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scoobydoodean · 4 months

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5x13 is a very interesting episode for all of the characters…

like you’ve got cas refusing to consider killing sam bc he wants to idk prove himself to dean

you’ve got mary and john being mad about raising kids to hunt and sam defending john

you’ve got sam’s rewriting of john: like he tells young john that his dad died trying to protect him, but dudeee john told dean he might have to kill you on his death bed

you’ve got dean trying to protect mary from the truth but ultimately realizing she deserves it (i love this one bc dean is consistently about people being honest with him)

you’ve got sam being honestly kinda cruel when telling mary to leave john so she doesn’t curse her kids, which there’s some truth to that but that is NOT the right way to say it sam (i genuinely don’t know how people think sam is good at like “therapy”)

you’ve got michael being creepy with dean and saying he doesn’t want to fight lucifer but still disagreeing about following a father’s orders and destiny and the advent of team free will

you’ve got sam starting to believe that maybe this is their destiny and dean strongly denying it (hot take but sometimes i really think sam and michael are the stronger parallel)

omgosh anyway sorry for the long recap but i guess i’m just wondering if there’s anything you would have done differently with this episode? specifically regarding how these themes were shown

Regarding Cas:

I don't think Cas wants to prove himself to Dean. I don't think he needs to, and I don't think he thinks he needs to right now. (In fact in 5.02 he suggested that Dean owes him). Everything Cas is doing is born of mutual solidarity with Dean in rebellion against heaven. If they don't succeed, they're all going to die—and so will everyone else. Cas has the entire host of heaven after him. Even fellow rebels like Anna and Gabriel dislike him. Gabriel resents Cas for his hopeless quest to find their father, and Anna hates him because he betrayed her in 4.21 and made no efforts to help her.

The only person Cas has in the world right now—the only person he can lean on or count on in any way—is Dean (see: 5.03). By extension, because of their shared love for Dean, Cas also has the people with whom Dean associates (Bobby, Sam, Ellen, Jo). There is protection and shelter through loyalty—through the found family. Cas calls Sam his friend in 5.13, but they haven't really had any bonding experiences on screen the way Dean and Cas have. I think for Cas, it's as simple as Dean is Cas's friend -> Anyone Dean cares about is also Cas's friend and worthy of his protection.

I also don't doubt that Cas is aware that Dean's well-being is tied to the family's well-being and the family's well-being is tied to Dean's well-being. I also don't think he's unaware of the fact that Dean can't weather more harm to their cobbled-together family. Sam and Dean's relationship is deeply scarred and trying to recover (but we see in 5.05 and 5.12 that Dean is struggling with it, and Cas specifically knows this from 5.03 when Dean opened up to him about it). Bobby is dealing with being recently paralyzed and is suicidal (and Dean's outright told Bobby that he can't handle losing him). Ellen and Jo just died a few episodes before. We're about to be reminded again how badly Dean is cracking open in 5.14.

Cas's actions with Anna are cold and calculated—ruthless—because he can't risk any further harm to the family unit—especially not any that might risk rupturing their heart (Dean). In that regard, Cas's actions toward Anna in 5.13, while ruthless, are in character (Also see: wanting to kill Jesse, torturing Donatello, plotting to kill Kelly, working with Sam to use The Book of the Damned).

Regarding Sam rewriting John:

I think the truth is that Sam doesn't care that John told Dean to save him or kill him. I mean—a part of him definitely was traumatized by it—but in 2.11, Sam says John was "right to say it" and he continues to push that narrative through season 2. I think the thing that really makes Sam angry is that it was kept from him. But the stuff related to Stanford and being raised a hunter—Sam forgives John for all of that, and we've known that for a while. We saw Sam start to soften and empathize with John's desire for revenge by 1.02. Then there was 1.08, 1.20, 2.02, 4.19.

Sam's lack of sugar-coating:

We can make note of this one also in 4.19 with Adam, in 4.20 with Jimmy, and in 5.06 with Jesse (though Sam does try harder with Jesse). I don't think he intends to be cruel to Mary, but by this point, Sam has kind of made a name for himself telling people their futures are fucked. This also feeds into your last note about Sam believing in destiny. Of course, Dean also jumps to say that Sam is right and Mary should just not have kids.

I don't know if there's anything I would have necessarily done differently, besides motivate Anna a little better. Her actions are rational, but they don't feel true to her character from season 4. By this I specifically mean her plotting to trick Sam and Dean into a trap, when they (especially Dean) had risked their lives for her in 4.09 and 4.10. She actually uses Dean's loyalty to try and trick him into meeting her, and the only reason it doesn't work is that Cas doesn't trust her and refuses to let Sam and Dean go to meet her. Given that the lack of loyalty and love among the angels was a primary motivation for Anna's fall, I would have appreciated further explanation behind her betraying Dean in this way—through his loyalty to her. I am likely meant to infer that her stay in prison included brainwashing that created this effect, but I don't know... it just feels off.

#mail #anna #ruthless cas #5.13 #season 5 #castiels moral compass #and cas is my best friend #dean the narrative heart #time to think for yourself #the flannel business #ellen #jo #do i look like a ditchable prom date to you?

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inthiswhisper · 9 months

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sam: let’s just go find dad. i mean, why even talk to this girl?

dean: i don’t know. maybe we should know what we're walking into before we actually walk into it?

sam: [off dean’s look] what?

dean: since when are you all ‘shoot first, ask questions later’ anyway?

sam: since now.

—

since the woman he loved was killed by a yellow-eyed demon and he’s desperate to avenge her.

dean seems amused and proud by sam finally adhering to john’s m.o., but this exchange gives such insight into a) how similar sam and john are in the first season while dean ends up the odd one out managing both his brother and father’s anger driven by grief, and also b) how much both brothers — sam now and dean when castiel dies — lean toward a very john way of handling grief because it’s the only method of coping with grief over a lost love that they were ever exposed to.

this is not inherently either of their faults, but it’s still choices they make despite consequences, so it’s interesting seeing this unfold now and later on in s13 when dean will go after jack over cas dying.

not to make it about destiel again lol, but it’s clear as day what the writers intended in later seasons and how much they set up the parallel, dean just repeating a cycle he was eventually able to break despite how losing his own mary pulls him under.

#good lord whisper’s writing novels again #i told myself i wouldn’t do this #dean winchester #john winchester #sam winchester #castiel #destiel #supernatural #spn liveblog #1x02

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dotthings · 2 years

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So every week of The Winchesters is going to steal the crown of MY FAVORITE EPISODE SO FAR. That's how this seems to be going.

TW 1.05 is SO GOOD. There's a lot to unpack here for the central characters and how this ties back to Dean's story and trauma.

AND OMG THE HEALING.

“Big bad wolves start out as nice pups” Carlos giving wisdom from his abuela that just cuts right to the heart of the point about what TW is doing with John. Why young John isn't what John becomes.

John's a nice pup right now. And it's tragic seeing the signs already of that potential for darkness in him. But right now he isn't just that, he leads with his heart, he's caring, and empathetic and capable of insight. That is the tragedy. The slow downspiral as he loses more and more pieces of himself.

Ada's backstory giving us more dimensions on Ada herself and it resonates more broadly too, echoing down spn canon.

Ali's story and Tony's story as well. The mothership has a bunch of precedent on monsters choosing to live a conscientious life. It's about the choices people make. There's Kate the werewolf, there's Garth and his family, there's Lenore the vampire.

And the interspecies love story. That ends tragically. In the case of Ada and Ali, because Ali tried to resist his djinn impulses and did good for a while but then downspiraled. Gave in.

Or...interspecies love story, that ends tragically, because the nonhuman character evolves his heart and his love so deeply, he sacrifices himself saving the person he loves.

It's right there. Just thinkin' thoughts.

Also Ali and Ada from different worlds. Ali not being human. Ada giving Mary advice from her experiences in her own complicated love story, saying “I followed my heart. I don’t think that’s ever a mistake.”

“Even if you’re scared?”

“Especially then. It’s just part of falling in love.”

The direct parallels are towards John/Mary but that's not the only parallel. Dean was told to follow his heart, in ep written by Robbie Thompson, who is the EP of The Winchesters. in a season where Dean is trying to save Cas, where Cas’s heart was the way to triangulate Dean, where the bond between Dean and Cas was more powerful than Amara’s thrall connection to Dean. Follow your heart.

Thinking more thoughts.

It's. It's all. Right there.

John's being more like older John in the early part of this ep. His tunnel vision, monsters are evil, no allowance for individual choices, have to kill them, who cares about feelings. But then he also understands, while in Mary’s dreams, punching isn’t the only solution, and John is leading with his feelings, his heart, to help Mary. It’s like we keep seeing the better sides of John, and the darker, colder sides, and we know the darker, colder side takes him over eventually. But it’s not all he is right now. But we know how hard John conditioned Dean. All monsters are evil no exceptions. We know where Dean got the idea. Whatever softening in view John got because of knowing Ada and her son, gets wiped away by John's grief and vengeance after Mary dies burning on the ceiling. Early on in the mothership, Dean starts questioning John's absolutism. Dean isn't John. There are echoes. John's still the shadow. But that is more about what Dean is afraid he is, not who he is. And the parallels lean a lot more to Dean and Mary. Dean is more like Mary...but he isn't Mary either. Same with Sam. Both of them have resemblances to their parents, but they emerge as themselves. Ada and her son Tony really drive the theme about generational trauma in. You are not your parents. You are you. And people can be the best parts of their parents not the worst. “I know you’re not your father. You’re not the worst parts of him, you’re not the worst parts of me”

Tony’s nightmares are about becoming his father. He's afraid of becoming like his father. Becoming like John was a specter that haunted both Sam and Dean throughout the series.

