#really really dislike soulless!sam

[ardentpoop]

personally i think that when balthazar told soulless!sam he could keep his ravaged soul away from his body by committing an unspeakably terrible act that would "pollute his vessel" he shouldve tried to kill dean instead of bobby. but whatever.

[autisticandroids]

Yeah re: soulless Sam I was always interested and a bit troubled by the way s6 handled it where like they presented soulless sam as the primary issue/threat yet I found deans controllingness and dislike towards soulless sam equally if not more threatening. Like it felt like soulless sam was Not The Problem- dean reacting very poorly to a sam he could neither control nor understand was the issue. Would you have handled it differently than the show and if so, how?

so i think this ask is a response to this post.

yeah i mean this is something that really bugs me in the show. so first of all, the writers don't really have a handle on what it means to be soulless - they never do, throughout the whole show.

this is firstly because the concept of soullessness is cribbed wholesale from buffy, where it is ALSO stupid and makes no sense. but in spn, it's worse, because spn already has its own interpretation of buffy's vampires - you can draw a pretty one to one line between how buffy uses vampires and how spn uses demons. except that demons are one of the things that spn actually does better than buffy - instead of being inherently evil in a way that's justified by nature, demons have two things going on. first, they are soldiers in an army - they have a reason to be evil and it's that that's what they're ordered to be. second, the difference between a demon and a human is that the demon has gone through centuries or millennia of torture to turn them into a new person. which is like... a comprehensible difference. the reason that all demons love violence and constantly commit it is a result of being intentionally shaped into being that way by the other demons who tortured them, who were also tortured in their turn, on and on all the way back to lucifer. this is to me more compelling and makes more narrative sense than "vampires don't have souls and so therefore they're inherently evil (so we can have lots of cool scenes of buffy killing them and not worry about it)."

so the concept of soulless sam is basically "hey let's crib one of buffy's stupidest worldbuilding elements for a second time, but this time we won't iterate on it until it's good." bad, broadly, i would say.

man. 3.5k words. the rest goes under a cut.

secondly i would say that the individual writers have totally different ideas about what a "soulless sam" should look like. this is partly just stupidity i think - ben edlund's* idea of what soulless sam is isn't that different from brett matthews', they both write him as an unemotional pragmatist who doesn't actually have bad intent. it's just that matthews is a bad writer, and he's also taking the directive from the top that sam should be "evil," which edlund clearly isn't listening to. whereas for example dabb and lofflin are writing soulless sam as an active monster. same with gamble i would say, though that's less clear cut.

now, there are people reading this right now who think that i'm about to say "we should throw out soulless sam" but i actually don't agree with that. i LIKE elements of soulless sam. i think at his best he makes a really great foil for like... where dean is at in season six. i think that his, like, existence is a great torture for dean, partly because he's such a fabulous foil. and frankly, i also think jared padalecki seems like he's having an absolute ball playing a cheerful bastard, and it makes soulless sam absolutely magnetic to watch. oh before you read any further you should probably read this post, it's really good.

anyway i'm going to take three episodes and compare them. we're gonna look at live free or twihard, clap your hands if you believe, and caged heat.

i'm also gonna talk a little about later handlings of soullessness.

but first i'm gonna say that the concept of soulless sam as "evil sam" is dumb. if he's evil sam then... do something else to him. but the premise of soulless sam is just that he lacks emotion and lacking emotion is not like.... Becoming Evil. that's so stupid it's unreal. and it doesn't lead to an interesting idea of the character of soulless sam!!! there's nothing to do with that except Bad Guy!!!!! stupid.

anyway, between twihard, clap your hands, and caged heat, i would say twihard is absolutely my least favorite, clap your hands is my most favorite, and caged heat is somewhere in the middle, at least in terms of handlings of soulless sam specifically.

so in twihard, sam lets dean get turned by a vampire. it's not malicious, he just wants to test the vampire cure on him. this is so fucking stupid it's unreal. brett matthews is going for "unfeeling pragmatist" here but he also clearly wrote backwards from the idea of sam as the antagonist who got dean turned. it makes very little sense for sam to have done this, it's not unfeelingly pragmatic, it's silly, and it exists purely to manufacture soulless-sam-as-antagonist. dumb and bad.

vs. clap your hands, where soulless sam isn't an antagonist. he's a foil, and he makes dean very upset, but he mostly acts both reasonably and in concert with dean. he's just offputting. like, dean gets abducted, and then sam does his best to get him back, but when he can't work anymore, he cheerfully has sex with the hippie girl. that is, genuinely, offputting to the point of a little disturbing. it very successfully shows us a man who is not feeling things the way most people do. but it's not evil. it's just weird. and it's really successful as a foil to dean's "feelings are king" shtick.

vs. caged heat, which has a little bit of both. i'm mostly going to look at the first scene with meg, which has both my favorite and least favorite moment.

my favorite moment is this:

SAM laughs. DEAN: Something funny, Sam? SAM: Yeah, Meg. DEAN: Really? ’Cause where I’m sitting… SAM: Don’t worry. She can’t do jack squat. She’s totally screwed. DEAN: Sam, not helping! SAM: Look at her, Dean. She’s furious. If she could kill you, she’d’ve done it by now. She’s running. MEG: Am I? SAM: Judging by the level of flop sweat on all of you, yeah. Which means you’re running from Crowley. Which makes sense. Crowley would want to hunt down all the Lucifer loyalists now that he’s the big man on campus.

so what's happening here is that dean is being very genuinely menaced. by meg. like he's in maybe some serious danger. and sam has been trying to protect him by talking to meg. but sam is also totally calm. because he doesn't care. he doesn't want meg to rape dean, to cut him up, to kill him. but he's not scared, and he's not empathizing with dean's fear, even though he knows it exists. in fact this fact allows him to notice that meg is scared, that she can't actually cut dean up. her threats are empty. i think this is a great use of soulless sam because, again, it's offputting, and it's obviously callous. dean would be totally within his rights to be pissed about this, like sam is out of pocket here. but he's not really doing anything bad.

and now my least favorite part: literally the next two lines.

MEG: How would you know? SAM: It’s what I’d do.

