#she loves dean and sam but s12 never really gives her the chance to know them

[sharpbluejay]

i cannot stop thinking about the horror of mary’s resurrection, she died with all those secrets and she comes back to life and her babies are grown men and they know! they know what she did! john raised them as hunters which was the worst thing she could ever imagine happening to her children, they’re attached at the hip, they’ve died or tried to die for each other multiple times, her first day back on earth and she watches dean go insane with worry for sam since he's been kidnapped, they’re friends with monsters, they kill without flinching. her sons are strangers with her children’s names and the man she loved is dead, and apparently he was driven by her death every day until he killed himself for dean, and while dean dances around all those facts in her first episode back, sam gives her john's journal which has to be filled with some sick shit because again, john's grief changed him fundamentally to the point where she wouldn't recognize him. everything surrounding her resurrection is just horrifying, its a gift for dean but literally plunges mary into her worst nightmare

[cassierobinsons]

it's no worries! i'm delighted you're answering my asks at all lmao. i really think you and i are on the same wavelength about this show, you're really cool, and you have really good and thoughtful takes.

i blocked that kitsune episode from my memory ugh. it really shouldn't have been a surprise what dabb ended up doing to billie even when she was his character considering how consistently racism creeps into his work.

i'm very sorry you're having to experience season 9, you're very brave to not just skip it. 10 i think is slightly better mainly because it introduces rowena who's a lot of fun and gets some depth as the show goes on (being a hot milf witch also helps a lot) but also mark of cain is not a good time. 12 is a trainwreck in terms of like. watching it as a form of television but the dean and mary scenes hit super hard and feel like they belong on an earlier season that would give them a real resolution.

"like i do not like s8 sam at all but at least there was something going on there! he was a hayes code homophobe and had the haircut of a premade sim but it was something!"

he was soooooo wack about benny lmao. i think it was meant to be portrayed as him projecting his own experiences with ruby but benny literally never did anything wrong so it just made sam look like a dick. which i prefer, i think sam being initially weird about dean being bi as something he never considered is more IC than ex-gsa member sam.

very much agreed on gamble-genuinely interesting ideas but not great execution. i can't think about what happened with lisa without wanting to bite. maybe it's for the best he wasn't paired with cassie instead post swan song because i can't imagine the awful shit they'd pull with her.

(following on from this ask THIS CHAIN IS GETTING LONG LMFAO)

aw thanks anon 😊 i'm enjoying the chance to longform chat about this terrible show.

dabb's racism is easily his worst quality. he's a dean anti and his writing is often mean-spirited but WOW does his racism dwarf everything else.

i've been stuck on s9 since early december and plan on going back to it once i've made some progress catching up on the shows i'm watching rn (namely search party s5, the expanse s5, hacks, AND yellowjackets) so like. realistically i'm not going back until feb lmfao. even then i don't give a shit about the plot rn so i'll only watch eps for cas or when minor characters pop up. i've said this before but the decision to kill kevin off reaaaally weighs on me as being spn's nadir, a real No Melanin Allowed moment. jeremy carver can meet me in the pit, idgaf.

yeah the mark of cain plotline sounds so 😒 and i know what i'm about to say sounds WILD considering the last 3-4 days of dean apologism but ultimately. i am a casgirl who loves dean but not a deangirl so while i love s4 dean's noxious era the prospect of a season and a half of it bores me to tears. toxicity? from a man? groundbreaking. i am looking forward to meeting rowena though. she sounds so cool as a character it's genuinely baffling that a show like spn came up with her.

12 is a trainwreck in terms of like. watching it as a form of television but the dean and mary scenes hit super hard and feel like they belong on an earlier season that would give them a real resolution.

there are a plethora of moments i hear about in the later seasons have me like. damn. this would've been Masterpiece Theatre if it happened 5 years earlier. still, i'm looking forward to watching some of the motws in s12. regarding dean will probably revive brainworms that have lain dormant since my s1-2 deangirl days.

sam was so fucking terrible about benny jdsfdjkfjs and i get that they were trying to parallel it with ruby and especially amy but man. the whole point of the slice girls is that sam killing emma is meant to cancel out the amy thing like pemdas. and it's an evil and wrong point! but it's a point. so having sam get pissy over benny makes him look so bad because bro you literally put a bullet in his daughter, you DO NOT get to be precious about this. but it does lend credence to my personal theory that it's hard for sam to draw from his supposedly deep well of empathy for other supernatural creatures if he cannot directly project his issues onto them 🤭

i've posted briefly about the queer subtext in citizen fang (bonus commentary by @softbrah) and yeah, it is strong evidence that sam has no fucking clue dean desires men carnally. in the secret good s9 that exists in my head dean & human!cas start fucking after like 3 weeks in the bunker and sam is sent into a tailspin.

the lisa&ben thing was gamble being at a 10 when she should've been at a 2. or like a 6 tops. you can tragically bury dean's dreams of being a dad without having him do this horrible thing to his exgf and her son i promise! you don't have to make a writing choice this evil! makes me extremely glad that he didn't go to cassie in canon because gamble handling a black female character is the stuff of nightmares. i do want more deancassie in fic though, stat!

[a-fallensoul]

 Supernatural Ending

The ending was so fucking sad and bad that it got me in tears and angry, it's a half of my life show, I never stopped watching it in 15y and i'm never gonna forget how they helped me during bad times...

This is going to be long...

But, My Jack... That was the ending?... Seriously...? They betrayed us, they didn't give us the boys ending, they give us Chuck's ending (15.04 pay attention to Becky, they even show us parts of those endings in 15.09, No Cass, No Eileen, one or both dies), so nothing of what the boys did in 15y, the sacrifice, all the pain, suffering, hopelessness, the lost ones, nothing of that really matter because in 15.20 they (the writers) let Chuck win, they destroyed 15y of storytelling, erasing Castiel and Eileen from the life of the winchesters and killing one of them... that was just unacceptable...

I love monsters and scary stuff, thats why I started watching Supernatural but somehow the show manage to become something more than that, the narrative change, evolved, and i ended up loving and caring way too much about Dean Winchester, the guy with this huge tragic story arc, i mean I love Sam too, but, the writers made me care too much about Dean and then Castiel appears in the picture and Jack dammit, it was just PERFECT... 

They give us a simple show about a journey of two brothers on the road "saving people, hunting things, the family business" that later expanded to more than just two brothers, more than blood family, more than just hunting things...

Dean

Throughout his entire life Dean Winchester saw himself like -destructive, angry and driven by hate- like Cass told him in 15.18, and we saw it too... Since season 01 (01.06) that was a background story, Dean saying that on several occasions and thinking he doesn't deserve good things, the inner struggles, abandonment issues, hopelessness... And no matter what happened, he always saw himself like that ( he even vocalized those words on a few occasions )... other Hunters, friends/family that he truly cares about tried to talk him out of those ideas and he didn't listen. Cass confront him telling him why he's worth saving 04.01 but nothing, Amara (The Darkness) told him and try to help (15.15 they talk about this) failing, even Sam, his brother that he cares too much to even bring the apocalypse just to save him, told him throughout the entire series that he's way more than that, and nothing... no one could make him think otherwise... 

Damaged and Broken Dean, a hopeless guy playing with girls and trying to find death in what he does, he is too tired of the job, that life, everything, and this was on 02.09...

Castiel

In S04 an Angel of the lord appears in the show, you know, the one who gripped Dean tight and raised him from perdition, Castiel (and the first to say to Dean what he thinks of himself in his own words 04.01), so with Cass understanding Dean in a personal deep way with just one look of him, showing him that he's worthy to be saved, that he's important, that he matters (a personal issue that both of them shares and I will talk later) created the famous "profound bond" that  they share, and that was the beginning of their relationship (in subtext, context, queerbaiting or not), and this relationship made Cass change to even defy God's orders and the other Angels... for them but mostly for Dean, Castiel the “Self-hating Angel of Thursday” - “The one off the line with a crack in his chassis” and  the only Castiel of all the other version to do so (exact words in 05.18 and 15.17).

Cass plays a crucial part in the show and in Dean's life, you can see how Cass becomes Dean's rock and vice versa ... But in 15.18 we all saw something way too beautiful and perfect but heartbreaking at the same time...

Destiel going canon

For 12y we saw Dean and Cass becoming more than just friends, their characters grow to support and find each other when they needed the most. This “profound bond” between them was what both needed... the personal issues that both have:

Dean is afraid of being left behind by his loved ones, to be alone, so he pushes people away when he gets scared, because if he shuts them out it hurts less...

Cass loves too much and he's afraid of being unvalued, unloved, that no one would want him to stay so he leaves before he's unwanted...

But Dean needs people to stay by his side no matter what and Cass, he needs to be asked to stay before he believes there's nothing left for him there...

So no matter how much they fight they always end up together and this game that they have show us a lot of hints of their relationship.

There are many declarations between them, sometimes are vocalized others are with less words and more driven by actions but neither are completely direct until...

15.18 the last episode with Cass and the most emotional one, he said to Dean “The good and the bad, you have done it's because of love... you're the most caring man on Earth, you're the most selfless, loving human being I would ever know... I cared about the whole world because of you... You changed me, Dean...” (...)  “Why does this sounds like a goodbye?” ask Dean, knowing that something is wrong, and Cass says “Because it is (...) I Love You” to which Dean answers “Don't do this, Cass” trying to stop the goodbye, not wanting for him to leave, not again, not in this moment (that's how I interpreted his words and performance by the atmosphere of the moment, the words, feelings, tears and physical pain on Dean), Cass says “Goodbye Dean” and pushes Dean to a side, making the ultimate sacrifice for the one he love... leaving a bloody handprint on Dean's shoulder (a callback from the first time they meet 04.01 and part of the speech was a answer to Dean's prayer in 15.09) and he's left both touched and stunned over Cass's confession but this soon shifts into pure sadness leaving him in the floor crying not knowing what to do, say or think... Dean doesn't answer to the love confession, he is too shocked, but at least we had one with a reaction...

There's something important to notice here, the line “Daddy's blunt instrument” in that confession was used once in 03.10 from Dean to Dean in a dream, he never spoke of that with anyone, not even Sam for obvious reasons... how Cass knew about that...? In 09.03 we hear Cass saying to Dean how he appreciates their talks and time together... So for Dean, the guy who never opens his heart to anyone, to get Cass as his confidant, is just not nothing... it means something... 

Jensen/Dean was scripted to say “I Love You” in 08.17 first and that changed to “I Need You”, they thought it wasn't a good time for Dean or the moment, and we respect it, actually i loved the “I need you” more, because it gave a lot of meaning to the next seasons dialogues between Cass and Dean, even the fights... 

Still, this is one of the most beautiful declarations of love that I've ever watched on small or big screen between two men... (or one...) but, Becky was right (15.04), we all knew...

Dean and Cass ending (2 of the 4 main character in the end of the show) left me with a massive hole in my chest, queerbaiting or not, they did share this "profound bond" since they met, the writers play with that throughout 12y and 12 season, they even made Cass a "Last minute Gay" (personally I don't think he is homosexual, He is an angel, therefore, not Human genders are attached, I think he's just Deansexual), they pushed all those feelings and history of 12 seasons to a side in the last episode, like they didn't matter, but they did! for Them and Us... And it was a beautiful but incomplete story to see, Dean and Castiel deserved a chance to be happy.. 

We saw them, and they are worthy of being seen. At the end, that's what we all want, to be seen by the ones we love and be loved in return...

Cass's Dean

Those last words from Cass, his love for him, meant so much to Dean that finally, at the end, he changed too, Cass changed the way Dean sees himself... Cass's love made Dean overcome what he thought he was, his love made him feel everything he ever wanted...

Since Cass appearance in the show, we saw Dean, a problematic, man-whore, jerk, with no meaningful relationship whatsoever that thought he didn't deserve good things and with a death wish, become something more and way past that, queerbaiting or not he overcame all that at the core of himself, because of Cass... and that's a fact.

Then in 15.19 we got glances on how broken Dean was... the pain of what he just lost... now there's no Cass next to him again, just Sam and Jack, the rest of the world is lone gone and Chuck won... This episode was so good, full of sadness but again Dean being who he is we kinda see him mourning Cass in his own way, just some hints... Dean always turns to drinking when something like this happens, when Lucifer calls Dean posing as Cass he runs to Cass with excitement only to find out it wasn't Cass. Near to the end and after the fight against Chuck, they exchange some word, but one of those stood out from the rest, when Chuck (now former God) asked to them if they're gonna kill him, calling Dean the Ultimate Killer, answering  -That's not who I am- implying a massive change in his core self.

Those words right there show us how Dean changed... those words from Cass... Was all that Dean truly needed to believe what he was, what he always has been, The old Dean would have killed Chuck in a heartbeat but not this Dean... not Cass’s Dean...

Dean and Castiel changed each other, they changed the world, and they changed us too... 

Sam and Eileen

Sam and Dean share the pain of almost everything that happens in the show but he was emotionally stronger/stable than Dean, so he was fine even when he wasn't... And so it will be...

At S15 and after a few encounters with Eileen in S11 and S12 Sam develops a deep relationship with her until Chuck appears in the picture with his "control over her" thing... and they separated because she thinks she can't be trusted, in 15.18 she's killed by Chuck... Sam is in pain, his new love has died but he manages to stay calm, he's sad but still fighting... in 15.19 he's sad for Eileen, Cass and everyone, they feel defeated but by the end of the episode he completely forgets her... In 15.20 he doesn't even know who she is, so the deep relationship they had is like if it never existed...

The Writers Fuckup

E19 ended and there was no Cass or Eileen, actually in the last minutes of the episode we saw how the narrative made Dean and Sam forget about Cass and Eileen completely by not asking Jack to bring them back too...

E20 the last episode of the show there's like zero recognition of Cass or Eileen, they barely name Cass 2 times, no feelings or reaction attached... Nothing to Cass's love confession or sacrifice, we do not even see them mourning their “best friend” of 12y the one who sacrificed for them and Dean after the confession does nothing (they make Dean completely forget about him, until at the end when he was like, Cass, yes i remember that guy... in heaven with a beautiful side smile)... 

We all know Dean and how he is with this type of things and feelings, he's just not good with them, but everytime that Cass has died in the past Dean just loses control, he ends up exploding when it's about Bubu, but not this time and this time was the most personal and important of all. So no reaction from Dean is a completely out of character move and the same for Sam with Eileen...

