#spn analysis game

[destiel-wings]

Okay, this is probably something people ask a lot, but I'd like to hear your opinion on this: When do you think Cas started realising that his feelings for Dean run deeper than friendship?

(For the spn analysis ask game)

Ugh, good one.

I haven't rewatched the show ever since i finished it and saw the confession so i haven't rewatched it knowing Castiel had to know at some point, and my opinion is just in retrospect.

That said, Cas always cared about Dean the most. He was well aware of their shared "more profound bond", but by being an angel (and in general, by being Castiel) I don't think he had the instruments to decode what that meant. It took him years to understand humans and their emotions, and for that I'm inclined to think that he began realizing the true nature of his feelings somewhere when he became human in season 9 (which is even more heartbreaking to think about, because the first thing Dean does there is kick him out of the bunker, so imagine what that must feel like as that realization creeps in).

I should rewatch the show to check his reactions around Dean next time, to see if i notice changes and when (if anyone has already done this, please share your thoughts!), but if i were to guess, I don't think we'd notice much difference. For as much as Misha likes to tell us that he didn't play Cas as in love with Dean until the final season (biggest lie ever told to humans) the truth is Cas looked like he was (unawarely) in love with Dean ever since the beginning, so i think the acting might somehow back up any moment we deem possible in the show.

Anyway, I'm sure Cas already knew in season 14, he had long known when he took the deal.

Also, the pained look he gives Dean in the Impala at the end of season 11, when Dean tells him "You're our brother, Cas, I want you to know that" is absolutely telling. He looks like he's about to jump out of the moving car. So he had to know by then too.

I also like to think that when Lucifer possessed Cas in season 11, he knew about Cas' feelings for Dean, and he used those to remain undetected (see: when he distracted Dean by not wearing the trenchcoat and showing Cas' arms). I'll admit that move was more about Dean's feelings for Cas than the contrary, but I can't help but think that Cas knew then, in some capacity.

He definitely knew when he said "I love you, I love all of you" in season 12 though, and I don't think it was a sudden realization then, but he had known for a while.

So in conclusion, we should check his behavior from season 9 to 11, because I'm pretty inclined to think realization occurred somewhere in there.

Thank you for asking! 💕

[opheliasam]

im actually going to kms will someone get him out of there…

[soullessjack]

something else about the soulless jack arc that rlly … peeved? me is that it gives us both Jack’s and the Winchesters/hunters’ perspectives, but fully plays out as if we the audience are unaware of what happened between jack and mary. it’s still very heartbreaking and gutting nonetheless, but it’s also very inconsistent with how it intertwines the two. following jack, we see him and mary argue and we see him melt down and kill her and we see him feel guilt and grief and fear for it. we know it was an accident and we know that he’s been driven to a point of instability by his own guilt and we know he wants to fix it and we even see jack make an effort to do so.

however, following TFW and Bobby and company, we see them argue about what could’ve happened. Cas suggests that Jack didn’t realize it was wrong (which also implies that everybody automatically assumed jack killed her purposefully, literally giving him no leeway here). Bobby declares that theres nothing left in jack but Lucifer with his human soul gone—that he’s an unstoppable monster who has to be put down just like any other MOTW. Sam and dean argue if Jack is even still Jack and how they should approach it from there. seeing Jack’s own family discuss if and how to stop him does give some tension, but there is zero suspense because —

1) sam and dean knew from Rowena that Jack was trying to resurrect mary; they saw him bring her body back and they saw the anguished look on his face when she didn’t wake up and they heard him say “it didn’t work,” —so that’s already a huge chunk missing, and —

2) we already know the answer to every question they’re posing. instead of suspense at wondering if Jack finally tipped over the edge, we’re dreading the eventual confrontation because we know what they don’t know, and what they do know concerning Rowena and Jack’s failed spell was left out of the entire conversation after it happened.

when jack is on tv and making headlines as a doomsday bringer and dropping bodies for sam and dean to trail, we can’t be in shock that he’s doing something so out of character because we saw Duma manipulate him, saw what she promised him, and we know he’s well-intentioned despite his horrific actions (also, having jack torture/murder ppl for the sake of his family is something he’s already done before, it’s just taken to a new level without his soul to hold him back). everyone is following the narrative that jack has finally gone awol or succumbed to his true nature or whatever, and that is very much played intentionally as the teetering “will he, won’t he” question hanging around jacks entire character. but again, we don’t feel any of the suspense that question typically carries in a story because it’s already answered for us.

you cannot reasonably expect the audience to be in awe and suspense and believe jack is full blown big bad now while repeatedly showing us that jack still has good intentions. Hell, even the scene where they confront jack to trick him into the Ma’lak box is frustrating, because while Jack’s dismissive blame-shifting demeanor about Mary’s death is a reasonable tipping point for sam and dean’s anger and subsequent actions, there’s also the fact that jack very bluntly says things like “I didn’t think I’d see you again / I really missed you guys / I just want everything to be back the way it was,” that purifying the world is “like hunting,” and further more he even agrees to be locked up because, soul or not, he genuinely doesn’t want to hurt anyone anymore; all which very glaringly points to him not being as far gone as we’re supposed to think and worry about.

again, it’s all still very painful and upsetting to watch, but most of the pain comes from the fact that we know the missing details that are creating the conflict and are helpless to do anything with it, rather than the conflict itself.

