#''happy'' spn finale day i hate it here

[samsrowena]

↳ 14x10 // 15x20

#spn #spnedit #spn 14x10 #spn 15x20 #chuck won theory #anztag #becauseofthebowties #klinejack #spxcekya #greatcometcas #userda #chapeldean #feathersforcas #deanncastiel #tusersana #bebecas #deancaskiss #''happy'' spn finale day i hate it here #altarofedits

[zepskies]

Writer Tag

Thank you so much for tagging me @venus-haze! As always, your responses on this were really interesting and got me thinking about my answers. (Here's the original post.)

So these first questions are geared toward Ao3 stories.

How many works do you have on AO3? 48 and counting.

What's your total AO3 word count? Aw geez. According to the statistics page, 1,022,400.

(But I have more fics listed in Tumblr thanks to headcanons and things not yet posted in Ao3.)

What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Every Loyalty - (Jon Snow x OC)

And So It Goes - (Butcher x OC)

Never Say Goodbye - (Dean Winchester x Reader)

Break Me Down - (OC Version | Soldier Boy x OC)

Checkerboard - (Soldier Boy x Reader)

Do you respond to comments? Why or why not? Yes! Always. I love getting feedback and engaging with the people who take the time to read my work. 💜

What's the fic you've written with the angstiest ending? Ooh, it's gotta be this imagine in SPN fandom: "Sam crosses the line." In which he's in love with Dean's girlfriend.

(Sequel to "You are Dean's one exception.")

What the fic you've written with the happiest ending? Well, most of my stories have happy endings. But probably Never Say Goodbye (Dean W. x Reader). It's a soulmate AU, so very rom-com and fluffy, despite all the drama they went through.

Though I could also say the same of the last story in the Midnight Espresso-verse: In Bad Weather.

Do you write crossovers? No, I don't. I've enjoyed reading a few though.

Have you ever received hate on a fic? Yes, unfortunately lol. It's inevitable for as long as I've been writing though.

Do you write smut? If so, what kind? Oh yes lol. I'm a romantic though, so it's often a mix of fluff, straight up romance, occasionally dashed with angst and/or hurt/comfort.

Have you ever had a fic stolen? Not to my knowledge. (I hope not!)

Have you ever had a fic translated? Nope, but I've received solicitations lol.

Have you ever co-written a fic before? Yeah, when I was a teenager just starting out writing, I used to write with one of my best friends growing up. (We're still good friends to this day.)

What's your all-time favorite ship? That's pretty much impossible. 🤣 It depends on the fandom! Nowadays I tend to write for OCs or reader inserts though.

What's a WIP that you want to finish but don't think you ever will? Ooof, nothing recent. But I finally finished And So It Goes, which took me 3 years for some reason. 🙃

Though I do have both a Jason Teague x OC series and a Smallville Clark Kent x OC series outlined that realistically, I probably won't get to. 💔

What are your writing strengths? I've been told I'm good at dialogue and keeping canon characters in character, which is always amazing to hear! I try my best.

What are your writing weaknesses? Action scenes and smut scenes are my biggest writing challenges, though I've been told I do a decent job at them. I know I tend to use adverbs a lot lol (I'm trying to curb that).

What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic? So I try to minimize use of this, but, I've gotten critiqued (putting it mildly) on this before for two reasons. Admittedly, I've had to revise myself in certain use cases, but also, there are slang words and phrases in certain Spanish cultures that wouldn't make sense to another Hispanic/Latino culture that doesn't use the word/phrase. So sometimes, it's not that it's wrong grammatically, but that it's slang.

What was the first fandom you wrote for? Oh jeezus, probably Chronicles of Narnia fandom when I was like, 10 and brand new to writing. 😂

What's a fandom/ship you haven't written for yet but want to? Ooh a tough one. I feel like there are so many! I do have a story I had outline years ago now for Steve Rogers/Captain America back in the MCU fandom (which I've written in before). But that fandom is a bit intimidating. 😂

What's your favorite fic you've written? Also really tough for me. I think it's a tie between two series:

Break Me Down (Soldier Boy x Reader)

Midnight Espresso (Dean W. x Plus-Sized Latina!Reader)

One totally took me by surprise by how much I enjoyed writing the series and the characters (and figuring out how to write Soldier Boy/Ben 😂).

While the other allowed me to be a little more indulgent with myself, writing from my personal experience and my culture.

The responses on both stories have been amazing and incredibly heartwarming. 💗

No pressure tags:

@thatonewriter15 @waywardxwords @impala-dreamer @dean-winchester-is-a-warrior @deanwritings @deanwinchesterswitch @deanbrainrotwritings @kaleldobrev -- and whoever else wants to join! 💜

#writer tag game #Ao3 #Supernatural #spn #the boys #game of thrones #jon snow #billy butcher #soldier boy #dean winchester #jason teague #sam winchester #clark kent #dean winchester x reader #smallville #soldier boy x reader #soldier boy x oc #butcher x oc #jon snow x oc #dean winchester x you #soldier boy x you #favorite fics #getting feedback #on writing #writers who tumblr #writers on ao3 #writing strengths and weaknesses

[luci-in-trenchcoats]

Happy 8 Years on Tumblr, my friend! I'm so glad we've gotten to know each other recently!! 💕

For my question from your sleepover Friday list, here goes: Who would you ship me with from SPN, The Boys, or Big Sky world?

A little bit about me:

You probably know by now that I'm Latina lol

I love to cook and try new recipes and restaurants

Love oldies music -- anywhere from the 40s to current stuff, especially rock, R&B, 70s, 80s, 90s

I'm also a movies and TV junkie lol. I love trivia and behind the scenes stuff! AKA: I'm a big nerd. 😂

Hobbies include nature walks, painting, yoga, reading of course

I'm a creative writer, but also a writer/editor professionally (with some teaching on the side)

I guess you could say I have a "cat-like" personality lol. I love being with my loved ones and friends, but I also value my alone time, when I can write and do my work in peace. I've also been told by friends that I'm a good listener...

I don't want to ramble too much, but I'm very interested to know who you would match me with. 😜 Again, happy Tumblrversary!! 💓

Hey Zep! Same! I've always been awful at making tumblr friends but I've been enjoying to get to know you too!

Oh good question! I knew some of these things but not all. Hm, I could definitely see you with a lot of people but I'm going to go with...

Ben (Soldier Boy)

Now while I think you'd handle any of our favs well, I think Ben is the one that needs you the most. We all know he's got his issues and is out of place in time. But I think you'd be the one to wrangle him in. I think he'd be leery at first but would bond over music, something not so foreign to him and start to drop his guard. You'd be a "light" for him, someone to show him new foods and places and good times but understand his need for solitude and space. He'd tease you about being a nerd but secretly adore that quality.

Your creative side would be something that confuses him at first, especially as he absently watches you fill a page with words as the day progresses. He'd be baffled that you can make something from nothing as his whole life has been about being what other people want from him, not fully being able to think for himself and his own aspirations. He'd scoff at your invitations to try your hobbies but eventually he'd relent, complaining the whole time while actually enjoying them. Especially yoga. Ben's not very good at it though, probably because he spends the whole time with his eyes glued on you.

Finally, after he feels like he can really trust you, he'd sit you down with a scotch in hand and tell you about his life. Down to the nitty gritty details. He hates it. Really fucking hates it. Hates how it makes him feel weak and vulnerable. But when he's finally finished, that feeling dissipates. He's never said those words out loud. Never allowed himself to think such things without hating himself for not being a real man. But with you? Yeah, maybe with you things will be alright.

So there you go! Ben's the winner but this was actually a really hard choice!

#8 year tumblrversary

[jaelijn]

20 Questions for Fic Writers

Was tagged by @quordleona03, thank you! It still blows my mind we're talking, haha.

I'd like to see this spread to the B7 folk, so if you've written for B7, even if you haven't in a while, consider yourself tagged!

How many works do you have on AO3?

227 - though as ever I need to remind people that this is not the total of my fics and certainly not the total of my fanworks (I have none of my art on AO3).

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

985.865 (I always have to do math here because I'm "co-author" on a fic I did the art for. So this is my *actual* words on AO3, not what AO3 says.)

CUT because oops it got long.

3. What fandoms do you write for?

At the moment, Blake's 7 only, unless you count Drake's Venture, but then again I have no active projects on that.