Season 15 is full of feelings and too much heart, is the final season and we can feel it... in 15.03 Cass break up with Dean with very sad words, and Dean made him feel like that, but we can see the pain of this goodbye on Dean's face and he's just too stubborn to say something... 15.04 we see a glance of what’s to come thanks to Becky, she tried to warn us and we didn't listen... in 15.06-07 Eileen is back with Sam like together Together, 15.08 Dean and Cass got a moment alone with Rowena in Hell while she gives them a couples therapy session, pretty hilarious to see but with a lot of weight for them, in 15.09 they have to go to purgatory, Dean finds himself alone, time is running out and he's on his knees praying to Cass, crying, apologising for everything he did and said, he's desperate to find Cass NOW!. Sam's fighting against God and showing us those possible futures, Eileen saying goodbye, 'cause she doesn't trust herself around the boys... And so much more.

The End came and it felt weird in general, even empty in some parts like, the Winchesters not doing anything to save Cas from the Empty like they have done in the past, the stupid dead of Dean, they took everything from him, they remove the possibility to try a different life like he was trying to (the CV in Dean's desk, he was trying to do more than just hunting, he wanted more from life), Since season 02 after something big happens we see how Dean doesn't want the hunter life, he is tired but he keeps fighting no matter what... They're free of Chucks control and yes, maybe that means that as they're no longer the protagonist of Chucks story, they are gonna have a -normal life with normal people problems- like Garth tells them in 15.10, and probably a normal hunters death, but they are still the last of their kind, -Heroes, like in the old days- words from Fortuna, (Goddess of Luck in 15.11) while she give them The Luck of the Old Heroes something that was completely forgotten in the narrative of the next episode, Jack not bringing Cass back with the rest of the world, Eileen disappearance of Sam's “happy ending”, with Eileen being allegedly alive, Sam does nothing to go and find her... In heaven Baby's plate are KAZ, like WTF with that change, what is the purpose of putting those plate from S01/02 now... and something more weird from this episode is that Dean is almost always the main character but in this episode it's Sam, it was all about Sam's ending, the Roadhouse was from Ellie not Bobby's, what is he doing there and why Dean goes there and not to other place more meaningful for him like to his house with mom, the Bunker, the Barn (i wish)? and last but not least Vampires didn't exist in John's journal/Bestiary he thought they were extinct in 01.20 they talk about that...

A few things weren't so bad, callbacks of the first episodes, the words that Dean and Sam shared, the promise of not resurrecting him back even when neither of them wants for this to happen, the unconditional love between the brothers... Sam having a normal life doing what his brother told him to. Jack fixing heaven creating a special type of Heaven just for Dean, -The Heaven that you DESERVE- Bobby's words in 15.20, Bobby with the eyebrow thing and long pause after saying Cass name to Dean -Well (...) Cass Helped- Dean smiling when he hears Cass name (even in the end they keep throwing us this type of scenes)...

A few good things don't change a bad episode from being bad... overall the episode didn't feel like a Supernatural episode it was hollow out of character and a complete disappointment...

The Queerbaiting

The queerbaiting in this show was in another level, all those continues references about stuff that only LGBT+ people would understand, the inspiration behind Dean Winchester character, other characters recognizing the “boyfriends tag” between Dean and Cass, hints and specific reaction of Dean with other male characters and with Cass pushed in the show too vigorously since 01.04, the long stares between Dean and Cass (i love those), Dean opening his heart mostly to Cass and Cass to Dean, the writers keep throwing girls to Dean and he keeps like.. Hot, she's really hot, okay bye... the famous 08.07 scene, all this and more was deliberately put there...

Remember, these are fictional characters created and directed to say and act in a specific way in the show, so nothing of what we saw in 15y was a mistake or us imagining things where there's nothing to imagine.

After all the character development Dean and Cass had, He was ready to say it in 15.09 and maybe, just maybe, Cass didn't let him talk because of the Empty deal that he had, can you imagine that... Dean was ready...

The signs of Dean being Bi were all over the show, in season 08 Dean developed PTSD for Cass and That scene in 08.07... Dean's confession in 10.16 where he said he -wants to experience things, people, and feelings differently or even for the first time-, Remember when Cass died and Dean was pissed all the time but Cass came back and Dean was so happy and hipeted about it 13.06... and what happened in purgatory 15.09 when he opens his heart to Cass, Dr. Sexy... and there are more of this in 12 seasons... 

The Perfect Ending

“The Perfect Ending” just doesn't exist... it would be for it to never end, we just care too much... but if they have to die, well, they can die of old age after helping the new generation and living their lives or something like that... I'm glad that I even got to see what we saw, the boys journey against evil and all the love in between (15.20 wasn't a good episode it didn't feel right i'm gonna salt and burn it most of it...). Supernatural is not a perfect show but the beautiful thing about perfection is that it's imperfect too...

I do Choose to believe in a different ending one with Cass and Eileen in it, why?... Because the boys deserve to enjoy the world and people that they helped to saved, they deserve to be loved... and i refuse to think otherwise... THIS IS FOR MY PEACE OF MIND

[kyber-kisses]

Hung The Moon (1/2)

Dean Winchester x Reader

Warnings; violence, gore, character death (maybe), cursing, nooses and everything that entails, some sketchy surgery, Sam playing doctor, cricothyrotomy. (Please consider this a DARK FIC)

Bad Things Happen Bingo

Square filled: bound and gagged (kind of)

Summary: after a hunting accident that takes one of the things Dean holds most dear, he is desperate to put the pieces back together (Takes place in s12)

It happened so fast.

It was like the moment they took you woke up from your drugged state your senses increased tenfold. You felt the rough canvas material of the sack being pulled over your head, your hands and ankles had been bound with cloth as you now teetered on the edge of what could only be a chair. The old wood creaking under your weight as you tried to shift.

But it was the rope around your neck that really had you scared. It was like every cell in your body was vibrating as your mind tried to hatch an escape plan. But in all truth, how were you supposed to get out of this mess? Sam and Dean were probably out looking for you- but the chance of them getting here before whoever had taken you decided to kick the chair out from under you was slim to none.

“You can give up the thought that they’ll actually save you.” A sudden voice spoke up from behind you, her accent immediately informing you on who exactly had captured you. “We have the Winchesters running in circles as we speak. They’re miles away.”

Fucking British men of Letters. Could you ever catch a break from them?

“Toni. I wish I could say it’s good to see you.” You swallowed, attempting to wriggle your wrist out of its binding. “But seeing as you put a damn bag over my head-“

“Goodness, I can see why the Winchesters like you so much. You’re a sarcastic chatter box just like the older one.”

“You wanna tell me why you got a noose around my neck? I thought you assholes were trying to recruit us, not kill us.”

The crack of her heels against the pavement gave way to where she walked, her shadow passing over the fabric of the bag over your head. If you could just keep her talking, you could buy yourself some more time.

“That was the original plan, yes. But you American hunters are too stubborn and reckless. It’s better to just wipe you off the playing field all together.”

Even with the canvas pulled over your eyes, you couldn’t help but roll them. It was like she loved hearing herself talk. “Well alright, Bonnie. Where’s Clyde in this whole situation? I thought for sure he’d be here too.”

“Ketch is busy with those flannel clad idiots of yours. Leaving them false breadcrumbs leading far, far away from here.” She quipped, the constant clack of her heels telling you she was somewhat occupied, giving you a chance to continue working on weaseling your hand out of its binding.

“So it’s just us girls? We should make a girls night of it. Order pizzas, paint each others nails-“

“Oh do shut up.” The sound of her heels quickly drew closer as she suddenly picked up her pace, your hand came loose and she struck the chair with her foot, kicking it out from beneath you and leaving you hanging. . . Literally.

It just happened so fast.

*. *. *. *. *. *.

“I’m telling you man, she has to be around here somewhere!”

“Dean, this is the fourth farmhouse we’ve checked tonight. She’s not here. Plus, Cas is searching for anything suspicious. He’ll give us a call if he finds anything.”

“She could be dying for all we know, Sam! Now we ain’t stopping until we find her!”

Dean spun around, throwing his fist into the rotting wood of the old abandon house. They had spent the last few hours searching for any clues to your whereabouts but it was like everything they found was steering them further away.

“So whats your plan? tear apart every abandon building in Georgia until we find her?”

“If that’s what it takes, yeah!”

He knew something was off the minute he and Sam had stepped back into the motel room earlier. Not a single thing was out of place and you were nowhere in sight. Everything about it screamed unusual. If you were to leave you would have texted him, informed him that you were going out. 

“You know, this has those British bastards written all over it.” he growled, pulling the keys to the impala from his pocket, the older Winchester stormed back out the door. “Now c’mon, we gotta keep looking.”

Sam watched his brother go, letting out a deep sigh. As each minute ticked by Dean was growing more impulsive in his behavior. The second they realized something had happened to you he could see the fear cover him like a blanket. He knew how much his brother cared for you. You were like the sun and moon to Dean Winchester. . .and yet you had no fricken clue about it at all.

“Sam! You coming or what?! We don’t got all day!” Deans voice echoing through the threshold and pulling him forward, his phone also deciding it was the perfect time to go off right then and there.

Fishing the device out of his pocket, Sam quickly answered, ignoring the impatient look Dean was giving him from over the hood of the impala.

“Cas, you got anything?”

“I might. But I’m not sure. The place is heavily warded against angels.” His voice loud enough through the speaker to gain the jade eyed hunters attention, resulting in him throwing open the drivers side door and sliding in, the engine roaring to life in a matter of seconds.

“Where is he?” His voice heavy with urgency as Sam slid into the car, almost hitting his head on the window when Dean threw the car into drive at a record speed, peeling off onto the two lane road. “Sam! Where the hell is he?!”

“Cas, where are you?”

There was a muffled answer, drowned out by the thunder of the impalas engine, the older Winchester taking his eyes off the road to look wide eyed at his brother. “Well?”

“He said he’s just outside of Barnwell.”

“Barnwell? That’s the opposite direction in which we’ve been traveling!”

With another click, Sam put the angel on speaker, holding it up for better sound. “I don’t know what to tell you. Maybe the clues that you have found were deliberately placed? Put there to send you in the wrong direction?”

Sam watched as his brothers head fell foreword in defeat, eyes closing momentarily as he rested his forehead against the steering wheel. “God. I’m so stupid! I’m so damn stupid.”

“Dean, no you’re not. We just couldn’t see things clearly in the panic. It happens.”

“I swear I’m gonna slit the throats of whoever took her.”

Shifting slightly in his seat, Dean pressed down harder on the gas, the world beyond the windows becoming a dark blur as he cut across the state. If anything happened to you, he would never forgive himself. He need you safe. He needed you.

*. *. *. *. *. *.

Adrenaline flooded through Deans system as he slammed against the front door, splintering the door frame in one go as he tumbled into the dark.

“Check every room. She has to be here somewhere.”

Flashlight beams danced across the dusted surfaces of the vacant homestead as the brothers searched for any signs of life. The drive would have normally been around an hour long but Dean had managed to narrow it down to a clean twenty five. The house that Cas had found had long since been abandon, so overgrown with honeysuckle and kudzu that the building looked like a cocoon of greenery. The only signs that anyone had been there were the tire tracks in the driveway.

“Y/N, you in here?” Dean whispered, taking light footsteps through the house, Sam splitting of to check the basement. Cas was still out of commission due to the warding, resulting in him hanging back on the front porch.

Eventually the hunter fell back after finding no evidence of you,instead opting to follow the direction in which his brother had gone. The old stairs creaking under his weight as he descended into the dark of the basement.

“Sam, you find anything?”

His feet had barely touched down on the cement floor before the mass that could only be Sam barricaded him from going anywhere, his younger brother taking his shoulders in a vice grip and pushing him.

“Dude what the hell? You scared of the dark now?”

“Dean-“ Sam struggled, the words sticking like cotton in his throat. “go back upstairs.”

“Sam, just let me through. I’ll be fine.”

“No, I’m telling you, You don’t want to see this. Just get out of the house.”

The tone and words hit like an icy shock to Deans system, the hunter drawing his eyebrows together as he pushed against the hold Sam had on him. Alarms going off in his head as every muscle in his body felt like it had been bound tightly with wire. Maybe if his flashlight hadn’t illuminated his brothers face he wouldn’t have been so scared all of a sudden- but his face was pale and his eyes were wide and glassy.

And then his flashlight beam fell across the silhouette just beyond his shoulders and Dean felt his heart stop in his chest. The paralyzing fear spread through his body like icy liquid metal, jade eyes widening in dread as the flashlight slipped from his palm, clattering down the last two steps.

“No-no.” The word came out of his mouth shaky, his voice cracking. If it weren’t for the rotting banister and his brothers quick reflexes his buckling knees would have sent him to the ground.

The fallen flashlights beam now acted as some morbid spotlight to your fate. If it weren’t for the pair of bright yellow converse on the set of feet, neither brother would have guessed it was you. Your feet dangling a good foot above the floor, your body suspended like a puppet from the rafters.

No.no. this wasn't right. this was just some nightmarish landscape that his mind had cooked up. You weren't dead. You couldn't be. Not here. Not now. Not this way. You were supposed to always be there. The one thing that he would never lose. You were supposed to stay and he was supposed to find the courage to tell you he loved you.

You end wasn't supposed to be met with your neck in a noose.

“We gotta- we  gotta cut her down.” he stuttered, finding that his tongue had practically gone limp in his mouth. They couldn’t just leave you there. “She---she-”

And then it was like a sudden adrenaline rush went through the hunter and he was pushing past the man blocking him from you. Maybe a part of him still didn’t believe what he was seeing, or that he could allow himself to really believe you were dead. 

And He didn’t know what made him reach out for your wrist, but when he did- he found something he didn't expect to actually find. he found a pulse.

Eyes widening, he took a step back. “Sam, she’s still alive!” Letting go of your wrist, Dean whipped around, eyes finding the knocked over chair in the dark and racing to stand it up, jumping onto the base of it as he pulled out the knife tucked into his waistband. Sam was beside him in matter of seconds, ready to hold your body the second the rope was cut. As he did you dropped like an unstrung marionette into the hunters arms, the younger Winchester sinking to the floor. The sack was pulled away from your face and the noose was quickly loosened.

“How is she even still alive?”

“Her hand-“ Sam breathed, lifting up your left hand to show the bruises around your fingers. “She managed to wedge it between the rope and her neck before it could fully choke her.”

“We need to get her to Cas then!” Deans voice thundered around the otherwise empty room as panic overrode his system.

“If we move her I don’t know what will happen. I need you to go and grab Y/Ns emergency kit from the car. Along with the straw from your drink earlier.” Being as gentle as he could, Sam lifted the noose from around your neck, his hands shaking as he did. Meanwhile Dean was paralyzed with fear, also slightly confused as to why his brother wanted the fucking straw.” Now, Dean! Go!”

Another switch was flicked in his brain and the speed at which he took the stairs probably would have impressed most people. He ignored the shouts from Cas as he blew past, throwing open the trunk of the impala and rummaging around until he found your kit. And then he was flinging open the passenger door and ripping the straw from his cup, deciding it was better to not ask questions at this point and just grab what Sam told him. He didn’t bother closing the doors to the vehicle as he sprinted back into the house once more, almost falling down the stairs in the process.

