to be with Eileen”. But wait, didn't Dean wanted Sam to be with Eileen? Didn't Dean literally said: "If it was to work, Eileen, you know... She gets it, she gets us, she gets the life. You could do worse. And she could certainly do better, like SO much better. I'm happy for you, Sammy." Yeah, NO. This was just a writing AND acting AND producing mistake and had no matter at all. *cough* So... As you can see, magical storytelling strikes again. I can feel the magic, I can feel the full circle, it's... Amazing...
Castiel. Castiels story was magical, it was mindblowing. I've never in my entire life seen such a meaningful and deep storyline and I mean this. It's fucking massive. There is this blunt angel soldier, one of the post powerful forces, who was built to blindly obey, who lived for aeons of years, who wasn't supposed to feel anything, but he fell for a broken, suicidal, abused human who never felt loved or worthy the very moment he touched him. He fell so hard he rebelled against his own race, against his own family, against everything he had without any safety. He was the ONLY one in Chuck-knows-how-many universes who GREW outside of Chucks CONTROL! His love was so fucking massive, it couldn't be controlled by the God who built every-fucking-thing. Chuck built millions(?) of parallel universes, heaven, hell, life, death, purgatory, the empty, he created every single being, the light, darkness, every single angel, demon, leviathan, monster, animal, plant, sea, blade of grass, every centimeter of mountains, the four seasons, emotions, what the fuck ever. Everything you can ever think of, Chuck created it. And he controlled it. In every single one of his fucking millions of universes. But not Castiel.This is actually not possible. You can't outrun god. You can't outrun the one who creates, writes and controlles everything. But Cas did. Out of love. And not only that, you also imply that what happened between Dean and Cas was the only thing  that was real. Everything else was corrupted, controlled, manipulated, written by Chuck. But what happened between Dean and Cas, he couldn't affect.
Seeing Cas standing there, crying, confessing his love to Dean actually even makes me think that Dean made Cas human. Dean completed Cas. Cas didn't simply said "I love you", he actually said "In all existing universes, in all millions, all aeons of years, you are my only happiness." And Cas completed Dean. He freed Dean. While Dean was used to being left, was used to feeling worthless and unlovable, Cas saw Dean exactly the way he is and chose to stay. With every obstacle, every difficulty he loved him even more and yes, freed him from the abusive structure that had controlled and corrupted him his entire life. Something that no one else could, not his parents, not Amara, not God, not even Sam. Beautiful, isn't it? Unique. Mindblowing. Pure. You enjoyed it? Let's fuck this up in 3...2...1...
Castiels story ended exactly the same way it started. A blunt angel who doesn't care about people and feelings, blindly carrying out instructions from a new God, obeying heaven. No progress. They threw away 12 years of character development and managed to give him the same stupid and senseless ending like they did with Dean. Dean died and Cas... Wasn't there?! WHAT!? There is no single fucking way Cas wouldn't save Dean or wouldn't be there when Dean enters heaven! There. Is. No. Fucking. Way! The way they represented Cas in the end doesn't only imply that Dean isn't important to Cas anymore, he even ended up exactly the same way as if Season 4-15 wouldn't have happened. The ending is exactly the same! He's with God in heaven, supporting him with instructions, not caring about anything else.
Okay, I got it. Summarizing you can say: Jareds "magical full circle storytelling" is to yeet 95% of the past 15 years. No other characters matter, the story itself doesn't matter, every single characters development doesn't matter, it even doesn't matter what the brothers really want, they don't get it anyway.
Okay. But that's not all. As if this wasn't bad enough, they didn't just butchered ... EVERYTHING, they also salted and burnt every single Mantra they ever stood for. I'll make these short, I promise!