4. What are your top five fics by kudos?

This is in no way representative because my most kudos-ed fic will probably always be said "I did the art" fic that doesn't count, and my fandoms are vastly disparate in size, so my older SPN stuff is automatically up there. But anyway - Destinies Entwined (SPN), The Kindness of Strangers (SPN), There is no sin except stupidity (Canon Holmes - this one actually crept up there! I archived it, backdating, but people seem to have found and loved it!), Fields of Gold (SPN), and finally, With Every Single Word (B7) - and with the exact same amount of kudos, Bitter Days, and Sweet (B7).

5. Do you respond to comments?

Absolutely! Sometimes it takes me a while, but yes.

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

*filters works by MCD warning*... I mean I've written a lot of bleak things, but not every MCD thing is necessarily bleak - on the other hand, I am probably forgetting some angsty ones that have no MCD. Most recently, or most in my memory, are a few of the Whumptobers, which always seem to bring out the darkness: Impending Destiny is up there, as is Bitter Almonds, Death's Kiss, perhaps, though that has some measure of catharsis, A Grave Man, Poisoned Apples. Then there's Earth, Earth Sector, Greyscale... Whatever you consider angstiest, it's probably a B7 fic. If you'd asked me to pick one, it'd probably be Impending Destiny because it hurt me to write and I feel it's underappreciated.

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

I'm in a similar boat as Quordle - these universes are angsty. Most of SPN ones are just... kind of even, all things considered, nothing to happy and nothing too sad, same with the Holmes stories, as they are all set somewhere in the middle and I can't give an Ending if there is more canon to go (and I rarely write AUs). But when it comes to B7, I've written some incredibly sappy stuff that doesn't really have "happy endings" because it's a fluff one-shot in the first place. Longfic with the happiest ending is probably Bitter Days, and Sweet, if only because it's a happy ending PGP. I do tend to prefer bittersweet endings to "fix everything" endings though.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

I've got some... strange comments, but no outright hate, no, not on fic. But I also enable comment moderation on anything that might attract things, as a precaution. It hasn't been necessary, but perhaps people don't bother if they feel they might get moderated anyway. This is not an invitation to start sending me hate!

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

Not really. Being ace probably has something to do with that... I've found myself writing some intimacy, non-sexual or bordering on sexual kink or "draw the curtain" sex scenes lately, but I don't really get anything out of sex in fic for smutty reasons (and for a long time disliked pairing fic because it seemed so focussed on sex). I could see myself writing something more explicit if it served a plot point, but mostly I don't feel explicit detail is necessary for character development/plot progression. Intimacy, yes. But who cares who sticks what where and where the body fluids go?

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written?

Yes, though I wouldn't say I do it *often* - I am generally more keen on conceptual mashups (what if B7 characters were in Victorian London) than pure crossover (what if B7 characters met Holmes characters), because I tend to be interested in single fandoms at a time rather than more at once. That said, I have done them. The most out there is probably my Doctor Who / Pirates of the Caribbean crossover, Dancing Star. I vaguely recall it being for a longfic challenge, but don't remember which. I'm still fond of that one and it's not even on AO3 (yet).

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I know of. (Don't do this.)

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

I have been asked, and I think I had a Holmes fic translated once back in the LJ days? I'm not generally against translation if it's with my explicit consent, but there are some fics where I don't feel comfortable with it, often long or very personal work or stuff that I'm still working with. It helps if I already know the translator before they come to me with translation requests.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

I have made attempts, yes - some never worked out, some are yet to be published, others were collabs more in the sense of "let me add a sequel to your thing" rather than true co-writing. I have done a few fic/art collabs, on either side of the line, but I don't think there's anything currently on AO3 that has been co-written, unless you count my meta with @comarum.

14. What’s your all time favorite ship?

I am not going to make a claim on an "all time" favourite, particularly as I still feel I only found my niche with shipping fairly recently, and there are a few... fan-favourite pairings that I never really shipped but where I'm now wondering whether I would have jumped in more readily if I had been aware that this niche existed. Also is it still a ship if the pairing is canon, or is that just enjoying the original work?

My most long-standing active ship at this point is Avon/Vila, however.

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

When someone says "doubt you ever will", I always immediately think of a project or two where I get defensive about the idea that I will never ever, even though I haven't touched them in decades. They are in long-term hibernation, but I balk at the idea of them being abandoned. That said, I have a good number of Red Dwarf fics that I'll probably never polish up. Dimensions was important to me, but this is where it'll probably end. Something about that fandom doesn't work for me.

16. What are your writing strengths?

I like to think: characters, dialogue, angst and long-form fics, though of course the short things will always outnumber the long ones because they take so long to write!

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Finding endings for fics that are supposed to be short. Writing characters that aren't neurodivergent. Writing characters/relationships that aren't ace, though I feel I've been getting better with that. Anything that demands I actually pay attention to the characters' gender. Homonyms.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

Depends on the extensiveness. If characters are always speaking a different language, sprinkling single lines in that actual language is weird and having the entire dialogue in a language that isn't the fic's is tedious, but if a few lines of dialogue are in a different language, sure. I feel the same way about strong accents.

Besides, I'd argue that characters in my current fandom aren't speaking English (the language I write in) in the first place, but a future common tongue I call Standard, so unless I want to invent a conlang, I'm not using their actual language anyway. On the other hand, rendering other languages in English can ignore some special characteristics of that language - something I specifically think about when I write about SIGN (my concept of sign language in the B7 universe). In general, I tend to emphasise readability over accuracy.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Depends on what counts. The first things I called fic were for SGA. Never published. The first published stuff was Canon Holmes.

20. Favorite fic you’ve written?

This changes constantly, and I also feel like I keep developing as a writer, so there are things I was very happy with at the time that I would not write that way now. They still were a favourite once - and in the same vein, if I didn't feel any of my recent stuff were favourites, I'd be doing something wrong with the craft. Consequently, right now I am very fond of Impending Destiny and my current longfic project.

#jaelijn talks #jaelijn writes #thanks for the tag #once more if you are a b7 writer #consider yourself tagged! #if you want to play of course

[misc-obeyme]

Grey Asmo here

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! Ik im late

Just realised that in 12 monts, its gonna be 2025.

Anyway, since hell may be overpopulated do you think some Hell born like Satan and fallen angels stay in the Devildom while most sinners and lower class demons stay in hell.

Would the King of Hell and the Crown Prince of the Devildom unite the two realms. (YES) LUCIFER MY LIEGE.

also the song how bad can I possibliy mean gives of Mammon VIBES.

My greedy demon

Also in another fandom we finally got revealed of Lucifer va...and omg he is so sweet, such a sweet and honey like voice not deep like OM Luci, but not like SPN luci, or DC Luci,

OM devs didnt lie about their voices

At first i was like meh its okay but now 2 years in I simp just to hear Mammon growl or Luci's laugh

In addition my Asmo (the asshole)

Someone gave him quite a good voice and the fandom is like we hate you but you look and sound good. But your a bitch

Hello there, Grey Asmo!

Happy new year! And yo we just started 2024 don't make me think about 2025 yet lol!

I actually think a lot about the population of the Devildom and so on. I would say that it seems like most human souls end up in what they seem to call the Underworld... it has the rings and everything. Then demons live in the Devildom. But other things also live in the Devildom, like reapers and I think they mentioned vampires at some point?

So I'm not sure but I think of it as the main area of the Devildom is the city in which RAD is located, along with the Demon Lord's Castle and the House of Lamentation and everything. I think this is where most demons live and it probably has a high population density, kinda like a big city. But then as you move outward, that changes. Things become more wild and rural. I imagine there are smaller cities and towns where demons live, too. Some of them might just hang out in the forest or whatever. They talk about trains and buses so the need for long distance transportation says to me that there are probably multiple larger cities and such. I would just think that where RAD and the castle are is the biggest one.

It kinda sounds like the consider the Underworld to be part of the Devildom already? But it's kinda vague, so I'm not sure. However, I do love the idea of Lucifer and Diavolo getting married for political reasons lol. Like Lucifer is considered one of the Lords of the Underworld because of Cerberus right? And obviously Diavolo is the prince of the Devildom. So if those two areas weren't already united, they could totally get married and combine them.

I really love all the VAs for the game! I've thought about what it might be like if they ever did an English translation of the spoken lines. Mostly because I think I'd lose my shit over some of the stuff those guys say lol. But I don't think I'd like it. I think it'd be upsetting unless they had the same VAs doing the English. Because if they did what they normally do and hired English actors to do the English lines, they'd all sound too different. I think that'd be painful. Because I looove their VAs so much and their voices are so distinct and familiar to me now!