Breathlessly, he fell to his knees and ripped open the kit, his hands shaking worse than his brothers. “Sam, what do you need?” His words falling out of his mouth rapidly. He didn’t know how to help you or what to hand his brother and he was on the verge of passing out from fear alone. “Sam!”

“I need you to cut off about a two inch piece of the straw. I also need your pocket knife.” His words earning a panicked look from Dean, but he did as he was told, handing over the objects quickly.

“What the hell are you going to do?!”

“We need to puncture her airway. Get air into her lungs.”

“And you know how to do that?!”

There was a pause. “Kinda. Read about it in a book once.”

“Kinda? What if it doesn’t work?!”

“Then she dies. Now I need you to shut up and trust me because this is the only chance we got at saving her. Now hold her head steady for me.”

Despite his whole uneasiness with the entire situation, Dean complied, moving to hold your head in place as Sam brought the pocket knife to your throat, being as steady as he could when making the incision. Everything in the older Winchester wanted to tear his eyes away, but they seemed glued to what was happening. There wasn’t exactly a gentleness either as he put the small piece of straw into the incision, having to of course make sure it reached your windpipe.

Suspense blanketed the three until there was a stuttered breath from your unconscious form and your chest ever so slightly rose as your lungs wheezed with lost air.

“Was that it? Did it work?”

“Yeah, yeah I think it did. But we need to get her up to Cas. Hopefully he still has some juice left to help fix her.”

Dean let out a sigh of partial relief, shifting so he could get a better look at you, his calloused hands moving to cup your face, still shaking from the whole ordeal. Through the blurriness of the tears in his eyes he could still make out the rope marks on your neck. He wanted you to wake up, tell him who did this to you. He wanted you to really confirm that you were still with him. But he knew it was better for you to stay unconscious.

“We’re gonna get you to Cas, okay Sweetheart? You’re gonna be fine. You're gonna be Just fine.” 

Read part 2 Here

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[atc74]

The Storm

Square(s) Filled: The best is yet to come for @as-the-saying-goes-bingo​

Warnings: Angst, Chuck being a dick, break-ups, mentions of kidnapping and torture (s12 throwback), SLIGHT S15 SPOILERS

Summary: At one time, Chuck was the love of her life, now Y/N is fed up with his crap and decides to go toe to toe with him. 

Pairing: Chuck x Reader (past), Reader x ?

Word Count: 1728

Written for: This started off as a request from @idabbleincrazy​ for my 1k notes celebration:  Could u do #13 with Chuck? (Perhaps set after s14?) Congrats on 1k notes!!! “Fuck, I wish I could give you one more kiss, to feel your warmth, to see you smile… I miss you so much,” So post s14 got me thinking and this is what happened. 

Beta’d by: @amanda-teaches​ thank you for everything you do for me and for being a pretty awesome friend. 

A/N: S15 SPOILERS I have a theory and am testing it here. Not really, but you know what I mean. Chuck is all powerful, but there is only one being powerful enough to match him. While I don’t care all that much for Amara, I see her playing a bigger role this season and I pray to sweet baby Jesus that her character gets a little more depth than s11. 

Sections in italics are the readers dream

Looking to enhance your fanfiction experience? You can get Chuck’s scent here from @scentsfromthebunker!

Y/N wandered around Harlan high school. She should be helping contain the ghosts or helping Sam and Dean find a solution, but she couldn't find it in her to give a damn right now. She finally found a quiet room, the nurse's office. She took a seat on one of the cots and laid down. She couldn’t even believe the shitstorm they were in, all because of Chuck. Her boyfriend Chuck, but she was pretty sure that ended when he took off for worlds unknown with his sister to repair their relationship. If it hadn’t ended then, it surely would have when Sam shot him. 

The worst part about it was he never even said goodbye. Never told her he loved her one last time. She didn’t even get one last kiss from him. You know the one. The last kiss that says I’ll miss you and I’ll always love you but I just can’t be with you. 

The sun had started to sink below the horizon, setting the room alight with a warm pinkish glow. Y/N closed her eyes, praying she could get some rest. Rest from the end of the world and rest from her heartache. 

“Hey, there you are. I was looking for you,” Chuck pushed his way past the stacks of boxes in the store room she had decided to organize. 

“You’re God, babe. You knew exactly where I was,” she chuckled. 

“Yeah, but I also sensed you needed some alone time. I didn’t want to intrude. I promised I’d stay out of your head and I’m keeping that promise,” Chuck acknowledged, taking a seat next to her on the floor. “What are you doing in here?” 

“Trying to keep my mind off the end of the world, again,” she scoffed, pulling another box in front of her. 

“We’ll find a way to stop her,” he promised, pressing a kiss to her cheek. 

Y/N laid her head on his shoulder, and he wrapped his arms around her. His strength was zapped after the fight with Amara. “What if we can’t? We’re all going to die.” She sniffed, wiping her nose with her sleeve. 

“At least we’ll be together,” he reasoned, resting his head on top of hers. “What do you say we get you out of this mess and to bed? It’s almost two in the morning.” 

“Shit, I didn’t think I’d been in here that long. I need a shower first. I’m covered in dust and cobwebs,” she informed him. She took his offered hand, and they left the storage room. 

“Can I join you?” he asked, almost hesitantly. 

“I’d like that,” she whispered her reply, kissing him sweetly as they reached her room. “No singing though.” 

“You love it when I sing,” Chuck protested.

“Yes, I do. But it’s two in the morning, babe,” Y/N pointed out. 

“Right,” he nodded. “No singing.” 

After grabbing a change of clothes, Y/N led Chuck to the shower room, softly shutting and locking the door behind them. She doubted either of the brothers would be looking to shower this late, but stranger things have happened when they’re stressed and can’t sleep. Y/N removed her dust covered flannel and shrugged off her boots. Fatigue had seeped into her bones, and she felt it acutely as she stripped off the remaining articles as Chuck did the same. 

Y/N flipped on the shower and stepped under the already warm spray. Chuck followed, watching silently as she wet her hair. “You’re beautiful.” 

She blushed slightly under his gaze. “Thank you.” Y/N turned her back to him, grabbing her shampoo off the shelf, only for him to take it from her. 

“Let me.” 

She stepped back as his hands spread the lightly scented shampoo through her locks. She generally appreciated his hands at any given moment, but at that moment, she hummed contentedly as he massaged her scalp. “That feels nice.” 

“I’ve just started,” he chuckled. “Turn and rinse.” 

He ran his long fingers through the strands, rinsing the suds down the drain. He reached for her body wash and poured a generous amount in his palm. His hands drifted over her skin as he washed her. While there was nothing sexual about his ministrations, she still found it sensual, the way he touched her. He was always there to take care of her, even in the simplest of ways. Since their early days when he was simply Chuck, the drunk prophet. 

Y/N returned the favor for him and soon they were toweled off, dressed in night clothes and in bed. “It’s odd, this feeling.” 

“What’s that, babe?” she asked sleepily, draping her arm across his waist, his around her shoulders, cradling her head on his shoulder. 

“Not being able to just snap my fingers and do something,” he admitted. “I feel so weak, so useless.”  

“You’re not weak, Chuck. You’ve taken a hit, yeah, but we’re going to fix this,” Y/N reassured him. She shifted her body until she was straddling her lover. “Let me take care of you.” 

Whispers of pleasure and declarations of love bounced off the cold tile walls as she took her time, pushing them both over the edge. Wrapped safely in the cocoon of his love, she drifted off to a restful sleep for the first time in weeks. 

~*~

She woke in a cold sweat, tears streaming down her face and into her hairline, Dean gently shaking her shoulders. “Y/N, wake up. It’s just a bad dream.” 

“Yeah. Bad dream,” she agreed, wiping her face dry. “Let’s get back to it.” The problem was she never had a chance to grieve the loss of their love. Sam had been kidnapped and tortured by the British bitch and Mary Winchester had returned from the dead. They never had a moment of rest. She never had a moment of rest. Never took care of herself. She was always hunting or taking care of Sam and Dean. Now they needed to save the world. Again. 

~*~

Y/N turned up her face at the storm that raged overhead, like the fire inside her. It had been one mini-apocalypse after another, and she was done. She was done with Chuck fucking with their lives. She was done with him putting the nightmaric visions in Sam’s head. How many times had he seen Dean die by his own hand in the last few months? How many times had Sam died at the hand of his brother? How many times had they killed her? She was done. 

“What the fuck do you want with us?” she roared into the storm. “Quit being a fucking coward and show yourself! Come and face me you piece of shit!” 

“Is that any way to talk to God?” his voice carried over the wind whipping around her. 

“When he’s acting like a toddler, yeah. A diva? Yep. My dickbag ex that left me hanging for years while he was galavanting around the fucking universe bonding with his sister? Abso-fucking-lutely!” Y/N bellowed as she faced him. 

“You always were sexy when you got mad,” he chuckled, a look of nostalgia clouding his features. 

“You haven’t experienced my wrath,” she challenged. 

“Fuck, I wish I could give you one more kiss, to feel your warmth, to see you smile… I miss you so much,” Chuck professed, taking a few steps closer to her, the storm calming around them. 

“Yeah, well, I’m pretty sure the statute of limitations hasn’t expired on your bullshit. You should have thought about that before you left me high and dry without even so much as a note,” Y/N cursed. “I’m so fucking done with this act. End this now and let us go. We’re not going to play your fucking games anymore!” 

“The final chapters are just starting, Y/N. And yes, my love, you will play along. I haven’t finished your ending yet. You play nice and I’ll save you,” Chuck revealed. 

“You think I’ll just give up on Sam and Dean? For you? Why, because you’re God?” Y/N thundered.  

“Because we have a history,” he remarked. 

“It’s that history that will eventually be your undoing, God,” she spat. “I’d lay down my life for them before I ever go with you. They were there for me when you walked out. They’ve been there for me every step of the way. They were there before you, and they’ll be there long after we’re done with you.” 

“Because I wrote it that way! Don’t you see?” He snickered. “I made you indispensable to them and them to you. I’ve made you so co-dependent on one another that you will gladly sacrifice yourself for them, but would they do the same for you?” 

“Without question,” she answered. 

“We’ll see about that,” Chuck grinned wickedly, the storm gaining strength once more. 

“No, brother. It’s over,” Amara called out over the booming thunder, illuminated by the storm and her power. 

Chuck backed away, only to be restrained by that power. Amara stretched out her arms, gaining further intensity, levitating over her brother. She placed her hand over his heart, her palm glowing red as she transferred the Mark to him.

He cowered from her touch, and his screams rent the air before he fell to his knees on the soaked earth. “What have you done?” 

“Turnabout is fair play, Chuck. Let’s see how you like being locked inside a cage for a couple of millenia,” Amara mused, returning to the ground beside him. The storm dissipated and the sun broke through the clouds. 

“You should know better than to mess with a Winchester, Chuck,” Sam clucked, wrapping his arm around Y/N’s waist. “You okay, honey?” 

“Never better, babe. The best is yet to come,” Y/N placed her left hand on his cheek, pulling him in for a kiss, her silver ring glinting in the sunshine. She turned back to Chuck on his knees at her feet. “Think about that when you’re rotting in your cage.” 

In the blink of an eye, Amara and Chuck were gone, leaving Sam and Y/N alone. 

“Feel better?” Sam asked her.

“It’s over. With Amara’s help, we saved the world again, and I got my closure,” Y/N smiled up her husband as they walked toward their new life together. “So yeah, I’m good.”

Did you like it? The nicest thing you can do for a writer is reblog their work and tell them, and others, how much you like it!

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[mittensmorgul]

The more I watch 1.01, the more I see how 14.13 speaks directly back to SO MUCH from it.

-Sam’s shot at the Apple Pie Life with Jess and Law School, but only one of those things would’ve survived. Even without Jess dying due to the Apocalypse-That-Wasn’t in the alternate timeline, Sam ends up alone, too devoted to his work to think he could have hobbies or a family. And how awful is that?

-the moment Mary died and their lives took this turn, THIS was the ultimate resolution John could’ve hoped for. In fact, it’s so far BEYOND what he could’ve hoped for he couldn’t even really wrap his whole mind around it. Mary was ALIVE again, because of what his sons had done in service to the universe. She got a second chance, because of the sacrifices he’d made, AND HE WAS CONTENT. While also acknowledging he’d totally screwed up his kids. But here, 13 years after he died (and heck, what a shock of a thing to hear), they’ve let that baggage go and built their own lives, and their own family. It might not be what John ever hoped for them, but like Mary realizing this in s12, it’s who they are, and they’re good with it. Talk about a catharsis for everyone from what we began learning in 1.01.

-Several conversations from 1.01 seem to be the basis for showing us JUST HOW FAR Sam and Dean have come. Yes, we’ve been getting a lot of 4.01 reminders to demonstrate just how far Cas has come since he first pulled Dean from Hell, but Sam and Dean’s journey started long before they ever met Cas. And I feel this is why they needed to separate out their stories here. Because the 300th loops perfectly back to 1.01. Right down to a key scene taking place outside of a shuttered and out-of-business movie theater, to a confrontation with a murderous ghost taking place in an abandoned house.

SAM: Yeah? When I told Dad I was scared of the thing in my closet, he gave me a .45. DEAN: Well, what was he supposed to do? SAM: I was nine years old! He was supposed to say, don't be afraid of the dark. DEAN: Don't be afraid of the dark? Are you kidding me? Of course you should be afraid of the dark. You know what's out there. SAM: Yeah, I know, but still. The way we grew up, after Mom was killed, and Dad's obsession to find the thing that killed her. SAM: But we still haven't found the damn thing. So we kill everything we can find. DEAN: We save a lot of people doing it, too. SAM: You think Mom would have wanted this for us? The weapon training, and melting the silver into bullets? Man, Dean, we were raised like warriors. DEAN: So what are you gonna do? You're just gonna live some normal, apple pie life? Is that it? SAM: No. Not normal. Safe. DEAN: And that's why you ran away. SAM: I was just going to college. It was Dad who said if I was gonna go I should stay gone. And that's what I'm doing. DEAN: Yeah, well, Dad's in real trouble right now. If he's not dead already. I can feel it. DEAN: I can't do this alone. SAM: Yes you can. DEAN: Yeah, well, I don't want to.

Sam didn’t want normal, he wanted SAFE. And to him, in that alternate timeline, would’ve meant having no family, nobody who could ever possibly hurt him, and living only for his work and his super-healthy raw vegan diet. Don’t love anything, and nothing can hurt you. And just... wow that’s horrible. D:

SAM: I have this...I have an interview. DEAN: What, a job interview? Skip it. SAM: It's a law school interview, and it's my whole future on a plate.

in the AU, it literally became his whole future. He had literally nothing else except a douchey black turtleneck.