And then we get to Mary and her trauma.

“My parents told me the monsters I was afraid of were real and it would be my job one day to hunt them down and kill them”

Excuse me I have to go lie down on the floor for a minute.

It's Sam too, not just Dean. Sam said in the pilot of spn, "When I told Dad I was scared of the thing in my closet, he gave me a .45."

This is Sam and Dean's generational trauma, from John, but the Dean-Mary paralleling is very heavy. Dean who at the age of 4 had the world put on his shoulders and had a sawed off shotgun and knew about monsters and what John did, why he left his kids alone in motel rooms, younger than when Sam found out.

Tiny Mary slept with a knife under her pillow.

I NEED TO LIE DOWN.

Mary punching the wall is a Dean thing to do, and also a John thing--last week’s ep we saw John do it, when he punches the bathroom fixture. (Dean beating on the Impala, Dean punching a picture when Bobby is dying, Dean punching the sign outside reststop after Cas dies).

“I was five, John. Five. Every door to every future I could possibly have closed that night forever.”

THIS SERIES IS GOING FOR MY THROAT

“Those doors are not closed forever. Just be here, in this moment”

This John is still open and loving and seeing hope in the world. I'm sad.

“It’s okay to be scared. In fact it’s good to be scared. You can’t ever be brave if you aren’t scared. It’s going to be okay. Not in this moment, not today, but someday.” Thinking about Dean in Dead in the Water now: "You're scared. It's okay. I understand. See, when I was your age, I saw something real bad happen to my mom, and I was scared, too. I didn't feel like talking, just like you. But see, my mom—I know she wanted me to be brave. I think about that every day. And I do my best to be brave. And maybe, your dad wants you to be brave too." Maybe Mary told some version of her speech to herself to toddler Dean, maybe toddler Dean was scared of a thunderstorm, or (imaginary) monsters under his bed. Maybe she comforted Dean that way. Maybe she told to her oldest son the things she didn't get for herself and that's how Dean already knew it.

Remember that Dean is telling this story. Dean is witnessing this. Via Mary’s story, Dean is again hearing what he needs to hear, about his trauma, after Mary died, we don't think John pushed a weapon into tiny Dean's hands, but first he put immense emotional weight on Dean, with John's vengeance obsession quest, and drill sergeant dad ways and Dean had to become stand-in parent to his baby brother when he was still a very small child.

And it wouldn't be long before John's putting a gun into his too-young hands.

I'm really glad Ada and Tony got to heal a little. Hopefully we'll see Tony again. And Lata sure seems to like him. Doesn't matter that he's not human.

I like Ada filling the MoL with green growing things, which I’m sure all have specific magical and medicinal purposes, a practical use, but I really like the symbolism of Ada filling the bunker with living plants.

I've made posts recently how Dean is like his grandmother Millie, and he is. Millie taught John how to fix engines, John taught Dean. But now as it turns out Mary knows how too, because her father taught her. Mary didn't get a chance to teach Dean that we saw, but Dean was 4 when she died. Maybe she sat with Dean at the kitchen table and showed him different tools. John then would have taught young Dean the direct practicalities of fixing engines hands on. Maybe...it was both of them.

John, in that scene with Mary near the end of the ep, seems to want to set Mary free. Maybe seeing Mary's pain in the djinn dream, he wants to make sure she has all the chances to pursue her possible futures. So he's letting her go and not confessing how he feels about her. (Wants her to be free to rake leaves). And gives her his father's motorcycle, for when she's ready to leave Lawrence.

#John Winchester #Mary Campbell #Ada Monroe #The Winchesters #spnwin #spnwin meta #The Winchesters spoilers

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robbiethompsonlongcon · 1 year

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so does anybody else see carlos a bit as like deans... ideal self? or self insert? lil bit like deans mary sue (honorific)? like how dean would like to be, or how he wants to perceive himself? or at least the version of dean we perceive together as a fandom's ideal self? not literally, i don't think dean is creating the characters or making the story up diagetically as the New Chuck or anything, but in that way the OG show sometimes does metatextual parallels between two characters who otherwise have no control over the narrative.

carlos is.. beloved by all. disaster bisexual. gender!! so much gender!! genderweird, genderfastandloose, genderplayful. unbound by gender roles entirely. a wonderful tapestry of masculine, feminine, both and neither. truly knows who he is, and is comfortable with that identity. celebratory of it, even! hes got it, hes gonna flaunt it. tastefully slutty. constant quips. sassy as fuck. so charismatic it hurts. talented performer. incredible hunter. frequently pokes at his beloved, sibling-type lorenerd hunting partner about her books. selfless and loving as thee central personality trait, buried under a layer of protective bravado. but also very aware he is very pretty and very talented. competent!!! but knows his strengths, and plays to them. nurturing. free and wild and a little reckless, a little superficial but never in truly harmful ways. if carlos goes or stays, it's because he wants to, he decided for himself, not because anyone told him to. willing to express boundaries. getting therapy. not afraid of feelings. do no harm take no shit. and just. so, so, SO very cool. in every way. even the "nerdy" things about him are cool. he's flawed, imperfect, but that's kinda what makes him ideal. he's just so.. real.

plus, john actively loves him, and loves him for who he is. john leans on him for support, sometimes even takes his advice. and he never tells carlos who to be or how to act. john and carlos are friends, they're FAMILY. john never tries to make carlos more like himself, at least he hasn't so far. carlos can be as silly, as emotional, as nonconforming, as distractable as he wants and john, at worst, breezes past it. lets him be himself. oftentimes john just supports him. john RESPECTS him. sees him as a worthwhile and complete individual, a valuable member of the team. they're like brothers. and why wouldn't dean want to be like brothers with his dad? it's not weird for him, he's already something of a dad to his brother. the boundaries between brothers and fathers and sons are already blurred for dean, and have been since he was four years old. and his relationship with bobby is more fluid than fatherfigure and son, too. bobby is father figure, uncle, coworker, mentor/teacher, childhood friend, war buddy and co-conspirator. in fact, none of deans relationship roles are so clear cut. and for all his complicated feelings about john, and all his traumas.. at his core he really does want johns respect and affection. marys, too, to be fair. carlos has both.

and then there's the story line in 1x08. carlos was given a Mark that forces him to kill, took the Mark in order to stop a dangerous and malicious entity from wanton murder before knowing the full terms and ramifications. the whole team researched the Mark and tried to find ways to get rid of the curse. but when push came to shove, they failed. the entity behind the curse was a lot more powerful than they thought. so carlos's options were either: to do what the Mark and the entity wanted and choose a victim's life to take, satisfying the conditions of the Mark and hope the entity didnt move the goalposts. or to say, nah. the life i choose to take is my own. and for once, that was the right answer!! carlos saved the day and defeated the enemy not by fighting, not by the deaths loved ones or innocents, not by cutting losses or solving for x, but by refusing to play, by sacrificing himself. and just being willing to was enough, he didn't have to actually die. carlos won. by giving up. nobody died because of carlos' decision to take on the burden from jericho, nor his decision to turn it inward. when carlos called the shots, everybody lived.

every time dean tries that, it backfires spectacularly, and usually winds up getting just as many people hurt or killed as the callous and selfish option would have. dean wants to be good and selfless so badly that he often rushes straight to self sacrifice. hes like plan a) ask nicely whoops i forgot to be nice. well that failed OK PLAN B) martyrdom. it's like, every time dean is faced with the trolley problem, his first answer is to throw himself in front of the trolley. as though he thinks the trolley is going to be satisfied and just disappear. or at least this way he won't have to see what happens next.

in carlos' situation, that was the LAST resort, not one of the first. they really were in a kill-or-be-killed, 11th hour hailmary situation. they tried everything else. the trolley was upon them. and carlos chose to die, not out of a wanton desire to prove his worth/worthlessness or martyr himself, but because they DID try every other thing they could first. it was a last resort! carlos DID NOT WANT to die, he wanted to save everybody, including himself! he had thoroughly considered the possibility that he would have to die, but he put that on the furthest backburner. he didn't want to die, but when it came down to it, he said, i won't be manipulated and i wont play god. back me into a corner, twist my arm, i won't do it. fuck you, i won't be your plaything. deans whole thing is that he doesn't wanna be anybodys plaything! not chuck's, not azazel's, not even john's. and he always is. and giving up never works for him. he never gets to choose. hes trapped in the game against his will. he doesn't even want to win the game, he just wants to quit playing. but the rules are that if he doesn't play, that's still playing, and he loses. if he does play, he loses. its rigged. there's no winning and no forfeit for dean. but for carlos, there was both this time. quitting was winning. everybody lives. the ideal outcome, if your name is dean winchester.

carlos is everything dean wishes he could be, or wishes he could believe he was. brave, strong, confident, smart, funny, drop dead gorgeous, selfless, complicated, sensitive, intuitive, comfortable, endearing. and he wins the way dean always wished he could.