Every time I used to get a notification from my phone when I forgot to put it back on silent and it was Barb talking to me from another room, I used to freak out. It scared the shit out of me every time. Now I'm so used to it that I'm just like oh okay thanks, Barb. Like yes I want to listen to that soothing man's voice all day every day. Sometimes I just open the app and let it run for a bit so I can hear Barb saying his home screen dialogue when you ignore him for too long lol. It's really cute in the OG when he hums to himself.

Anyway! I think the VAs can really bring a character to life and I love them for the great work they do.

#sorry I feel like I rambled a lot in this response #anyway I hope you're having a lovely new year so far #obey me #grey asmo anon #misc answers

[cleardishwashers]

@good-then-dont tagged me in this tag game :)

name: wouldnt you like to know weather boy (jk. its deepa)

first fandom you became a part of? hgdhfhgfj probably harry potter..... i was like 10..........

what was the first tv show fandom you joined: i was veryyyyyy into doctor who at ages like 10-12 but just kind of looked at posts on pinterest and wasnt like. active. so id say first Active tv show fandom would be supernatural 🫡🫡🫡

how old were you? uhhhhh. probably 12

latest tv/movie fandom you became a part of? im gonna say good omens bc i was suuuuuper into it when s1 came out but then sleeper agented until s2 came out which i only watched like. this month. and technically not In The Ecosystem like that but i yell about it w my friend so it counts. (im not In The Ecosystem like that for much nowadays.... lets ignore that)

a tv/movie fandom you haven’t joined but like to creep on?: im gonna say pacific rim bc i never do anything but reblog a bunch of posts BUT i do this like. quarterly. because i am insane 👍

your favorite fandom? probably oceans 11... very small no drama and i got some very good friends from it....... id say the good parts of iasip fandom circa 2019 pre-s14 (ie my absolute besties shoutout og sunny server) def tie for that spot but there were a lot of White Takes in it so that brings the total ranking down a lil

the tv show that gives you the most brainrot? right now? good omens. but top contenders across time include spn (hear me out), archer, iasip, leverage, cobra kai (unfortunately), and 911. honorable mention to crashing bc i watched that shit three times in one weekend

the fictional couple that gives you the most brainrot? honestly? destiel was the blueprint but lawrusso and newmann take turns pulling me back in every couple months....... i hate it here

guilty pleasure fictional couple? macdennis they are sooooo toxic and i love them sooooo much

guilty pleasure tv show? id say glee but im not guilty about it its one of the most tv shows of all time. maybe iasip? or cobra kai but i dont ever rewatch cobra kai its just. there in my brain

and finally, something that made you happy this week? i went to the beach on monday as a fun little last day of summer thing and it was sooooooooo epic i love the beach i love water i love swimming!!!!!

tagging @frogcabbage @turnaboutstevie @lauraexplorer and whoever else i forgot/wants to do it!!!

[ltleflrt]

So Misha has said in private M&Gs that it looked like Cas was in the Heaven Roadhouse, but it was actually Jimmy.  Looking at that from the POV of a writer, I assume the idea there was to add a sense of tragedy to the ending.  As much as I hate 15x20, THANK FUCK they didn’t go with that.  I hope someone looked at that script and went okay no that’s Too Much, take 20% off the top there guys.  Because what’s the point of sending the boys to Heaven and giving them a big happy reunion with everyone they know, if they then immediately slap viewers in the face with a PSYCH HAHA EVEN IN HEAVEN DEAN IS SAD ABOUT SOMETHING.  Like... no.  Cutting Jimmy out of the finale was a good choice, and I will chose the shitshow that we got, with the implication that Cas has been rescued from The Empty, over the tragedy of Dean being elated to see Cas only to have the rug pulled out from under him.

On the other hand, I feel like having Cas be in Heaven, either with the full intended Roadhouse Reunion, or the watered down “Cas Helped” that we got, is a deliberate choice to cut off any and all attempts at a continuation.  Someone, somewhere high up, decided that SPN needed to be wrapped up and cut off so thoroughly that the boys can never be part of a new story.  Having Cas in heaven means he doesn’t need to be rescued.  Which is my preferred ending, thank you.  But what on earth (or in Heaven) would give Dean and Sam any reason to leave their happily ever after in the afterlife for more adventures?

I know Jensen wants to revisit things some day.  But with the way things ended in 15x20, what more can they do?  “They get bored and ask Jack to send them back” is valid, but also doesn’t really come with a solid story base for 10 episodes.  I do not want 10 episodes of MotW.

Well... unless Cas is in every single episode, and episode 3 is Amazon Prime levels of sex between Dean and Cas.  Herogasm, but only Dean and Cas finally fucking out 12 seasons of sexual frustration.

But anyway, horny shipper thoughts aside, my POINT here is that the Jimmy Ending would have sucked balls and I honestly think it would have driven me to real actual self harm, but it would have left an opening for a continuation.  And I think whatever changes were made to Misha’s finale storylines, Dean and Cas side by side in the Roadhouse when Sam shows up or “Cas Helped”, is an Honest to Chuck attempt to kill any Sam and Dean continuations.

This is all speculation, of course.  In the end it all boils down to “someone at CW made some stupid decisions, and I wish I could study their brain before dropping it in a vat of acid”.

#ltleramblings #spn finale critical #ltleflrt meta #who knows #maybe i lack imagination #and better writers could come up with a continuation #sans Rescue Cas

[fellshish]

Hi i wrote some destiel fics

Taking one for Team Free Will (T, 1.5k)

A spell requires an angel’s kiss to work. Dean takes one for the team.

What to do when a good man hurts you (T, 7.9 k)

In 15x18 Dean turns down Cas cruelly because he hopes the Empty won’t take Cas away if he makes sure Cas never feels pure happiness.

5 times Cas had to heal Dean + 1 time Dean had to heal Cas (T, 4.2k)

Dean is so touch starved he keeps getting hurt just so Cas would heal him.

If you were queer (E, 9k)

Denial!dean discovers ao3. He’s just a heterosexual dude reading destiel porn, for um, research. Fix-it for Heaven can’t wait.

We’re not in Kansas anymore (T, 3k)

Cas can’t get to Dean in time to save his life because he’s too busy killing Kansas the band for the heaven surprise party.

Death of a salesman (T, 3.5k)

Cas has a little panic when Dean arrives in heaven so he pretends to be Jimmy Novak.

The Frenching Mistake (T, 6k)

It’s like The French Mistake except they were just about to film the Destiel kiss (in Despair).

The Jensen Mistake (T, 5k)

Reverse French Mistake. Jensen hates the finale so he decides to travel to the spn world to prevent Dean’s death. (fanart) (podfic) (poll)

Free to be uquiz and me (T, 5K)

Dean takes a uquiz about his sexuality. He’s not gay, dammit! (Includes real uquiz)

Painted whore (E, 13.8K)

Dean attends a life drawing class for a case. The nude model turns out to be Cas.

Lazy ass rising (T, 7.5k)

Cas possesses Dean’s vessel and feeds him vegetables and takes him on a spa day.

The ao3 of knowledge (T, 2.4k)

Cas gets inspired by reading fic and tries some of the tricks to seduce Dean.

Dean Daily (M, 12+k)

Social media fic, denial!dean post s15 fix-it. Read on ao3 here (fanart)

Time for a gay wedding (M, 2.5k): Dean proposes just to check if Cas is gay

Changing channels: queer premiere (T, 26k): gay destiel edition of the famous episode. Collab with the amazing @emeraldcas (fanart)

—

Not so super natural (M, 3k)

Woops, the supernatural turns out to be real. The FBI consults the world’s experts: the cw spn cast and creator.