[assigned-boyking-at-birth]

The Hunger Games is such a well done piece of writing and reducing it down to a teenage love triangle when that is nowhere near the main point just works to diminish the actual themes and messages of what is truly a very interesting and thought provoking read

[crooner-deans-walkman]

WELCOME TO THE SHIT SHOW BABES

hey yall, im amanda

the blogger formerly known as realmandolin

new url inspo <3

⏺⏺⏺⏺⏺⏺⏺⏺⏺⏺⏺⏺⏺⏺⏺

25 | she/they | queer | fucking trapped in the united states

⏺⏺⏺⏺⏺⏺⏺⏺⏺⏺⏺⏺⏺⏺⏺⏺⏺⏺⏺⏺

mishafucker extraordinaire and slut for all things destiel basically

minors, w*, or terfs dni

seriously minors please don't follow me we post mature content in this house

⏺⏺⏺⏺⏺⏺⏺⏺⏺⏺⏺⏺

{ amvs }{ poetry }{ spn poetry }{ art }{ vinyl collecting }{ car rebuild }

my tags below

[my-recs]

VEE — (19.) multi-fandom fic rec + rb blog.

tags: twd—the walking dead, st—stranger things, tlou—the last of us, cm—criminal minds, hp + fb—harry potter, arcana—the arcana, atla—avatar, spn—supernatural, character full name—character fic tag, mb—character moodboards.

[destinationtoast]

Have you ever done an analysis of which fandoms are most dominated by a single ship?

I hadn't done so before. I just took a quick pass at doing so, but only among the biggest fandoms on AO3 as of Jan 2024 (ones with over 10K public works at that time). I sorted them by the size of their biggest ship relative to the size of the fandom. This gives us a bunch of very big fandoms with a high % of works tagged with a particular ship:

The raw data used to make this graph, including the corresponding biggest ships, is available in a spreadsheet here, or at the end of this post.

A few notes:

This is based on January 2024 data. Some things may have changed!

Not all these works are necessarily about these ships. Especially in the cases where the ships are canon, they may often be tagged as background ships.

There are undoubtedly many smaller AO3 fandoms that have higher percentages devoted to the top ship.

I removed some highly overlapping fandoms (e.g., Good Omens book fandom).

This is AO3 data only, and (as always!) AO3 does not represent fandom overall. In particular, ship popularity tends to vary A LOT by archive/platform. See some past cross-platform shipping comparisons from 2019 (comparing het vs. slash vs. gen on Wattpad/FFN/AO3), and 2014 (comparing popular ships from HP, SPN, and Sherlock on AO3/FFN). One highlight:

Raw data:

Fandom | Top relationship | % tagged with most common ship

Shameless (US) | Ian Gallagher/Mickey Milkovich | 92.5%

Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF) | Dan Howell/Phil Lester | 92.1%

Good Omens (TV) | Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens) | 83.8%

9-1-1 (TV) | Evan "Buck" Buckley/Eddie Diaz (9-1-1 TV) | 79.2%

Hannibal (TV) | Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter | 75.6%

Shadowhunters (TV) | Magnus Bane/Alec Lightwood | 75.1%

All For The Game - Nora Sakavic | Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard | 75.0%

Inception (2010) | Arthur/Eames (Inception) | 74.0%

The Old Guard (Movie 2020) | Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova | 72.2%

Hawaii Five-0 (2010) | Steve McGarrett/Danny "Danno" Williams | 71.9%

The Mortal Instruments Series - Cassandra Clare | Magnus Bane/Alec Lightwood | 71.2%

IT (Movies - Muschietti) | Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier | 71.1%

陈情令 | The Untamed (TV) RPF | Wang Yi Bo/Xiao Zhan | Sean | 70.9%

X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies) | Erik Lehnsherr/Charles Xavier | 69.6%

Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime) | Katsuki Yuuri/Victor Nikiforov | 66.3%

Supernatural (TV 2005) RPF | Jensen Ackles/Jared Padalecki | 66.0%

She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018) | Adora/Catra (She-Ra) | 63.9%

Deadpool - All Media Types | Peter Parker/Wade Wilson | 63.6%

The Witcher (TV) | Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion | 63.1%

Our Flag Means Death (TV) | Blackbeard | Edward Teach/Stede Bonnet | 63.0%

[scoobydoodean]

I have 2 spn accounts, a Deancentric blog that ships Destiel and another account that unintentionally follows a lot of Samgirl blogs. So one blog follows majority Deangirl blogs and the other incidentally follows a lot of Samgirl blogs. And here's the major difference I've noticed on the different dashboards.

Deangirl dashboard: Great meta analysis. Beautiful art. Level 1 and 2 headcanons (largely based in canon). Pro-Dean. Stumble across reblogs of Deancrit. Bitter Deangirl blogging. Generally fair portrayal and discussion of the positive and negative traits and actions of Dean, Sam and Cas. Deanhater anons.

Samgirl dashboard: An entirely different pool of beautiful art. Whole lotta woobie!Sam art where Dean is his abuser. Deancrit about Dean being an abuser. Bitter Samgirl blogging about how people will find any excuse to hate Sam. "How can anyone be Samcrit he has done nothing wrong ever." Level 5 headcanons (you literally ignored canon to make that up). More about how Dean is Sam's abuser. So many posts about how awful Samcrit is. "Do Deangirls really think that Dean cries himself to sleep at night thinking that ppl thinks he doesn't know how to read." I have yet to see any actual Samcrit posts (not even links or reblogs from Sam defenders), not even after literally searching the Samcrit tag for it. The Samcrit tag is full of Samgirls crying about Samcrit and no actual Samcrit. "Samgirls are feral, but we need to be bc of the hate ppl throw Sam's way."