STUPID. STUPID STUPID STUPID. ooooooooooooh sam is soooooooooo evil he can obviously perfectly predict crowley DUMBBBBBBB. STUPID DUMB. sorry i get so mad when i hear this line. genuinely i kind of love caged heat there's a reason it's one of my most-watched eps but this line makes me SO mad.

like this is so clearly a finger on the scale to make him seem evil. it makes zero sense and is just... making the scene unwatchable.

for better ideas about soullessness, i actually think we should look to season eleven. in season six and season fourteen with soulless sam and soulless jack, things are kind of a clusterfuck. i talked about soulless jack here in preparation for making this post, but suffice to say that the soulless jack arc was even messier than the soulless sam arc - primarily because being soulless simply did not affect jack's characterization that much. the opposite problem to sam, who got his characterization fucked so he could say "muahaha look how evil i am" occasionally.

but in season eleven none of the main characters are soulless, so there's no need for a soulless person to be an "evil version" of a main character. instead, the soulless are amara's victims. they constitute problems, but are primarily indicative of a larger problem.

this is how the episode "thin lizzie" exists. that's my favorite soulless episode, because it tries to actually take seriously what having "no emotions" would mean for its characters. so you have soullessness as tragedy and as heroic trait. because len can no longer experience joy or fear, his life is empty, but he is also fearless and has nothing to lose.

or another interesting idea of soullessness is. deep sigh. jack in the box. because jack's emptiness leads him to be unable to understand the emotions of others, and therefore to be easily tricked because he can't empathize well enough to predict that salmondean are obviously lying to him.

both of these are concepts of "emotionlessness" that don't revolve around "you become an evil genius." which is just.... it's stupid. it's dumb.

anyway all this to say that a more coherent concept of soulless sam primarily modeled on clap your hands if you believe would really improve season six. for me.

anyway that's NOT really answering your question All That was like a prologue to answering your question which was actually about the character drama. anyway the thing about dean in season six is that i really like him. he's my special guy. he's melting down like a reactor core every moment of every day.

and soulless sam is perfect for this because he's making it so much worse.

the thing about dean is that he has just had one of the worst(?) years of his life. first of all sam was dead. for a year. sam was DEAD for a YEAR. dean winchester, noted soul seller, noted enmeshment enthusiast, noted identity lacker, his sam was DEAD!!!!!!! FOR A YEAR!!!!!!!!!!!!! i don't think people recognize how crazy it is that sam was dead for a year.

this is like the most important thing. but also: dean tried out being Normal. and he HATED it.

the thing about dean is that he doesn't really think normies are people. he thinks they're cardboard cutouts. sitcom characters. he thinks their life has laugh track and they stop existing when the camera stops rolling.

and dean desperately craves this. he wants it so bad. except then he tries it and. and he still exists. he still has to wake up every morning and put one foot in front of the other. still has to go to sleep and dream of alastair. every excruciating moment of "being dean winchester" still happens and he's still experiencing them. and that's the worst case scenario for dean: he doesn't want to exist. he doesn't want to experience "being dean winchester" because it's awful. being dean winchester is nothing but pain. but becoming a normie didn't actually make "being dean winchester" stop happening to him. he's still suffering. except now.... now his last comfort, the idea that maybe someday he could have a normal life and stop "being dean winchester" for good? that's gone. there's no hope. he's this or he's dead.

like, i made a joke about dean's breakdown in unity being kind of about this, dean being desperately hopeful that killing chuck will make "being dean winchester" stop happening to him. like dean's most desperate wish for his whole life has been to stop existing, in some way or another, death or identity destruction or mindlessness. and to take hope of that away, to ruin his chance to not exist anymore... well, that's going to have an impact. that's a big part of what's going on with dean in season six.

and then there's the less world-endingly tragic element that he just... doesn't like being a normie. this is imo mostly just because he set himself up to fail. lisa is a stranger, she's very nice but she's basically just an idea to him when he moves in with her. it's not clear if they even like each other. he throws himself into this concept role of the Normal White Picket Fence Guy without asking himself if he enjoys any part of it. he keeps drinking - he was on fifty drinks a week in season five and even if he cut that way down, like in half or something, that's still potentially "at least impaired most of the time" levels of alcoholism. and again, sam is dead, but also dean cut himself off from everyone else he knows. he cut off bobby, most relevantly, but also cas, and he's certainly cut off any other hunting-related contacts given that he cut off bobby. he's totally stripped himself of his support network. he doesn't even let himself drive his fucking car. and then of course there's the fact that no matter how traumatizing and horrible hunting was, there were things about it that he was used to and would likely have missed. he didn't have to work a nine-to-five. he could go wherever he wanted. he in general had a kind of freedom that most people don't, even if it was more the "me and bobby mcgee" sort than anything else. and of course: hunting is exciting. it kept him stimulated. with nothing keeping him on his toes, the horror and trauma of the last twenty eight years of his life can hit full force. all he can do is wallow in it. there's no new horror to keep him focused. and also he's just..... used to living an exciting life. i'm sure that he finds normality just, deeply understimulating. which is its own sort of horror.

and in his mind there are only two options for him: be normal, in exactly the way he tried with lisa, or be a hunter, in exactly the way he always has. so when he realizes that being normal in that way is awful.... well. he settles in. this is another way in which his year with lisa strips him of hope for the future: he can no longer imagine any life other than his current one, because the one other option he thought he had turned out to kind of suck.

and then. i've said this before. but oh my god. everyone LIED to dean about sam being back!!!!! for a YEAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! they lied to him for a YEAR! he grieved sam for a YEAR! and NO ONE told him. dean is surrounded by people who have betrayed him in this horrible way! everyone he loves INCLUDING SAM participated in this betrayal! wouldn't that make you crazy? wouldn't that make you insane? to live a year of life-destroying grief and then find out that that was basically orchestrated by the people you love most? no matter how good their reasons?

and then of course... of course there's the fact that sam is back. sam is back and he's... real. he exists in the world. he's not dean's sainted sammy who exists in his mind, dead and glorified. he's a real person who does things and makes choices. and that's... that's hard. this is once again fantasy bumping up against reality for dean. his relationship to sam has always been tortured but of course while grieving sam, sam exists only in his mind. and part of the problem is obviously that sam came back wrong but also, it's just that absence makes the heart grow fonder. even if sam hadn't been soulless dean just can't really cope with like. conflict in a way that doesn't make him crazy. and of course once again i must remind you that SAM LIED. SAM LIED TO DEAN ABOUT BEING ALIVE. FOR A YEAR. WHICH IS PRIMING DEAN FOR SOME FUCKING CONFLICT.

so you have all of this. and also when dean is like caaaaaaasssss come fix it for me cas is busy. and also dean's destructive anxiety over lisa and his resentment of her. and you put this all in a bottle and you shake it up. dean is NOT a happy camper. he's miserable and he just can't cope. but life keeps going on! things keep moving!

and i think soulless sam, as he is in clap your hands, is like this perfect foil for that. i wouldn't dream of getting rid of him.

but the thing is. that's all in 6x01-6x10. killer stuff, but it is absolutely wrecked by what comes after.

i fucking hate appointment in samarra. it's just not a good episode. even though tessa and death are there!! i love tessa! i love death! can't save appointment in samarra though.

like first of all. dean kills himself in it and it's not even fun. dean just kills himself. you will never be advanced thanatology. but second of all...

okay lets talk about other times dean has saved/fixed sam in some way at least somewhat against his will. i'm going to use three examples: selling his soul, the panic room, and the gadreel thing. the first two, gamble was intimately involved with writing (she wrote crossroad blues AND ahbl 1 AND when the levee breaks! come on) and the other is clearly an intentional retread of appointment in samarra.

in ahbl 2, dean sells his soul because... well because he can't cope without sam. because he has no identity outside of sam. because familial duty is the reason he's alive. because he wants to die. because a moment of loneliness is more terrifying to dean than eternity in hell.

and in season nine dean is in a similar place. obviously he's not killing himself, and he also is less like, absolutely codependent with sam because he has more people in his life now, but he still would have no idea who he is without "look out for your little brother, boy." he still can't imagine a life without sam.