—

Fics for other fandoms

#destiel #my destiel fanfiction #it’s ok to reblog this in fact you get my undying gratitude if you do <3

[googledocsdyke]

in all these musings about jender, has anyone discussed the fact that dean did watch a clip of jensen in days of our lives in canon and thus confronted Jender Itself in its raw unadulterated form?

god you're so right. now i'm going insane thinking about jender and the french mistake because like....... the entire episode premise has sam and dean comparing themselves to the haunting traces of their alternate self. like they never actually MEET jared and jensen which i do think is both fascinating and key to what makes the episode really work — they just have to detangle, half-horrified half-in awe, what kind of impossibly easy life these strange half-famous men live. using like, context clues. the episode mostly focuses on sam in ways that are very funny and iconic as this post outlines but you're right there is also some SUPER fascinating stuff going on w/ dean's masculinity

dean is much more visibly disgusted than sam at everything that points to jensen and jared's "softness" — their actor-indulgences and their lack of hunting skills and their effeminised "male model" career and dumb little rich boy details like the fish tank in jensen's trailer. i feel sick. he's going to be sick! you already pay these two jokers enough money as it is! and like, of COURSE it's dean who notices that he's wearing makeup (it's always, always dean that has these too-eager jokes land — or not land? — at his expense; marcusantonius: how do we know dean is performing masculinity? because sam isn't) he traces his hand down his face and says, in horror, oh crap, i'm a painted whore. and it's funny! laugh track! the man written as the furious antithesis of femininity accidentally slips into it again (see dean manifesto) and theres a whole HOST of deeply complex and largely misogynistic associations bundled up there about dean’s relationships (both canonical and fanonical) with sex workers, but it's also like...... you are a man. you are a man. you are a straight man and you PRESS that embodiment of yourself into the world every day. and then suddenly you fall through a window and someone else has put makeup on your face. who the hell put makeup on your face? is it even still your face? do you look better with makeup on your face? it doesn't matter. you're a painted whore. this is not your life. wipe this life off your body, wipe the makeup off your face. get back home to kansas.

and then the days of our lives scene in the trailer! again this is so Much because if they wanted to poke fun at the actors' pre-spn careers... jared padalecki is RIGHT there. he was in gilmore girls (haha funny) playing a character named dean (haha funny) who was the love interest (fellas is it gay to be in a woman-centric romcom about mother-daughter affection). but there's no POINT in emasculating sam, there's no punchline. so instead we get days of our lives-era Jender

and he IMMEDIATELY slams the laptop shut. don’t like this universe, sammy. need to get out of this universe. this is the tipping point for both of them, the moment where it all cements. you were a pretty boy on a genre INEXTRICABLY tied up with an audience of women and by god that’s the final straw

IDK MAN like you're dean winchester and you crash into a strange new universe and a man who is not you is wearing your face. or at least you think he’s wearing your face — you never see him, and maybe it’s you who is wearing his face, industrial-strength foundation at all. and people pay you to look... pretty, soap opera lead pretty, male model sons of bitches pretty, network tv good-looking pretty. you’re not just rewarded for this, you’re swaddled in comfort for this. paid in weekly checks, not crumpled twenties. you feel sick. you’re a painted whore. you know you wouldn’t be happy here (you and sam aren’t even BROTHERS) but there’s some strange haunting young version of you living in another world’s computer who looks just past the camera with soulful romantic lead eyes and maybe you don’t know how to hold all that knowledge in you! maybe you just want to get back to where you can kill something clean and simple and not think about catching the right angle while doing it. you will never meet jensen ackles. if you met jensen ackles you would punch his lights out. probably. maybe not! he’s not a hunter, he just plays one on tv. jensen ackles is a man pretending to be a hunter and you hate him for it, but isn’t that all you are, too, at the end of it?

#answered #dean studies #spn #gendernatural #i am thinking #....... i am THINKING #dean winchester: girl reiterated #god vaccine WHEN #Anonymous

[fromcenotaphy]

fic rec list - for hbo spn vibes

So with all the hbo spn content I’ve been writing/reblogging I’ve gotten a couple of questions about fic recs (or fics I’ve written) that are evocative of the *sighs dreamily* hbo spn vibe. While I haven’t encountered anything that 100% screams hbo spn (or I assure you, I would be rereading it and weeping right now instead of posting this) — I have trawled through my ao3 bookmarks for fics that I think have the hbo spn aura (your mileage may obviously vary as to whether you agree) which we are all so desperately craving right now. Incomplete starter pack below!

Short and sweet:

Negative Space by Las - It’s not hbo spn without some PURGATORY FIC. This one is Dean/Cas but with a Benny POV! *gestures wildly* It’s about the pining.

Fata morgana by orange_crushed ( @robotmango on tumblr) - Dean/Cas, post-season 9. This fic is a GIFT. Bela POV? MoC Dean as the King of Hell? Endless midwestern Americana wasteland landscapes? Check check CHECK.

domingo en fuego by sahwen (@sahwen on tumblr) - Season 11 one-shot, Sam POV, delicious h/c, Sam in full I’m unclean headspace, Dean/Cas and Sam/Cas undertones.

Double by crowroad - Short and eerie and gorgeous. Max and Alicia the witch twins. No plot just VIBES.

gentle flesh by Askance - Sam-centric, features soulless!Sam. Soft and brutal and the ending hits you like a punch in the gut (mind the tags).

Made Manifest by schmerzerling (@schmerzerling on tumblr) - Dean/Cas, pre-slash, lead-up to season 4. This fic features trans Dean and the concept is just...gorgeously done.

A lot of the works by foolscapper (@foolscapper on tumblr), here’s just one:

The Epilogue in a Very Long Biography by foolscapper - Endverse, Sam-centric, post-apocalyptic landscapes, Lucifer trauma. Utterly gut-wrenching. Gen, part of a series of shorts that are all incredible.

The wrong game with the wrong chips by A_Diamond (@adiamond on tumblr) - Endverse fic, pining Endverse!Cas in full bitter glory. Ohhh this fic is dark and angsty and dirty and breaks my gd heart. (There’s no happy resolution, so don’t read if you want something cozy.)

flare gun by foolondahill17 ( @foolondahill17 on tumblr) - Pre-series. Teenage Dean being sixteen and fierce and afraid and heartbreaking. John Winchester’s A+ parenting (*sarcasm*).

Longer:

That Black Dog Ache by SaltyWords (@winchester-reload on tumblr) - Dean/Cas, Season 11 casefic, minor TFW vibes, a gorgeously hot sex scene. Motel rooms, seedy bars, Cas in a leather jacket, Dean being self-hating and drunk and bi and head-over-heels in love.

It’s Not Easy Being Dean by strangeandcharm - Dean/Cas, explicit, has some very dark elements (mind the tags). Alternate season 5 featuring angelic brainwashing, Cas as a prostitute, Zachariah as a huge dick as usual. VINTAGE destiel fic.

Above & Below by murron -  TFW with a side of Dean/Cas. Set in season 6, features TFW (with soulless!Sam) descending into Hell to retrieve Sam’s soul. The vibes are immaculate.

How the Wild Things Start by foolscapper - Another foolscapper rec! (@omnishamblegreg reminded me that it exists and I’m so pleased.) Sam-centric, canon-divergent post-season 9. Sam gets kidnapped and forced to cage-fight monsters. Goes deep into some dark Sam headspaces. Heartbreaking and bloody and beautiful.

So Goes the Song by aeli_kindara - Pre-series, Lee/Dean. Lee’s POV makes Dean all the more desolate and gorgeous. This fic is wide-open roads, dingy back-alley Americana, pre-series Dean at his most defiant and delicate.

Revivere by aeli_kindara - WITCH SAM WITCH SAM WITCH SAM. Season 15, Sam/Rowena, side of Dean/Cas, pagan vibes, Sam growing more powerful by the day and thriving.

carry on by foolondahill17 ( @foolondahill17 on tumblr) - Post-series curtainfic (canon-divergent from about halfway through s15). Dean/Cas and Sam/Eileen--dives deeply into Dean’s trauma and PTSD. Not really an hbo series vibe so much as an hbo post-series vibe. This author writes some of my favorite renderings of Dean’s trauma/PTSD/mental headspace.

A lot of the works by komodobits (@cuddlebabies on tumblr) and Askance:

So Says the Sword by komodobits - Dean/Cas, canon-divergent season 4/5. Cas is tasked with guarding the Michael Sword in a pocket Heaven dimension. Angsty and eerie and beautiful. TRUE FORM CASTIEL.

A Complete Kingdom by komodobits and Every Part of the Animal by komodobits and Askance - Dean/Cas, incredibly good, incredibly immersive, incredible ambience, and also incredibly dark. I don’t want to spoil them but please mind the tags and don’t read if you’re only looking for something happy.

Fics by me: (is it poor taste to rec my own work? blame it on sleep deprivation if so. Find me on ao3 as cenotaphy)

Wield the Knife - Dean/Cas, body horror. TFW casefic with Dean having to hurt Cas in order to save him.