I literally have to block so many people on the incidentally Samgirl dashboard bc I'm not on Tumblr to randomly stumble across a post on how Dean is a toxic stalker who abused Sam by changing Amelia's number in his cellphone. Do you have any idea on why Samgirls seem to feel so attacked all the time even though I literally only ever see *them* attacking Dean?

If you dig deep enough into any fandom, you will encounter people who fetishize "helpless victimhood". Some fandoms attract more people with those particular proclivities than others. Supernatural and Sam in particular attracts people who hold those sorts of aesthetic interests because of his relationship toward accountability versus Dean's.

Dean is a character with an overactive sense of responsibility. He blames himself for the Lindbergh baby and unemployment and every child murdered by a shrtiga from 1990 to 2005 because he went to play an arcade game when he was 10. He also blames himself for things like Jessica dying and Sam not being in school. Other characters pile on this blame frequently. John blames Dean for Sam getting hurt (1.18). Ruby tells him (and Sam) that Sam is a weak baby who won't psychologically survive without Dean there to protect him (3.11). Meg alleges that Dean is "dragging Sam everywhere" (1.16). Sam rewrites reality from 1.05 to 1.21 to make Dean responsible for his burning desire for revenge. Cas and Zachariah and Gabriel blame Dean when Sam breaks the last seal because he didn't stop Sam in time. Sam blames Dean for him drinking demon blood first because Dean wasn't there to protect him and then—in a complete 180—because Dean is smothering (4.04, 5.05). Dean generally absorbs blame when it is piled at his feet because he has been blamed for things he couldn't control for most of his life and thus he feels guilty and responsible for things even when him being responsible makes no logical sense. He's never a victim of anything���everything is always on him.

Sam, on the other hand, tends to eventually deflect blame because he can't handle the gnawing bite of it for long. It reminds him too deeply of being left isolated and alone as a child and the feelings of otherness and wrongness he developed through that neglect. When his actions ultimately have consequences he didn't foresee and/or that he finds undesirable, it makes him feel ugly and unaccepted and he can't face it so he eventually finds a way to make what happened someone else's fault—usually Dean's fault. Nothing is ever on him. He's always at least a little bit of a victim and Dean always carries at least partial responsibility for his decisions (1.21, 1.08, 4.04, 5.05, 8.23, 11.01)

In other words, Sam has an under-active sense of responsibility and Dean has an overactive responsibility and that dynamic—driven by their childhood experiences—places them into a vicious cycle of blame being cast onto Dean for Sam's decisions and Dean absorbing it. Dean absorbing it reinforcing the narrative for samgirls with a victimhood fetish that Dean deserves blame and that Sam truly is a helpless baby. They never watch what actually happens on the show to see whether this narrative that Dean is responsible for everything and Sam is a helpless baby lines up with the actual events that occurred onscreen because why would they? That would ruin their enjoyment. Sam isn't interesting to them outside of his capacity to be mourned as some sort of helpless martyr. And yes—they will cry and moan about how horrible and unfair Sam's suffering is, but it isn't because they're having a bad time. They're having a great time. They love thinking about Sam that way. They wouldn't be here blogging about it day in and day out for the last 20 years if they didn't actually want to see exactly what they're seeing.

Related tags of note:

#sams motivations

#taurus sam in the flesh

#In which Sam is not a helpless little waif with his hands cast over his eyes being carried along by the tides of the immutable sea

#sam the hunter

#sams follower/leader false dichotomy

#parentification

[follows-the-bees]

Changing Channels analysis (cause this episode is so good!)

Let's first talk about Dean and how he relates to TV — and how that also relates to his sexuality!

Near the beginning we see Dean, mouth open, straight on staring at a dramatic medical show. From a character analysis, we see a couple things. Television has shaped so much of Dean's life and how he relates to it and uses it to relate to other people.

Dean uses these tv references to relate to others. But sometimes he tries to hide his viewing habits. During this scene, Dean tries to play off watching the show as a fluke, but even before the facade is lifted later on, he mentions: "I think it's based on a book," this tells us that Dean knows more about this show than he's letting on.

Later on, when Dr. Sexy makes his appearance, Dean is starstruck: blushing, first afraid to look him in the eye. He doesn't seem as fixated on the female doctor, the one notably in the elevator in the first scene. In fact, that character is obsessed with Sam.

It is Dr. Sexy Dean is obsessed with, the one where Dean can't put up the facade, who looks down blushing and sees that his shoes are not his usual sexy cowboy boots. For many people, this is one of the loudest Dean being bi episodes.

Moving on to a slightly related note: Cas

This episode is only a few after Free To Be You and Me and The End. If we take into account Dean and Cas' friendship by the time CC aired, Dean and Cas have become better friends. They worked a case together spending a lot of time together. Then Dean saw Cas in another world follow him to the end — a su*cide mission. And he realizes not only what Cas would do for him but his feelings about Cas may be deeper than he originally thought.

Throughout this entire episode he worries about Cas. He brings up Cas many times, worried about where he is. (At least 3 times it's brought up) And near the end, when they figure out who the trickster really is, one of the first things Dean does is threaten Gabriel to bring Cas back.

Dean was worried about losing Cas. He had to experience it in The End and I don't think he was ready to lose him again.

During the Japanese game show, the host also calls Cas "pretty boy angel" leading to a series of facial expressions on Dean's face. These expressions can be read as Dean realizing that Cas is pretty. Another example of both Dean's bisexuality and his feelings about Cas. Cas is also part of the reason Dean figures out who the trickster really is.