But also DEAN is clearly still hunting, but ends up wanted for murder, still running from the law, never having had to take dealing with law enforcement any more seriously, the way Sam began pushing him to in 1.01 after Dean was dismissive of the cops at the murder scene on the bridge:

SAM: Ow! What was that for? DEAN: Why'd you have to step on my foot? SAM: Why do you have to talk to the police like that? DEAN: Come on. They don't really know what's going on. We're all alone on this. I mean, if we're going to find Dad we've got to get to the bottom of this thing ourselves.

They talk with two girls in a diner, Amy (who they first met outside the movie theater, like the kids in 14.13) and Rachel, who they sort of ease into discussing the supernatural with, Sam informing them that Amy’s pentagram necklace is actually a protection symbol, rather than a demonic one. They tell Sam and Dean about a local legend, a woman murdered out on that highway that supposedly still haunts the bridge. It’s a nice parallel to the way the kids in 14.13 see the supernatural thing first hand, and Sam tells them there just isn’t a way to sugar-coat that or explain it away, and they’re just... completely straightforward about who they are and what they do.

I mean, they are the guys who save the world, after all. And Dean’s perfectly capable of admitting that they’re very good at what they do, no swagger or joking at all. He just says it, because he knows it’s true. Which is ALSO about 1000000 miles from how he felt in 1.01 about... everything. When he was falling apart every few minutes wondering if they could even get through the case at all without John... this was their training wheels case that sent them both on down the highway to where they are now, and this was paralleled beautifully in every way, giving Sam and Dean both a crystal-clear lens to see right back to the beginning again, and recognize their lives for what they’ve made of them.

DEAN: You're one of us. SAM: No. I'm not like you. This is not going to be my life. DEAN: You have a responsibility to— SAM: To Dad? And his crusade? If it weren't for pictures I wouldn't even know what Mom looks like. And what difference would it make? Even if we do find the thing that killed her, Mom's gone. And she isn't coming back. DEAN grabs SAM by the collar and shoves him up against the railing of the bridge. A long pause. DEAN: Don't talk about her like that.

Incredible, yes?

We’re also fresh off the heavy-handed dark mirror to John, his revenge quest, and his wife who was murdered to further the “prophecy” of the apocalypse, via Nick’s final rejection of his stated motive to find justice for her. John proves that despite everything, his motives really were honorable. He really WAS out for justice, and was more than happy to stand down knowing that it was finally served to his children... and then some, even if he made a ton of mistakes and was blatantly awful to them along the way. And even if they all suffered for it in the short-term.

And while no, Sam and Dean haven’t really forgotten any of that awful stuff, they have let it go. They haven’t shoved it all down deep and held on to it in bitterness. Unlike the children of the Woman in White, they survived it all, and they were able to move on. They may never be able to go home again, to go back to how things were before the universe painted targets on them all, but they’ve built a new home with a solid foundation, centered around the people they love and the family they’ve chosen along the way.

And honestly isn’t that the point of the whole damn series, since day one?

I can never go home is literally the ghost of their past. They’ve rejected that message with both hands, and instead have chosen, “I AM home.”

great I’m gonna cry again now

[semirahrose]

Hello! After spending days reading your blog and realizing how much of a Sam girl you are (just like me), I'd like to ask you something: I saw a post yesterday which someone said that "Sam doesn't give a damn about people unless he 'sees himself in it', that's why Dean has more friends than him" and I would really like to know your opinion about this. You think that's true? Thanks ❤️❤️

Thank you for being an amazing Sam fan! It’s a wonderful group, I’ve found.

I feel like I see those allegations every day. Not too long ago, I got a message about how Sam was “self-absorbed” because he shared some history with Jack, and I… yelled about that a bit, whoops.

Sam has been kind to people who have used him and badly hurt him. He’s understanding and loving toward people he has barely had a chance to get to know (Mary, for example). Sam has endless reserves of kindness and he honestly exhausts them for plenty of people who don’t deserve it… but Sam thinks they deserve a chance.

The thing is, the people who claim that Sam is apathetic might be getting it from his surface-level relationships with others. The show brings in new “friends” for the Winchesters all the time, but then never gives Sam a chance to interact with them. Until Eileen, Sam was, with very few exceptions, subject to what one wonderful person dubbed The Bela Effect (it has two parts). Charlie, Garth, and many others all had very limited relationships with Sam (and were, on some occasions, overtly–though possibly unconsciously–mocking or biased toward him). On some level, that makes sense. Sam has lost so many people that he’s really cautious about letting himself connect with others.

So, no… Sam looking for echoes of himself is not why “Dean has more friendships” than Sam. 

Sam spent the first several seasons thinking he was doomed to become evil. Even his own father and brother accepted the idea that they might need to put Sam down. Grief and terror at one’s own inherent freakishness is not conducive to forming lasting bonds. And if he does? Sarah Blake? Madison? For any number of reasons… “it ends bloody, [or] it ends bad,” to borrow a phrase.

In the very first episode, the girl he loved was murdered, her corpse left up in a mockery of his mother’s—a death Sam also blames himself for. 

People he trusts either die or prove to be evil (unless they’re very, very rare one-off characters who identify with or support Sam). The Special Children, especially, were victims of this. They, like Sam, were manipulated and forced into situations beyond their control where they had to make awful choices in order to survive. Sam made it through. None of the others were so lucky.

He spent a whole bunch of time being actively (or passively) suicidal. I… have a tag for “sam and suicide.”

Sam then spent lifetimes and lifetimes and lifetimes being tortured, and came back to a world where he didn’t trust himself or his own perceptions of the world or the people around him.

He was then grieving and lost, and berated for a whole season for his response to that loss until he was, again, literally suicidal.

Possessed against his will for a portion of a season, then criticized for his response when he realized how it came about. Any other characters/”friends” who mentioned it invariably shared Dean’s viewpoint, which was actually disturbing on a lot of levels.

Dean then took on an actual world-destroying, brother-killing mark without hearing the Disclaimer, and the brothers scrambled to find a solution.

Lots of murder and mayhem (and more passive suicidal actions!!) later, the morally questionable sister of God was released. 

In exactly which part of that could anyone claim that he was, emotionally, in a good place to form friendships without feeling crushing guilt and shame for exposing them to a world where he believed he’d inevitably be the cause of their death?

After all that (and more besides), Sam had a chance to be in a place, emotionally, where he could form friendships. What happened? (Spoiler alert: they died.) Magda Peterson and Eileen Leahy were two people he actually connected with on screen. Neither character is still alive. 

And Missouri Moseley? Had an amazing and very noteworthy connection to Sam. They brought her back in s12 just to kill her, and she didn’t have a single moment of screentime with Sam.*disgruntled muttering*

And then there was Jack. The showrunners originally planned (or so I’ve heard—wish I could find the source, but until I do, please take that with a grain of salt) for Sam to be wrong about Jack, but apparently they changed it when they saw the audience response to Jack and Sam.

So they planned to Sever Another Sam Friendship By Death or Evilness.

So the reason Sam has fewer friendships than Dean?

In order: weird narrative trends, crippling fear and shame, and Death By Writer’s Questionable Whims.

Ugh, sorry. I digress.

Sam may see some of his suffering echoed in others, but there is absolutely no basis for people to claim that he “doesn’t give a damn” about others unless he sees himself in them. Firstly–and I already yelled about this in the post I linked above–common ground is literally one of the primary catalysts for starting conversations and forming relationships. Opposites may make an explosive combination sometimes, but finding common ground is absolutely central to forging lasting bonds. It has absolutely no bearing on Sam, and I am honestly surprised that anyone can find it reasonable to claim that Sam is self-absorbed, psychopathic, or lacking empathy (all accusations that have been brought to me before).

Trying to offer up evidence to the contrary would be ridiculous, because it’s there in every episode of every season of the show, and if there is anyone out there who does not see it, I truly don’t think my words would change a thing.

[bluesclves]

Hey Scoob, I really love your blog about the Archangels and I would like to ask you one thing, how would you do a redemption arc for Lucifer? How would you reformulate the plot of s12 and s13 on Supernatural aimed at him? I imagine they could make him have the following thoughts about humanity: "I have nothing in favor of humanity but now I also have nothing more against."

Well actually, I’m writing a fanfic series about just that 😅 [Link]

Granted, I did the ‘lucifer becomes human’ trope well before season 13 thought to do it, and I had it stick as opposed to it being another half-assed 1-2 episode long arc.

But if I were to honestly re-write the show starting with season 12, following similar arcs for the boys?

I think I’d start by finding a way to give Lucifer a reason not to run back to the Winchesters at the beginning of Season 12. There really was no reason for him to go off on a rampage like that when they actually took his side against Chuck and got him the apology he’s so desperately wanted. Sure, Chuck still left… but that’s not the Winchester’s fault. They were on Team Save the World together, there’s no reason for them to be hunting Lucifer down and there’s no reason for Lucifer to assume they are no longer friendly to him.

If he came to them with his vessel issues and his injuries, they likely would have worked with him to find a stable vessel—which could lead to Crowley revealing he has Nick and giving the vessel to him freely so that he has a trump card via the magical enhancements in case he ever needs to use Lucifer or stop him.

But! I’d give him a reason not to come back. Just because the writing for that was lazy doesn’t mean I don’t like the drama associated with Lucifer “busting dad’s already-broken toys”. I actually really liked that scene in Rock Never Dies, I thought Rick Springfield delivered those lines fantastically and it gave me a little hope again that the Writers did actually see Lucifer’s potential as a deeply broken and flawed character— not just a villain for villainy’s sake.

Don’t get me wrong— I love Lucifer as an antagonist, he makes for a fantastic enemy of the Boys. But the caveat to that is that despite being an antagonist, he isn’t a traditional villain. His goals in season five were, from his point of view, wholly noble and just. He believed he was the good guy. In season 11, he also believes that he’s the good guy. He’s agreeing to fight Amara, after all. In seasons 12 & 13 however he loses that, and we see him becoming evil for the sake of being evil and it just doesn’t fit with his character so far as we have seen him.

So in order to both give him his redemption arc and maintain his status as a Lawful Good (which doesn’t mean Lawful Nice) Antagonist, I’d give him a very good reason not to return to Team Save The World.

What that reason not to come back could be anything as simple as “he came back to the bunker only to overhear that they are hunting him down” to as complex as “he hasn’t found a vessel that can hold him yet and he’s burnt through so many at this point that he’s afraid to go back out of fear that they won’t forgive him for something he honestly couldn’t help”.

Whatever the reason, I’d show it in some way from his point of view so it is clear why he goes off the deep end and just start smashing shit. I did actually like that, though I wish they portrayed it less as “he’s throwing a temper tantrum because he didn’t get his way” and more like “everyone thinks I’m a monster and my father left AGAIN so fine, if they all want me to be a monster so bad, I’ll give them a monster.”

The biggest problem I had with that arc in season 12 is that he invests himself so much in high-power religious and political figures, then uses that power just to make the Winchesters’ lives hell. He doesn’t effect any serious governmental changes as the president, he doesn’t make any decrees as the archbishop… it was honestly just fanservice and then he used that power to make Sam & Dean Public Enemies #1. That, and he fucked a random nobody Because The Plot Demands It.

That’s really something I could never wrap my head around. Lucifer is disgusted by humans. He sees them as filthy, unclean, base creatures.

What logical reason does he have to sleep with Kelly rather than turn her into wall paint at the mere suggestion that he might want to sleep with her? They made it seem like a little pressuring from an aide was enough to get Lucifer to set aside his distaste for humanity and sleep with her, despite showing earlier I’m the season how he manipulated another woman into carving his name into her own skin just for insinuating he might be interested in her.

What feasible reason did he have to sleep with Kelly? Fear of discovery? He obliterates her and cleans up the mess, snap-snap. Who’s gonna know? It’s not like he planned to be in that position long-term.

I really hate Kelly as a character however, in part because she was written to be expendable and I HATE characters that serve no purpose other than fodder. If you kill a character it should mean something.

So here’s how I would give us a Jack/Nephilim arc without stupid Lucifer Fanservice and Kelly and the dumb supermax prison break. Are you really gonna tell me that Billie wouldn’t just come and collect one of them as per their deal once she became Death-with-a-capital-D?

Lucifer is angry, he’s been betrayed by his Dad and he couldn’t go back to the Winchesters, and he’s just smashing shit and making their lives hell because he’s directing his anger at them. Because God or Amara gave them their mom back but left him with nothing. Again.

So he goes for the one person that can hurt them most— their mom. He comes to her when she’s still unsure about her place in this world and after she just slept with Ketch and is mostly a little disgusted with herself for stopping so low.

He goes to her in a dream as John, and tells her her husband is still suffering in Hell after all these years. But he can give her John back if she says yes. John is more familiar in this world anyways, he reminds her, the boys really need their father, someone they can count on.

And he possesses Mary, literally less than an hour after she had sex with Ketch. She doesn’t even have the chance to take morning-after pills. So she conceives and while the fetus matures an archangel is possessing her, so it draws power from him too to grow.

Bam, a nephilim (who will be an actual half-brother to Dean and Sam), being carried by a decidedly not expendable character, so there is actual urgency to the Boys’ attempts to save their mother.

You get Mary!Lucifer carrying a baby and slowly coming to the realisation that this can be his new purpose. It was an accident… but he is also this child’s parent and he has a responsibility to it. Maybe his Father left him and the world thinks he’s a monster... but this baby doesn’t k ow him yet and he will be a better Father than his own.

You get him changing tactics from using Mary to taunt the Winchesters to Playing keep-away and hiding from them to protect her and his child.

We can still have them eventually pinning Mary!Lucifer down and exorcising him from her, with Crowley trapping Lucifer in Nick, because I love it, but I think Mary carrying the Nephilim and Lucifer getting off his warpath and onto the path to parenthood is a much better arc for both those characters than the arcs they’ve been given thus far.

As for season 13? If we assume season 12 ends similarly to how it did, with Jack still being born but Sam and Dean finding a way to keep Mary alive throughout it, then you get Mary and Lucifer trapped in the apocalypse world together, we can get similar scenes to the almost-beautiful shows of character development through those short conversations Lucifer had with Mary. Only she’d have more insight into his thought process now, so we could get more in-depth conversations, and perhaps a tentative friendship as he continues to protect her despite her no longer carrying his child.

My biggest change to season 13 would be keeping Lucifer human longer. It’d be focused on transitioning the role of main villain from Lucifer to Apocalypse Michael, or Asmodeus. Lucifer may not be in the story as much, but the scenes he does have would develop his understanding of what it means to be human and what it means to be a father, coming to a head when he regains enough grace (through either Anael or natural means) to be formidable and rather than go it alone, asks the Winchesters to help him find his son. I’d preferably have him not be stupid and just stay tagging along with Cass after the Escape From Asmodeus.