Purify - Season 4, Sam detoxing in the panic room. The very first spn fic I wrote. *cue Paul Rudd look at us, who would’ve thought? not me meme*

Ite, Missa Est - Short Cas POV one-shot, post-season 11. Castiel standing alone in the Mojave Desert yelling at the sky—if that’s not hbo spn I don’t know what is.

exordium - Post season 12 finale. (I wrote this as a fix-it before season 13 started). Jack meets the Winchesters. Jack POV, utterly alien and saturated in synesthesia. 

*

This is of course super subjective and is by no means a complete list—if anyone wants to rec additional works that fit with the hbo vibe, I would love to read more/see more added on!

I will also be continuing to post short imaginings under the hbo spn tag until my frail human fingers or frailer human soul simply give out under the strain of this incalculably chaotic month of november.

#spn #hbo spn #cenotaphy posts #fic recs #fanfiction #my writing #hbo spn fanfic #hbo sam #hbo dean #hbo castiel #fanfic #fanfiction rec list #hbo fanfic rec list #not all of these are necessarily GRITTY per se #but it's about the headspaces or the trauma or the desolation or the otherness too #the ambience #*gestures expansively* it's about the V I B E S #anyway i worked all afternoon on this you guys T_T #i live to serve the hbo spn tag now

[rpsocsandcanonohmy]

Sam centric asks. Even numbers only. Please?

2. Best season of Sam?

I’m gonna have to go with season 2. It’s the best season of powers!Sam and it’s one of the last times we get to see Sam stand up for himself and get angry without it being painted as a bad thing by the narrative. Season 2 is probably my favorite overall but it’s definitely one of Sam’s better ones. 

4. Most compelling dynamic?

“Compelling” is an interesting word to use here. Normally I’d say Sam & Dean but I feel like after 15 seasons I’ve gotten to know their dynamic pretty well (almost too well honestly). So I’ll go with Sam & Jack because we didn’t get nearly enough of them and Sam really wasn’t appreciated as a father figure for him.

6. What do you think about Sam's ending?

It’s beautifully tragic. He finally got the happy apple-pie life he wanted but he had to lose literally everyone he loved before it could happen. He finally got to have a kid that he could raise in the safety of a life outside of hunting but he had to do it without Dean or John or even Mary to see it. Ultimately, I don’t think he was fully happy until he died and met Dean in heaven again.

8. Your opinion on Sam's relationship with Dean?

Sam and Dean’s relationship is toxic, some level of abusive (mostly in the later seasons), and both of their biggest weaknesses. On some level, they’re both terrible for each other. But I think Dean is worse in the sense that he views Sam as his property but he makes Sam prove himself worthy of being so. It’s comparable to a parent who never tells their child that they’re proud of them because it’ll make them better. Sam constantly has to prove how much he loves Dean so that Dean can be assured he’s not going anywhere. This involves Sam making excuses for Dean and his poor behavior and Dean guilt-tripping Sam any time he gets the nerve to call him out on it. I long for the days of early spn where Dean would acknowledge he was wrong and give Sam a chance to get back at him. I also hate that Dean stopped standing up for Sam. Sure, he’ll protect Sam in an emergency but he doesn’t stop other people from insulting or devaluing him. Hell, sometimes he agrees with it. Sometimes it’s hard for me to believe this is the same man who sold his soul for Sam and begged him not to get mad.

10. Soulless Sam, yay or nay?

Nay. The story arc was fine enough but he’s creepy as hell and I could do without it.

12. Sam & Jack or Sam & Magda?

Contrary to my answer to #4, I’m going to say Sam & Magda because she deserved better and he deserved to help her. 

14. Sam storyline that should have never been dropped?

Him being a psychic and his demon blood addiction. He should’ve come to use his powers for good on his own and make Dean just deal with it. His psychic dreams should’ve been guiding him since season 8 and he should’ve been moving books around the MOL library with his mind. It also probably would’ve helped him with training Jack and definitely would’ve helped with Magda. Hell, he should be able to exorcise angels! And demon!Dean should’ve tried to feed him his blood and Sam should’ve had a hard time resisting.

16. Your take on Samjess?

I think Sam loved Jess but not in a fully romantic sense. He loved her more than any other woman in his life and he wanted to spend the rest of it with her, but he wasn’t willing to open up to her and share his full self. It’s cute but ultimately, it was always meant to be a fairytale.

18. wee!Sam headcanon?

20. What is the worst thing the writers did to Sam?

Everything to do with the Gadreel arc but mostly how they started having characters blame Sam for everything, including himself, and making sure he’s not allowed to defend himself without him being branded as the bad guy. Dean can call himself the dictator of their relationship and that’s fine but Sam can’t get a little huffy because of the trauma he’s endured without someone branding him as “angry”. It irritates me.

22. Favorite BAMF moment?

There are so so many but I think I’m gonna have to go with the time he shot God with the Equalizer gun, knowing full well it would hurt him too.

24. Is there anyone better than Sully?

Sam, of course! But seriously he’s the sweetest and he deserves much love and happiness.

26. Which character should have been more obsessed with/interested in Sam?

As much as it pains me to say it, Lucifer. Sam is his chosen vessel, the one human meant to help him with his plan to take over the world. I loved his fixation on Sam in season 5 and I wish that had remained a part of his character going forward. Hallucifer in season 7 was great too, even if it wasn’t technically real, but when they brought him back in later seasons he should’ve retained that obessession instead of having them push it onto God and other characters. I think it would’ve made his character more consistent and entertaining to watch.

28. Whump Sam, yay or nay?

Whump Sam is best Sam but also worst Sam. He looks so pretty covered in blood but it hurts me to know he’s in pain.... It’s a mixed bag.

30. Which character(s) deserve(s) to rot in hell for crimes against Sam?

All of them. Chuck, Lucifer, and Dean are the main ones but tbh almost every single character in this show screwed over Sam in some way and I’ll stand up for him since he won’t.

#supernatural #sam winchester #anti dean winchester

[castiel-left-his-mark-on-me]

Hi, Ary, very inactive ex-mutual(i think???) here. Good to see you thriving! ♥ It's been a while since I've dipped my head into cockles stuff. Could I perchance maybe ask uuuuum tf is going on??? lol I see Mish apparently confirmed he used to stay over at Jensen's in Van, and heard newbs were apparently freaking out about it and getting a bit messy, which I get that, business as usual. But I'm also seeing shit about spin-offs? And Jared getting in a twitter fight with Jensen, causing/resulting in stans to going feral and sending hate?? I know you're not as big a fan of Jar, but that's part of why I figured I'd ask you, you usually have a really level head about this kinda stuff. If you don't wanna answer publically, or at all, that's totally chill!

Hey, Rhi! We're still mutuals! Of course we're still mutuals! When I saw the notification of your ask, I was like "Hey! I haven't seen you in a while!" and my husband was like "???" and I said "Tumblr" and he said "Oh."

It was a wild time haha.

In any case, welcome back to the dumpster fire! We are obviously still a mess. So to catch you up, I guess I will start by summarizing both before and after the finale (not sure where you left off so this might be redundant for you) ... basically, it became obvious as the end of the show neared that Jensen was not on board with the plan for the finale; although Jared never stopped singing its praises.

We got confirmation of this during a zoom interview where Jensen said that he actually went into the writers room as well as called Kripke to basically voice how he didn't agree with the direction the final season was going, but he was shot down on all fronts. In another interview, he was asked "What would you tell your younger self going into this career?" And Jensen responded with: "I would tell myself to just keep your head down and do the work" meaning, "Don't try to change things because you can't." I also think that this whole situation is what he wrote "Let Me Be" about for his first Radio Company album, but that is just my own speculation. All of his reluctance, even though he always followed it up with "But I eventually saw the value in the script" or "I came around in the end" (which never sounded sincere, and I don't think he was really trying to sound sincere) made us all very nervous about what was to come for 15x20; and of course, when the last two episodes aired, we saw just how badly they fucked it up.

After the awful finale, the entire fandom became aware of the CW's heavy handed role in the thing, basically squeezing all the life out of SPN to shape it into a ramp from which Walker could launch itself. They not only erased all the love and joy and representation that Cas's love confession gave us, they also tore apart the things that made sense about the bond between Sam and Dean, making it really just about Sam-- and therefore Jared, which of course, Jared seemed to be fine with ... even though no one else was. Misha barely said anything during the finale, and a few of the other actors talked about the show ending in various posts, but Jared tweeted up a storm ... and Jensen? Jensen just sat in sexy-silent resentment of the whole thing. He didn't tweet, he didn't post, he didn't say a word once he no longer had to, and I think that's because he was already going full-steam-ahead on his plans for redemption.