#ough ow i hurt myself with this #actually i uhhh #i also wish i was carlos #can you guess who my favorite spnwin character is?#damn. i made myself weepy. carlos is the best #spnwin #the winchesters #spnwin spoilers #the winchesters spoilers #carlos cervantez #carlos the winchesters #silly little meta

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castielsfeatheredballs · 2 years

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the winchesters s01 e01 review

Hii! I just watched the pilot of The Winchesters and these are my initial thoughts. It’s not too spoilery, I don’t think, but if you want to go in completely blind you should be careful!

tl; dr: so far I like how they are handling the connection between the two shows. I enjoyed this episode a lot. If I had to give it a grade, and I’m being very conservative here because I anticipate future episodes being even better, I would go with a solid 7.5 out of 10.

story and intertextuality

So far I like how they are handling the connection between the two shows. Whatever the in-story explanation is for Dean narrating, so far he sounds like he’s directing addressing the audience and our concerns which might not be to everyone’s taste but I personally loved it, it feels respectful and thoughtful, like there’s a continuing dialogue between the show and its spectators, which I think is appropriate given the relationship Supernatural has with its fanbase.

Now for the story itself: I like the continuing theme of lost fathers, search for fathers etc. It sounds like they’re really going to set up the intergenerational trauma and the cycle of abuse/neglect that goes on with this family. I surprisingly love that Mary and her dad are just discovering the Men of Letters now because to me it feels like–monster hunting is so fraught with peril and trauma that there are big chunks of history that keep going missing, and even a hunting family like the Campbells doesn’t have the full picture.

They’re being very careful with how it all ties into main Supernatural canon via Dean–not saying anything yet but they explicitly reassure the audience more than once that this is going to lead somewhere in regards to Dean, the apparent retcons etc. for now, this is enough for me.

Something that jumped out at me, and I think I enjoyed it all the more because it was such a subtle call back I honestly can’t tell if it was even intentional, was Millie telling John to ‘come home’ in the end, which echoed the iconic Woman in White catchphrase in the Supernatural pilot: ‘you can never go home’, which in hindsight was a thesis statement of the whole show. The fact that they parallelled it in the Winchesters pilot? Makes me go absolutely feral.

the core characters

John

He looks like young Sam!

I do not love that he monologues his feelings all the time. Feels like a tell, don’t show. His best moment was probably when he dug the silver shard out of his arm (insane. Loved it.) and threw himself in front of the Rugarou to buy Mary time. Feels like a hint of the self-sacrificial, violent bastard we all love to hate. That one sequence also leaned into a Supernatural tried and true staple–pretty men covered in blood, which he wears well.

I like that they made him pathetic, although the ‘stop helping’ scene was a bit too much for my taste.

This is probably too much to hope for but I kinda wish they’d expand on his reasons for joining the Marines–specifically, his political worldview. Like, beside the fact that Vietnam was a horrific and traumatic experience for him obviously, what are his actual thoughts on the war?

Mary

At first she came across to me as a bit too cool, too aloof, too quippy, too ‘not like other girls’. Her dynamic with Carlos and Latika was really what made her come alive: I enjoyed seeing her being so mean to her friends and pushing everyone away and them pushing back. It’s kind of reminiscent of Dean that way, without being too on the nose. It also speaks to a deeper issue than just skin deep action-hero.

Latika

Before I watched the pilot I predicted that this show was going to owe a lot to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and it shows a lot in Latika, she’s clearly the Willow of this series: brainy, babbly, shy, scared but wanting to fight anyway. She wears it well though and her reluctance does balance out the other characters, and she is charming.

Carlos

I LOVE him. Yeah yeah basic bitch behavior, I know. He is a bit stereotypical, but I think his dynamic with Mary is especially good–he brings up that hidden side of her, the genuinely mean one, which is interesting to see. I’m also loving the rapport he’s building with John, both because they’re a classic odd couple–flamboyant Carlos and square-jawed, all American boi John? We love to see it. I am also very much hoping that he’ll try to hit on John at some point because that would be HILARIOUS.

the ship

I am on the fence about the fact that they’re obviously immediately captivated by each other. On one hand, I prefer slow burns and chemistry developing slowly and naturally; on the other, I get that this is the John/Mary show so the focus is on their relationship from the start and also, they’re both young and hot and have a connection, so I can see them acting like that from the very start. Also, it’s fun to watch Mary’s reluctance and her inevitable thawing to John’s relentless charm. Watching this I realized that we got very little John/Mary interaction in main Supernatural, comparatively, and that made it a bit difficult to reconcile Mary having fallen in love so strongly with John, known trash fire of a man. However, watching all this play out in The Winchesters, I get it. It’s like watching a car crash, you’re like girl, NO, but also yeah, I can see why you’re falling.

acting

Best one was John’s mom (Bianca Kajlich). I was instantly captivated. When he came home from the war it seemed like they were setting up for a banter-y reunion then she crumbled and RAN to hug him and there was real, raw emotion there.

I was extremely curious to watch Drake Rodger as John and I think that, while he was a little over-eager in some moments, he found his sea legs over the course of the episode. I feel like there’s potential there and I look forward to watching him grow into the character even more.

I don’t have any specific notes about the others, they’re all generally good enough so it doesn’t register that they’re acting, Nida Khurshid is very charming as Latika and Jojo Fleites is a screen-piercer.

aesthetics

Love ‘em! They went for a defining look, which is nice–based on the trailer, I thought it was gonna be a bit too sleek and polished but they leaned into a specific visual vibe which gives character to the show.

miscellaneous

Shout out to the opening sequence! It was a delightfully on-the-nose Indiana Jones homage. Something I love about original Supernatural is how unapologetic it is in its loving and referencing other pop culture staples (mainly through Dean). I like that they are keeping up this in The Winchesters, the writer and director were clearly having a lot of fun there, and I’m always going to enjoy honest fun.

closing thoughts

I enjoyed this episode a lot. If I had to give it a grade, and I’m being very conservative here because I anticipate future episodes being even better, I would go with a solid 7.5 out of 10. It was fun, it was interesting, it was clearly made with love and care and appreciation of the source material. My main issue with it is that it’s actually a little too careful: from John laying out all his issues in the text, to the way the final action sequence was shot trying to give each character space, to slot all the pieces together–that was a bit awkward to watch. While I greatly appreciate the thoughtfulness with which they’re handling this show, I think that eventually it’s gonna have to trust itself a bit more to really grow into its full potential.

#the winchesters #spnwin #the winchesters pilot #spn prequel #spnwin review

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antigonewinchester · 2 years

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The Mark & Hell, part 4

(Previous posts: Intro post; Dean & Hell, season 4; the Mark & Hell part 1; Dean & Hell redux; the Mark & Hell part 2; part 3.)

Dean enjoying violence and revenge continues over season 10. Demon!Dean takes fun in fighting and killing the demons who try to take him on in 10x01, and then a satisfaction in beating up Anne-Marie’s ex-boyfriend, which Anne-Marie calls him out on:

DEAN Yeah, but, uh… I-I protected your honor, didn't I? ANNE-MARIE Yeah. I thought so, too. Seeing you take on Matt, I was like, “wow” no one's ever done that for me before. But then you kept going and going, and I realized whatever is going on with you has nothing to do with my “honor” at all.

Much of demon!Dean’s violence is retaliatory and reactionary, like his beating up Matt ‘for bothering’ Anne-Marie in 10x01, and for slights against him, such as his attacking the bouncer who tries to kick him out of the strip club and killing Lester after he insults Dean and calls him “a punk-ass demon,” ordering him to “get in there and do your job, you freak,” in 10x02.

Paralleling Dean as a soldier, season 10’s minor antagonist Cole is a marine, who joined the military to get his revenge seeing Dean kill his father when he was a child. Of course, that training doesn’t help him much against demon!Dean in 10x02, who beats him easily and, given their different skill levels, takes a bit of fun in tormenting Cole during their fight.

[COLE attacks him in a fury and DEAN again easily throws him to the ground.] DEAN What did you think was gonna happen, huh? You just stroll up here and say “my name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die,” And I'd just roll over? Well, that's just -- it makes me sad. [DEAN leans mockingly over COLE but doesn't see him pull another knife. COLE slashes DEAN's face with it.] Ugh! [DEAN quickly gets COLE into a throat grip against a car as we see the cut on his face instantly heal.] You have no idea what you walked into here, do you? None. COLE What are you? DEAN I'm a demon. [DEAN take out the First Blade and holds it to COLE's throat] COLE Do it! You said if you saw me, you would kill me, so do it! DEAN I guess I changed my mind. [DEAN releases COLE and steps back. But at that instant SAM throws holy water on his brother and DEAN starts to burn. SAM rushes in snapping on the sigil etched handcuffs.] … SAM You know what, Dean? I saw what happened back there. You could have killed that guy, and you didn't. You took mercy on him. DEAN You call that mercy? Imagine you spend your whole life hunting down the guy that knifed your father. When you finally find him… He whips you like a dog. How do you think that feels? That kid's gonna spend his whole life knowing that he had his shot and that he couldn't beat me. That ain't mercy. That's the worst thing I could have done to him. And what I'm gonna do to you, Sammy… Well, that ain't gonna be mercy, either.