I’d force him to experience humanity, to have to understand what it means to live knowing you are mortal and might die at any time. If he managed to work his way into the bunker via Cass, I’d focus on him rebuilding his role as a member of a family, giving and receiving help from the Winchesters in different ways.

He’d get his redemption arc, and then I’d have all his lessons and growth culminate in self-sacrifice at the end of season 13. Someone has to keep Michael in the Apocalypse World. Everyone else has to get across. So he tells the others to go through and he holds Michael off for as long as he can.

Maybe people would be upset for killing him off after finally redeeming him— but Supernatural isn’t about Lucifer, it’s about the Winchesters. And if I gave them an ally that powerful, there’s very little left to challenge them. So I’d have to kill him off in order to let the story continue.

But at least that way, he’d have the noble death he deserved, rather than being put down like the beaten horse he’s become.

…

Anyways, I agree with your thoughts of Lucifer deciding he still doesn’t love humanity but he doesn’t actively hate them anymore because that is actually the impression I got in seasons 12 & 13. His beef was with specific people, not humanity as a whole. He was angry with God and with tfw, and that’s it.

Thanks for the ask! Sorry for the Essay!

[missjackil]

Sam and Mary

There’s already so much meta floating around about the relationship between Sam and his mother, but my opinion seems to deviate from the norm, which is typical of me, but hey, thats okay :) I was happy to see in 13x4 Sam finally emoting what he’s been feeling. I know he believes their mom is alive, but I know he can’t be sure, so he must have feeings about that too right? What surprised me however, is that he feels like Dean had a relationship with her, and he didn’t.  There’s no doubt that Dean has had more time with her and there was a familiar bond with them right away, and that’s something Sam wont ever have. He was just a baby when Mom died, so he never had the crust cut off his PB&J, never got pushed on a swing, never had a skinned knee kissed... by his mother anyway, and even the time he saw her ghost in Home and had time with her and John in The Song Remains the Same, her memory was scrubbed and she has no recollection, so it may as well be erased from his memory too. So does Sam have a relationship with his mother?  Yes, he does. And I may venture to say that even though I wont say it’s great, or healthy, between either brother, I do feel that it’s better and healthier than it is with Dean. 

Unlike many fans, I was very intrigued by the mama drama of S12. I love to hash through relatable, personal problems. I have a relationship with my 2 daughters, one I didn’t get to know till she was 27, and a 25 yr old Ive raised alone since birth, the relationships are completely different, but both are valid, so I really got into this storyline on the show and hope to see more of it.  As we know, in this episode, Sam went off on Dean and told him what hes feeling, and why its so hard for him to deal with it, but he said “At least you had a relationship with her!” So it makes me wonder why he thinks he didn;t, or if he just wishes it was the same as Dean’s. However, I saw that even though he knows she started everything by making a deal with Azazel, when Sam kissed her tomb stone in 11x23 he showed he already forgave her for it. She didnt know Azazel would come for him, or what trauma would stem from it, and he’s been in situations like that a few times in his life, when he thought he was doing the right thing, but it ended up he didnt, and shit hit the fan. Though that doesn’t mean he isnt harboring some resentment. That would be expected, but he’s never shown it.  What I saw between Sam and Mary was that he was very soft and kind to her, and she had no trouble being affectionate to him. That hug at the end of 12x2 was nothing short of beautiful. Sam being tearfilled and compassionate, understanding how misplaced she felt, but giving a rare emotional POV and telling her having her there, filled in the biggest blank. She was grateful for that, and didnt hesitate to hug his neck. Sam’s face spoke 1,000 words as he realized it was the first hug he ever had from her... that he could remember anyway. Now a lot of you have said Mary was affraid of him, or didnt give him the time of day, but thats not true. One doesnt throw their arms around someone theyre scared of, and she was never that estranged from Sam that she wouldnt give him the time of day. She did seem to walk on eggshells around him sometimes, but I think that was from guilt and the fear that deep down, he cant forgive her. But she loved him, this was obvious to me, because she didnt act like a person who hurt a stranger, she acted like a mother guilty of hurting her son. This was probably why she was more affectionate to him, than to Dean. She was the first person to ever tell Sam they love him,  It was established early in S12 that Mary was worried about how Sam would recieve her. I have a head canon that after Mary asked Dean “How can I even face him?”  That Dean said something like this : “Mom, Sam is the kindest, most compassionate person you’ll ever meet. His heart is so big, he’s even nice to monsters. Even after he learned what went down, he never spoke an ill word about you. Don’t worry about Sam.” Im sure something was said anyway, because she seemed more at ease around him than Id expect.  Now, going through the season, the relationships all changed. I feel like by the time we got to Stuck In The Middle With You, the novelty had worn off. The boys were acting more like themselves around Mary. Dean was goofing off at the diner, and Sam was complaining about the internet connection, and Mary played the mom card “screens down, eyes up... shut up!” But this was also an episode that showed “something” happening between mom and Sam. Im not sure exactly what it was, maybe frustration, or maybe they’re just to the point of being real. They kind of snapped at each other, Mary asked Sam “Since when is life about getting what you want?” and later Sam sniped “Mom, what the hell have you gotten us into?” But I also want to note that she went to Sam, immediately, to tell him the demon had yellow eyes. She didn’t keep it to herself, or go to Dean. She went to Sam first. Why was this I wonder? I may never get the answer to that, but what it tells me is that she wasn’t afraid to apporach Sam with tough subjects. There were also a lot of little things I noticed between Sam and Mary, that would tell me they had something relatively solid even after the betrayal. No saying ideal, or healthy, or even close, but solid. She was closer to Dean, they have more in common and she knows his temper and mannerisms, Sam was all new to her, but she loved and trusted him. In Who We Are, one of my all time favorite scenes, when Mary asks Dean “And Sam? Im scared. What if he cant forgive me?” and Sam walks in “Mom, you dont have to be scared of me” makes me cry still after watching it 30 times. However, I dont think she’s scared OF Sam, she knows hes not gonna beat her or anything like that, but she’s affraid that he cant forgive everything, and maybe he’ll push her away, or not love her, but Sam tells her she doesnt have to worry about that. He may at some point reach a boiling point, and I do really think he should open up about the past and what hes been through. He could lash out, but it wouldnt be ooc for him to just speak softly either.  And so this brings me back to the original question. Why does Sam think he didn’t/doesn’t have a relationship with Mary? Is it because its not like Dean’s? Is it because she’s never been a Mother to him growing up? That they’re more like peers than Mother/Son? Or is Sam feeling insecure with her the way he sometimes does with Dean? Where it seems like he needs to be reminded that Dean loves him for him, and not out of family obligation. It’s true, even after everything the brothers have been through, everything Dean has done for Sam, sometimes Sam doesnt fully believe Dean loves him, and would be better off without him. On a good day I know Sam knows Dean loves him more than anything, and Im sure on a good day he knows his mother loves him, but Sam hasnt had many good days as of late, so I wouldnt be surprised if this is where his head is at.  Whatever Sam is feeling, it’s valid, he feels it, and if hes wrong or misinterpreting something, I hope he has a chance to express it and work through it. This season has been great so far with showing us things about the brothers we may have suspected, but didnt know for sure. I hope it continues! 

[luckynik]

Raise Hell

A/N: This story has the potential to be full length i think, but i would really love some feedback before i go all out… especially since 1st person POV isn't my favorite. Just keep it constructive please.

Summary: Chaos in Hell threatens to spill topside as demons and gods war for Crowley’s empty throne. The young demon!reader comes to the boys for help and protection and, with her sudden arrival, Sam and Dean learn Crowley’s last dark secret. And there is more to her than meets the glowy-red eye. 

Afterwards, to get his brother’s mind off the mysterious, hot demon girl, Sam finds them a case, and things spiral out of control—literally. Dean’s impulse control wasn’t great to start, but after a run-in with a strange woman in the woods, he starts to lose control of himself…again. Y/N and Sam try to rein him in before he loses it completely, but not before he does something he may not actually regret…

Pairing: Dean x Young Demon!Reader Characters: Dean, Reader, Sam - mentions of Crowley/Cass/Rowena

Word Count: 2700

Warnings: Set at the end of S12. Canon typical violence, age gap, young reader (but not underage), slow-ish burn, but eventually ALL the SMUT. Fighting. I’m sure there is more i should be including...

1. Heavy Metal / Dean 

Eight Days Later…

Sam’s bulky frame sailed a good ten feet and slammed, shoulder first, into the opposite crumbling brick wall. A stifled curse broke from his mouth on the air pushing out of his lungs. His next breath seemed to choke, instead of sustain life. The demon blade fell to the ground with a loud plink and skittered across asphalt. I couldn't see it. The alley was dark, orangey streetlights flickered on the Main Street. Music thumped from the bar, undulating bass and treble. An intelligible chorus drowning out the ambient grunts and groans of the sudden fight. 

My brother struggled against breathlessness as he pushed himself up the wall, fending off the snarling black-eyed biker dude as best he could without a weapon. Two other juiced up assholes advanced on me. Leather and chains from head to toe, a getup worthy of Judas Priest—Rob Halford would’ve been fucking proud.

The first guy had a wild colored Mohawk and wore a studded leather kutte with silver chains across the front and rows of unfriendly-looking spikes jutting off the shoulders. He rushed me and dropped back, as I grabbed the swinging chains and clocked him in the face with a hard left hook. I swung at the lanky asshole behind Mohawk. Strands of long, stringy blonde hair whipped as he dodged my fist and shoved me into the brick with a wave of the hand, immobilizing me. 

The second—the Glenn Tipton of the three demons—advanced to take his shot, while keeping me pinned against the wall. His clenched fist flailed, shaking as his fingers squeezed tighter. My chest began to constrict and my heart kicked into an erratic pace. I gasped, unable to breathe. The strain on my ribs I could take, but not the lack of oxygen. Then, my back met the bricks full force. For half a minute I floundered like a fish, unable to draw air into my lungs. 

“Not so tough now, eh, Winchester?” The Tipton-wannabe balled his fist a little tighter, glowy light began to seep out from between his clenched fingers. He wound up, drawing his arm back. “Can’t tell you how much I’m going to enjoy this, Dean-o.”

“Come at me, you ugly son of a bitch,” I bit out.

The demon’s jaw twitched, spittle oozing between his yellowed teeth and dripping from his lips. His glowing fist careened forward, into a wild hook, barreling toward my head.

I could take a hit. I’d take whatever this ugly asshole had and walk it off, and then come right back and gank his sorry ass. Then, I’d shove Mohawk’s head into the brick and kick the shit out of him, to give Sammy time to get the pig sticker and gank that other little bitch. I steeled myself for the impending blow...

But the hit never came.

The shaking fist stopped a millimeter away, a wisp from my stubbly jaw. He growled at me, jerking his hand, willing the limb to move, but was unable to follow through.

“I wouldn't, if I were you.” A female voice echoed through the filth.

Every one of us turned toward the sound. The Demon’s eyes yellowed and flicked to the space beside he and I.

A petite young woman stood absolutely still in the middle of the alleyway. The fabric of her gauzy white, almost knee-length dress floated around her on a gust of wind. Flawless makeup. Y/h/c hair coiled into an untamed cascade around her shoulders and back. There was something familiar about her doll-like face, but I couldn't pinpoint exactly what. Just that I recognized something about it…

Sam swung, limply, as the third demon ignored her warning. He yanked my brother up by the button strip of his flannel, preparing to body slam him into the bricks again. The young woman raised a hand and snapped her fingers, splattering bloody little chunks of the burley biker dude across Sam and the disintegrating brick wall.

Without easing his grip, yellow eyes locked on red ones.

She stood a good 15-feet away, but I could see every detail of her delicate face. The red eyes faded back to a vivid y/e/c, sparking even in the dim light of the alley. If I weren’t already out of breath, she would have stolen it then… Holding that gaze for too long would be dangerous. I forced my eyes away from her and glanced at Sam, shooting my younger brother a questioning look—you okay?

Sam returned a slight nod, shifting his focus back to the young woman, and lumbering to his feet. He hugged the wall as he slowly made his way toward me, collecting the demon knife from the ground as he went.

“You again,” snarled the greasy Judas Priest reject.

The girl said nothing, only held his gaze.

“Remember who you’re dealing with you fatherless, half-breed mut.”

She cleared her throat and released a hard breath. “Name calling already? Color me not shocked.”

The demon didn't move, or maybe he couldn't. She seemed to hold him there, pinned by her gaze. I couldn't move either. Despite his struggle with her, he somehow managed to keep me restrained against the brick wall. The girl was strong. Energy radiated off her. I could feel the surge. Pure power. Lots of it…

“This fight has nothing to do with you,” he spat.

“I beg to differ.”

“You uppity bitch. Just don't know when to stop, do ya?” He turned his head to me. “He has it comin’.”

“See, that’s where you’re wrong.”

He growled and the roar of a thousand demonic voices reverberated off the dingy bricks around us—some kind of possessed monkey call. Streetlights flickered. Music from the bar skipped and stalled, and then continued on. But she didn't flinch, didn't retreat, or move a muscle. Not a twitch. Not a single hair out of place. Just calm. And, the calmness was terrifying in and of itself. No fear in her at all. Why should she be afraid? Heavy Metal over here must be low on the totem pole…

“You are disobeying a direct order. The boys are off limits to low-level, yeasty, pockmarked, death-tokens such as yourself.”

“Shakespearian,” I grunted.

Sam shot me an incredulous glance, which I translated into: dude, how the hell do you even know that?

“What?” I mouthed back. “I read.”

“Let him go.”

The demon gurgled, struggling to resist her hold. He garbled a “No.”

“Let. Him. Go.”

The light emanating from his clenched fist faded fast and his hand trembled violently. Black smoke began to seep from his body in soft waving tendrils. He wailed and roared, but she didn't stop.

A gentle tilt her head appeared to force more infernal smoke from the occupied body. The Tipton-wannabe fought against the pull, until a puff of black burst right through the middle of his chest.

“Demon control?” whispered Sam.

I lurched away from the wall as his hold finally released. Sam sidled up to me, an arm closing around my torso, keeping me on my feet for the moment. We both dropped back, to prepare for whatever came next.

“He can’t protect you anymore! You little bitch, this isn’t over.”

“I’m afraid it is.”

“I’ll be coming for you,” the demon snarled. “You can’t run and you can’t hide. The Winchester’s can’t save you—I will find you and flay the skin from your bones.”

“I’m sure you’ll try, Belial.” The corner of her pouty mouth lifted into a humorless smile, glints of red in her eyes. “But today is not that day.”

A rush of black smoke poured from him, melting into a puddle on the ground. It reminded me of the way Sam could rip demons out of people with his psychic hoodoo. The ground beneath us shook and flared orange, like roasting coals in a fire pit, and then quickly died out.