Which brings us to Chaos Machine-- Jensen and Danneel's new production company that is being run by a queer creative director and has a mantra of inclusivity and representation woven throughout it's fabric; and apparently, the first story that Jensen wanted to tell through this new platform is the origin story of Sam and Dean's parents; so last week (?) he announced the upcoming production of "The Winchesters" -- the untold love story of John and Mary. Obviously, John is not the most likable character from the show, so the idea was met with a lot of resentment when it was first announced, but Jensen has gone on to say that he is excited to take on the task of telling the "true" story behind these characters-- the one that makes sense with the pre-established canon and doesn't reject it. So, given that, the idea is being mulled over with a bit more optimism from the fandom.

Who isn't being optimistic though?

Jared Padalecki.

When Jensen made this announcement on Twitter, many of his friends and coworkers congratulated him, but not Jared. Jared responded with a passive aggressive: "I'm happy for you, man, but I wish I didn't hear about it through Twitter." This of course, sent all the die-hard Jared fans into a tizzy and they immediately began asking him if he was serious (hoping it was just a joke-- we all hoped it was because there would be fallout no matter what one's opinion on Jared is). Instead of leaving it there though or just deleting that tweet, Jared went on to tweet some more, saying that he was being serious that he didn't know about the plans for the prequel, and that he was "gutted" that Sam apparenlty wouldn't be included (mind you, this a prequel to SPN... meaning BEFORE Sam and Dean were even born, so how could Sam be included? But Dean is apparently narrating this story so maybe Jared thought Sam should be helping to narrate it? I don't know). But Jared being Jared couldn't just leave that there, he then went on to tweet at Robbie Thompson who was announced as a writer for "The Winchesters" so then Jared went off on him too, calling him "Brutus" and a "coward" acting like Robbie betrayed him (speculation is-- Robbie refused to write for Walker, so Jared is pissed that he essentially chose Jensen over him). He did fairly quickly, remove that tweet attacking Robbie, but of course the damage was done at that point. And it truly only took his first tweet calling out Jensen for some people to be like "Jared-- that sucks if you didn't know but why are you saying any of this publicly?"

As you might know, Jared has had issues in the past with posting hurtful things on social media, and has even used it as a tool for attack before-- calling out customer service agents and public workers that he felt have wronged him, which is bad enough ... but for him to then do the same thing to his best friend of well over a decade? Many people who had once liked him or at least gave him the benefit of the doubt (I used to ...) stopped after this latest twitter tantrum.

However, some people have suspected for some time that J2 had a falling out either shortly before the finale or just after. Their public/social media interactions have seemed awkward, stilted or even non-existent in moments that they normally wouldn't be. In the past year, when Walker premiered, Jensen didn't say much about his friend's new venture other than a "Congrats. buddy" here and there. Later, we learned that Jensen refused to work on the show ... Jared said he make him do it, drag Jensen to the set "kicking and screaming" which made many fans quirk up an eyebrow because, why would Jensen put up a fight unless the two weren't as close as they used to be? And then Jensen moved his family to Colorado (either permanently or for an extended period at least) which is notable considering how he moved to Texas seemingly to be closer to Jared, even buying a house that was near his. All this was just speculation though; but it wasn't until Jared's tweet complaining about not knowing about the prequel that the theories behind them falling out, became less theory and more fact.

The day after his twitter tantrum, Jared tweeted again-- not retracting his statements or apologizing, but instead saying that he and Jensen "talked" and were "all good". Jensen then tweeted too, parroting this statement to some degree, which only made the whole thing even more sour in the mouths of the fans. The fact that Jared didn't apologize for his outburst and throwing his friend under the bus, and also the fact that Jensen-- Mr. Sexy Silence, Mr. Never Tweets, Mr. Tech-Ignorant-and-Proud, actually had to POST SOMETHING saying that he and Jared made up, it just screamed OPTICS. It was obviously the work of agents and PR firms and lots of people going "Look, if you two keep beefing, that will mean the death of both of your projects. Even more people will stop watching Walker, and this SPN prequel will never get picked up due to the scandal." So, the two "made nice" publicly to quell the chaos, but in my opinion, it's all too little too late. Jared started a storm that he can't contain now with a little tweet, and it seems like he knows that too because before he talked about him and Jensen making up, he asked that people "not send threats". He could have just as easily said that he shouldn't have made this a public issue and that he's sorry, but instead, he continued to play the victim and stoke the flames by alerting us all to the damage he's done.

Now, like I said before-- I used to give him the benefit of the doubt. I don't think he's an awful human or that he deserves to be attacked or anything, but he is an adult man with very poor judgment and an obvious selfish-streak a mile wide. He should know better, and he should have more respect for his so-called "friends" and "brothers" than to make them targets to public ridicule. I have a hard time believing that Jensen still sees Jared the way he used to, and I wouldn't blame him a bit for wanting to pull away-- especially when he's moving on to so many new and exciting things. Jared certainly deserves happiness just as much as anyone else, but he went on twitter and basically asked for a scandal, and he got one.

The question is now-- was there a motive behind it? Was just looking for a reason to bring his and Jensen's falling out to light-- while making himself looking like the victim in the process? Or did he genuinely not know about the prequel and just decided to go about "not knowing" in the most toxic and hurtful way he could manage?

In any case, that is the drama ... that is the J2 insanity in a rather lengthy nutshell ... that is the tea ... and I hope it all makes sense.

But the good news out of all of this is, Cockles is thriving-- they are happy and in love and Jensen calls Misha "Babe" and Misha misses waking up to see Jensen in the morning, and they are just as cute and wonderful as can be.

So, I will end that there. I am so glad to see you back, and I hope I answered all your questions in a way that made sense ... I tried anyway!

💖💖💖

#omg #I don't even know if this makes sense #this took way too long to write #j2 #cockles #long post #spn family #so glad you see you back again my dear #welcome to hell #it's hotter now

[myaimistrue]

del myaimistrue’s underrated destiel fic recs! (part 1)

these are all fics i’ve read and realllllllly enjoyed, and they’re all ones that i don't often see people discussing on here. bc of that they all either have less than 10k hits OR were published pre-2015 OR both. i hope you all like them, and if you do, please consider giving the authors some love and leaving a comment saying so. we fic writers live off that kinda stuff :)

list under the cut, organized by word count!

I Know! Straight Out of a Telenovela, Right? by @credentiast

quick 800ish word meta joke about y yo a ti. so sweet and domestic and lovely. i read this right after it was uploaded and have gone back to read it multiple times since then. always makes me smile!

strap the wing to me by a_good_soldier (aka @s11e17)

as i’m sure we all know, basically everything a_good_soldier writes is wonderful. this little 1.9k bit of sweetness is one of my personal favorites of theirs, and is sorely underrated. a bit of conversation between dean and cas about how much cas loves him. nothing like holy devotion to a human man!

The First Thing There Is by bendingsignposts

cas seals off dean's memories as part of the effort to stop michael, and amnesiac dean immediately realizes that cas loves him. 5k of really sweet, in-character moments and a healthy dose of humor.

Eyes Like the Texas Sky by RogueTranslator

do you hate john winchester? do you want to read about dean’s queer awakening and how that relates to his love of cowboys? do you love sweet stories about finding love and acceptance in places you didn’t expect? this 5.6k fic is for you! dean tells cas the story of the first guy he ever had feelings for, and boy is it sweet and heart-wrenching and wonderful.

Nothing Equals the Splendor by RurouniHime

7.8k fic in which 15x20 was all part of a djinn dream. perhaps my all-time favorite finale fix-it (which is why it’s on this list despite having like 12k hits shhh) featuring full-powered angelic cas blowing out all the lights in the bunker when he and dean have sex. beautifully written and so sweet. and the sequel is also great--highly recommended as well

Telemetry by scifive

DEAN STUDIES FIC!!! 9k set during the first seven episodes of season 4 that actually addresses and deals with dean’s ptsd and trauma from hell. dean’s voice is absolutely perfectly in-character. also it’s pre-relationship destiel but the moment with them at the very end is so tender and lovely.

the pie isn’t a metaphor (it’s just pie) by noviembre

9.3k post-canon fic in which dean and cas get comfortable with their relationship and bake some pies together. it’s a very soft little story that features dean being head over heels and cas being beautifully sarcastic.