Demon!Dean’s fight with Cole is intriguingly layered, especially within in the context of the whole series. Take demon!Dean not killing Cole when he goads him on. Part of this is, I think, demon!Dean being so resistant to anyone telling him what to do; if Cole is telling him to kill him, then demon!Dean won’t, thanks but not thanks.

There’s also that demon!Dean knows exactly what it feels like to be in Cole’s situation, overpowered up by someone stronger than him and at their mercy, as well as being beaten up by someone who has hurt him in the past. The most obvious parallel is YED!John tormenting Dean in 1x22, with Dean being hurt by the demon who killed his mom and then Cole being hurt by demon!Dean who had killed his dad. Cole’s “Do it!” also echoes wording that Dean himself has used when he’s been in similar situations.

There’s 1x10, when Sam is possessed:

DEAN So what are you gunna do, huh? Are you gunna kill me? SAM You know what, I am sick of doing what you tell me to do. We're no closer to finding Dad today than we were six months ago. DEAN Well, then here. Let me make it easier for you. [He holds his Smith & Wesson toward SAM.] Come on. Take it. Real bullets are gonna work a hell of a lot better than rock salt. [SAM hesitates.] Take it!! [SAM points the gun at DEAN's face.] DEAN You hate me that much? You think you could kill your own brother? Then go ahead. Pull the trigger. Do it! SAM pulls the trigger. The chamber is empty. He tries again, and once more. DEAN uses a right cross to knock SAM to the ground and struggles to get up. DEAN [Moving to stand over SAM] Man, I'm not going to give you a loaded pistol!

There’s 5x18, when Cas beats Dean up:

[CASTIEL touches the PREACHER and he falls to the ground, unconscious. He drags DEAN into the nearby alley and beats him up.] DEAN What, are you crazy? CASTIEL I rebelled for this?! So that you could surrender to them? DEAN Cas! Please! CASTIEL I gave everything for you, and this is what you give to me! DEAN Do it! Just do it! [CASTIEL unclenches his fist and touches DEAN’s shoulder, knocking him out.]

And there’s 8x17, where Cas again beats Dean up:

[CASTIEL is beating DEAN. DEAN's face is bruised and bloodied.] DEAN You want it? [CASTIEL looks dispassionately at the now exposed tablet.] Take it! But you're gonna have to kill me first. Come on, you coward. Do it. Do it! [CASTIEL continues to beat DEAN.]

While these situations have their own particular nuances, they’re all instances of Dean using his words to fight back when he can’t do so physically, trying to literally use his voice to gain an edge or control or escape his situation, and that’s how I read Cole’s outburst too. If demon!Dean is going to kill him, then Cole will go down shouting in his face. Of course, if Cole wanted to kill Dean or die trying, then demon!Dean denies Cole any catharsis in his revenge quest by beating him up... and then leaving him be. Sam wants to see demon!Dean not killing Cole as a sign of mercy, but demon!Dean doesn’t frame it that way, and I very much read his comment in the context of all these past experiences, plus his showdown with the YED in 1x22. Even if Dean killed Azazel in the end, he still knows what it’s like to go after the monster who killed your parent and not just fail to kill them but then have them brutally hurt you, and the subsequent emotional rawness of surviving that kind of encounter.

However, Sam is right in that demon!Dean could have killed Cole but didn’t. Dean’s restraint, whatever his reason, then contrasts to his lack of it in the vampire confrontation mid-way through 10x023 and his causing Rudy’s death, which I’ll touch on more when I get there.

When Sam captures demon!Dean and brings him to the bunker for the cure, demon!Dean is resentful of both Sam and John and resists Sam’s attempts to turn him human. He eventually escapes his bonds and takes a twisted, playful revenge against Sam by chasing him around the bunker and trying to kill him. (And when Sam locks him into the electrical room and demon!Dean has to hammer his way through the door to get out, he must have been particularly gleeful in being able to make a real life “The Shining” reference.)

Over the rest of season 10, many of the antagonists Sam and Dean face are people driven by resentment and revenge to hurt others, such as:

In 10x06, Olivia tries to kill her relatives after being locked up her whole life (also the first person she kills is literally named Colette);

in 10x07, Cole tries to again to kill Dean in revenge for Dean killing his father;

in 10x09, Claire is incredibly angry at Cas for possessing her father and breaking apart her family, and then Dean in 10x10 for killing Randy, and tries to kill Dean;

in 10x11, Dark!Charlie tortures and kills the men who killed her parents and people who covered it up;

in 10x13, after his death in a car accident, ghost!Andy goes after & kills the teenagers who were responsible;

in 10x16, Isabella discovered the man she loved was sleeping with another woman and killed them both, and after her death became a vengeful ghost who attacked & killed men who cheated on their wives / girlfriends; and

in 10x22, the Styne family specifically decides to torture and kill the teenage boy who bullied Cyrus, with the implication that many of their victims are people who have insulted or ‘hurt’ members of the family.

Sources

“1.10 Asylum (transcript).” Supernatural Wiki: A Supernatural Canon & Fanon Resource. 5 Dec 2012.

“5.18 Point of No Return (transcript).” Supernatural Wiki: A Supernatural Canon & Fanon Resource. 5 Jul 2018.

“8.17 Goodbye, Stranger (transcript).” Supernatural Wiki: A Supernatural Canon & Fanon Resource. 6 Dec 2013.

“10.01 Black (transcript).” Supernatural Wiki: A Supernatural Canon & Fanon Resource. 27 June 2018.

“10.02 Reichenbach (transcript).” Supernatural Wiki: A Supernatural Canon & Fanon Resource. 5 Sept 2016.

“10.03 Soul Survivor.” Supernatural Wiki: A Supernatural Canon & Fanon Resource. 29 May 2022.

“The Shining (1980) - Here's Johnny! Scene (7/7) | Movieclips.” YouTube, uploaded by Movieclips, 26 May 2011.

“Trivia & References.” 10.02 Reichenbach, Supernatural Wiki: A Supernatural Canon & Fanon Resource. 5 Sept 2016.

#meta #meta personal #dean & the mark #season 10 #dean #demon dean #if only the demon!dean plotline had been in a well-written season...#also: talking abt 5x18 and 8x17 *not* in a destiel context? it's more likely than you think #queue

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fromcenotaphy · 3 years

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spn prequel series but it’s a MINISERIES, narrated by Dean but he’s narrating it in the second person and it becomes evident that the “you” is Mary, it’s a Mary-centric prequel, we follow Mary throughout her life [her childhood] [her rebellious teenagerhood] [fighting with her dad and rebelling against the family business] [oh, the Sam parallels] [meeting John] [demon deal with Azazel] [oh, the Dean parallels] [Anna and Michael arc before her memory gets wiped] [fraught marriage with John] [sooo many scenes of toddler Dean] [arc where they take the kids on vacation and she has to exorcise a ghost without John finding out] [sneaking out to take the Impala hunting] [because she can’t get the itch out of her bones] [she gave it all up for love] [she could never give it all up not even for love] [contradiction after contradiction after utterly human contradiction] [Dean narrating with wonder in his voice] [like he never knew all this about his mom] [like it means everything to him to find out] [family picnics intercut with solo salt and burns] [first time she holds baby Sam in her arms] [the ferocity of her gaze]

and we get to the series finale and [Mary in a white dress] [our perfect housewife our perfect madonna] [looking down at Sam asleep in his crib] [and Dean narrating] [it was supposed to be perfect, wasn’t it, Mom?] [but things that seem perfect ain’t always that way under the surface] [and] [Dean’s voice cracking] [I need you to look at me, Mom] [Mom, I need you to see me] [and Mary blinks] [looks up] [camera pans out] [and Dean’s there] [standing helplessly beside her, waiting for her to see him] [it’s the season 12 scene all over again but Dean’s not in his red flannel] [he’s wearing the outfit he died in]

and [Mary stares in confusion] [she says his name] [the relief on his face knifes through us] [Dean?] [Mom] [and Mary looks around at her home, and the walls buckle like they’re made of paper] [I thought she says I thought it was over] [and Dean can’t quite manage a smile] [so did we] [and he leads her out of the house] [they’re in heaven] [there’s that yellow glow over everything] [that high warm gloss of falsehood] [there’s a black car parked in the drive] [there’s an angel in a trench coat leaning against the passenger side door, waiting for them] [Dean opens the trunk and hands Mary her favorite jacket] [where are we going, she says] [bewildered still] [processing the lie of it all] [the memories that were cell bars] [the paradise that was a farce] [we see Dean’s face, we sense everything that’s gone gravely wrong through the worry behind his eyes] [to break Sam out, he says]

and [it bleeds the rest of the confusion out of her face] [nothing but determination now] [she’s got one son beside her] [she’s got another son to save] [she’ll work out the details later] [she’s in a white dress and a hunter’s jacket] [she’s our imperfect housewife our imperfect madonna our perfect contradiction our hunter’s daughter our hunter’s mother she died on the ceiling she punched the devil in the face] [Dean stares at her, waiting] [a few feet away, Castiel turns his head to watch the horizon] [where darkness roils like a stormcloud, ominous] [Dean’s still looking at his mom] [Mary nods] [pulls herself together] [we’ve got work to do, she says] [she slams the trunk shut] [cut to black] [roll credits]

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phynali · 3 years

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another post about the secret good supernatural that lives in my brain

where’s that interview or convention quote from mark sheppard about how he wishes Rowena had been Crowley’s ex-wife instead of mother?