Mohawk took a step back and smoked out of his meatsuit, while he still had the chance. The dead body dropped to the ground with a hard, unceremonious thud.

As the foul smoke cleared, three bodies lay on the ground. Sam and I and the girl stood in the alley, in a kind of standoff, unsure what to make of each other. She had taken on three demons with fear, a snap of her fingers, and a tilt of her fucking head…to save us from this yellow-eyed douche? Why?

“Who are you?” “What do you want?” Sam and I spoke in unison.

“Crowley?”

Neither of us said another word. Tightness returned to my chest, a heaviness that I couldn't quite explain had formed. She deserved to know—needed to know. I wasn't sure why, but I knew she did. And why did I have to be the one tell her about Crowley’s sacrifice in the alt-world to close the portal? Would she even believe that it happened that way?  As many times as I’d wished the King of Hell death, the way it had finally come was not as expected. It didn't feel how I thought it would either.

Her steely gaze landed on me, I felt it shift from me to my brother and back. Sam and I glanced at each other, and both of us turned our eyes toward the ground, avoiding answering her.

Sam usually took the lead in situations like this. Sam knew what to say and how to be compassionate with victims and the victim’s loved ones—even when they were monsters. But this time he didn't. Of all the times to keep his fucking trap shut… then he shot her the most pathetic puppy-dog eyes he could muster. I grumbled and shifted uncomfortably, gnawing at my bottom lip. Finally, bringing my gaze back to hers, I prepared to deliver some ‘sacrificed himself for the greater good, oh and bonus points for trapping Lucifer in another hellish dimension’ anti-hero-esque speech that I wasn't sure he deserved. Then, my eyes landed on her plush, glossy bottom lip…and it trembled, hard.

Words failed me. My mouth opened and closed more than once.

That was the only slip in her artfully arranged façade, and it was so fucking powerful that I couldn't tell her. The immediate urge to comfort the young woman welled up inside me, catching me off guard. After an extended moment of silence I realized that I didn't need to say a word. Because she knew…

Foreign emotions assaulted me, prickling across my skin and raising all the little hairs on my arms and neck. I felt a jumble of heat energy radiate off her. Each emotion swept over me, like a wave curling and breaking against the surf. It didn't seem to have the same effect on Sam and I wondered why? Demons had no empathy, no real emotion—what the hell was this? While she struggled to keep her composure, I resisted rushing toward her and pulling her into my arms. What the fuck? God. I resisted hard, willing my feet not to move. Not the first time I had felt this kind of unnatural urge with a chick. I knew it was something that should not be indulged, no matter how bad I wanted to go to her.

She must have known what I wanted to do, that certainly would’ve explained the awed look on her face as our eyes met.

“I’m sorry.” My brain ticked through other things to say, but nothing seemed appropriate or important.

“You always are,” she countered.

I couldn't bear to look at her anymore and cast my eyes away, tracing the cracks in the broken asphalt beneath my boots. It was our fault—my fault. Again. We couldn't stop it. We couldn't stop the Nephilim from being born. We couldn't kill it. Shit, we didn't even know what we were going to do with it now that he’d been born. We had nothing to fight Lucifer. We couldn't kill him. We couldn't find another way to close the portal before Crowley offed himself. Hell, we couldn't even save our own mother, after walking through hellfire to get her back from those English douchebags. Couldn't save Cass. We lost. Every loss is on us…again.

“No, Dean.” When I looked up she was standing in front of me, inches away. Every cell in my body felt her presence. Pure power. That explains why Crowley made her business his. My hands itched to touch her, hold her. “It’s not. It’s not your fault at all.”

Staring into those hypnotic y/e/c irises was a mistake, and I knew it as it was happening. The pull to her was overwhelming, like an invisible hand clenching the middle of my chest and drawing me toward her. I had felt all of this before… I didn't know who she was, or why she was important, but the instinct to protect her welled in the pit of my stomach and sat there like a boulder.

Who am I kidding? I can’t protect her. Everyone who dares to get close to me dies. No one with a brain would choose me as a protector, with such an obvious outcome? Why risk it? I’m not worth that risk. I would do my best for her, but in the end it wouldn't be enough, because it never was. I ruin everything I touch…

“Don’t do that,” she whispered. “I need you.”

Before I knew it, both my hands came up, fingers skimming up the length of her slim arms. Her eyes widened at the skin-to-skin contact, alarmed and almost fearful. Touching her was like touching a live wire, static electricity. She sucked in a quick, stilted breath and blinked away. Disappearing into nothing. My hands hung in the empty air, as if she had never been there. The loss of her presence affected me immediately, and physically; the boulder turned to a heavy ache, throbbing low in my gut. Emptiness. Emptiness that I was more than familiar with…it was deep, bone-deep, but also a strange comfort.

“What the hell?”

“I don't know,” replied Sam.

He’d been watching the exchange, silently, but I was sure my brother had already formed some kind of opinion. I glanced at him. “Since when are we off limits?”

“Since when is Belial a low-level demon?”

“What?”

“She called him Belial,” Sam explained. “If I remember correctly, Belial rose up with Lucifer during the rebellion. He was the first angel to actually fall in the fight against Michael and the other Heavenly angels. He’s—”

“Why do you even know that?”

Sam gave half a shrug. “He was in the lore. I read about him when I read up on Dagon. He’s the literal opposite of low-level. He is a Prince of Hell, Dean.”

“Prince of hair metal,” I grumbled under my breath.

“Dude. That demon just saved our ass’s…”

“Who is this chick and what’s her deal with Crowley? And why haven’t we seen her before, or at least heard about her? He was the king of running his fucking mouth—how could he not slip about his hot little sidechick? He would have bragged about having that kind of power at his disposal.” The urge to protect her stayed with me. Crowley and I had more in common that I cared to admit, and I began to wonder if he had felt the same way in her presence. Maybe we didn't know about her because that assclown was protecting her? God. Does she need protection? Why and from who? Obviously from this Belial douche… but now that Crowley is gone who will do the job? On the other hand— “Did you see what she did? She pulled that demon—a Prince of Hell—with a tilt of her goddamn head, Sam. With your psychic hoodoo, all hopped up on demon blood, on your best day, you couldn't swing that. That was,” I bit back ‘awesome’ and ignored the incredulous look my brother shot at me. Instead shaking my head, as if that would somehow communicate the rest of my thoughts to him.

“Dude, you okay?”

...

[floralmotif]

Tighter threads (s12 finale thoughts)

Well, that happened.

I’m writing this without checking anyone else’s direct thoughts, so someone may have already touched on this but I want to get this out before I forget too much.

First off, I didn’t hate them. I especially liked 12.22(with the exception of one thing). It was very tightly written, in so, so many ways. 12.23 was good(mostly), but it felt more standard. Either way, they pretty much used their last token, and decided to make their narrative so tight, we are currently inside Jupiter.

Spoilers below.

Don’t you just love cliffhangers? No? Huh.. the show seems to think we do. Well, good news everyone! Cliffhangers are so prevalent that unless the show did the narrative equivalent of a lobotomy, the outcome should be pretty easy to read. 

And we’re gonna use 12.22 to do it... and a specific type of narrative parallel.

Ok, so the show has established Mary and Cas as narrative mirrors, and 12.22 and 12.23 basically tightened that spiral into a grinding, ear splitting whine. I had a feeling they would do that. I was hoping they wouldn’t cliff hanger it, but eh, can’t say I’m surprised. Good job SPN, you did the one thing that lets you get away with halting the narrative for a little longer. *slow clap*

Alright, let’s start with the set up of 12.22. For this entire season, Cas and Mary have had parallel narratives. Dean, Mary and Sam have had parallels with each other throughout the season and series in general, but the parallel A-Plot for the season seemed to be Mary = Cas(we’ll get to the other two as well). Mary is basically running her own version of s4 and 5(complete with Luci and apocalypse). Cas and Mary both run towards what’s comfortable for them and run away from real confrontation: Dean and Sam. They run towards the past and how it was, because the future is scary and uncertain and facing forward is hard when their pasts are so messy. Also Cas is just really old and breaking him of what he’s used to is understandably difficult. 

In 12.22, the level of parallel comes to a head and spirals down and tightens into what I’m gonna call an Analog Narrative... I don’t remember its actual name, but using the definitions for analog: 

relating to or using signals or information represented by a continuously variable physical quantity such as spatial position or voltage.

and: a person or thing seen as comparable to another.

I’m gonna go with that for now. It’s basically a tighter form of metaphor for our purposes, a sort of entanglement if you will. It roughly translates to “I am you.” and it allows elements that apply to one, to apply to the other without direct contact. Like a signal from one that is unseen, manifesting in the physical space of the other... like the conversation between Dean and Mary in 12.22. Many of you have probably seen this pop up in movies, many of you may have even seen it in the ep and in the series overall. It’s like the narrative parallel SPN generally uses, just a much tighter form. It’s been used a few other times in the series before. S11 used it a decent amount. I’m just gonna focus on it and give it a name to make it easier to talk about and to differentiate it from your standard parallel like what Dean and Mary are, and Cas and John.

In a standard parallel, one does what the other one does in some form of another, usually in some sort of tandem. In an “analog narrative” what happens to one, is related to the other without us seeing the other directly. Their signals are entangled. So like... a character saying or acting a certain way, means the other character also feels that way/does that thing even if not on screen. When this type of parallel is present, it often takes the form of Crowley reflecting various people. Usually Dean or Cas nowadays. His death may actually mean we’ll start to see more actual words exchanged between characters instead of them being filtered through him.(I will miss him though. He was neat.)

See Guardians of the Galaxy v2 if you want a recent, noticeable example that directly states what it is.

Both Cas and Mary had elements of mind control. The level of mind control with Mary is of the more direct sort, and “going in” is a very “filmed media” way to resolve it. It also allows for Mary to help with Kelly and for them to drag direct information out longer.

Like Cas, Mary had chose to follow “paradise”, a place without want, or suffering, or fear, etc. She had chose to stay away and to attempt to continue her perfect life where it was comfortable. She felt so much guilt for everything, that she ran away from Dean and Sam, just like Cas did. They both wanted to make up for their respective deals. Cas, under the nephilim’s influence chose that too instead of saw it for a lie. Never trust anything in a network tv show that lists a world free of want, fear, suffering, etc as attributes. They are pretty much always a trap unless they're an epilogue and there’s sufficient buildup or it’s part of a message. I’m still not convinced the nephilim is evil, I just think it has a very naive idea of what good is and may not function on a level comparable to humans. It’ll show Cas whatever it thinks will work to show him. It’s just lucky Cas was operating under the same logic Mary was and that allowing in “paradise” would absolve him of control, and by extension, guilt. 

Nope, can’t silence the lambs that easily. Just cause you can’t hear them, doesn’t mean they aren’t calling out.

“Right Mary?” I say as Dean calls out to her.

Mary’s paradise is kind of interesting. She’s basically got that scene in Dark of the Moon as her chosen paradise. Makes me wonder if Ketch has one, but anyway, in it are Sam and Dean in a simpler form. One where they don’t want or need or suffer, one where they are just children and don’t have true ambitions and can’t present a true instigated challenge. Cas’ idea of paradise would absolve him of want, of fear, of facing his feelings and the repercussions they may give.

This is the prison of their minds, peace over freedom. Even though Dean has the same fears about himself as Cas does, he pushes through and tries to talk to Mary. Eventually, while she doesn’t answer him, we get some highlights:

Mary: I only want good things for you Dean. I’ll never let anything bad happen to you.

Dean: I hate you.

Dean: I was a kid, you promised you’d keep me safe... and then you make a deal with Azazel.

Dean: You wanna know what that was like? They killed the girl that he loved, he got possessed by Lucifer, he lost his soul.... All because of you.

All of it was because of you.

Please note that Dean doesn’t mention the things that specifically happened to him.. but you know.. Dean.

Dean: I hate you. I hate you... and I love you... because I, I can’t help it. You’re my mom... and I understand.. and I have made deals to save the ones I love.. more than once. I forgive you. I forgive you.. for all of it... everything.

Dean: On the other side of this, we can start over. I need you to look at me, I need you to see me. 

Now, not all of this will apply or be exact, because Mary is still her own person with her own issues and stuff that she specifically did. Parallels aren’t usually exact. That’s too obvious and filmed works are a game of Dixit. Also, most of the transgressions they refer to are in the far past, so chances are, the parallel is addressing some further back issues as well...

So.. roughly translated to Analog speak... 

Dean: I hate you.

Dean: I needed you, and you promised you would keep me safe, and then you made a deal and left us alone. Do you know what that was like?

(I’m not sure which exact parallels they’re going for here with the listing, but I’m going with Cas breaking Sam’s wall and Cas raising Sam from hell without his soul. The only one I’m not sure about is the death of the girl he loved. Eileen maybe? Since he wasn’t present to help prevent the deaths of people with them. That one’s harder and maybe it kills the whole parallel but I doubt it. The intent may not be exact since Dean still hasn’t really had this conversation with Cas. It may be like “insert appropriate transgressions here”. *shrugs* The rest of the ep supports the parallel, so I’m going with this for now. Broad strokes are a thing)

I hate you. I hate you... and I love you... because I, I can’t help it. You’re Cas... and I understand.. and I have made deals to save the ones I love.. more than once. I forgive you. I forgive you.. for all of it... everything.

Dean: On the other side of this, we can start over. I need you to look at me, I need you to see me.

So there it is(probably). That’s why Dean didn’t say “I love you” back. He doesn’t know how to deal with his feelings. Cas’ actions have made him upset just like Mary’s have. He still loves her even after everything, and he still loves Cas, but he doesn’t know what to do about everything else. Mary and Cas both kept ditching and tricking him. Him being upset and confused makes sense.

After Ketch is killed and Mary and Dean start talking again. She says she does want to start over, she does want to make things better and she explains why she’s been running off and working with the BMoLs and everything. Cas sort of almost did this in 12.19, but not entirely. They’ve both been running away to make up for their transgressions at the expense of the people they love, as they have both been unable to forgive themselves. Yay for Mary and the writers for giving Dean an example of using his words and taking responsibility that ends in a direct good outcome. Enforced narrative for the win. Sam got one in the ep as well with leading the hunters against the BMoLs. It made me happy.

Ok, now that Mary and Cas are almost completely entangled, let’s take them to the finale.

The nephilim opens a tear in reality because reasons and we get to see an apocalypse where Bobby is weirdly still alive. I took it though, because I like Bobby. Oh yay, it’s the end of Mary’s s5... and guess where she ends up.. Mary carries the old ways remember? And where did the old ways get Sam in s5?

We get a big bunch of buildup with Mary taking Cas’ place soothing Kelly, me being really uncomfortable by Kelly's lines, Sam, Cas and Dean failing to kill Luci, Crowley going all heroic sacrifice and taking just long enough for Cas to get in.