Talk Therapy by shara

9.3k of dean figuring out what he wants from cas and how to be in a relationship with him. sex-focused, but intentional about what details are shared so it feels very natural and sweet. cas is so steadfast as dean tries to unlearn what he’s been taught his whole life.

it’s such a mystery (the way you know me) by fleeceframe

another memory loss fic, except it’s cas this time! 10k words about cas getting hit with a temporary memory loss spell and his rediscovery of love and friendship. straight up this one made me cry happy tears. fleeceframe writes beautiful stuff, and this one is no different--the language is just gorgeous.

killing time by orestespdf

11.2k post-canon fic. it’s kind of a day in the life of dean and cas in the lake house they’ve made their home that doubles as a cas character study. very cathartic and romantic.

Kingdom Come by ahurston

17.3k cas comes back from the empty fic featuring a road trip and lots of cas introspection. dean and cas’s interactions are so so so in-character the entire time, and the final moments of the story are absolutely perfect. one of my personal favorite fix-its.

a certain light by flightagain

24.3k au in which cas works at a gas-n-sip and dean’s a customer that comes in a lot, with a supernatural twist! this story is so gorgeous and gentle, and dean and cas’s relationship is portrayed beautifully. if you’re a cas fan, this story is his from pov and nails it in a way that i think is really hard to do in an au. 

Peace And Good Luck to All Men by KismetJeska

31.3k human au in which dean is anna’s boyfriend she brings home for christmas, and he and cas immediately click. i am not a big au person, especially when it comes to angel characters, but this fic is so genuinely in character and still hilarious. also a long time fandom classic.

Everybody Needs the Light by opal_bullets

46.5k words of another banger by opal_bullets of poet dean fic fame! actually i might like this one just a little better which should tell how great this one is. it takes place pre-series. dean stops at an old motel in minnesota that cas is running, and something strange is going on… this fic has one of the most interesting conclusions i’ve read in a spn fic and there is such a cool atmosphere to the whole piece. highly recommended if you’re a fan of mysteries and/or supernatural’s angelic dynamics and/or pre-series dean.

Smells Like Roses by orphan_account :(

53.8k words. an absolute classic. seriously, if you haven’t read this, ESPECIALLY if you’re a dean girl, it’s a must-read. set in season 5, dean has a vivid djinn dream of an entire life he spends married in domestic bliss with cas. when he gets pulled out of it, he struggles to readjust and focus on the coming apocalypse. dean is so in-character and so heart-breaking. def a dean thesis fic with a healthy side of destiel sweetness.

The Hanged Man by ellispark

87.6k words. PARK RANGER CAS. literally need i say more?? if that alone hasn’t sold you, the story is that he finds dean out in the woods after someone has tried to kill him, and the mystery unfolds from there as the two of them grow closer. the plot is really interesting and in-character despite being an au. also, if non-verbal dean is something you like/find interesting, you will really love this fic. absolutely worth the read and frankly deserves more hits!

#there will definitely be more lists i after this one #i read a lot of fic #if anybody has any specific requests i can also look into that--i'm not afraid to brave the main spn tag on ao3 if need be #del's fic recs #is the tag i'll use ig #deancas #destiel #destiel fic rec #deancas fic rec

[holylulusworld]

Smirk of the devil

Title: Smirk of the devil

Summary: He’s the devil in disguise.

Square filled for @spnquotebingo​​​​​​: (“Believe me, I’ve been asking myself the same question for two years.” – SPN)

Word Count: 1,9k

Pairing: Clubowner!Dean x fem!Reader

Characters: Sam Winchester, Ruby, Gadreel, unnamed girl

Rating: Explicit

Warnings:  angst, language, smut, unprotected sex, a hint of fluff, mentions of cheating (implied), sadness, toxic relationship?, unrequited feelings, Dean hurt the reader more than once, hopeful ending but no happy ending

Divider by @firefly-graphics​​​

SPN Quote Bingo masterlist

“Excuse me, miss,“ a young girl, barely twenty-one coos. She looks up at you with big doe eyes, batting her eyelashes. “I’m looking for Dean Winchester. He asked me to come here at nine.”

“No, you don’t,” anyone not knowing you would think you are trying to be rude to the girl, but this is so far from the truth. “Girls like you shouldn’t come to places like these.” you huff when the girl rolls her eyes. “You don’t want to meet up with Dean.”

“And you know this why?” she sasses, hands on her hips now. 

You can smell the strawberry chewing gum she tortured the whole time and can’t help but chuckle at her bratty attitude. Once upon a time, you were just like her.

Sweet, innocent, an intact heart beating in your chest.

“You’re not my mom. So, why do you think you can keep me away from Dean,” you’d like to slap her face at the ‘mom’ comment but bite your tongue. You never were a violent person. Maybe if you were, Dean would run around with one ball missing. “I bet you’re just jealous he wants me.”

What can you possibly tell the girl? That he will break her heart. That, once he has you in his clutches he will strip off your dignity, rip any pride left out of your chest and replace your former self with a drooling mess, begging him to do it all over again.

“Speak of the devil,” you whisper, watching Dean waltz into his club, the bunker, the place you first met. Those days seem a lifetime away. Back then you still were a cute and clueless girl, missing the way he tainted you with every touch and kiss. 

“I want to speak to him, now,” the girl pouts and you get the feeling she’s rather a girl scout wanting to sell cookies than her pussy to a man she won’t be able to handle. “NOW!”

“It’s your funeral, sweet cheeks,” you wave her off, walk past the girl to talk to Dean Winchester, the devil himself. Oh, how you wish you could tell him to go to hell, but you would only beg him to take you with him.

“Sweetheart,” he dips his head, shamelessly roams your body with darkened eyes, “you look ready to get eaten.” damn him, he smirks, and you get weak in the knees. “And you will—”

“Another of your fangirls,” you jerk your head in the girl’s direction, rolling your eyes. “Guess you are down to high school girls now, Winchester. Shame on you.”

“Jealous?” he cocks his head, watches you turn on your heels, ignoring your racing heart when he walks behind you, one hand on the small of your back. “So, how’s it going with your mysterious boyfriend lately?”

“Wonderful,” you grit out, already walking faster to brush Dean off. “I told you, no questions about my love life or I’ll quit once for all, Dean. Go, take care of your girl.”

It’s when he walks toward the girl that you allow yourself to admire his back, his broad shoulders, and, yes, his ass.

“Ogling my brother again?” Sam stands too close for comfort, but you don’t mind. “What’s the state of your on-and-off relationship? Who’s winning this round?”

“No one is going to win shit, Sammy. Dean wants to fuck every woman with a pulse, and I want a faithful man, period,” you turn your attention back toward the bartender who wanted to talk to you about the latest order.

“He’s hard to handle, I told you so,” Sam nudges your side. “Why don’t you lay claim on him and show any woman he’s yours.”

“Dean is not my man, never was,” you sigh, eyes filled with unshed tears once again. “When we met, he did anything to get me, and then, he dropped me like any other girl. I’m not what he wants, Sam. Dean lives for his club, Baby, and having sex with any woman he can get into his bed…”

“Bunny hole would be the better name for this shithole,” you grit out, downing your first drink of the night. “Give me another one, Gade. I wanna get drunk tonight.”

“Sweetheart, you shouldn’t drink at work,” Dean sits on the barstool next to you, grinning when you grasp for the next drink. 

He easily snatches the drink out of your hands, downing it in one go, slamming the glass onto the counter. “Your boss could catch you red-handed and fire you or slap your ass. Whatever you prefer.”

“Go ahead and fire me, Winchester. This shithole will go down without the manager keeping it alive,” you quip. “Now let me have another drink. My shift is almost over.”

“Almost,” he whispers in your ear, fingertips sliding over your thigh to hike up your skirt. “How about we talk about this at my office in the back, Miss Y/L/N?” you place your hand on top of Dean’s to guide it to his thigh, hiding you shivered at his touch.

“Don’t hurt yourself, boss,” you lean closer to whisper the words. “I think you had enough fun with little miss sunshine not an hour ago. I hope you checked she was at age, Dean.”

“Jesus, I asked her to come around for a job, nothing else,” Dean grumbles, hand moving toward your thigh again. “I don’t play with girls, only with women.”

“Yeah, I remember how well you played with half of the female population in town,” snickering Dean slides off his barstool to stand behind you. He’s caging you with his body, places both hands on each side of the bar counter.