with the panic room, dean is angry at sam, he's absolutely punishing him, but he's still.... there's still duty, there. "at least he dies human" is horrific, but it carries within it some twisted attempt to justify dean's decision with sam's wellbeing. and dean is punishing sam for like, betraying him. dean is deeply hurt because he LOVES sam and he wanted to slide right back into their old life together but little sammy grew up while he wasn't looking, and also REPLACED HIM with that DEMON SLUT. like dean is angry because he WANTS HIS SAMMY BACK.

whereas in appointment in samarra... it honestly mostly just reads like dean thinks soulless sam is a problem he needs to solve. it feels like he would be happy with either outcome (sam going back to normal or Just Straight Up Dying) not because he wants to save sam in any meaningful way but because he wants to get RID of soulless sam. this is the dean who feels like he needs to take a rape shower because he took orders from another man.** he's just sort of lovelessly grasping for control. which i guess you could say is a reasonable direction to take his character, he certainly felt like he was out of control in the first half of the season (hell. just twihard alone is like a massive loss of control for him and has echoing ramifications) and clawing to get it back i guess makes sense. and of course the other times he "saved" sam were also about control of COURSE they were. even ahbl a little. but it's so loveless in appointment in samarra/like a virgin. it creates a dean who is just... hard to like. not because he behaves badly but in a way that makes it just.... hard to care about him.

you could probably easily fix this by adding a theme of nostalgia for the "real sam" integrated throughout the preceding episodes. or like, there's a perfect scene that exists in my heart where immediately after dean beats sam to a bloody pulp in you can't handle the truth, he scoops him up in his arms and rushes him to the hospital because he saw gray matter on the last punch. that creates a kind of tension within dean that makes the horrible things he does to sam more charmingly tragic and less plain awful, even though they remain horrible. you can create a perfect pear wiggler for dean where he behaves monstrously and yet it's all shot through with twisted love. that's something i love to see from dean. the first half of season nine does this fabulously. but as it stands it's not there with soulless sam, and i wish it was. especially when dean is trying to fix him.

just in general broadly i think dean's characterization in the back half of season six is just. a clusterfuck. it makes sense in 6x06 that dean doesn't care about the angel war because he's having his little freakout about sam and nothing matters to him except that. but in 6x19? 6x20? what's the deal? why do sam and dean decide cas is their enemy for trying to save them? it's not like they have a plan. they certainly accepted the angel civil war mattered at the end of 6x10. they just backstab cas for no reason. broadly, the character conflict in the back half of s6 is just fucked. in the front half it makes sense because dean is having one long irrational but understandable temper tantrum due to the horrors already outlined in this post. but in the back half it's just. nothing. to have a good soulless sam arc i think you would have to just throw out the back half. get sam re-ensouled a different way. not have the godstiel arc be Like That. it just needs to go a totally different way, because s6 is a mess afer caged heat.

*although edlund isn't exactly without sin here. mr. Being Soulless Makes You Fuck Good

**and the thing is caged heat is doing something with that in the sense that caged heat is about how dean IS sexually vulnerable, you just Can't Show It On Television. meg is dean's proxy but we are meant to understand that all that Could happen to dean. dean saying he needs to take a rape shower after taking orders is underestimating his own vulnerability to sexual violence. it's notable that brett matthews only wrote two episodes and the other one was twihard. but i digress.

[timdrakesbussy]

Do you have a Stardew fic recommendation list?

Oh, sure!

1. Stick Season by laststardrop | (Shane/Harvey) | Rated M

Harvey was two years into medical school when his boyfriend of three years up left him without a proper goodbye. Five year later, he finds him again.

2. No Place Like Home by Ash_Fountain | Multi (mainly Alex/Penny) | Rated E

[…] An AU where Penny buys the abandoned farm in order to build her own life. This fic follows several points of view, allowing for the drama of some of Stardew's younger citizens to unfold.

3. Things We Don’t Mean by maxRebo | (Alex/Sebastian) | Rated E

Sebastian has a complicated life. He’s been pining over his best friend for years and Sam loves him, too… just, not the way he wants. One day he finds some solace at the spa with someone he would never expect. Life doesn’t get less complicated after that.

4. In the Moonlight by UrsulaNoodles | (Emily/Shane) | Rated E

Shane's life has gone to hell, and he spends most of his nights sulking at the Stardrop Saloon, but Emily's positivity and friendship keep him afloat. He never meant to develop feelings for her, and he convinced himself that she didn’t feel the same way, but a night alone in Cindersap Forest has him thinking otherwise.

5. the wilderness farm map raises a lot of questions by eke | Multi (but mainly Shane/Male Farmer and Marlon/Marnie) | Rated M

6. Lighthouse on the Shore by CharalampidisGruber | (Alex/Sebastian) | Rated M

There's a small house in Pelican Town. Like every home in Pelican Town, this house keeps secrets. Tonight is no different when Sebastian shows up drenched on Alex's doorstep needing someone.

7. I Think I Love the Boy Next Door by animeboysruinedmylife | (Haley/Sam) | Rated M

Haley's not being dramatic, but the worst thing that ever happened to her was Sam moving in next door. She could tell from the second she first saw him that he’d be a pain in her ass. That smug little people-pleasing face. Gelled-up hair. Scuffed-up shoes like some kind of wannabe skater boy. She’s always been a good judge of character, even back then, and time has only proven her right.

8. Splinters by BlueberryFarmingForever | (Male Farmer/Others) | Rated T

The actions of a highly indecisive farmer from Robin's point of view.

9. In Your Eyes by Mouse_213 | (Sam/Sebastian) | Rated E

[…] Seb has his secret reasons for disliking Sam. Deeply rooted anger and anxiety whenever he sees Sam’s bright green eyes that Seb can’t even bring himself to tell Abigail about. And it seems like lately, all Sam wants to do is shove his way into Seb’s private, fiercely-protected life and become his friend. What’s he supposed to do now?

10. Things We Don’t Say by maxRebo | (Haley/Abigail) | Rated E

It's no secret that Haley and Abby have never gotten along. When a surprise coupling overlaps their social circles, they're forced to rely on each other for the sake of their best friends, and come to terms with what the tension between them is really all about.

11. on the (re)founding of rome by Sinister_Queer | (Alex/Sebastian) | Rated E

Sebastian remembers, in technicolor detail, the moment he first saw Alex. […] This is a story about falling in love. This is a story about re-building Rome. (Or: a jock and a goth fall in love)

12. i found nowhere (it got to know me) by szemkel | (Sam/Sebastian) | Rated E

The worst part of living in the city wasn’t the smog, the stench of car exhaust or the constant noise of traffic coming in through the opened windows; it wasn’t Sebastian’s current diet, made up mostly by instant noodles and delivery takeaways; it wasn’t the gray, soulless concrete which greeted his eyes wherever he went, either, and it wasn’t the berserk hoards of teenagers wandering about the streets every evening. To put it shortly, the worst part of living in the city wasn’t anything he had been warned about before moving there. The worst part of living in the city was the absence of Sam.