i absolutely love Rowena and Ruth O’Connell did an incredible and fantastic job with bringing her to life, but i do feel like that’s the world’s most Valid critique.

and i kind of get that the show’s later seasons really like to dabble in the parenthood narratives, with Rowena, with Mary, with the Jack storyline, with Lebanon. what does it mean to be a mother/father/parent, and how do we do the best by our kids? what happens when we fuck up? what happens when we’re selfish? how do experience being a person and a parent when those are in conflict?

but i don’t see how making rowena into crowley’s mother really added to any of those conversations, tbh.

if anything, them as exes would give a lot more weight to her, y’know, killing her (other) son at the end of s10. obviously she’s got this “i hate that i can’t hate you i hate that i love you” maternal thing with crowley but what if she was killing her son and crowley was thinking about the kid crowley had all those years ago who also gets resurrected when rowena is around and who crowley has to let go of, right? i mean what if that was both their kid? what if they had to mutually watch him die? what if that’s why they hated each other in the first place? what if crowley made that stupid childish deal he did just to punish himself for rowena leaving him after their son died and he blamed himself and meanwhile rowena went and got herself invested in witchcraft in a vain and failed attempt to bring their kid back and everything about them went to shit -

god, i want this so badly now?

and i see why they might not have wanted to reduce all their stories to siblings or lovers, why other dynamics keep things fresh, but i think exes who still get along but also can’t stand one another but also love one another but are never, ever getting back together and that’s for the best but also if you lay a finger on him i’ll kill you only i get to kill him -

well i just think that’s a bit more interesting than what we got? especially with lucifer thrown in the mix and the obvious infidelity feelings. right now lucifer and rowena reads as abusive romance but they didn’t lean into any paternal dynamic between lucifer and crowley, like it’s just pure debasement on an equal level, and they obviously just did not know or were too afraid to tap the very disturbing familial parallels they could have setup there so why even paint themselves into that corner?

why not setup lucifer and crowley as romantic rivals, neither of whom actually want rowena or a relationship but both of whom play tug-of-war with the loyalty and allegiance of women because they’re awful people (devils, literally) and why not have rowena’s narrative involve rejecting all of that bullshit and overcoming the inherent misogyny. not to say there’s not some of that in her maternal storyline as well but it’s - empty? in comparison (by which i mean delivery). and much better explored with mary in s12.

and the samwena vibes would be so fascinating!! if rowena was crowley’s ex the show might have actually dug into crowley and sam’s super interesting and massively under-explored dynamic because the weird jealousy and territorialness would be so goddamn fun!!

“no i don’t want to be with her but no she is not allowed to flirt with you what the hell do you mean you’re the one destined to kill her oh fucking no you aren’t that is my job she broke my heart and i am the king of hell, not you mr boy-fucking-king-who-abdicated so you will pry the right to kill her from my cold dead demon hands i will save her life just so you don’t get to kill her you bastard - “

come on!

right now samwena and crowley was super under-explored as it is, and at minimum we 150% deserved crowley being cheeky with sam for having chemistry with his mother and sam being a little flustered/unsure how to respond while inevitably sassing crowley back. please. it would be so weird. you cannot convince me that the crowley we know and love wouldn’t have deliberately flirted with mary just to see sam’s eye twitch and for dean to break a tooth by tensing his jaw too hard. i mean it wouldn’t work because mary hates demons almost as much as sam but it would be in character and it would delight me, personally.

anyway i also saw someone else comment that when rowena was introduced the witchcraft in the show went from super fucking dark (how it was introduced to the show in kripke era, then left mostly untouched in s6-9) to pretty purple sparkles and tbh that’s so true and also dull? like rowena was legit introduced in the process of reading a book and drinking tea (or wine?) while two guys bled out slowly on her ceiling held up by her dark af magic and by the end she’s just ... doing spells that sam and dean have no moral compunctions about using? dabb do you know what horror is as a genre why did you change the genre of this show in its final 3 seasons? why did we not get to retain the dark and demonic aspects of witchcraft?

i am so disappointed at how they watered down so many different things with rowena and final note she absolutely should have fucked sam literally any other character behind the bookstacks except gabriel omg.

#rowena mcleod #rowena #spn #spn crit #i guess #supernatural #rowena my beloved #ngl i *do* like the very deliberate mom-milf energy ruth brought to rowena #but i don't see why would wouldn't be able to keep that energy #supernatural critical #canon critical #but also like #secret good supernatural #that lives in my brain #and on hbo in my brain #like they do this slight hint at oedipal complex stuff but they are way too afraid to go near it #meanwhile in s4 dean literally called his mother hot and his mother literally kissed her own father to seal a demon deal #the narrative cowardice of the later seasons is honestly the worst part about them #like yes there is inconsistent storytelling and the themes don't come through and there's maybe a lack of leadership/vision #but more than anything the show lost its fucking *teeth*#i get you love these characters and that makes your writing for them all a bit softer #but get yourself someone on the team who forces you to bring in an edge and push the stories a bit #phyn rambles in the tags #phyn rambles

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autisticandroids · 3 years

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so heres something i think abt a lot. i wonder how grieving widow dean wouldve reacted if jack had stayed a baby. like would irrational grieving widow brain have still latched onto jack as the evil thing that took cas away from him the way he did for teen jack. i want to say dean would have been very weird abt baby jack but i truly cant figure out how. what would an actual infant have done to deranged widow dean's psyche

honestly yeah. i’m not generally into baby jack truthing EXCEPT in the widower arc bc that would have been insane. sometimes i’m like what if jack had aged like amara SPECIFICALLY so we could have had widower arc baby jack but then also toddlerteenager jack later. also i think jack should have had a nursery so dean could hallucinate cas burning on the ceiling of it.

i’m very intrigued by jack being physically dependent on dean in a more obvious way during the widower arc. and i do mean dean, not dean and sam; i think if jack had been a baby dean would have locked sam out of raising him. like if jack had been a duty to perform and not a relationship to build, that would have been something dean would have wanted to do himself, for cas’ sake.

anyway, dean very much shows his anger through words and his love through actions. so he would be angry with jack for taking cas away, of course, of course he would be angry. but at the same time taking care of jack is his duty to cas, it’s his last way to show love for cas, so he’s extremely careful about it and won’t let anyone else do it. so you end up with this very strange relationship where dean is jack’s caretaker and like. he takes on this caretaker role because to dean love is obligations. and taking care of jack is an act of love even if it’s not an act of love for jack maybe it becomes one over time. and yet he doesn’t show jack kindness with his words, with his eyes.

anyway i think sam would try very hard to involve himself in this, in dean’s caretaking of jack, because he sees that there’s a problem here, both that dean is breaking down, and that he’s taking it out on jack, but i think dean would freeze him out. i’m very interested in seeing maybe a lot of sam pov during this secret version of the widower arc, seeing dean drawing in on himself and becoming closed up.

i also think the shapeshifting therapist episode is even more key here, because if we’re really leaning into dean freezing sam out, that’s where that would or rather could but probably won’t be broken. it’s where it would come to a head anyway. also i’m interested in them telling dr vallens that their mom died having jack, to emphasize the cas-mary parallel.

anyway i would like to see sam very explicitly draw the mental parallel between dean’s caretaking of him as a child and dean’s caretaking of jack now and try to insert himself to give jack the love he got from dean and dean isn’t giving jack.

and then of course cas comes back and dean is suddenly like... pretending it’s all fixed. he’s acting like a nurturing and loving father to jack, suddenly, and only sam remembers that it wasn’t always like this.

#spn #asks #Anonymous

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petrichoravellichor · 3 years

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Title: A New Kind of Life

Wordcount: ~10k

Rating: T

Summary: What if, when Sam and Dean break into the Empty, Cas isn’t the only one they save? A post-15x19 fix-it fic in which Crowley gets a second shot at the redemption (and family) he deserves.

(Read on Ao3)

********************

Chapter 1 (of 5) (Ch. 2, Ch. 3, Chs. 4 & 5)

“Crowley! Wake up, you son of a bitch, wake up!”

Crowley opens his eyes to Dean shaking him hard by the shoulders. Which is strange: the last thing Crowley remembers, he was dying, alone and forgotten in a parallel universe.

He isn’t there anymore. Instead, Dean is kneeling over him in a dome of golden light beyond which everything is dark, and for a brief, absurd moment he’ll chastise himself for later, Crowley thinks he’s somehow ended up in Heaven.

Then he glances past Dean and sees Sam with an exhausted-looking Castiel slumped against him; next to them is a younger man Crowley doesn’t recognize, but his eyes are molten gold, the same color as the dome surrounding them all. The amount of raw power emanating from the golden-eyed man makes every one of Crowley’s hairs stand on end, and not in a good way.

No, definitely not his idea of Heaven.

Crowley snaps his gaze back to Dean. “What—” he begins, but Dean cuts him off, hauling him to his feet.

“No time for questions!” Dean yells, and it’s only then that Crowley registers the roar coming from beyond the dome: it’s as though they’re standing in the eye of a hurricane as all around them things blow apart. “Come on, we gotta go!”

And then they’re all running, the dome of light moving with them like a shield as wispy black wraiths crash and burn against its perimeter and somewhere unseen, a hideous voice howls in rage.