Team Free Will. *snort* Dean couldn't escape his fate, he always believed he'll die on a hunt as Daddys blunt instrument and he did. He kept fighting to die exactly the way he felt he was "supposed to". Message? No matter how hard you keep fighting, no matter how long you'll keep it up, you can't escape your fate. Sam couldn't change his fate, he ended how he started. Cas couldn't change his fate, he ended how he started, same for Jack, he ended how he was supposed to. YEET THE FREE WILL, NONE OF THEM CAN CHANGE ANYTHING!
Family don't end with  blood. The biggest lie that has ever been told. Do I even have to explain that? No need, right? Don't make me wanna throw up again, please. We all know that 15x20 blasted "Family don't end with blood" in millions of pieces.
Always keep fighting. THE AUDACITY to praise that while Dean is dying! After everything Dean has dealt with, It makes me wanna scream. Dean kept fighting, he always kept fighting, no matter how hard it was, no matter what forced him to his knees, he stood up again, and if he wasn't able to stand up, he crawled. He kept fighting no matter what, despite everything. His mindset changed. He wanted to live, he wanted to experience things, feelings and people differently or even for the first time. He changed. He wanted to retire, toes in the sand. He knew he earned it. Thats why he kept fighting. For what? To die the very first moment he had a free will. To die the very first moment he had a choice, had a life to build for himself. Always keep fighting, but the moment you come close to what you want, what you fought for, you die. It's been more than 3 months and I am having tears in my eyes while typing this. As for Dean, no matter how hard you fight, no matter how long you fight, you don't reach what you deserve anyway. Give up. As for Sam, AKF leeds to Emptiness. Grief. Psychological Trauma. Mental illness. Absolutely nothing worth fighting for.
I wanna go cry now, bye.
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autisticandroids · 4 years ago
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anyway i really dislike the “dean thinks cas doesn’t have feelings because he’s an angel” headcanon because i just don’t think it’s...... believable? 
like, my first thought is it doesn’t make a ton of sense if only because like, cas is such an overemotional character. like his motivations are intensely impulsive, irrational, emotional. but like, you could also argue that dean doesn’t understand that about him, that dean doesn’t see him very clearly, and that’s believable to me.
but there’s a lot of other evidence against this headcanon. like, first of all, dean has seen him human or de-angeled a couple of times, and he clearly doesn’t change that much. second of all, like, yes, in the early seasons dean sees cas as an Angel but by the late seasons he very much sees him as like..... just a guy? like he very much just sees cas as a guy in later seasons. i don’t know if i could pinpoint where this transition happens but it does happen. third of all, we see dean attempting to tug on cas’ heartstrings a good few times? 6x20 “i’m not gonna logic you,” 6x22 “we were family once,” 8x17 “i need you,” and those are the ones that come to me off the top of my head. and in 8x17 it even works! so like when push comes to shove and it’s a life or death situation, dean is aware that cas has heartstrings to be tugged on. like dean knows cas has emotions.
but the biggest reason is like. that line that people use to support it. the one from reading is fundamental.
Oh, I don't know, man. What can I say? You've been chosen. And it sucks. Believe me. There's no use asking "why me?" 'Cause the angels – they don't care. I think maybe they just don't have the equipment to care. Seems like when they try, it just... breaks them apart.
like, that line is..... okay we’re all agreed that dean is like. he is nothing if not a miserable little pile of lies. he is always saying the opposite of what he means and masking one feeling under another. it’s his defense mechanism. things he says, things like this, they’re him trying to convince himself/other people of one thing, while he believes another. 
the first thing he’s doing here is blaming himself. he is taking responsibility for both cas’ previous actions and his current state on his own shoulders. 
now, remember, this is an edlund episode. and given *waves hands* supernatural, i think one of the more coherent methods of analysis one can take wrt. the show is to view individual writers’ bodies of work as coherent canons within themselves, only semi connected with the show as a whole, because individual writers often have strong and conflicting portrayals of the characters. 