When Cas comes back for the second time and the trickster shows up, the trickster shows his cards. Cas says "if it is the trickster," then Gabe recognizing Castiel, and being so adamant about the apocalypse, Dean figures it out. I love this moment because sometimes SPN capitalizes on making Dean dumb for laughs, but this is a moment of Dean's brilliance. Also notable is that Gabriel is aware of who Castiel is. Castiel was not a worker bee angel, he led a garrison, he was tasked with getting the righteous man out of Hell. Gabriel and Cas are one of the few angels to fall and choose humanity over angels.

Cinematography

I wouldn't be me if I didn't mention the amazing cinematography that SPN can have. Angel fire shots are always so pretty and can cast a sinister light on the subject. This episode goes from a light-hearted sitcom to once of the biggest reveals of the season.

The light wallpaper and bright lights turn into a dark and dreary wet pipe factory matching the tones of the reveal. Sam and Dean were not aware of their roles in the apocalypse fully until this episode. They knew that Dean started the seals and Sam releasing Lucifer, but not about being vessels. Out of a sense of guilt and duty, the boys are trying to stop the apocalypse in their own way. But now they have this heavy weight on them, not only are they vessels but their fate is for one of them to kill the other. Even with this knowledge, Dean says no, they won't kill each other. Their siblingship is strong here even after the short break up of a few episodes here.

While CC starts off as a fun romp, when we look deeper, it is full of great character analysis of the TFW. I love it.

Original post here

[castielstwigandberries]

if the supernatural movie doesnt include a reference to

nevada and georgia turning blue, stop the count, destiel making putin resign, sherlock season 5 rumors, destiel news meme, which political person had to be briefed on what destiel is now?, jensen looks like he was holding back homophobic slurs, weird cuts in the confession scene, which way was dean thrown now?, bury your gays speedrun, gay angels get send to superhell/eeby-deeby/cas plinko, recognizing the confession scene only by the first letters of each word, 'homosexual declaration of love', The Tapes™ (Release them now jensen!!!), meta analysis after 15x18, 'i gripped you tight and raised you from perdition' callback as dean saves cas from the empty, why lamp?, onion field, pizza man montage, parallels be paralleling, dean screaming cas name so loud in one take that people heard it blocks away, dean offering to kill sam if it means chuck brings cas back, the 4 year old son of lucifer becoming god, chuck won theory, 'we explore the nature of destiel in act two', excitement for a long finale which could only be about dean saving cas, right?, the insanity inducing quotes of the day for episodes, 'the night we met' and 'angel with a shotgun' songs of the day on set, filming in a barn, worst finale ever (even worse than game of thrones), weirly short with 11 scenes cut, two thirds montages, carry on wayward son playinf twice, back to back, one a weird cover version, vampmimes, no cas in the finale but instead some random vampire from season one no one remembers, dean finally gets nailed from behind, dean dies from tetanus, party city wig, good cars go to heaven, Car/Cas and Biden/Bi!Dean/Bye!Dean, 'cas helped', blurry wife, misha and jensen are not in the thank you video, everyone was supposed to be at the roadhouse originally but no one was informed of those plans, walker backdoor pilot, covid/capitalism destroyed everything, misha was in vancouver for filming the last episodes and was in less episodes than he was contracted for, misha denies ever having been in vancouver, misha says originally he was supposed to be in the finale as jimmy, misha says cas was supposed to be in the finale and 'sidle up to dean in the roadhouse', heterosexual destiel whose kisses would have created entire universes, destiel reciprocated in spanish, rogue translator, #TheySilencedYou, Jensen Ackles sexy silence, jensen ackles longcon, deanbenny breakup in season 8 script leak, Heller Obama, fake italian dub, misha collins x bill clinton sex scandal, misha addressing the "scandal" and tagging bill clinton and monica lewinski, 'still beautiful, still dean winchester', mishapocalypse 2.0 and 3.0, 'eyes like the sky' beer from jensens brewery rumored to be misha description, cockles anniversay photo, chaos machine jensen ackles' production company, 'rainbow road' beer close to deans birthday, blue green ('destiel') shotglasses from jensen brewery, ash and ellen's actors roleplaying roadhouse reopening in twitter, people think they are planning destiel wedding, disappointment when thats not the case, fans celebrate Destiel Wedding anyway on Valentine's Day 2021, fallout with both actors after one said a 'queer interpretation would damage the integrity of the show',

*takes a deep breath*

jared calling cas junkless and comparing his love for dean to the love he has for his children, misha collins cameo including 'still beautiful, still dean winchester', saileen and midam wedding, spn prequel announcement and subsequent j2 fallout, '@/robbiethompson et tu brute wow. what a trully awful thing you've done #bravo you coward', the prequel being about the least favourite characters of supernatural and a love story disproved by canon, 100000 destiel fics on ao3, misha tweets about that, rumors if mishas secret ao3 account, real italian dub going 'you're kinda okay' instead of i love you, misha tweeting a video of him saying 'te amo' in response to that', jensen saying if there'd been more time he (he meant dean but he used first person pronouns) would have hugged cas and said 'i love you too', first anniversary, misha collins coming out as bisexual on accident and then saying he 'happens to be straight' three days later in a five post apology thread, hot sauce from adam/micheal actor advertised by him playing midam, casbaiting in the winchesters trailer, jarlos shipping by winchester main actors, dean with beard and turtleneck, jensen saying he wanted misha in the winchesters but it didnt work out because of scheduling conflicts but hed be there in a season two shortly before the show was cancelled, death of the rogue translator and destiel getting dragged to the trending page every time there is news