*****

Once they’re safely back in the Bunker war room, Dean takes hold of Castiel and, along with the golden-eyed man—whose irises have faded to a soft, concerned blue—ushers him off in the direction of the infirmary, promising gruffly as he goes that he and Crowley will talk later.

Patience, however, is a virtue, and Crowley isn’t feeling particularly virtuous—especially not after seeing how tenderly Dean and Castiel looked at each other as Dean wrapped an arm around the angel’s waist and led him from the room. The sight had left a bitter taste in Crowley’s mouth, one he does his best to ignore. There will be time for that later; right now, he needs answers, and he’s not waiting on Dean in order to get them.

He crosses his arms and fixes Sam with an expectant glare. “All right, Moose,” he says, "out with it: what in God’s name is going on?”

Sam snorts, looking tired. “Um, yeah, about that...” He gestures towards the map table, then heads over to the liquor cabinet. “You...might wanna sit down.”

Crowley arches a brow, but he does as Sam suggests. Sam joins him a moment later and, after pouring them each a drink, spends the better part of the next hour telling Crowley all that’s transpired in the three years—three years—Crowley’s been dead.

Which is, it turns out, rather a lot.

Lucifer’s spawn survived his birth and is none other than the golden-eyed man Crowley saw when he woke up; his name is Jack, and for all intents and purposes, he considers Castiel to be his father.

An alternate version of Michael got a hold of Dean for a while, until Jack killed Michael at the cost of his soul, then, in a soulless rage, killed Mary.

God killed Jack. All Hell broke loose. Rowena, who’d apparently survived Lucifer’s last attempt to kill her, died to fix it and was now Queen of Hell.

Billie brought Jack back to kill God. Dean tried to kill Billie, so Billie tried to kill him. Castiel managed to take Billie out by admitting his love for Dean, at which point the Empty took Castiel—

Of course, thinks Crowley, the bitter taste in his mouth returning with a vengeance. Of. Bloody. Course...

The brothers had stormed the Empty not for him, but for Castiel. Good, noble, righteous Castiel, the wayward Angel of Thursday who’s been hopelessly in love with Dean for longer than Crowley has known him...and whom, it seems, Dean has finally admitted to loving back. Sam and Dean had saved Castiel because they loved him, because Dean loved him, but Crowley...They’d probably only rescued him because they’d figured they owed him for saving their denim-clad arses that day at the lake.

Now, as Crowley half-listens to Sam talk about defeating God, he glowers down at the map table and wishes they hadn’t bothered bringing him back at all, because it’s one thing to die unloved; it’s another to have to live that way. Crowley’s done both, and he knows which he prefers. At least in the Empty, he’d been at peace.

“Crowley? Hey, you okay?”

He looks up to see Sam regarding him from under a furrowed brow. Bollocks...

“Naturally,” Crowley says, leaning back in his chair with a dismissive smile. “That’s quite a tale, Moose. It sounds like you and Squirrel have outdone yourselves these past few years, even managed to pull one over on God; bravo. I’m sure Lucifer’s spawn will make a spectacular replacement: he is, after all, three.”

Sam’s eyes harden. “Jack’s nothing like Lucifer; he’s good, and he’s got us to help him, and Amara—”

“Oh, Amara! Now there’s a recipe for success if I’ve ever heard one: God’s evil sister and her Satanic great-nephew with billions of raw souls at their disposal. How could that possibly go wrong?” Crowley scoffs, shaking his head. “Honestly, there’s just no learning with you lot, is there? You just keep humming the same damn tune, then acting surprised when the notes turn sour, and it never even occurs to you to pick. A new. Bloody. Song.”

The frown on Sam’s face intensifies. “This is different. Jack, Amara, they’re on our side, and now that Rowena’s in charge of Hell—”

Crowley snorts. “Right. Care to wager on how long that lasts?” Then, at the look of sudden wariness on Sam’s face, he rolls his eyes. “Calm down, Moose; that wasn’t me plotting a coup. I have no plans to try and take back the crown.”

“You don’t?”

“Why on earth would I?” Crowley takes a sip of brandy, grimacing slightly at the flavor—for all the changes the past few years have wrought, the Winchesters’ abominable taste in liquor remains tragically consistent. “Perhaps you’ve forgotten, but I hated Hell as much as the blasted place hated me. If Mother thinks she can do better, she can have it.”

They sit without speaking for a moment; then Sam clears his throat. “You know,” he says quietly, “Rowena regrets how things ended between the two of you.”

Crowley stiffens, a stab of anger piercing his gut. “No, she doesn’t.”

“She does,” Sam insists, and how anyone can look so stupidly earnest is beyond Crowley’s ability to comprehend. “She told us so.”

Crowley scoffs. “And you believed her?” he demands, left hand closing into a fist at his side. “You know, for the longest time, I thought you were the smart one.”

Sam sighs. “Crowley...Look, I’m not saying Rowena’s perfect—”

“She’s quite literally the Queen of Hell, Moose.” Crowley manages to keep his voice level, but his fingernails are digging into his palm. “I’d say that’s about as far from perfect as anyone can get.”

“—but I think you two should talk.”

Crowley’s hand starts to bleed.

“I mean it,” continues Sam, when Crowley says nothing. “When I was a kid, my dad...he wasn’t there the way he should’ve been, and we fought a lot, and there were times I felt like I hated him, but when he died...”

A multitude of emotions flicker across Sam’s face in rapid succession, too fast for Crowley to name them all, but the final one, the one Sam looks back at him with, is regret. “When he died,” Sam continues, “I didn’t care about any of that. And maybe I should have. I know I should have. Believe me, I tried. But I just...kept coming back to the fact that what I was feeling, the good and the bad, I’d never get to actually say it to him, and if he was somehow sorry for the bad, that was something I’d never get to hear.”

Crowley’s anger flares white hot; his hidden palm is slick with blood. “If you have a point,” he growls, “I’d encourage you to come out with it.”

“My point,” says Sam, curtly, “is that you actually have a chance at some closure, and I think you should take it. For your own sake.”

Crowley clenches his jaw, looks away. “For my own sake,” he echoes, softly. As if his and Sam’s pain is the same. As if Rowena is capable of causing anything but. “Tell me, Moose: since when do you or your imbecile of a brother actually give a damn about my own sake?”

He raises his gaze to stare coldly at Sam who, for the first time since they sat down, seems at a genuine loss for words. Crowley snaps his glass down on the table and stands. “Thought as much.”

He shoves his hands in his coat pockets and turns to go—where, exactly, he has no idea—only to nearly crash headlong into Dean, and suddenly, Crowley’s anger turns to outright fury, because at the end of the day, it didn’t matter.

It didn’t matter that Crowley had gone up against Hell and his mother and even his own better judgment for Dean more times than he could count.

It didn’t matter that the two of them had shared a bed when Dean was a demon, doing extraordinary things to triplets that Crowley would have kicked out in a heartbeat if he’d thought he could get away with it.

It didn’t matter that Crowley had sacrificed his life to save Dean and Sam and the whole bloody world.

None of it mattered, because for all the times Crowley had chosen Dean, Dean had never once chosen him. Then again, Crowley thinks, maybe it’s his own fault for expecting any different, his due comeuppance for stupidly believing he deserved to be loved. It doesn’t matter; he knows better now.

“Hello, Dean,” he snarls. “Come to look in on me now that you’ve seen to your angel? Well you needn’t have bothered; I was just leaving.”

Dean frowns, crossing his arms. “The hell do you mean, you’re leaving?”

“I mean get out of my way.”

“No.”

“And why not?” Crowley demands, voice rising. “Am I your prisoner? I’ve already told your oaf of a brother that I’ve no interest in causing any sort of trouble in Hell, so if that’s what this is about, then you can just—”

“Damn it, Crowley,” snaps Dean, “no, that’s not what this is about; it’s about where are you even gonna go. You got a place somewhere we don’t know about?”

“I’ll find one.”

“Or,” Dean counters, “you could cut the crap and just stay here.”

That catches Crowley off guard, but only for a moment; he gives Dean a hard look, determined not to let the surprise show on his face. “And why on earth would I want to do that?”

“Because you know it’s the smart thing to do,” says Dean, face impassive, “and last I checked, you were an asshole, not an idiot.”

And it’s not that Crowley doesn't know full well that running off half-cocked into a world whose dynamics have fundamentally changed is naive at best and suicidal at worst—that isn’t what makes him nearly scream in rage, because he knows it’s patently true. No, the infuriating thing, the truly mortifying thing, is that Dean knows him well enough to know that he knows it, and that if Crowley does leave, he’s only going to prove Dean right.

The thought is more than Crowley can bear; still, if he doesn’t get out of this room right now, he’s going to start shouting—at Dean, at himself, at everything. There are other, less crowded places in this godforsaken Bunker, and it’s past time he went and found one. He’s not going to give Dean the satisfaction of watching him break.

Crowley pulls his fury tight and close, stepping forward into Dean’s space and glaring up at him with every bit of defiance he can muster. “Funny,” he sneers, “because last I checked, you were both.”

And he vanishes before Dean can respond.

*****

Crowley finds an unoccupied room at the far end of the hall and decides to claim it as his own for the time being. He bolts the door and turns to collapse onto the bed...only to freeze dead in his tracks.

His mother is standing in the corner. As Crowley gapes, Rowena takes a step forward, face pale and incredulous. “Fergus?” she whispers. “Gods, is it really you?”