anyway ben edlund’s dean very much feels responsible for cas. like, obviously edlund wrote “the end,” and we have collectively made a delicious meal of the fact that the horror of that future for dean is that he’s ruined cas - that endverse cas is very much (if i may weave the text together for a moment) “fallen in every way imaginable,” and that it’s dean’s fault. but the end is not the only place this dynamic shows up. look at the man who would be king - “you're a friggin' child, you know that? just because you can do what you want doesn't mean that you get to do whatever you want!” dean is very much taking it as his responsibility to educate cas here, to teach him right from wrong. ben edlund's dean very much views cas primarily as a child he is responsible for. hell, the whole drama of the man who would be king is basically that cas did something without dean’s permission, which doesn’t make a ton of sense unless you think dean feels responsible for all of cas’ actions. like, this is the flip side of dean’s control complex - if it is dean’s moral duty to control everything going on around him, then everything that happens is his fault. if everything that happens is his fault, then it is his moral duty to control everything around him. they’re the same. 
this line is dean blaming himself for cas’ “brokenness,” since he’s the one who got cas to try to care. and certainly, the text is encouraging him to blame himself:
DEAN It's Sam's thing, isn't it? You taking on his, uh, cage-match scars. I'm guessing that's what broke your bank, right?
CASTIEL Well, it took... everything to get me here.
like, i don’t think cas is trying to fuck with dean’s head here? i don’t think even at the best of times cas is emotionally aware enough to hit on the perfect way to ruin dean’s entire month like this on purpose, and this is not the best of times. and cas i don’t think sees things as dean’s fault, he just sees himself as fallen, he doesn’t think dean pushed him. and a lot of things have happened to cas in the last four years, only some of them to do with dean. to cas, “everything” here means just that - everything. dean is only one piece of a much larger puzzle. hell, cas when cas says “everything” he is probably referencing like, his whole “god’s plan” thing here: quite literally the entire predestined machinations of the world. it’s very little to do with dean.
on the other hand, i’m always just on the edge of reading cas in reading is fundamental, specifically, as bitterly passive aggressive - “always happy to bleed for the winchesters” is such a vicious line it’s hard to believe he’s being sincere. sometimes in stories i can sort of... feel the narrative/author possessing a character and saying what they want to express, rather than what that character would actually say. sometimes i feel like “well, it took... everything to get me here” and “always happy to bleed for the winchesters” were less “authentic cas characterization” and more “ben edlund being a bitter casgirl.” 
but i digress. regardless of whether that exchange was in-character for cas, and whether it was sincere, the effect on dean it has is in-character: dean blames himself. 
and the whole “they don’t have the equipment to care” thing is on the one hand, dean blaming himself - he’s the one who tried to get cas to care in the first place. and on the other, dean trying (and failing) to convince himself that there’s nothing he could have done, that it isn’t his fault - cas’ brokenness is inherent to his angelic nature, that can’t be dean’s fault.
the other thing he’s trying to do here is dehumanize cas. 
he has a couple of reasons for doing this. the first is simply that he's angry. dehumanizing cas is an act of cruelty, and dean is being cruel because he's angry.
it makes sense that dean is angry. like, on one level, cas has done a bunch of fucked shit that dean has every right to be mad about. but that stuff is not imo the primary reason dean is angry. dean is angry because of his self-blame. dean is angry because he blames himself for both cas' actions and his current state, and he's mad at cas for making him hate himself. i know that's like five dimensional blame refraction, but welcome to the twisted mind of dean winchester.
so dean is angry, and he's dehumanizing cas as an act of cruelty because he's angry. but he's also dehumanizing cas because he doesn't want to be angry at cas anymore. he can't forgive cas (because he can't forgive himself and he blames himself for cas' actions), but he loves cas and doesn't want to be angry with him, so he dehumanizes him and strips him of agency in order to absolve him of responsibility.
that's what's happening in this line. and also, all that aside, the line doesn't even say cas doesn't have feelings! it says he does, and they've ruined him!
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