Then we have the ending with Cas apparently dead, Dean staring up into the sky for help like Mary did with John and Mary getting pulled into the “cage” with Lucifer, just like Sam did in s5. Mary is paralleled with everyone this season, but especially Cas. Because this is the finale, all of those parallels have to merge in some way. Sam followed Mary into the BMoLs because he wanted to go the easy way and not lead, or have to deal with responsibility, Dean follows Mary in that he basically was Sam’s mother and he also carries her fears of the future and self doubt, Cas is the themes of the show and carries the potential for a better way. His arc this season basically fits into hers. This season enforces that agency and responsibility are essential.

We can pretty much infer than in some way or another Cas will be ok. Cas’ life is uncertain and so is Mary’s. Luci’s eyes glow just before the end, we don’t know what her fate was, but she’s almost certainly not dead. Dean also never walks back inside to meet back up with Sam. We end the season with him kneeling in front of Cas’ body. That holds some meaning in tv land and this show likes to start seasons up pretty close to the end of the previous season unless they use a time skip. Please don’t use a timeskip SPN, that is what is called retreading and you don’t want that. Death in media is usually about getting over or accepting, or understanding, or whatevering a death unless it holds some symbolic meaning.. which Cas only holds alive at this point. We already know what Dean grieving Cas looks like. We don’t need it again. No retreads.

Will Michael or God, or Jack come and save both Cas and Mary? Dunno, but next season will likely have something to do with universe hopping(and possibly human!cas) to find Mary... and maybe Cas. I’m hoping they just un-dead Cas right away though, because the alternative is annoying to me, but whatever. As long as OG Cas returns within a reasonable amount of time, I’ll deal.

[tinkdw]

i don't want to be a pessimist here, i really hope destiel is endgame and after s12, and after i read some of your meta, (which is amazing btw), i mostly believe it will be, but i shipped johnlock too, and all the subtext and even text and the foreshadowing and all those hints that johnlock is endgame was all for nothing...or maybe just for queerbaiting, and i was really butthurt about it that i'm afraid to put any hopes up for destiel, how do you think destiel is different than johnlock?

I may be a bit controversial on tumblr about Johnlock because…. well I didn’t really see it like it was blatant and going to be canon, I saw it as subtext that was something they added to give it a bit of pizazz without thinking they were actually in love or that it would be endgame canon. 

I really enjoyed the first seasons of Sherlock (I just cannot get my head around how the last season worked at all, maybe I need to try again, but it just didn’t make any sense to me) and my interpretation was that Sherlock might be a bit romantically interested in John, but push come to shove he was more intellectually interested in him and the friendship they forged and I never really saw John as being romantically interested in Sherlock at all.

I felt like they added the subtext, which for me, was subtext only, to add a bit of spice to their chemistry and their character bond, but without actually meaning to make it romantic.

Now I see this differently to Destiel in that I read Destiel as 1. much more blatant because of the continuous and abundant nature of it, given that it is now nearly 9 years and much more material to work with due to there being…. around 135 hours of SPN since season 4 v 15 hours of Sherlock? 

2. But also that it is written into the script in terms of the fact that it has a real effect on the PLOT, not just sitting alongside it as subtext to be ‘enjoyed’ (I say ‘enjoyed’ because I know how painful it was to fans who really wanted it and it didn’t happen but for a lot of people I think it did add to the enjoyment of the show by deepening their character bond). Whole seasons don’t make sense without taking into account the deep feelings between Dean and Cas, I mean… seasons 4-6 are all about Cas saving the world because of his love for Dean, season 7 is one big long metaphor for Dean’s innermost thoughts and depression about Cas, season 11′s mytharc plots rests on Dean’s love for Cas and how Amara uses it… 

I totally feel for anyone who felt queerbaited by Johnlock because I genuinely do think that they put subtext in there on purpose thinking it would be a great addition to the chemistry but had no intention of going through with it as it was just that, a fanciful way to deepen their connection without it really being actually scripted love (honestly this is wanky, but I really don’t rate Martin Freeman as an actor, I find him so cold that it wouldn’t surprise me if they upped the written subtext in order to counter his wooden performance),  I just don’t think they realised how much people would feel cheated by it.

With Dean and Cas, their story is much longer as stated above which enables it to go much deeper into so many more romantic tropes, for them to be portrayed as much more of the romance than the buddy trope, I think they fulfil like 67% of romance tropes? where most couples on tv / in movies settle at most around 10-25% ish? This is because they are able to do so due to the pure length of time we have been watching them and because they are actively portraying it in this way. I’m trying to remember how many Dean and Sam fill and Sam and Cas fill? I think Dean/Sam is like 12% and Cas/Sam is probably about 2%! So there is a real reason why it is so strong with just these two…

Season 12 is all about taking it now from the subtext into the text, we have been watching it with a similar “will they won’t they” attitude towards TPTB as with Johnlock up til now, even though it was scripted and much more plot - related I believe, there was still a chance that they would potentially back out, even if it didn’t make sense for the story, it was still a possibility because I think a lot of the GA don’t really see the way that the story doesn’t make sense without it.

For example in season 11, I think many of the GA just look at the top level and don’t read into WHY Amara couldn’t contact Dean without going through Cas, how her forced bond with Dean was not as strong as his chosen bond with Cas even though she was GOD’S SISTER or WHY Amara’s whole interactions with Dean were all about him repressing his emotions, loving, but it being clouded in shame, holding himself back. 

I mean some people were shocked at some of what Dean said in 12x22, they were also shocked at how Dean acted in 12x11 and a lot of this season said he was OOC, which he absolutely WAS NOT, he was entirely HIMSELF and that was the point! That he had DROPPED the facade so his true self was showing through in snippets and I’m sure these people will be absolutely shocked when he acts more and more like this in season 13.

I feel like to get through to some people Dean literally has to say something blatant like “Sammy I’m done pretending, this is me, deal with it, oh and by the way, I like dudes too” before taking a big bite of a Chicken Parmeggiano and ordering an ice cream sundae and getting back to business, cos man the point is, he’s not that different, there’s just a few things he keeps locked away, but his whole character isn’t going to change.

Anyway, same goes for Destiel, it’s going to have to be eased in slowly but made blatant now and I feel like season 12 was the first part and season 13 should be the second, before it can go canon, so that people aren’t shocked by it, in exactly the same way as they did Performing!Dean this season, ramping up the subtext before taking it into the text and then finally making it canon.

So now after season 12 it feels to me that with all the bad PR around queer baiting with Sherlock, with all the bad PR around Supernatural (if you google queer baiting SPN comes up on the first page), it would be diabolically stupid for the new showrunner to ramp up the subtext like this and bring it into the text as he did from mid season 11 onwards, without taking it towards endgame canon.

It doesn’t mean they will for 100% sure but I would be so confused if they didn’t now, it would literally be the worst kind of ongoing, not just subtextual but textual now queerbaiting and a total shambles of a PR disaster as well as making NO sense to their own story which has been so carefully crafted for over a decade. 

I don’t think they’re THAT stupid to take a beautiful story and rip the soul of it out, destroying their credibility as writers as well as PR Hell…

I have trust in Andrew Dabb until proven otherwise :)

[lovethediseasedkillerpuppy]

12x22 recap

The good, the bad & the ugly. A lot of ranting & a lot of Dean feels & Ackles praise. No sugar to be found in my coating. 

Ahoy lazy writing! That spell stuff. Smh. Ok Dean ilu but “Let's Shawshank this bitch” really? Ya do remember how that took years to do. This idea was ridiculous. Why are the writers hell-bent on making the brothers look incompetent this season?

“How did this happen?” ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME RN SAM I HAVE AN IDEA.

“Blaze of glory...sonuvabitch.” Now THAT is my Dean. A crazy as shit idea, but one that actually has a chance of working.

DEAN FINALLY GETS TO USE THE LAUNCHER HE IS SO HAPPY I LOVE IT.

On the other hand; “big, beautiful & dumb” fuck you, writers.

“yippee ki yay mother...” BOOM. This is why Jensen was excited abt 12x22. Nothing will convince me otherwise.

“Aww, ya wanna play mother to my son? He's all yours.” Ik I've said this half the season now, but DIE MARY.

Sam's speech: Y'all weren't dumb enough to fall for the BMOL bullshit like me & my mom but now they're trying to kill us all so let's team up & take them down. WHO IS WITH ME!1!11

Dean: “I'm not going.” In an extremely long list of shitting on Dean S12 has done THIS FUCKING TOOK THE CAKE. Oh yeah, go ahead Sam, go to your possible death, I'm gonna sit back here & deal with mom..smth that could totally be dealt with AFTER THE MAJOR SHOWDOWN YOU'RE GOING TO, but for Reasons I am, for the 1st time in 12 seasons, going to just chill on the bench voluntarily. It's not like I've spent the entire series protecting you at all costs...nah, I'll send ya off on your own, you got this. Yeah, sound totally in character, the Dean we all know. Great job bo bo. At least now that nickname makes sense bc this writing is nothing short of a joke. Oh but by all means, throw in an old line to garner nostalgia & a bro hug to distract us from this horse shit. All better now.

Dean & Mary scenes. All.The.Feels. At first Dean is trying to get her attention, thinking she's trapped...but then everything shifts when he realizes she wants to be in there. “I hate you.” AHHHH I screamed at my TV, seriously. That was sooooo huge for Dean, so hard & so needed to be said. Then it just gets so much more painful from there…

Tbh I'm too bitter that Dean was benched to give any fucks abt any of this BMOL shootout so moving along…

Back to Dean...ok this dialogue was a lot of shit. But I'll focus on Jensen's phenomenal performance before I complain abt that…

Dean calling Mary on her shit *standing ovation* Tell that bitch, Dean! “I had to be a father and I had to be a mother. To keep him safe. And that wasn't fair.” I HAVE WAITED 12 SEASON FOR THIS!

But here's where things go to shit…

“I couldn’t do it.” Seriously? You’re gonna put the shit that happened on him. Okay, sounds fake, but ok. I guess it’s fitting with the shit hole speech ya had him say next.

Sam this...Sam that...Sam Sam SAM. DEAN IF I'M NOT MISTAKEN YOU WENT TO HELL & YOU WERE TORTURED THERE YOUR LIFE WASN'T FREAKING PUPPIES & RAINBOWS EITHER. Would it have been that fucking difficult to put WE went to Hell, WE were tortured??? SOME acknowledgment that Mary ruined his life too??? It's Dean, so yes the focus is always going to be on someone else's hardships more than his own but leaving every other word the same & just switching WE in those 2 parts would have made all the difference in the world. But no. Dean doesn't matter. He isn't of import to these writers.

Back to Jensen's performance…

“I hate you. I hate you...and I love you. Cause I can't..I can't help it cause you're my mom. And I understand bc I have made deals to save the ones I love. More than once. I forgive you. I forgive you..for all of it..everything.”

The way his voice breaks on the 2nd I hate you /gross sobbing!!! This was so utterly heartbreaking on a number of levels. Dean, the guy who has put his family before everything else, who's mom was the one pure relationship he had-his go to happy place...and he's admitting out loud that he hates her. That was huge...& monumentally difficult. And his follow up “I love you bc I can't help it, ur my mom” that's part of why it was so hard on him. It's beaten into us by society to love our parents but society never factors in that some parents DON'T deserve our love. Kids don't wanna tell their parents they hate them, no matter how much the parent earned it. We're bombarded from an early age to love our parents & if not, if a child dares to question that love then THEY are seen as the ones in the wrong. In general, society doesn't account for horrible parents & kids who have them end up feeling shame &/or guilt over not loving them but they don't have to. You don't have to love a shitty parent any more than you have to love any other person who mistreats you.

The forgiving part. I've seen a lot of Dean fans unhappy he forgave her when she clearly didn't earn it but I have to disagree. The forgiveness had nothing to do with Mary & everything to do with Dean. Look how relieved he is when he says it. Dean had been carrying that bottled up hatred towards Mary his whole life & it got so much worse after her return. That's not good for anyone. Him saying “I forgive you” wasn't letting her off the hook or making everything she'd done ok, it was taking the weight off HIS shoulders of hating a parent. Having hate for someone you also love. That shit fucks with your head. Openly forgiving her was beneficial to HIM. If it made Mary feel better idgaf, the point is that Dean needed to do it for his own sake & that's why I liked it. That's why I won't add it to the list of “Dean apologizing to everyone” bc in this case it was in his best interest & that's what matters. As for Jensen, what can I say that won't sound like a broken record lol. He continues to amaze. He brought you right into that scene & you felt everything right along with Dean.

The Dean & Ketch fight. I waited so damn long for Dean to be able to his this asshole! But of course Mary kills him bc S12 Dean is a pacifist. WTF was that shit, seriously? Ketch is supposed to be a match to Dean but a little bullet to the shoulder & he's on his knees whining?? This is the killing machine the season built up as the big scary bad?? Lemme go vomit, brb. And what was with the “I knew you were a killer, you both are.” crap? Did he get some satisfaction in the last few seconds of his life to say I told you so? Lame ass end to a lame as plot.

Back to w/e the hell Sam was doing…

The umbridge bitch wasn't happy. Sam why the hell haven't you shot her yet? You dumb shit. He just stands there listening to her bullshit. SERIOUSLY SAM WHY IS SHE STILL ALIVE? Oh take out the scary computer, that helped a lot. At least Jody was around this time or Sam probly would've joined her team again.

Mary: blah blah a lot of excuses & justifying blah blah blah...BUT STILL NO GOD DAMN APOLOGY. I know “I'm sorry” is just words & actions speak louder but it's a damn start.

Oh but by all means, throw in another hug to distract the fans. Group hug=all is well with them. Sure, Jan.

Overall this ep was mediocre...which is an improvement on most of the season, but other than Dean finally getting to use the grenade launcher & Jensen killing us with the Mary flashbacks, it was poorly written & rushed.