*panting* then i dont want it.

yes this is all i could remember without looking it up

[antigonewinchester]

🔥spn ships and/or shippers

everybody comes in with their perspective on the show and shipping is a HUGE part of that. often I think ppl analyze the text “backwards” in that they take their ship as the conclusion and find evidence for it through the seasons, which then leads to very different interpretations of the characters & the show (and tons of fandom fights). take how interpretations of season 6 are absolutely influenced by a shipping lens (why does Dean “fail” in his relationship w/ Lisa, etc.) or how later seasons read very different through a Destiel lens vs. a Wincest one. probably in part because of gif set analysis there's also a weird shipper tendency to interpret discomfort as attraction**, esp from a Destiel pov (how ppl talk about Cas confronting Dean in 4x02, or the reunion scene in 8x07).

speaking of later seasons, sometimes I wonder if the writers deliberately used fandom’s love for Destiel to compensate for uneven writing, ala in early S13 and Dean’s emotional swings from ep to ep which do feel more coherent thru a Destiel lens. that said, imo Dean/Cas in S4-S6 feels both more interesting & possible than in later seasons, where Cas being in unrequited love with Dean fits more w/ canon.

I get why large parts of the fandom are squicked by incest but Kripke & his writers were clearly aware of this subtext of Sam/Dean [and arguably Dean/John] in the writing of the early seasons and deliberately played with it, and this subtext continued on thru the whole show on various levels. of course fandom would want to explore all that. [while I can't know anyone's individual feelings, sometimes the fandom resistance towards acknowledging the incestuous subtext or seeing it as some unique evil feels similar to real-world minimization and refusal to see incest & abuse or how the "normal" family system contributes to it. if you don't talk about it, it didn't happen.]

rare pairs are fun and "doomed" ships can be refreshing against the fandom ~Epic Romance vibes w/in both Destiel and Wincest. give me some Dean/Lisa or Sam/Rowena or Dean/Crowley or even Sam/Crowley. ships don't have to be 'end game' to be interesting to explore! sometimes the fun is in figuring out how to make a ship work in a way that feels real w/in canon.

**discomfort & attraction can go together and are arguably 2 sides of the same coin, in that anxiety & excitement feel very similar in the body but are perceived differently by the mind, but it is still an odd pattern to see.

Send me a “ 🔥 ” for an unpopular opinion.

[destiel-wings]

whats your opinion on the show (imo) making sam seem like he screws up a lot and that dean is the one cleaning up after him?

For the ⭐ spn analysis ask game ⭐

Oh, that's interesting to think about, thank you so much for asking!

Here's how i see it.

The whole base of the show is that Sam is the younger brother, and Dean needs to take care of him. That means protecting him, and in this life, cleaning up his messes, at all costs. Which is probably why they highlighted Sam's screwups, even making them more morale-challenging for Dean (I'm thinking of the whole demon blood storyline) just to show how far Dean would go for Sam. 

When the show starts, the Winchesters' worldview is black and white: demons bad, humans good (which makes particularly interesting and smart the fact that they included the episode "The Benders", that early on, that subverts this certainty). Anyway, the more the show progresses, the more Dean finds out about Sam's powers, putting him at supernatural-beings-level, and this is the first time in the show where, in the current events, Sam thinks he's letting Dean down. But nonetheless, Dean's first priority is to protect him and help him. 

And that's the base of their dynamics, that they were still carrying from their childhood: Sam, being the youngest, needs Dean to clean up his messes, taking care of him practically (even if he's perfectly capable of cleaning up after them himself most of he time), while Dean needs Sam emotionally, because he desperately needs love and the family that was taken away from him the moment his mother died and everything fell into pieces. I think that's a great part of the tension that charges the codependency between the brothers. 

That said, Sam didn't really need Dean to protect him at the beginning of the show, he was actually fine by himself, doing just fine away from home. The show starts when the supernatural comes into their lives (Sam's life, with Jess' death) again, and Dean steps in to do what he knows how to do, better than Sam. 

And the show plays on that for a long while, having Sam become "a problem" (his powers, the demon blood), so that Dean can be needed and attend to his caretaker job, getting to keep Sam around.

But here's the thing: where it gets even more interesting, in my opinion, is seeing how as the show progresses these roles begin to shift and reverse. 

At the beginning of the show Dean is supposedly the one who's most similar to John and who wants to fight for the "family business", and Sam doesn't need any of this, and he doesn't need Dean. But as the show develops it becomes clear that Sam is the one who's actually more similar to John (sorry Sammy), and as the brothers embrace the life and the seasons advance it becomes clearer that Sam enjoys this life way more than Dean.

After all the messes he's made in the first seasons of the show, Sam becomes more desperate to make amends towards Dean.

"It was how many times i let you down"

And it's not surprising that this shift in dynamics happens right in s8, after they have been apart for a whole year (while Dean was in Purgatory) and they spend the entire season trying to reconcile their relationship. Here we can finally see a Dean who needs Sam a little less, because he's lived without him for a year and he's found Benny, who plays the role of a possible replacement (narratively). For the first time we see a jealous Sam struggling to regain Dean's forgiveness and trust--more precisely, struggling to regain his first place as Dean's shotgun. Unsurprisingly, this shift happens as Cas becomes more important to Dean too.