Her voice snaps Crowley out of his shock, and he narrows his eyes. “Mother,” he growls, the word like poison in his mouth. “What do you want?”

“Sam told me they were going to try and get you back,” Rowena says softly, eyes roving over Crowley’s face as though seeing him for the first time, “and I wanted...I needed to see if they’d done it, if you were all right.”

Crowley glares, making a mental note to have a word with Sam about this particular indiscretion. “Well, you’ve seen me. Now get out.”

Rowena recoils, and if Crowley didn’t know any better, he’d swear his words actually hurt her. “You’re angry,” she says. “You’re angry, and you’ve every right to be, but if you’d just let me explain—”

“Explain what?” Crowley snaps. He clenches both hands into fists, ignoring the burn in his left palm. “What could you possibly have to say to me that I’d want to hear? You hate me, remember?”

“I love you—”

Crowley barks out a laugh. “Really? Have you forgotten the last time we saw each other? You left on a bus after you sent my son to his death, all because you wanted to watch me ‘suffer the loss of a child’, of my child!” He stumbles towards her, half-blind with rage. “Tell me, Mother: did losing me bring you any suffering, or were you just sad you weren’t there to collect three pigs in exchange?”

Rowena looks as though she’s been slapped. “Of course I suffered! Do you have any idea what I went through trying to get you back? I faced Death herself; I begged her to return you to me, but she wouldn’t do it! Ask Sam, ask Dean!”

“They’ve already told me,” Crowley grinds out. “It doesn’t matter.”

“How can you say that?” Rowena is crying now, tears rolling freely down her face. “Of course it matters! I did it because I missed you, because I love you!”

“You’ve never loved me a day in your life.”

“That isn’t true! I did love you; I do!” Rowena takes another step forward and reaches out a hand. “If you could just find it in your heart to forgive me—”

“Forgive you?” Crowley snarls, and it’s all he can do not to spit in her face. “You don’t get to ask for my forgiveness, not after any one thing you’ve put me through, not after everything! What was it you said to me that day at the bus station, your parting words? ‘Who better than me to crush your shriveled heart’? At least I had a heart, once; you never did.”

“Fergus—”

And Crowley explodes. “GET OUT!” he screams, seizing the lamp off the bedside table and hurling it at his mother with all his might...only to watch as it flies right through her and crashes into the wall.

And then Rowena’s gone, just like she always is, and Crowley’s alone, just like he always is. He stands in the middle of the room and stares hollowly into empty space. “Astral projection,” he says, quietly; it always had been one of his mother’s favorite tricks. “Of course.”

He spends the rest of the night warding the room as many ways as he knows how, determined not to let his mother or anyone else get the drop on him again.

#crowley #spn crowley #fergus macleod #crowley macleod #crowley fic #spn #supernatural #supernatural fix-it fic #spn fix-it fic #fanfiction #a new kind of life #my writing #here we gooooo!!!

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septembersghost · 3 years

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a note on dark side of the moon because it bothers me how oversimplified its plot and meaning tend to get - yes, dean is resentful and angry and sad there when they experience sam's past memories. he's rarely allowed to express how resentful he is of the role john forced on him, but he has a right to it. it's not that sam doesn't deserve his autonomy or those memories, that he didn't deserve experiences or independence, that's never the purpose. he's never a hostage. dean suffered punishment from john for sam's choices, and that's horrible and unfair to both of them. dean's resentful because he was parentified and not allowed to make similar choices for his own sake, and sam can't understand what that was like, so their perspectives are askew.

all dean has is believing in his family, that it's he and sam against the world, and it gets shattered temporarily there. he is terrified of abandonment. when sam left, he couldn't express his hurt because he was trapped in the middle, by that place. his loyalty and love and vulnerability to his family is defining for him. he thought sam didn't want to hear from him, sam thought dean was taking john's side. in that episode, they're RELIVING those memories, not merely...remembering them from the present, so it is directly thrusting them into past dynamics and residual trauma. heaven is INTENTIONALLY manipulating them. the entire point of what they're shown is to hurt them, drive them to desperation, put a wedge between them, because zachariah is toying with their minds to try to force them to say yes to being vessels. fandom taking that at surface level - oh, dean is being a meanie to sam - no? that's not what's happening. we see the memory with mary first for a reason too, it's to establish just how much he's given and lost to his family, even before her death.

symbolically for the arc, it's there to lean on the parallel to michael and his theological role and responsibility. then it paints sam as the rebellious one, the one who took tastes of freedom, to parallel lucifer. heaven wants them opposed. it wants their will shaken. then the boys ask after god and find he's abandoned them, equate him to a deadbeat dad, slash open those wounds of john's neglect. it's part of driving dean further down into the depression and suicidality he then suffers until the climax of point of no return. meanwhile, for sam, it's about showing him that he never did actually desire "normalcy," that it wasn't about that, and it reinforces his own guilt over everything that has happened, but also proves to him how much he doesn't want to let dean struggle alone or let him down again. without dark side of the moon, we don't get sam's sacrifice in swan song, which is about love for dean.

without dark side of the moon, we don't get the further depth of their reconciliation. it also establishes the platonic soul mate idea as the ultimate defiance of heaven's intent - that was never meant to happen, but the boys foil fate. that's their entire purpose. they are not michael and lucifer. they can't be twisted or swayed by that intent. they are themselves, and their love for one another remains despite all obstacles and triumphs over the plan to strip their freedom, because they are the stronger force.

#sorry but that take was really nagging me #calling this #spn liveblog #just...because #that's where these thoughts get filed idk #dark side of the moon #i hate giving d*bb credit for anything ever and the ep does have some issues but it's one of the most important pieces of the text in S5 #literally and like metaphysically it holds a lot of intent and exposes things we have to see to further that journey #like the rifle

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elizabethrobertajones · 3 years

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hi! is their any good lore or (more likely) what's your preferred headcanon on the metaphysics of demons? what actually *are* they, that is different from human souls they're made from, yet allows them to basically have human-like personalities in some cases (and be completely rabidly evil in others)?

Honestly the last few years have left me at “people be like that” and how hard is it anyway to convince someone who was already an asshole who got sent to hell that they’d suffer less if they inflicted pain back, and leaning into that will get you sick supernatural powers to do more evil with, and before you know it all these incel weirdoes who had an unhealthy murder-suicide pact in their head with the barista who had never even talked to them except to take their order and give them the side-eye when they stared too long, are in a weird one upmanship culture with each other about who can eat the most babies or whatever Hell’s current Evil Fad is in order to be the Most Alpha Bad Demon.

Which makes it a pretty chilling commentary before it was even fully in the epoch for pop culture commentary, on how society and herd mentality are warping people into terrible monsters, and many of those people are people who maybe would have been sympathetic and vulnerable and probably bullied and insecure a long time ago, but instead of being helped they’re put into this mill that twists them and feeds their insecurities and tells them who’s to blame for them and gives them a new sense of purpose and a club to belong to that for the first time they feel powerful and accepted and need an autocratic ruler to worship and follow and the only condition is to mete out pain? These people who’ve been filled with pain all their lives and would like nothing more than to lash out against everyone they perceive has hurt them?

I think the show has actually got into this a bit from the start with the Psychic Children stuff, and how Yellow Eyes was following them around bothering them and making their lives horrible in order to twist them or at least make them feel outside and alone and different. Like, after the Mary incident and seeing how John took up arms, he didn’t have to do SHIT with Sam until he was an adult, but some of the kids had had him whispering to them since childhood, probably because they were living too stable middle class comfortable lives and needed a push. Max for example didn’t have any known contact from Yellow Eyes though because he also grew up in an abusive home, and the people around him did all the work to turn him into a killer as soon as he had special powers to pay it back to those who hurt him.

A lot of the season 1-4 messaging was very much how Sam and Dean were good men because they had been put through this or sent to hell and how they struggled against what they thought might be their nature either from basically birth for Sam or the abuse Dean was put through (Dream a Little Dream very clearly showing how Dean could be someone who was ripe for demonisation just from his upbringing even before the torture because he had these things which could be twisted to make him evil if someone was going to manipulate him)... Sam’s side was all based on magic bullshit and he turned out to be mostly good all the way through even when he was being very very bad, but Dean’s struggles always were framed through this. Like the season 7 episode with Jeffrey, who was very strongly paralleled with Dean and put attention back on him having been a torturer in hell long after the main narrative had moved on from Dean’s trauma. But even when Dean did get demonised through magic bullshit it still was more based in his character than the way Sam struggled through knowing he should be a good guy and wanting to be a good guy and just always finding more magic bullshit in the way when he tried.