13. Book of Caroline by J_Unlimited | (Caroline/Male Player) | Rated E

For as long as Caroline could remember, she’s lived her life for others. Saddled with an unsatisfying life, she looks to the new farmer for comfort. Will he be the spark that Caroline needs to set herself free?

[lovealwayssay]

Getting through season 6 was such a struggle for me. Season 5 is my absolute favorite of any television season ever, so following that up is already a challenge, but something about Sam being so out of character because he's soulless combined with the Campbell family and Dean's whole thing with Lisa and Ben just makes the show drag. I don't dislike the Soulless Sam plot, I just could do without either the Campbell plot or the dragging out of the Lisa and Ben storyline, and the combination of the three is what makes it so hard for me. French Mistake and onwards I really enjoy the season, but getting to that point is so hard.

[deanscutiepiesam]

happy wincest wednesday! random question: do you think salmondean have any weird phobias that they didn't mention on the show? -lizzy

Happy Wincest Wednesday!! ♡

First, thanks for the ask! Second, this is a really good question, and it got me thinking. So I'm just gonna ramble a bit about why I think they have each phobia I list under the cut. Also, they're not that weird of phobias, I don't think, so I hope that's okay! ^^

---

Dean:

• Cynophobia: Fear of Dogs.

After being brutally mauled by hellhounds, I would be scared too :( However, in typical Dean fashion, he represses it, and it comes off as just an aversion to dogs. (Ex. Running from that small dog in Yellow Fever, being upset at Sam for having a dog in his car in s8, Portia from Man's Best Friend with Benefits clocking that Dean dislikes dogs.) I think it isn't until Dog Dean Afternoon where he can understand them and act like them, does he come to face his fear and even come to like dogs. Hence why he was sweet with Miracle in s15.

• Pyrophobia: Fear of Fire.

I think this one was temporary, as well, and definitely when he was little. I feel like watching your house go up in flames and having your mom die when you're four will do that to you. As I said, this one is definitely temporary as Dean had to "grow out of it" when he started hunting with John, and they needed to salt & burn bones and things of that nature.

• Taphophobia: Fear of Being Burried Alive.

I don't have much canon support on this one, but I think waking up burried in s4 could've fucked him up a bit. Not to mention in s14 with the Ma'lak Box, he has nightmares about trapping himself in it with Michael. I feel like anyone would be freaked out over this, but I don't know, it just feels right. Dean likes being in control and he usually fears things where he feels trapped and vulnerable (like planes) so I think it's possible.

• Homophobia (Kidding lmao.)

Wait, actually...

• Internalized Homophobia.

I don't have to explain this one. You understand, yes?

Sam:

• Eisoptrophobia: Fear of Mirrors.

Sam is a very guilty character, as we all know, and I think that could seriously skew how he sees himself to the point that he avoids looking at himself whenever he can. I think it gets worse after he gets his soul back, and he has identity issues with all his soulless counterpart did. Plus, all the times he's been possessed. Sometimes, he looks and sees Lucifer, sometimes Gadreel (maybe even Meg in earlier seasons. She could've started his aversion). Regardless, it's just easier for him not to look at himself.

• Phonophobia: Fear of Loud Sounds.

Late seasons Sammy flinches™ :((

In canon, he has visible reactions to Dean getting loud and angry, and I also think it could apply to other loud sounds as well. With all he's been through, I wouldn't be surprised if this was a symptom of his ptsd. (Also, I headcanon that he enjoys spending time with Eileen because it's always quiet. They can sit in silence and sign to each other, and it's calming.)

• Decidophobia: Fear of Making Decisions.

Wait, hear me out. Nearly every time Sam makes a big decision in his life, it backfires on him. It's always the "wrong choice" no matter how much good he tries to achieve. I, of course, don't blame him for this, but basically, everyone in his life does. With that in mind, I think Sam would struggle to make big choices. The fight being zapped from him in the later seasons? Submitting to Dean? It's easier. In his mind he can't "fuck anything up" if he just does what he's told... and even then, it's never good enough :(

Sam & Dean:

• Eremophobia: Fear of Being Alone/Abandoned.

This one also doesn't need explaining. These codependent boys need each other like oxygen. Canon support: the entire show.

• Somniphobia: Fear of Sleeping.

This is a long one y'all...

I headcanon that they both are anxious to go to sleep because [insert trauma here], but they never realized it because they'd always slept either with each other (when little) or next to each other (in motels). But after having separate rooms in the bunker, it called it to attention. I feel like they started (literal) sleeping together after the newness & excitement of having their own rooms wore off.

People can have this fear for different reasons, and I listed nightmares, but I also think Sam would have sleep paralysis and sometimes see Lucifer, which isn't fun. Fear of dying in your sleep can also be a symptom, but I'm spinning this one to the fear of each other dying. If the brothers are (literal) sleeping together, they can check the other's pulse from time to time, feel their breathing, and know that the other is okay. Also, another symptom can be things happening to them in their sleep (website said like burglary, fire, disasters, etc), I think it's fitting too, but it'd be more like monsters and demons for them.

Canon support for this is kinda low, but there is some, in my opinion. In motels, sleeping on the edge of their beds near each other. After hell trauma, sleeping fully clothed on top of the covers, never settling. Guns and knives hidden under beds, mattresses, and pillows. (People have also pointed out seeing one brother's stuff in the other brother's room, so this fuels my delusion that they share rooms in the bunker sometimes.)

---

Anyways, that's all I have for right now. I'm sure I could find more if I kept researching (because this is so interesting and I'm going down a rabbit hole of fears), but this post is already kinda long... Thanks again for the ask, and I hope this is what you were looking for! ^^

[lillysilverus]

The Devil You Know is on TNT today.  I don’t watch season 5 normally because it’s one of my least favorite seasons, but I turned it on for a while today.  It’s interesting that we actually get glimpses of Soulless Sam in this episode.  Sam’s ruthlessness just radiates thru the whole thing, but his pragmatism too. 

And as much as I disliked this season, it really was the last time the stakes seemed quite so high.  I guess because it’s the first time we see the boys in such a seemingly hopeless situation and we really didn’t know how they were going to resolve it and they didn’t play any of it for laughs.  Sam was hanging on by a thread, Dean had a perpetual “we are screwed” expression on his face and they were making desperate decisions at every turn. Plus bonus that peak Crowley. 

[quietwingsinthesky]

what is a ship and popular spn headcanon/Interpretation you dislike?