Dean had always struggled to create real connections with people, but as the seasons go on, he learns to do that, they find a family, and so Sam isn't the only person to give and receive Dean's love and affection. But Sam is the younger sibling, so he always took Dean for granted (it's not his fault, it's what younger siblings generally do), which is why it was so refreshing to see him realize it wasn't that granted. And that's the moment where Sam actively begins to show how much he needs Dean's love as well. Because if you think about it, aside from the found family they share (like Bobby, Jody, Charlie, Garth etc) at some point Dean actually begins to have more people than Sam's (Cas, Benny, even Crowley, just to drop names).

And I love how this season is immediately followed by the mark of Cain storyline, where we finally have Sam trying to save Dean for a change.

I think that's a big step of growth for the character, where he gets to wear the older brother's shoes and get to be the caretaker for once, and really fight for Dean as he had been doing for him until that point.

I think Sam screwed up way less after that, and it checks out with the new dynamics of their relationship: Sam has grown up more, and he doesn't need Dean to save him all the time, he can save Dean too, he's more than capable of it, and more importantly, Dean sees it. As Dean gets to develop new important relationships of affection with other people (larger found family, and Cas), he needs Sam just a tiny little less. And so he starts to see him less as a job and accepts that he can take care of himself too, and basically that whole dynamic of Sam screwing up and Dean cleaning up after his messes becomes obsolete in the show, and is less evident. They both screw up. They both clean up after each other's messes.

And beware, I'm not saying that Dean loves Sam less, just that he needs him less. I'm talking about the toxic codependency, that was actually healing and transforming into a healthier relationship (until the finale did what it did).

In later seasons Sam is portrayed more like an adult, we see him leading a group of hunters, and we see Dean seeing him do that and letting him take the lead, we see him be a father to Jack (finally taking on a caretaker's role as Dean had done for him), we see him threaten and fight God himself, and we see him search for his own path, between the hunter's life that he actually loves (unlike Dean) and even Rowena's witchcraft, to some extent. And we finally see him having a meaningful love relationship again, with Eileen.

I am actually so proud of Sam and of how far he had come. Things could've been so great for him, if we hadn't had that horrible finale. We always say that Dean's ending was bad, and it is, but I honestly don't get people who say that Sam had it better, just because he survived. He's the one who got it worse actually. All of his development... gone. All of those promises of the happy life he could've gotten... gone.

He spent a whole life building a life that wasn't important (and i say that because that's how the episode framed it, and i could make a whole other post about this explaining why) just missing his brother after having lost everyone else he's ever loved. That's just horrible, especially when the show had made clear that the blurry wife life maybe wasn't what he really wanted after all.

***

Again, thanks for the ask, feel free to send more!

[blacknidstang]

1 and 7 for the fandom ask game!

1. list 3 positive things about your current fandom(s)

Wincest fandom (rather than the entirety of spn) has been the greatest fandom experience for me for tons of reasons but here are few of em:

1) My absolute favorite thing would be how the fandom is still so alive even three years after the ending. New people join everyday, many older veterans are still around, many just deciding to come back. There's always some new take, analysis or just scenario that I haven't seen likes of, but also posts everyone has been rewriting in their own ways AND THAT'S JUST BEAUTIFUL. Everyone at certain point watching spn and losing their mind over one specific thing. It feel makes it so easy to feel connected no matter when you join.

2) The abundance of webweaving here. I know it's in general a popular tumblr format but I don't think I've seen it so rampant in one specific fandom the way it is in Wincest corner. The fandom had such history with webweaving and comparatives that even Siken mentioned it and this has lead me to discover many many amazing poems and literature.

3)This fandom is absolutely UNHINGED. Like I haven't seen a fandom so collectively deranged and the crazy part is that the morbid madness is not just for wincest but also ppl who are more strictly into weirdcest/platonic samdean. Ive seen enough nonshippers also obsessed the madness inducing fucked up thing between sam & dean and i love love that. But srsly Shipping wincest is a slippery slope into necro, gore, dadfucking, carfucking, cannibalism, stuff that in some previous fandoms i had much harder time to find group of people for.

7. your favorite tropes to read/write/draw

When it comes to reading, even begore spn i think my main food has been angst/whump/hurt no (or sometimes and) comfort, noncon and generally dark themes, feeling realization, first times, unrequited becoming requited, angst with happy ending, but also bad ending & character death and the NON-fixits that make things worse<3

But thing with sam & dean is that i become even open about thing i didn't like before??? Like i hated soulmate trope for certain reasons but with sam and dean im just, yep, soulmates. Domestic bliss & established relationships was so so boring to me but with sam & dean it can be sooo comforting (and even angsty in less traumatic way). I also doubled down on character death bc i want my boys suffering <3. God i DID NOT like anything involving parenting and children but i grew sooo fond of samdean parenting jack. and oh gen fics!?? I would read gen fics sooooo rarely before wincest but now i also madly love weirdcest that is genuinely gen with non-shipping goggles that go "fuck im not even making this up". AND omg I'll shut up but this one being sooo new for me but outsider oc or random mentioned character viewpoint. (That blurry wife pov fic and few others like that making me go insane) like i was never into oc fics but with sam & dean defining them through other lenses is addictive!!!

Thank you for letting me ramble <333

love your fandom ask game

[prettyflyshyguy]

Ok place your bets how angry am I going to get at spn for their handling of S4 Sam because Dean's right.

"So far all you've told me about is a manipulative bitch who uh, screwed you, played mind games with you and did everything in the book to get you to go bad."

Yeah babey I'm tired, it's my day off, and I've braved myself up to tackle the tumultuous S4 because it's giving mixed feelings!!!!

You know the drill. Unhinged thoughts, commentary and screaming under the cut. I've been in full media analysis mode for the last week so it might get a little academic too, who knows.