So I think you can say this is sort of the reasoning the show’s always given for how demons end up like that... Like, Ruby being a witch with a demon pact before she died meant she was very in control of herself and probably needed no torture whatsoever to pop back up as a demon because she was already willing to do these horrible things. Likewise idk if it was confirmed Rowena was a demon or just a dead soul in Hell who was too scary to fuck with, but either way she was allowed to just waltz onto the throne without any real process of suffering because she was so well suited to it from her life, even if her death was a heroic sacrifice and she had become a better person in life, she was still a blatantly hellbound soul and then once there blatantly a step above MOST souls Hell would ever be lucky to get their hands on. Dean on the other hand was someone who would resist at every step and have to be seriously broken by prolonged torture to ever even start him on the path. Rowena might not even NOTICE the day she slips from human soul to demon :P

I think back in season 10/11 there was more of an effort to suggest cosmic nonsense and the balance of hell to heaven and demons to angels and amara to chuck, giving Amara similar looking powers to demons with black smoke especially, and of course Dean and Cain being demonised as just an inherent part of their souls being in contact with her. No one ever laid down any ground rules about this but I suppose the magical process has to be at least somewhat borne out since Lucifer had the Mark at one point when he started making demons, so probably the Darkness has its spooky fingers in the mechanics of all this somewhere. But the psychological aspect is far more interesting to me. :D

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harpersplay · 3 years

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4x14 Thoughts

I touched on this before, but context fucking matters. Even though it erased Annie's class & Ruby's race while using Beth's momness and whiteness as a shield, the speech in 1x02 works because it's life and death. It works because these women have just been thrown into this scary world and Beth makes a desperate but savvy (she picks up on Rio being more than just a gangbanger and appeals to his business side) plea. She uses what she can (Annie has never brought orange slices to any game ever, let's be real) and saves the day. And yet we see how terrified she was even after it worked. IT WAS AN UNREAL SITUATION THAT FELT REAL. Beth's recent "boss bitch" moments do not work because it's just her fully leaning into the smug entitled white lady role. I feel like too many fans ignore 2x13-3x02. The threat of Rio (and the FBI) was GONE as far as Beth knew. But she decided to do crime. Ruby was stealing from her workplace. Beth was putting Dorothy and Lucy at legal risk by using her store and her work, respectively, to commit crimes without telling them. That's who Beth is. So reframing her actions in S3 & S4 as simply reactions to evil Rio trying to ruin her life not only removes Beth's agency. It is also hollow. Because Beth has zero problem with crime—stealing Gayle's business, bribing a city official, hiring a hitman, setting up an innocent man to be a murderer, making Dean "sell" a hot tub to Mick, selling counterfeit purses, blackmailing men into buying those purses. Beth has a problem with not getting her way. And that's not enjoyable to watch. This is not me saying Beth has to be likeable as in a "good" person. But she has to be likeable to watch. Mary Pat is a total weirdo with very questionable morality, but she's enjoyable to watch. Vance is fucking creepy as shit, but he's enjoyable to watch. And while the show gave both those characters some dimension, it never portrayed them as characters we should unabashedly cheer for. That's not how they write Beth. They still—four fucking seasons in—want us to see her as a mom just trying to survive. But that's not the story plotwise that they have chosen to write. And the fact that Beth's "wins" are almost always at the expense of other women or POC is an added gross factor.

The show needs to make up it's mind about the monetary situation. Either things are dire and they are saving every penny to "escape" to Nevada. Or they have enough money to refurbish Sweet P's and buy Kenny an iPad.

Detroit city council is by district. Why do they keep referencing Ward 5?

Nice of the show to have Dave & Phoebe literally walk thru the situation. Super FUN! that the women who have been in this for years (per date revealed in 4x13) still don't understand how it works. The only way I like this scene is if it is a meta commentary about how the majority of the show stans have never understood how any of the crime aspects work 🧐 And I see that the show is yet again ignoring Turner's whiteboard and everything else implied about Rio's business dealings in S1.

Phoebe's no Turner, but I've never disliked her. She was really good in this episode, but the Phoebe/Beth stuff from stans is annoying. Why are people so into ships where Beth is awful to the other person and yet the other person is willing to risk things for Beth? Wait...I think I answered my own question.

So much wasted time on these MRA guys. I guess they don't need to be ~mysterious~ and I love (I don't) the casual misogyny in all their scenes. Preemptive GTFOH: I know—believe me, more than I want to—that men like this exist. I know it is realistic. But, again, as I mentioned before, the show is more than happy to ignore all types of realism to make the story they want to tell work. So don't tell me that this is simply a reflection of society. Jenna & Co are choosing to write this storyline in this way and she thinks it is fun and comedic.

The show is about the 3 women and anyone asking for more screen time for Rio is a misogynist. One minute spent on Annie's new shitty white male love interest popping her pimple = crickets.

The show is about the 3 women and anyone asking for more screen time for Rio is a misogynist. Dean having the reasonable response to Beth running for city council while she dismisses his legitimate concerns = crickets.

And, btw, Denise doesn't need secret insider information. Even if Dean's police records are sealed—why tho?—the two extremely visible daytime raids on the family businesses would have been on the news. And—gag!—Beth's visit to Denise was hella stupid. Denise is not a criminal, like the girls were in S1, so she has no narrative reason not to call the cops on Beth & her "thug." It was a shallow parallel and just another example of Beth needing a man to handle things for her.

I mentioned in my 4x13 thoughts about how the Sweet P's "fun and empowering...unlikely feminist statement" is bullshit. The girls, specifically Ruby, spent a lot of time judging the dancers. Beth straight up mocked Krystal's voice. They didn't care about implicating them in crime or costing them their jobs when they set up Gene to take the fall for the money laundering. They only "care" now because they need them.

Annie & Nancy's scene would have been nicer if Annie didn't imply that Greg(g)'s cheating was Nancy's failure. Again, they could have had them talk about the cheating and difficulty that Nancy went through as an example of a hardship she overcame. But they CHOSE to have Nancy explicitly frame the business disaster as a personal failing. So having Annie respond with the infidelity doesn't come across as tough love. It comes across as needlessly callous and victim-blaming.

This is long already, so I'm not even going to get into the Beth & Rio conversation at Sweet P's.

Ugh, Rio & Nick. So fucking dumb. Where was Nick before all of this? Why is he flexing his muscle now? With what we've gotten of his characterisation & attitude, are we to believe that this is the first time in 20 years that Rio & Nick have clashed? I would think that he would have been very concerned and involved when Rio drew the attention of the FBI. But Nick was nowhere to be found. (Because these writers don't understand the difference between retconning and world expansion.) Although I did get a chuckle when Nick said, "You think you'd have any of this?" while gesturing to Rio's usually empty bar.

Yet again, no cameras in an area that would most likely have cameras. And white woman Beth implicating gangs (which to cops = Black & brown youth) with her "broken windows theory" scare tactic is disgusting.

Caribbean flair and Mahalo. I'm so goddamn exhausted at this point.

Hello, Random Bitch Wife. FUN!

Hey, speaking of context matters....that entire last scene Beth is actively working with Phoebe & Dave to send Rio to prison. Romance!!!

#nbc good girls #good girls nbc #good girls season 4

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incarnateirony · 3 years

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I tried to apply several different script writing approaches for the characters of S*PN. According to all of them, it failed to tell a comprehensive story. Characters start their journey with an inner flaw, the journey tests their flaw and then they learn sth that leads to a moral decision overcoming that flaw. But on S*N, they didn't have to decide ANYTHING. A stupid COINCIDENCE kil*ed Dean, sth every writer tells you not to do. I just fail to see how "Destiel endgame" could've changed that?

...Why are we stuck on Destiel endgame being the resolution to everything

what the hell

Destiel endgame is one on a list of like 30 problems, you just listed some of the other problems.

I don’t know where this is confusing anyone or where anyone thinks “Destiel endgame would fix everything”, like are you pulling opinions from another meta blog and bringing them here? Protip, the people of PoLoL have like nothing to actually do with say, “Destiel meta lane.” Acknowledging and seeing Destiel and not dodging it when speaking in matter of fact terms about the text is not the same as people who try to turn every living breathing aside into Destiel, or the people who are like “I don’t do shirt meta but [makes a 3 page rant about shirts next day]” -- like we’re not them. Don’t confuse us with them.

That said, issues that would have leaned /into/ an existing Destiel endgame (which, bizarrely, still survives in its barest form, but entirely buried in implication and handwaved vaguely under ‘covid’ excuses) could have /also fixed this/.

I have /literally explained to you/ how they could have addressed a bunch of these issues.

How Dean’s ending could have easily not been garbage: (x) (and a side of Sam’s)

How Jack’s ending could have easily not been garbage: (x)

Even the “one shot” I’m talking about adding to my Empress path video isn’t adding a fucking Destiel shot, it’s adding a Castiel shot in a certain environment, to otherwise loud ass existing Destiel content. Not everything boils down to trying to hack and slash in Specifically Destiel. The Destiel is already there guys. I regret to inform you of this.

These come down to things being about choice, cycle breaking, removing suicidal ideation and wanting eternal hope, family, you know. Like, the stuff that’s been the message of the show for years.

The fact that it put Dean and Cas on the same side of eternity together (that they dodged with the hilarious 50 year driving thing, handwaved Bobby saying time runs different even though that’s immediately opposite Dabb’s own DSOTM where heaven time ran roughly parallel -- but otherwise functionally even that spec structure HELD) -- is A WHOLE OTHER THING.

It put Dean with his entire family-- even Mary. You know. Who the whole season drama started about which, also, got hilariously buried.

It’s the fact that in *dodging* the Destiel so hard they completely shit the bed on everything else around it.

If you set out just to write from the angle of only achieving Destiel endgame without diagnosing everything that went wrong in that finale, of course you’re going to fail.

Paradigms people, recognize your paradigms and structural pillars. Supernatural doesn’t exist within Destiel, Destiel exists within Supernatural.

#polol

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