In general I don’t really dislike any ships? Like the worst I can say is that I'm squicked out by a few (johndean or johnsam, etc, i have the boring version of daddy issues that make that a bad zone for me) or that i'm extremely bored by them (destiel, for the most part, which i got very burnt out on very quickly and most of the popular interpretations are v uninteresting to me.) but like 90% of the time if there's a ship that i'm given even the slightest hint of a good reason to tune into it, i'm there, i love it. i'm now invested in metatron/zachariah because of shitposting about it. they're boyfriends btw.

trying to think of a new one that i haven't complained about before lmao (you know, lucifer characterization, castiel's rewrite into being Different being annoying, how dean should be a bad person actually it makes him more interesting stop flattening him)

uhmmm. i don't really like the tendency in this fandom to group soulless sam in with 'evil' variant of the tfw? i don't really like that people tend to treat him as evil at all. he's very much not that. i stand by the fact that the worst thing he does on screen (letting dean be turned) is not as cut and dry Bad and Evil Scheming as people make it out to be. it was a terrible thing for him to do, but he didn't do it because he wanted dean to die or anything. he does it because he knows they need an in with the vamps, he knows there's a cure, and to me, the most telling bit, he is so sure in the fact that dean would never feed on anyone that he knows the cure is going to work on him. there is a lot to unpack about soulless!sam and dean's relationship, but it's pretty clear to me that a lot of sam's soul instincts to trust dean carry over to his body, that soulless!sam values his relationship with dean, in a different way than sam with a soul does, but he does.

like. soulless!sam is ruthless. he's disconnected from emotional shit. he's not evil. the other worst thing he attempts to do, kill bobby, is in response to learning they want to stick his soul back in him. his soul. which has been in hell for who knows how long. and might not even be functional anymore. he is working out of self-preservation there, and it's awful, but it's understandable! anyway. soulless!sam is sexy. not evil. i rest my case. we can stop lining him up next to demon!dean and godstiel.

[mlobsters]

supernatural s6e6 you can't handle the truth (teleplay: eric charmelo, nicole snyder; story: david reed, eric charmelo, nicole snyder)

SAM Well, it's a new, more caring administration.

😑

was biggerson's the place in the rabbit foot episode? that was more like chain diner. apparently the episode with famine and the restaurant was a biggerson's too

s3e3 bad day at black rock

i like that now dean is suspicious of sam, padalecki is getting more chance to be freaky. vibrating with excitement on getting the sister to spill the beans about the phonecall.

ookay. i dislike how regularly suicide is a plot device already. (but nic the people have to be dying somehow, just spicing up the mix) but this dude recounting SAing his friend's daughter as part of the case/plot/inducement to murder. really not a fan.

the first place with the cat calendar had some horn store, cursed brass instruments???

that man said the canadian/upper midwest sorry. i never know where they're supposed to be. oh, illinois.

CASTIEL You asked me to be here, and I came.

DEAN I -- I've been asking you to be here for days, you dick!

all right he said dick so vehemently, it made me laugh.

DEAN What happened to you, Cas? You used to be human, or at least like one. CASTIEL I'm at war. Certain... regrettable things are now required of me.

cas is going through it right now

what. is this set/lighting/angle/very fake news ladies

BARTENDER You okay?

DEAN No, not really.

me either, dude

so. the beginning of the episode, the things that people were saying were so horrible i thought for sure it was like... "truth" curse but it's actually people voicing all of your worst fears or whatever. which lined up with the dentist thing. but based on bobby and the bartender's reactions...

i don't understand why dean doesn't tell lisa about the whole was turning into a vampire thing to explain wtf happened with ben? it doesn't change the situation, but at least there would be an explanation - and probably help her make the decision about dean. i mean he really fucked up there, bringing himself into her house in that moment. ugh.

LISA You've got so much buried in there, and you push it down, and you push it down. Do you honestly think that you can go through life like that and not freak out? Just, what, drink half a fifth a night and you're good?

DEAN You knew what you signed up for. LISA Yeah. But I didn't expect Sam to come back. And I'm glad he's okay. I am. But the minute he walked through that door, I knew. It was over. You two have the most unhealthy, tangled-up, crazy thing I've ever seen. And as long as he's in your life, you're never gonna be happy. That came out so much harsher than I meant.

sometimes i feel like they back off on the making it weird brother situation, but they've been going for it textually lately.

desktop background update, a subdued all black.

so being soulless is a get out of speaking the truth card too, that's handy.

oh look it's the overly fake tv person! shoulda known.

aw now they're doing the meadow scene with both of them. with bonus concussions, corpses and blood pools.

twilight / s6e5

okay so this woman playing veritas is familiar, and she was in s1e21 listed as hospital receptionist and i'm like you know what i'm pretty sure i took a screenshot of her when i was watching that episode! because i got her mixed up with the brown haired girl dean was so invested in getting sam to hook up with in the previous town.

s1e21 - serinda swan

she was in ballers too, which i did watch.

ballers (2017) s3e4 ride and die - serinda swan as chloe

DEAN No. But what I'm good at... is slicing throats. I ain't a father. I'm a killer. And there's no changing that. I know that now.

VERITAS So, Sam walking back into your life must have been a relief. Hmm? Mallory to your Mickey. 

a) ouch, dean. we know him so yes of course more fuel for the self loathing fire b) mallory and mickey, of course. homicidal married couple from natural born killers. naturally. what'd i just say

okay so that answers some of my questions. sort of.

SAM Ever since I came back, I am a better hunter than I've ever been! Nothing scares me anymore! 'Cause I can't feel it. I don't know what's wrong with me. I think... I need help.

again i'm not clear what range of emotion he does have, but he was doing the puppy eyes and while i am surprised dean is beating him to a bloody pulp, i'm not surprised he decked him.

(wiki)

The tongue Veritas eats was made of sashimi grade tuna.(source)

very fancy for an edible prop!

[ashtraythief]

I love when you talk about Sam and Dean! Your thoughts on them are so interesting, and you really get the characters. I haven’t watched the season post 11 because I couldn’t take all the manufactured drama between the two boys, so I’m guessing I need to pick it up? You talking about them being settled and domestic and choosing each other over and over again is SO sweet. I’ve always been curious to see how their dynamic would change in later seasons, but I was worried there would be more manufactured drama. Like the writers kept making them fight and it felt so forced (can’t even think of what season I’m talking about right now..). Does that stop? Do you even know what I’m talking about? I can’t take the manufactured drama to make a more interesting show, I just want those babies to be happy and loving and catch bad guys together

Oh, thank you nonnie! That’s so kind of you to say <3 I know I'm not usually part of the tumblr meta crowd, so this makes me go all mushy inside ;)

Yeah, I think I know what you mean. Seasons 6-11 have their good stuff, but the soulless split, the Amy thing, the Gadreel thing, the Amelia thing, the darkness thing, the MoC thing, there’s just lots of drama and conflict. That definitely dies down later. Which I guess makes things better, but I am personally not a big fan of the later seasons, despite brother domesticity. (For reference, I love seasons one to five, I do enjoy six and seven, I find the Amelia thing atrocious, but I like the back half of season eight. Nine and ten are ups and down and mostly wasted potential. Eleven is both better and worse. I think it has many good motw and some outstanding brother eps like Red Meat and Safe House, but I absolutely loathe that they brought Lucifer back for many reasons and I’m not a fan of how they did the Darkness. Season twelve could have been good, but too many things rubbed me the wrong way. I really dislike thirteen and fourteen. Fifteen is probably the worst, Carry On excluded, even though I think is isn’t a good episode as a whole, it just has outstanding scenes.) For your question of whether you should pick it up: there are people who enjoy the later seasons for precisely the brother harmony reasons. I’m not one of them. For me the bad outweighs the good and I only rewatch very few episodes. I’ll put the rest under the cut because it’s basically late season negativity though I will try to point out things that I think worked.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the domestic moments, I love SamandDean being a unit and together and killing bad guys, but the bad myth arcs, the inconsistent characters, the endless angel mess, the endless regurgitation of Lucifer and the frankly lazy writing and incompetent show running make most of it unwatchable for me. Initially, I quit the show halfway through season 12, because a lot of the motw eps were just not great (a lot of the lazy writing included dumbing down Sam and Dean for danger and peril, when you know they’ll survive anyway and you know they’re competent hunters, but the writers weren’t smart enough to pull off good suspenseful plots most of the time), and I found the return of Mary both utterly unnecessary and I also didn’t think her character was written well. I have very petty reasons for disliking some elements of the Men of Letters strongly, so yeah. And then I was staying with a friend when the wire fight finale aired and that sealed the deal for me for a while lol.