A warning - I'm not enjoying the Heaven x Hell sub plot. I know, I'm sorry (not really.) I will persist as long as I can but you can't rip seasons 1-3 out of my cold dead hands because I'm clinging to them too strongly. They just hit the spot near perfectly. World's biggest fandom member disappointment, and proud, over here.

Anyway commentary bellow!

S4E9/10 - I Know What You Did Last Summer & Heaven and Hell

Ok so, this is a real topic, and I'm going to tread lightly here, but I appreciate the sinister undertones of Ruby coming onto Sam and him actively pushing back - he's vulnerable, abusing a substance, and she's actively taking advantage of that and doesn't stop after he makes it clear he's uncomfortable the first time. A boundary is broken and pushed through. Very icky. I have seen spoilers for Ruby's character (unfortunately!) and like, have to say, she got me. But I think I'd start to really clue in with this episode that something is deeply not ok - based on that one scene alone.

I am however, deeply worried, that the emotional manipulation is not going to be handled with the consideration it needs (especially with regards to a woman coming onto a man and being too pushy) and it'll be played off lightly. I guess we'll find out. But I'm getting defensive already. Appreciate that Dean clocks it immediately however.

On a lighter note - go psychic boy go

Anytime Dean makes this face I go mental. He looks like a concerned version of the Eyes emoji. Top 10 expressions I have too much fun trying to replicate in art. Buddy being dead for 6 months must've sucked you've missed so much Oh No.

Supremely embarrassed that it ONLY JUST CLICKED that they're doing a whole Sam's with the Demons, Dean's with the Angels thing.

I'll focus in on the most specific shit and then something so blunt will fly over my big idiot head. Amazing.

Ironic of course, and clearly intentional that its cause Sam was always appointed the 'better one' but that's only cause Dean purposefully inserted himself as the moral-fall character as a way to try and protect Sam. Obsessed with that concept, not so much with the heaven v hell stuff.

REGARDLESS, two angels rocking up and Ruby's immediate response being to turn on the demon eyes makes me wonder - is this intentional - did she choose to do this, was an otherworldly force compelling her to do it?

No I'm not just asking these cause I'm cooking up ideas for Sam to get more demonic nooooooo what're you talking about noooooooo

Hilarious that Cas and his mate rock up like "Hello we are literal fucking angels, we want this human woman please we're going to kill her now, please hand her over"

like they can't just yoink her regardless.

And this is starting to stray into "Why Shy really isn't enjoying the heaven-hell stuff in spn" - which I should save for an entirely separate post, but most of it boils down to the stakes don't feel serious anymore, the comparative power levels of character's feels unbalanced, it takes away ANY weight to Sam's personal faith as a character trait, and--

I'm sorry I just cannot get behind any of it. Really dislike it. Unfortunate. Oh well. Sozzles.

Heaven and Hell was a real hard episode for me to watch for a number of reasons and overall, I deeply disliked it, but the ending scene of Dean breaking down was extremely well done so huge props for that. Fantastic writing and acting all through. Much to consider!!

S4E11 - Family remains

The summary for this one looks. Fun.

"And what am I running from?"

"What you told me. Or are we pretending that never happened?"

OUGH. OUGH. AUGH. OOMF. ACK. AUGH.

I appreciate that unlike every ghost hunter I've watched on youtube, this show recognises that EMF readers cannot be completely trusted. 10/10 thank you supernatural. One small little line about the needle being wacky, and Dean noting that there's power lines right next to the house. Love it.

Nice.

I can sense I'm going to enjoy this episode.

I LOVE A GOOD GHOST-HUNTING EPISODE!!

Also love that this episode forcibly made the boys reconcile with the confliction of killing humans vs killing creatures, but the humans were in a way like the creatures (monsters), the same way the monsters can be like humans.

Anyway, tonal whiplash, yet again with this show:

S4E12 - Chris Angel Is a Douche Bag

The Winchesters need worksafe inspector fake ID because It'd be perfect for this episode specifically

I LOVE the three older magician characters. These guys are great.

WHAT

Anyway this is a good bit. This is a really good bit.

Yeah Sammy what kind of kool aid are you drinking?????

That was.... A weird one but a fun one.

Anyway I'm really starting to feel like I want to cherry pick eps but I'm going to hold off. Till I hit S5 at least.

Like I rabidly consumed seasons 1-3 like a starving animal and now I'm reluctant to watch episodes cause I know there's good shit in here, and each episode has some important development moments for characters, or relevant plot that I want to know about so I don't feel like I can start picking and choosing episodes based on descriptions yet. But damn. Lot more misses than hits for me this season. Seriously considering buying a dvds of just S1-3 cause GODDAMN. Loved almost everything about the first three.

[incarnateirony]

HOW TO VERIFY IF YOUR LEAKER IS ACTUALLY WORTH A CRAP OR NOT.

Some of you never had to discern your way through DC leak systems to understand what looks like a reliable source. People perceive one misspoken statement and forever try to cast reality into the abyss here, or one moron lands a lucky vagueblog once and people follow him forever. So let's break apart this fandom's misinformation chamber, one trade publication and leaker at a time.

So you can see, Tier 1 is the norm, they just divided EW out because of "speculation". But read those 4, those are the ones I've pointed you guys to as reliable.

The next two are where things get gritty: Two very good, well proven people, that have different angles. Murphy's Multiverse is basically the Comic/Gaming version of my blog if I bothered to sort it more than shitposting into tags. It's a mix of leaks, scoops, spec and analysis, with each marked, even if this fandom REALLY doesn't like when something is a leak, and want to cry and pretend it's spec. Like the labels or not, it's a very similar system.