[wincestislove]

Unpopular Opinion? 12x14

I really, really loved this episode.  I also REALLY love Mary, tbh, she’s painfully and beautifully human and not this perfect person/perfect mother everyone (and Dean) put on a pedestal all these years. We can’t let our love/overprotectiveness of the boys cloud our judgement on Mary who is doing her best even if we don’t agree, kthx. Also really, really, really love Dean’s character development this episode as far as his maturity level goes and how family matters whether they make you mad and/or you agree with their choices or not.  AND I am relieved/happy that they are emphasizing what I’ve been saying all along, the BMoL did NOTTTTTT torture Sam, TONI tortured Sam. There is a CLEAR friggin’ difference. She was a rogue just like the lame ass hunter in this episode 12x14 turned rogue.  (Mind you this does NOT mean I trust them at all, lol, but I do think it makes Mary’s decisions and also now Sam’s decisions make complete sense to me, considering the BMoL really are offering the chance to end all monsters, I mean c’mon. They might not be completely infallible but knowledge like what Sam provided tonight in his kickass way throughout really fills in the gaps the BMoL have. They could be an epic team, tbh, but again...I’m not saying I trust them. They see things in black and white, and don’t believe in letting good monsters/witnesses live. That isn’t cool, but that does NOT make them evil by default, goddamn. It just makes them see in black and white juuuuust like John Winchester did and how Dean used to in the past.) AND, AND this Sam at the end? His decision is completely IN CHARACTER for him to do. He’s always been a fan of doing things better/smarter/researching/strategizing. He completely takes after his grandpa Henry as far as being a true to heart Man of Letters. Plus he has worked with “enemies/people he doesn’t trust” before. Ruby, Crowley, Lucifer, and MANY MORE/others. Sam has a VERY solid history of being able to put aside both past differences and even ‘evil’ to get the mission done. Bless him. ANYWAY, just thought I should put this out there. I absolutely ADORE S12, I love the hell out of Mary, and I’m really excited for the rest of this season and seeing where it goes. This current turn in the story line has lots of potential, especially considering Sam and Dean are gonna need alllllllll the help they can get against Lucifer and Rosemary’s Baby, I mean let’s be real here. All of this coming from the mouth of a Sam!Girl through and through who was/is horrified over what Sam endured and went through at the hands of that fucking bitch Toni. I’m just also aware enough to know/realize that TONI does not represent the BMoL as a whole, she. went. rogue. ...If people could stop lumping them together until we get canon proof, that’d be awesome. Innocent until proven guilty, ya’ll. Learn it. Live it.  Also just... please, enough hate on Mary, goddamn, she’s HUMAN (and humans AND Winchesters make well intentioned mistakes/lie/hide things from each other all the friggin’ time), and honestly only wants to give her boys what she never could before now... A happy life. A normal life. A world free of monsters.  ....Probably won’t happen, shit will hit the fan somewhere, but stop faulting her for giving a damn enough to actively try, jeeeeeez. Don’t be mad because the show gave us a well rounded character. 

Again... All just my personal opinion. And an unpopular opinion at that (there’s so many people hating right now, it saddens me), but I just felt like I needed to throw my 2 cents in. We’re all allowed to feel differently, and I still love those of you whom I follow who don’t feel the way I do, but yeah. S12 is diamonds (especially from a Wincest standpoint, haha, it’s been so gooooooood, but that’s neither here nor there.) 

[dustydreamsanddirtyscars]

"He Could Have Pie, He Just Won't Eat It Though...": On the Absence of Pie in Season 12 and the Demystification of Mary Winchester

I am prefacing this by saying that I haven’t watched the most recent episode yet, so if Dean and Co. happen to eat pie in 12x13 “Family Feud” I had no way of knowing it. :)

That said, in the end, even if Dean did enjoy a slice in this week’s episode, it really wouldn’t change a whole lot, because so far we have seen Dean very rarely eat one of his favorite types of food in S12: pie. Sure enough, the reason why we may see Dean not indulge in eating as much pie may be entirely be explained by things outside of the show - like maybe Jensen saying “man, please no more sweet stuff” ;) - still within the context of a show the absence of pie his season feels very telling. Especially so as pie for Dean definitely was a typ of comfort food and held a good deal of connotations and associations that all circled round notions of family, home, safety and love.

In the 12 seasons of Supernatural Dean’s love for pie has become just as infamous as his love for his baby. Even more so Dean’s eating habits as such have been used as an indicator for his emotional state of mind, his longings and wishes and especially over the course of the “Mark of Cain”-arc Dean’s hunger or lack thereof was drawn attention to as it revealed a lot about his emotional struggles (I have written lot on this topic, I’d insert links but as I am typing this on my phone I can’t) as well as the fight he faced within between human and demon. After all, little else is such a direct example of basic human necessities: the need to eat and drink to survive. That entire plot with Dean edging away from being human to becoming a demon was exemplified heaviest when Dean “left that cheeseburger uneaten” as Crowley reminisces before raising Dean as a demon in 9x23 “Do You Believe in Miracles”. Dean’s arc was contrasted with Castiel’s, who as a human for the very first time experienced hunger and thirst as two real necessities to be able to function.

The topic of hunger and food as indicators for humanity therefore have been very directly written into Dean’s personal story arcs from S8 onwards. Given this focus of recent seasons paired with the shows adamancy of inserting Dean’s love for pie as a recurring stylistic device over 12 seasons of the show in general, it feels very striking that Dean seems to have lost his taste or love for pie in S12 almost completely - the season in which he sees his mother returning from the dead.

As mentioned above Dean’s love for pie seems to be to a good extent directly connected to the memory and love of his mother. In fact, 5x16 “Dark Side of the Moon” even gives the audience as much of a “starting point” as to how Dean’s love for pie came to be in the first place when we see one of Dean’s memories play out in which we (as much as Sam) learn that the Winchesters’ “marriage was never perfect until after Mary died” and that Dean comforted his mother when his father had moved out for a couple of days after a bad fight (one now has to wonder if maybe that could have been due to Mary disappearing and hunting), told her that “daddy still loves her” and offered emotional support to his mother when he was a mere 4 years old. It’s that memory standing out clearest in relation to Deans love for pie as Mary not much later after she calls Dean “her little angel” offers him some pie. It’s by no means a truly happy memory imo, especially as it does kind of showcase how Mary tries to lighten the mood with the offer of pie. It’s this action really that frames and explains Dean using pie as “comfort food” in the most literal sense of the term. So of course this will sound somewhat over the top, but one could argue that every time Dean enjoyed a slice of pie in his life he remembered this moment with his mom. A moment nonetheless in which he again acted almost like an adult rather than a child (and yes, that is suppose will just always remain the tragedy of Dean Winchester: his lost childhood, that, as the show progresses, it seems was lost much earlier than when his mother died…

Keeping all of this in mind I think it is interesting to take a look at S12. The season of Mary Winchesters return. The undoing of the past. But for sure not the erasure of old wounds, scars or traumas, but rather the start to add a few new on top. Amara giving Dean “what he needed most” was his mother. She gave the Winchesters a chance to re-write their story, because maybe she wished her and her brother could do the same. What Amara wanted - and there is not a single doubt in my mind, because even though Dabb seems to have forgotten what he himself wrote at the end of last season, Amara wasn’t cruel just cause - was for Dean to be happy and find peace. Little did she know that bringing back the Winchesters’ mom would hardly bring that for him.

Now, as I have written about multiple times at the end of last season and prior the beginning of this season with Mary’s return we aren’t just loosely following the possible re-write of the Winchesters’ story (though much of this season to me feels sadly like “same old same old” and plain repeat), most of all we see the demystification of Mary Winchester - and that may actually be one of the most painful ones for the Winchesters and Dean especially as it seems countless times he is proven that his mother really is nothing like he remembered her to be. Of course there are few characters that have had such a “cult” surrounding them on the show as Mary Winchester. Her own children never really got to know her as a person as they simply were way too small for that to be the case, yet over time Mary was stylized, idealized and turned into a symbol that had very little in common with the very real Mary Winchester - as this season explores.

Not a single episode this season didn’t feature some sort of deconstruction of Mary Winchester as a person and character or a realization of who she is opposed to how she was imagined to be. It’s vital to see things for what they are, but there’s no denying it’s tough and eliminates foundations that provided at least some sense of stability - and so far we have not seen any kind of building new ground together for a stronger and more mature foundation. In the first episodes Dean learns that Mary “never cooked” or “continued hunting even when she was already married” and that many of his memories are unveiled to have been “false”. Getting to know their mother really is a constant progression of disillusionment for the Winchesters (and for Dean much more than for Sam since he doesn’t have any memories that could be rendered untrue or incomplete or downright “wrong”) and while I firmly believe that Mary does somehow care about her grown up sons, true emotion and connection doesn’t seem to be there. And one can’t really blame anyone for that because of course for Mary suddenly being alive is hard and she never learnt how to have grown up kids, because well… she never lived to have them in a natural progression.

Still, I think it is fairly well portrayed how much Mary struggles to form a meaningful connection with Sam and Dean. A relationship that could build into becoming the loving relationship that meant safety and home and everything being okay for Dean for example as seen in his memories - and one memory in particular featuring pie. Coming back to the symbolic meaning of pie again I think it’s valid to analyze the absence of it in S12 (I truly only remember Dean eating pie in 2nd episode when all was still fairly “okay” and happiness prevailing over Mary being back rather than the start reality setting in) in relation to the demystification of Mary as a symbol and mother figure. Pie may simply not provide the comfort and safety it once did for Dean, because like so much of his past and memories regarding his mother have been overturned and corrected, but not in a very healing - or worded differently - comforting way.

So in a way this season exemplifies imo rather perfectly the saying “You can’t have your pie and eat it too”, which describes you can’t have two good things at the same time, which seems awfully fitting to the whole Mary Winchester arc. And in that regard I think it is indeed very revealing how now that Mary is back “Dean could have pie”, but we don’t see him eat it…

[let-me-be-your-home]

Rant for SPN S12 Episode 14 “The Raid”

I could rant and rant away about this episode and it wouldn’t be enough. I actually really liked it quite a bit until things just started down-sliding erratically. Season 12 has been painful and embarrassing and Andrew Dabb has been so disappointing that I barely anyway have expectations. But when they just go against the base of the show, or what they’ve themselves established, it hurts. I wouldn’t want to be ENTIRELY negative and overlook the actually good bits of the episode, so will post what I liked about the episode before what I absolutely didn’t.

What I really liked about the episode

1. The scene in the beginning between Mary, Sam and Dean was brilliantly written and so well enacted. I could literally clap through it while holding onto my tears when Mary said “You aren’t a child.” Dean replying “I never was” ...It hits you right in your guts when Dean (a man who never really got to be a boy) who took on parenting from he was 4, who sacrificed everything he wished for to keep a family together...siding and protecting an absentee father till the man was alive, FINALLY says his feelings out loud. He’s never mentioned it much, maybe once in the passing but never like how he did today.And you realize he’s had enough. 

John gave up so much to avenge Mary’s death, their lives were entirely changed. It was her death that began it all...and she comes back only to distance from them, then lie and then just refuse to be a mother to them at all. Why should Dean even understand this? Why can’t the man for once just want someone else to do the understanding? I feel bad for both the brothers here. For Dean to once again adjust with a failed parent and for Sam to yet again not have a parent at all. It hits you once again just why Dean and Sam are all that each other have.

What I really liked about this scene/situation was the way Sam and Dean have exchanged roles here. Initially Dean was the one wanting to reconcile, keep the family together just wanting everyone to peacefully co-exist. But he’s been through that. Listening and following a parent blindly that got him no where...so this time he’s given up. This time he’s decided to call out on the unfairness of the situation. And I loved every bit of it. And here my heart goes out to Sam who has never really gotten to form a bond with either parent. So I get why he would want to try and understand Mary here, if only to just keep the family intact. Because he’s faced the flip side. Of feeling guilty of being distanced from a parent after it’s too late. 

2. I liked that the BMOL were showed unprepared, not glorified. They have the tech, the fancy equipment but they’re not hunters, they’re just some stylish group of people with a lot of information and no experience. And so I liked how they showed Sam manage the whole situation (showcasing just how brilliantly experienced he and Dean are) Even the differences very specifically highlighted between Dean and Ketch were impressive. One man is hell bent on killing and the other being a hunter has more understanding of what to do.

3. I am glad that Sam although wanting to help his mom did not forgive her completely. He agreed with Dean initially, and then even when he went to meet her, wasn’t completely buying her justifications. I hope he voices his hurt too. Because he barely does that and I am dying for him to take a stand here.

4. The boys (Jensen and Jared) were once again par excellence in this episode with their performance. 

And that ends just about anything I liked about this episode. 

What I hate and keep hating on 

1. Mary is a “Winchester” so lying and hiding for the “Greater good” is in her blood. Something that as a fan of both the boys I’ve excused every season. So for me to pick on her about lying to the boys would be me being a hypocrite. But my problem with Mary from Day 1 is that her character has been written so shoddily that I can’t describe who she really is at all? Is she a mother who was a hunter and didn’t want her children to have the life she had? Is she a mother who doesn’t know how to be one anymore and is a hunter now to escape that? Is she doing everything really to save her kids future? And is that even possible? 

The problem with Season 12 and especially how Mary is written is that there’s no emotional depth anywhere, except an episode or scene here or there. And Mary has been written so badly that for the first time on the show I am waiting a character death. Simply because she was one character because of whom this journey began and by playing with her essence they’re destroying the very base of the show. 

She was rude, outright cold, and horrible to her kids. I am not expecting her to be a regular mom who puts her full grown kids to sleep, bakes them cookies and packs them lunch. But I and even her boys do expect her to be by their side, not lie to them, spend time knowing each other better and just be a mom? If they can give her the space she needs. Can she not give them the love that’s so long overdue for them? She’s been dead for over 3 decades and if its hard for her then it’s hard for them too. No one teaches you how to be a parent. You learn one when you become one. But a child has to be taught everything, which is something the Winchester boys were devoid of. She’s being so selfish here that it hurts to see a Winchester back on the show. And duethe lack of emotional bonding I absolutely do not feel anything about her even though I want to.

I HATED HOW Dean apologized to her. Because he wasn’t wrong and he and Sam had every damn right to feel abandoned. But I guess it’s not in Dean to stay mad with his family for long, not when they could be in danger. 

2. I hate how the show that set base for the concept of humanity and not killing everything and everyone is now questioning it themselves this whole season. Killing and eradicating everyone that comes their way because they THINK its a monster? (Read: Alex, Benny etc) When was that what SPN was all about?

3. They got the Alpha vamp back for 5 minutes? That was underwhelming. There was so much to show this episode on a more personal level that this episode could be based on any hunt. The whole climax was very easy and underwhelming.

4. And lastly what I hope is me reading it wrong and desperately wanting to be otherwise. Sam is going to work with the BMOL and hide it from Dean? How old is this getting. The brothers lying and hiding from each other? I understand you need a complication in the story. But the same old repeated how many times? That is just simply lazy writing because the writers do not want to waste time thinking of something new. I get his intention YES. Maybe it was the promise of wiping the monsters away that pushed him...because he thinks they have a chance at normal? Or maybe seeing the Colt made him realize these men can be dangerous because they have so much without even understanding and wants to protect mom? Or it’s just a plan to be a part of them to stop them from doing something wrong....Whatever it might be....hiding something from his brother AGAIN is just getting tiresome. 

P.S - NO ONE watches this show for watching anything normal. There are other dramas for that. So Supernatural needs to stop touching this factor every new season. They know and we know, SPN and hunting go hand in hand. 

This season has been so underwhelming that I am not even looking forward to the next episodes anymore. Hoping the team pulls up the socks for the rest of season and show that’s left.