Eventually, when they announced the last season, I went back and forced myself through an entire rewatch and it was painful. I really don’t care at all about 13 and 14. I stopped giving any fucks about the angels after season 7 tbh. I really liked Cas and to some degree the angels until season 7, after that Cas’s characterization and powers were inconsistent and all over the place and no other angel stuck around long enough that you’d care about them and their power struggle (Hannah being the only exception). I know they needed to give J2 more time off and needed to give other characters more screen time, but that wasn’t it. I also didn’t care about the apocalypse hunters and the whole AU Michael thing. Never mind Lucifer. The addition of Jack could have been really good (though why they had to cast another white boy at that point in the show really is beyond me. No shade on Alex C, I think he did a decent job for the character and was downright delightful when possessed by a demon, but like, my dudes, at least try with the diversity when it comes to your most recurring regulars), and they actually could have used his struggle with his identity and his parentage and his relationship with Cas as a counterweight to Sam and Dean and give J2 time off. Instead the writers couldn’t decide whether Jack should be Cas or Sam and Dean’s foster son, and developed neither of these relationships as fully as they could have. There were great moments with all three of them and Jack, how their own history made them related to or raise the boy, but they couldn’t do it all in the time they had, so a more focused storytelling with Cas and Jack would have done wonders I think both for Cas as a character and a compelling side-plot to Sam and Dean’s adventures when J2 needed time off. Rowena and Charlie are bright spots in the later seasons, but Charlie was criminally killed off and Rowena could have gotten a little more screen time I think. 

What I like about the brothers and their conflict is that they both back each other’s plays, but also listen to each other. Their reunion after Dean’s Michael possession is beautiful, there are lovely brother bond moments (we see Poughkeepsie in action!), and there’s heart wrenching grief when Dean thinks Sam has died. Good stuff, really. There are occasionally decent motw eps, but overall to me 13 and 14 were a real chore, mostly because of the AU hunters I couldn’t really care about, but the show also didn’t make a good effort to make us care about them, and the whole Michael thing was just… like, Jensen tried, and later did a decent job, but also like…. why? Why the endless angel parade? There are good brother moments due to the whole Michael possession and there’s a mideason arc that has good moments and works, but again, I think there were better choices to move the plot forward than to recycle the angel idea over and over again. And of course Lucifer and Chuck and just… no. BuckLemming’s hard on for Mark P became increasingly unbearable and the return of Gabriel and the whole Princes of hell was also… idk. Cheap. Uninspired. Crowley’s reform of hell into a bureaucratic hellscape in season 6 was great, later on it became a boring corporate demon in suits kind of thing that lacked any kind of horror factor. I never was in the show for the horror aspect, but they watered down the concepts so much, took away any previous stakes and consequences that it all felt meaningless and inconsequential. Hell used to be scary. Going to hell used to be scary and this huge thing. Breaking out of hell used to be a huge thing that needed devil’s gates or heavenly armies. And later it’s just medieval-esque dungeons with stunt demons fifty to fifty-six standing around and everyone coming and going as they please. Hell turned into a joke, honestly and since it was seen so often in the later seasons it really grated on me.

Season 15 is an absolute dumpster fire with only very few good moments. Cannot recommend. Like they had one job of wrapping up the show, instead they managed to put out some of the most cringey visuals (ghosts running in daylight. Ghosts. Running. In Daylight. Running! In daylight!), ruin OG evil guys (see season one ghosts running in daylight), ruin canon in staggering uncaring ways, bring back other old characters with no real impact, have “fun episodes” that aren’t really funny. There are fun moments, like the fancy!chesters, and of course the three different AU glimpses with Samifer, BoyKing!Sam and demon!Dean, but you can just watch those snippets on youtube. And then they wrap up the big bad of the last few seasons without Sam and Dean actually doing much to contribute to that and only manage to go out on a high because covid impacted the filming of the last ep and Dabb’s kind of mediocre and weirdly paced script with an unfinished case that leaves more questions than closure is only saved by Jared and Jensen putting everything they had into the barn scene, the montages and the bridge scene, which are absolute shining beacons of two actors caring about their characters and saving the legacy of a show in the process. Like, no matter what happened post spn, they gave their all for Carry On, put so much thought in the dialogue, the costumes and the accessories, and they made it their own in a way that made it work. And I will be forever grateful for that.

I would apologize for this dump of negativity, but you asked 😅

So, I guess, if you want, you can do a selective rewatch and get the highlights and avoid the pitfalls? It’s what I do nowadays when I rewatch. I watch 1-5 mostly completely, and then every season, the number of eps I watch decreases. So I personally cannot recommend watching it all even though I know opinions differ wildly and you might miss out on cute brother moments if you skip some of the worse eps. I guess the development of the domesticity, of the security in each other is also something you miss out on if you only rewatch electively. So I guess if you can stomach the rest of it, it might be worth it. There are some people here on tumblr who draw out excellent meta of the later seasons and write excellent fic about it. I can’t remember specifics, but zmediaoutlet has really good thoughts on late season Sam and Dean. So if you want the brothers, try it, I think you’ll realize quickly if you can stomach the quality of the eps. Hope that helps 💜

[beesweatercas]

Here’s my take on the ending:

Since the start, Sam was supposed to be the Main Character™ , but since Jensen created Dean in such a beloved way, and later Misha did the same with Cas, the writers were forced to give them more attention. Jared was always displayed first in the credits, and Misha wasn’t considered a main character until like season 9 or something, so its clear who the showrunners prioritized. When Cas was killed off in season 7 the show’s ratings dropped by an outstanding number, so the writers scrambled to write him back into the script. Misha/Cas AND Jensen/Dean always had the hearts of fans, and the writers and creators didn’t like that because Sam was suppose to be The Guy.