Notice, however, only these two accounts (MM, VA) are considered viable. They break down the other leakers into other tiers. Why? "They are usually selective about the information they provide in comparison to what they hear, in contrast to sources in the tiers below them." -- this is what fandom wanna be ITKers miss. Every fucking time. Because 2po is so ready to look ITK and pretend he got something big and whisper about it and lmfao bruh you really don't get intel selection its sad

But then we get into deeper tiers and need to start being discerning

Notice the descent. Average reliability in tier 3 is considered fair. DC fandom isn't shithouse insane and understands that even the best are lucky to get 95% accurately.

Then we start getting into dividing tier 4. Daniel RPK for example. He's very niched into one part of the news, and he's good with those, but anything he tries at outside that he fails at titanically. If I was to be GENEROUS, I would place 2po here because one could argue "well, his con rumors do give him good information about cons and con attendance", for people specifically looking for information relevant at conventions. But if you're looking for show information, for example, bye, good luck, it's just more con rumors and idiot coffeerunners.

And here it is. Enjoy looking at how many things like Screenrant people embarrassingly try to use around here. And yeah the Bounding Into Comics or whatever might be MarySue or some other equivalent here, but notice, it's all the same. It's all nonsense. the world outside of spn fandom's ego bubble is aware that everything you guys share as leaks or spec is absolute fucking garbage.

Now, instead of being GRACIOUS as above, if I was realistic, Grace Randolph is the 2po (and scripthunt/adjacent server clique) of this fandom. She wasn't industry beforehand, was more of a fandom influencer, and a couple of low tier DC people did shuffle news to her. Then at one point not recorded here Marvel thought they'd be funny and paid her to spread misinformation, and that was a thing that happened, and everyone fell for it. Basically imagine like, Wiki trying her rugaru leaks to pat and pat getting bigheaded and not realizing the person that just sent scripthunt a 50 dollar pledge and whispered the new Movie News was just some competitor trying to fuck up the PR game.

Only it's. Way less competent over in SPN fandom. If I tried to explain the art of paid leakers and misleakers as PR generation your heads would explode, because this fandom hasn't evolved far enough to understand "2po's interpretation of gayle's interpretation of jensen's statement at paid fan venues is not the same as meaningful production information direct from source."

This fandom needs to start looking REAL HARD at what akrida have been attacking and hiding the truth, for how long, and how this really works outside of the bubble 2po is trying very very hard to convince the world of How It Really Works Magically Through Convention Rumor Land.

Catch a clue guys. Enjoy the last half of our show. Tune out the self-paying self-gratifying hags and use your eyeballs. And most of all, crypto, grow a sack and finally kick 2po.

[driverpicksthepodcast]

First up, some camouflaged praise: I feel so spoiled this week from all the bonus episodes you have released. It was a LOT of fun!

I am listening to the Destiel edition episode now, and I just got to the point where you mentioned the Then and now podcast. I am listening to it. I started because I was curious and I stayed for the humour. Also Rob is the cutest middle-aged man I know of, haha.

They haven't brought up Destiel specifically, and the way they cover the actual story in the episodes is far from as detailed as you and the other Pod Squad people's method. So if they mention lines it is because it caught their attention. They also personally know the main cast, so I assume that they will see an actor/friend acting instead of being immersed in the story. After all it is a job for them -- though they claim to be on their way to become fans.

While they haven't explicitly discussed Destiel, sometimes they make some mistakes which are very interesting to me (who has a moderate to severe case of spn/destiel brainrot). Rob did refer to Castiel as Castiel Winchester at one point, for example. It was during their usual credits listing at the end of the episode (they included the blooper at the end of the episode).

There are probably other stuff they talk about which is interesting in terms of how much the fandom has influenced their perspectives. But the "Castiel Winchester" one is something I will not forget about. I'll follow up with an episode link (spotify) and a timestamp if I find the will and time to listen through the tail ends of the 11 possible episodes...

cont.

I found the episode: https://open.spotify.com/episode/6kXmoqgZstbCdQyDrQBySq?si=de6b8989c40b438a

The credits listing is at 52:31 and you can hear that they cut right after Rob says "Castiel". In the blooper starting at 53:53 he reminds himself that "It's just Castiel. He doesn't have the last name Winchester. Castiel Johnson." I remembered wrong though: Rob doesn't actually say Castiel Winchester, but Rich does (after the static thing which separates bloopers)

*********

Ok so first up, hello! thank you SO much for your message! super glad to know you enjoyed the bonus content, we've been beyond excited to release it :)

Good to know the Then & Now pod is a fun time! I was going to say I was surprised that they don't go into as much depth as the fan run casts but honestly I think that makes a lot of sense when you think about it, at the end of the day we're out to create a different product than they are (I assume their focus probably falls more in the camp of behind the scenes and production discussion rather than more of an analysis on the characters, themes, and plots?). Plus, I think you make a great point about them seeing their friends and co-workers rather than characters, they have an entirely different perspective on the entire process than we do (which is the appeal of getting their thoughts on things like podcasts and panels I guess haha).

When it comes to Destiel, I suppose it's really a waiting game to see if / how they'll address it, lucky we've got plenty of fic & fan run casts to get us through regardless! Tbh I always thought the CW missed out on some really obvious marketing opportunities by not cashing in on Castiel Winchester (CW) being a thing haha

Thank you for taking the time to go back through and find the right episodes and time stamps! you've really put in the hard yards on that one! <3