There’s no way Misha “do what’s right even if it’s against the law, death to normalcy” Collins actually liked the way this ended. The fact that the cast never really gave Misha a proper send off, at least not publicly, like they did with every other character on their last day, is suspicious. Maybe there was supposed to be another Cas scene but Misha got into a fight with the writers. Who knows. I wouldn’t be surprised. That could explain why the episode is so significantly shorter than usual. And Jensen also said there was a cut scene from 15x18 that he didn’t know was cut until the episode aired. So it’s totally reasonable to think that a Cas scene was cut from the finale, possibly due to a dispute. Misha is clearly the most bold and imo its because he knows he doesn’t get paid enough to let the writers shut him up and knows that he can’t get fired because the show will go under if he’s killed off (ex: season 7 crisis) so he’s ranted about the show’s faults many times in conventions and thank god for that.

I was sort of shocked when I first found out that Sam was written to be the head honcho but it makes sense if you watch the early seasons because Sam is the one with the actual explained backstory, the “rebellious son”, the one who gets psychic powers, became soulless first, etc. Later, since people leaned towards Dean more, he got more elaborate plot lines, like the Mark Of Cain/Demon!Dean, the purgatory thing, and the whole Amara thing. And since people ADORED Misha/Castiel, they gave him soooo many story lines that weren’t the main ones but still were fantastic. They literally made Castiel God, he fell from Heaven and became human, and Cas was ultimately involved in a lot of turning points in the show. In my opinion Castiel is the most complex main character, and I’m not surprised that Buckleming and Dabb couldn’t handle him. Dean was supposed to be basic, but Jensen basically said “fuck you” to the scripts and used his acting skills to add depth to the character, and for that I literally cannot be more grateful for Jensen Ackles. Misha did the same thing but in a different way.

Andrew Dabb has repeatedly expressed his dislike for both Jensen and Misha. Jensen and Misha took the characters and made them their own, into something the fans LOVE, and that pissed off the writers because Sam was supposed to be the most beloved one and the complex one, Castiel was supposed to be a temporary character and Dean was supposed to be the dumb goofy one, and honestly I think it’s all just a control thing. The writers and showrunners had no control over Misha and Jensen. Which honestly? Is the plot line for Chuck. To paraphrase, Chuck basically said, “in all the other worlds, you did what you were supposed to do. In every other universe you played by my rules. But not you.” That was Chuck’s whole thing. ESPECIALLY about Castiel. Chuck said, about Castiel, “You know what every other version of you did after ‘gripping him tight and raising him from perdition?’ They did what they were told. But not you. Not the ‘one off the line with a crack in his chassis.’ All of you. You know, I tried and I tried and I tried, but you're all just too stupid, too stubborn. Too broken. You know what? I'm over it. I'm over you.” This is literally the writers reflecting their true selves. Chuck is literally them in every way. They made Chuck a writer in the beginning, and later revealed that he’s God, so......honestly, this last season was literally just the writers spewing their feelings onto the scripts.

(I’m not saying Jared didn’t put any effort into Sam, I’m just saying that the writers always viewed Sam as the main man so they probably liked him the most and seeing the others get more attention from fans was probably annoying. Sam is also a complex character, but he was always written to be that way. Dean was not supposed to be so complex, and Castiel CERTAINLY was not supposed to matter as much as he does. I love Sam, but this is what I think the writers/showrunners were thinking when they decided to screw over Jensen and Misha/Dean and Cas.)

(Also I’m not an expert, this is just speculation, but I think this is a pretty solid theory)

TL;DR: The writers (specifically, Dabb) didn’t like Jensen and Misha because they couldn’t be controlled and rose above Sam in many cases, and they used Chuck as a way to reflect that, and used the finale to basically send a big “fuck you” to Jensen and Misha.

[spnshameblog]

Idk i think its weird to try to guilttrip ppl into caring about characters they just dont.... care about?

I know this exact excuse is often used to sideline women and minority characters, so i use my words carefully, but if a Fan (not anyone with actual influence on the show) just happens not to like or care about a character... tough shit? I just dont understand why people make a big deal out of this ESPECIALLY when the character isnt even part of an underrepresented group?

Like, im sure it sucks for Sam girls that theres not that much content for them on here, especially if you want to avoid content by shifty ppl. But i dont see how making passive aggressive posts is going to change anyones mind?

Its not even that i hate or dislike sam, i really like early season sam, bloodfreak sam and soulless sam, hes just not in my top 5? His actor might have something to do with that, but thats not the only reason, i simply think they really phoned it in in the later seasons and most of the interesting stuff about him (most of his relationship with eileen, him being a witch, him Training young hunters, samwena) is stuff the fandom came up with or expanded on bc canon couldnt be bothered.

Which sucks! But he wasnt my favourite even back when he had somewhat coherent writing, so why should i act like he is now? Thats so weird, hes literally a fictional man lmao.

So yeah, i absolutely get that its frustrating when sam is your favourite character and hes only a minor character in the destiel Show and i think its misleading and unfair to advertise a fic by tagging it sam winchester or saileen when theyre peripheral at best, but uuuhhh...... i mostly care about dean and cas, so i mostly want to see stuff about them.

Again, i understand the frustration, but how is it any better if i act like i care about him more than i do? Thats how you get content like "sams main objective is getting dean and cas to hook up" bc people think they need to include him at all costs.

[autisticandroids]

I really dislike dean crit, because so much of it is just “if spn was written better, Dean would have to deal with the consequences of his actions” and/or “Dean should have to deal with the consequences of his actions” and like yeah, okay. However,

if spn was better written, Dean would have been allowed better characterisation and character development. The issue would have been fixed (mostly) before it started.

Charlie probably would have said “hey stop being so shit” two episodes into her run and Dean. Probably would have stopped being so shit (pretty much anyone barring Sam could have done this, I think. Cas wouldn’t - Cas <3 - , but so many of his other friends could have)

Unfortunately spn runs on dean making bad choices (and the others. But mostly dean. In s15 they managed to claim “it’s all god’s fault :/“ which is the worst explanation for 13-ish seasons of bad character development I’ve seen in a long while. Literally deus ex machina), and keeping the winchesters+cas isolated. If they had dealt with deans issues when they first became an obvious problem, they’d’ve had to come up with some better stories 😔 and they can’t be having that.

To add on one other thing: if cas fucked him. I think that would have fixed him (can’t be having that 😔)

the thing is that i agree with this mostly. like the thing about dean is that the universe around him is twisted such that he literally can never learn. he's punished for healthy behaviors (i.e. letting sam go: he's punished for that in 5x04 and then again in season six (soulless sam)), and rewarded for unhealthy behaviors (being controlling, getting violent, overriding other people's decisions). like everything about supernatural is geared to pushing dean towards being the worst version of himself. this is why i tend to say that sam is only a good person because he's not the main character; if he were the leader instead of dean, the narrative would reward his toxic behaviors and punish dean's, leading to him to become a worse person and dean to become a better person.

but i also think that there's some really interesting circumstances surrounding the fact that he can't change, the biggest being this: they are totally isolated. this is especially something i enjoy about the bunker, specifically. like, this isolation, especially the geographical isolation of the bunker, allows a sick system to get sicker and sicker without the checks and balances of an outside gaze. this is why a lot of my fix-it scenarios involve moving an outsider (mary, frequently, but not always) into the bunker with them: an outside gaze provides a sanity check, and without one, toxic patterns can become entrenched.

so i think, despite the fact that yes, it is primarily the fact that dean is narratively rewarded for toxic behaviors and punished for healthy behaviors that is at fault for the way things go in the later seasons, it's still a fun space to play in.

[tiktaalic]

season 8 is such a weird one-off because it spends so much of its time acknowledging and improving upon the reactions to seasons 6 and 7 which were widely disliked when they were airing (i have zero idea how they're perceived now). like they get a plot going that's not just "big bad will end the world", all three leads have something to do that eventually coalesce into a conclusion, crowely feels like an actual threat as a villain, and we have the beginnings to start building a decent ensemble cast. it's also most importantly fun to watch! and then 9 and 10 come along and literally destroy all that goodwill.

yep. it's SUCH a tonal departure from 6 and 7. 6 and 7 still some of my least favorite seasons, especially six. six just feels so fucking miserable for so long. soulless sam is fun. heaven civil war is fun. but the first 10 eps or so are just dean being upset and arguing with people. he has ZERO friends. he's not even on good terms with his brother. he's just constantly shocked and appalled and having conversations that make him more shocked and appalled and it was just not fun teevee. to me. versus eight which is a BOP and a half. it's fun. there are two charlie eps where she's jsut kinda hanging out doing her thing. kevin's there! ms. tran is there! metatron shapes up into a REALLY fun supporting character (and then into a really fun villain). benny's hanging for awhile. we got Side Characters. we got LIKEABLE side characters who are credited in 2+ episodes in the season. fucking crazy! and there are stakes to Closing The Gates. sam has feelings about it. dean has feelings about it. cas has feelings about the gates HE'S closing. ive mentioned this before but plotwise, s8 kinda meanders around for awhile. metatron's a SUPER last minute addition. the trials take awhile to come up. metatron brings up closing the gates in either the finale or the penultimate. but gosh is it fun. the angels.... they're falling. finale of ALL time. and then there's s9. i have no kind words to say to her. then there's s10. i have no fucking idea what happens in this season. i watched it like 2 months ago. but i can tell you this. it was NOT a romp and a half ala 8

[antigonewinchester]

7x17... bit of a mixed bag. i did like some of it: dean not understanding what the doctor meant by ‘psychotic’; sam helping marin get rid of her vengeful ghost bro. dean’s complicated feelings on seeing cas alive; cas saying dean’s “not a machine... you’re human” when dean says he’s feeling shitty & can’t easily let go of what cas did, finally someone isn’t just shutting him down.  meg’s return! rachel miner is so great, love her sultry smokey monotone. plus meg and dean’s mutual enemy of our enemy understanding, esp after everything that went down in 6x10.

and then... well, there was cas’s third return to life. dude really has 9 lives. i’d be happier to see him back if his resurrections weren’t so clearly motivated by an outside force (whether the fans/audience, execs, etc.) rather than the narrative. if cas had stayed dead after 4x22... if the show had been able to drop the angel/heaven plot after 5x22... i do really wonder about that version of spn and how it could’ve gone.

as for sam’s hallucifer storyline. well. its resolution sure depended on what dean and cas could do about it, huh? i don’t even always dislike deus ex machina resolutions, but this one felt totally emotionally unsatisfying for me. it’s boring, ableist storytelling, to just magic away sam’s hallucinations (and memories? and trauma?? that’s not how trauma works). this whole storyline has felt very scattershot, definitely feels like the writers didn’t know how they wanted to deal with sam’s hallucinations/trauma and they refused to springboard off of what previous writers had set up. i suck at improv and even i know about yes, and as way to propelling stories along. s6 set up sam feeling guilty abt what he did when he was soulless, and then after getting all his memories back, 7x04 just threw sam’s guilt away for...? 7x15 was so interesting with sam finding creative ways of dealing with hallucifer, the implication that maybe hallucifer was a reflection of sam himself, and then 7x17 used none of that & it was all about sam looking pretty & suffering horribly. (i get it, sera, but you gotta give me a little more here.) there’s so much more to dig in here with sam’s character and the writing doesn’t do it. it really is a shame, because the show has gotten relatively complex with sam and dean’s character development before. (although the writing has struggled with sam’s character and what it tells vs shows, so perhaps that’s cropping up here, too.)

[katsidhe]

10 and 21!

Ask game!

10. Most disliked arc? Why?

My usual knee-jerk answer to this has something to do with s10. But honestly the whole Mark of Cain arc is something I really like in theory, even if I have very, very conflicted feelings on its execution.

So I think the arc I dislike the most these days is actually the Jack-soullessness arc. While there were moments where this tried to say something about Sam and especially Dean’s reaction to Jack’s otherness, I think that on the whole it was a quite unnecessary and oversimplifying layer of ambiguity thrust on top of what was already a complicated situation.

The reason soullessness worked so well for Sam as a foil for Dean to play off of was because Dean had a very specific image of who and what Sam is, and he’s extremely, viciously protective of that image. He’s extremely suspicious of Soulless because of the ways Soulless is distinct from the Sam that Dean loves; he’s willing to kill Soulless to get ~his Sam back. The conflict and question of Soulless for Dean is, I love Sam, and this isn’t Sam enough.

But Dean doesn’t have that same relationship to Jack. Basically none of Dean’s objections to soulless Jack have to do with Jack ~not being Jack~, because Dean already has a relationship with Jack based on suspicion and fear. Dean’s core problems with Jack are a meaty combination of his power, his parentage, his uncanniness/unpredictability, and how quickly Sam latched on to him. None of this has to do with an attachment to Jack’s innate personality, or any investment in preserving Jack a certain way.

On top of that, Jack’s naïveté has always been such that he has to mirror his humanity and his actions on the people closest to him: he doesn’t have the fierce sense of personal identity and conduct that Sam has, and that to some extent Soulless!Sam lacked. Dean gets taken aback by how Soulless!Sam seems to have to carefully emulate expected behavior based on the people around him. Regular!Jack, thrust into a young adult body without age or experience to inform him, has always had to rely on this type of emulation, so when he’s Soulless!Jack, he’s the same as ever.

Regular!Jack has always had the exact same problems with emotional regulation, worrying if he’s ~feeling~ things correctly, and trying to fit expectations that are problems associated with soullessness. He’s utterly indistinguishable from his soulless self. The brightest points of his soulless arc, then, are when this is acknowledged—when the emphasis is on the misfit of Sam and Dean’s expectations with reality. But this doesn’t happen enough, and it doesn’t happen in the right ways. For this arc to be done right, it would have required a lot more personal I nvolvement from Sam. Not only because I like Sam and want more Sam and Jack content, but because the ways that Sam relates to soullessness are going to be fundamentally different than Dean’s. Dean reacts to Soulless! and Regular!Jack with the same old suspicion, but Sam would have brought a fresher perspective.

21. What are your thoughts on crack ships?

I think they’re a lovely way to get an unusual perspective on characters! Suggested crack ship of the hour: Sam x Kip from 14.01, because weird unwanted hero worship that Sam can use for political gain. Also Sam x Amara as embattled siblings, though actually damn that has so much potential, I am disqualifying it as a crack ship and moving it firmly into desired rarepairs.