“You were one of them, and I remember you were so eager to get out of that cute dress you wore only for me, sweetheart,” he husks in your ear. “Come to my office, Miss Y/L/N, and let’s talk about your behavior lately.”

“If you insist, boss,” you hate you follow him all too eager.

While Dean waltzes toward his office, waving at people, you fight your way through the masses, unbeknownst Sam is following your every step with his eyes.

“She will fall for him all over again,” Ruby sighs. The brunette sips at her drink while sitting on Sam’s lap. “Can you not tell your brother to stop breaking my friend’s heart? She deserves better for fuck’s sake. Two years ago, she found a nice guy and tried to quit only to do the walk of shame the next morning.”

“I can’t help two fools in love to find their way. I tried, Baby. Don’t ask me to talk to my brother about love again. He’s stubborn. You know that Ruby.”

“I know, still, she deserves better than a quick fuck at his office only to end up alone and weeping on the floor for weeks after he had his way with her…”

“Fuck, Y/N,” Dean groans with every thrust. “I’ve missed this tight little cunt around me.” you hate yourself for letting Dean in once again while he takes you apart.

What can a girl do when he has you pressed against the wall the moment he closed the door behind you. His lips on yours, his hands on your ass to heave you up to hold you against the wall.

His thrusts are more demanding tonight, his lips tender against your throat and his hand, well his hands hold you a little tighter. “Dean, fuck—we shouldn’t.”

“A little too late for regrets,” the devil moans in your neck, moves a little slower to drag his thick length against your walls. “You’re so wet for me, Sugar.” you whimper at the nickname. 

It brings back memories of all the nights he called you like that, voice hoarse and his eyes only set on you.

“Go to hell—” you finally choke out, still, you hold tight onto his shoulders when he starts to fuck up into you at a madding pace. 

“I’ll just take you with me,” he grips your ass tighter, moves you up and down his length while his lips do the worst thing possible – they claim yours in a bruising kiss, take your breath away. 

Dean moans against your soft pillows, ignores a single tear that runs down your cheek or that your cunt flutters around him.

“You’re mine, my girl,” he demands, hips jerking uncontrollably now. “Never gonna let you go. Just hold tight, baby.”

You grasp for his shoulders, dig your nails deep into his skin when you can’t hold back the approaching high anymore. A wave of pleasure washes over you and for a moment everything is like it should be—until it isn’t. 

His warmth fills you and you remember the way he ended things, right after he fucked you against the wall at his place.

“What if you let me fall?” there is so much fear and pain hidden behind those few words Dean stops moving for a moment. He just looks at you pinned to the wall, bare and vulnerable right in front of him. “Wouldn’t be the first time.”

“Why do you always keep coming back to me?” he nips at your lips, hands wrapping around your back. “Why, baby?”

“Believe me, I’ve been asking myself the same question for two years,” you give Dean a sad smile, eyes filled with tears again. “Maybe I’m a masochist and like to get hurt. I don’t know why I let you in over and over again only to get broken.”

“I hate to break it for you, but we have this thing going on for almost six years,” Dean laughs when you punch his shoulder. “Maybe a little longer.”

“I know, dumbass,” you shake your head. “Two years ago, I found a new job and tried to leave town, but then you dragged me back into your life, and since then…”

“You try to escape me and my charming personality…”

“Why are you still here?” looking over your shoulder you wonder why Dean didn’t leave your place like he always does after he got what he wanted. “Isn’t one of your other girls waiting for you?”

“I told you that the girl was there for a job, not to suck my dick,” he kicks his shoes off and drops his shirt to the ground before he unzips his pants. “I want to stay the night.”

“Why?” watching Dean strip his socks off you frown. “Dean, you don’t need to pretend shit, okay. We both know I was just convenient again.” you turn around, not wanting to face the devil again. If you do, he’ll drag you down to hell again.

“Y/N, baby,” he crawls under the covers to press his face into your shoulder, “you’re not convenient to me. I swear, I asked the girl to come to the club for a job. She asked around at my mom’s place and I offered she can take over a few shifts. As a waitress, not for me to… you know…”

“How shall I know?” you hate that his warmth lulls you into safety. And you hate his arms wrap around your waistline even more. “All you do is to bang random chicks at your office. Just like you did with me not an hour ago.”

“You’re not a random chick, Y/N,” oddly Dean clings to you tonight. He burrows his face in your neck, not letting go of you until he feels your breathing even out. “Maybe you are the only girl I ever loved. I was just too afraid to keep you in my life.”

You can’t react to his confession as you are fast asleep. Dean doesn’t care. He needed to get it off his chest. 

“No matter what, you’ll always be mine, sweetheart. Come hell or high water,” he whispers. 

And maybe, just maybe, you’ll give him another chance to prove he’s not the devil, only a lonely man who messed things up years ago.

>> Part 2

Tags in reblog. 

#Smirk of the devil #dean winchester #spnquotebingo #dean winchester x you #dean winchester fanfic #dean winchester fanfiction #dean winchester smut #smut #angst

[charlie-minion]

Could the same SPN finale make a little more sense with some additions/changes?

I’ve had the idea for this post stuck in my head for days now, but with every new conspiracy theory and every new eventuality in the fandom, it became difficult to cool down enough to write something less ship-related and more narrative-focused.

What Supernatural and non-SPN fans have to understand is that a lot of us have expressed disappointment and frustration after 15x20, not because of Destiel (that’s just one part of the whole problem), but because the finale doesn’t make sense. Everything was leading up to something beautifully crafted until the end of 15x19. Beyond that, it’s hard to understand what happened. The story rendered all the character growth irrelevant, invalidated the themes of free will and “family don’t end in blood”, regressed to the original brother codependency they spent 15 years trying to overcome, made a queer non-binary character in a male vessel and a deaf female character basically disposable, and kept the show’s reputation of queerbaiting and misogyny until its very last breath.

That’s not going out with a bang! At least not a positive one. We all were ready to mourn Supernatural, but we wanted to feel proud of its legacy, and somehow TPTB managed to tarnish that legacy in less than 45 minutes. What a way to ruin the other more than 13,600 minutes of story!

It doesn’t matter who is to blame (The CW, Robert Singer, Andrew Dabb). It doesn’t matter why it happened (homophobia, censorship, marketing for Walker, bad writing). What matters is that at the end of the day, the finale that aired is what we got and that’s going to hurt for a long time. It hurts even more when we realize that the same finale could have easily made more sense, even without being perfect.

That’s what I want to do in this post. I want to show you how things would have been less jarring (for the fandom), while still keeping the goal to please the general audience.

Before I begin rewriting 15x20, I have to mention that I talked to my conservative boomer sister about the finale. She hasn’t watched the second half of season 15 yet (she’s waiting for Netflix to have it), but she’s been watching the show for a long time (she introduced me to it 8 years ago). She’s the perfect example of a viewer from the general audience. Loves the show but doesn’t give a second thought to it and definitely isn’t paying attention to character development or themes. Doesn’t engage with fandom, actors, or any of the show’s social media. Pure GA! When I told her the series finale had aired, she asked me about it and I refused to give her spoilers. Because of that, she told me the ending SHE wanted. She said she would be happy with either of two possibilities: the boys retiring and finally living a normal life OR they going to heaven and finding peace at last. She saw Sam and Dean as a unit, which means: both retiring or both going to heaven. AND she saw Cas as part of that, too. She wasn’t so sure about Jack. And for her, we could use the “Eileen who?” and it wouldn’t be a joke. She didn’t remember her.

NOW IT’S TIME TO WRITE A NEW VERSION OF 15X20 (KEEPING 15X18 AND 15X19 EXACTLY THE SAME AS THEY AIRED). This will be a very long post:

The opening remains almost the same. No “Carry on my wayward son” to induce feels. Too soon and too predictable! (Reasoning: Everyone was expecting it to play right there, so it would bring more tears at the end)

In the opening, after the scene where Jack says “People won’t need to pray to me or sacrifice to me”, we also see the scene from 15x19 where he says “I won’t be hands on”. Then we see the rest of the opening as it was. (Reasoning: People needed to be reminded that Jack would NOT intervene and that’s why later on, he would NOT save Dean).

We get the same montage, but when Sam takes a break from his morning run, we see him reading a message on his phone. A simple: “Hey Sam, what’s new?” from Eileen. Sam smiles fondly and begins to type a response we don’t get to see. The next scene continues the same, Sam making breakfast. (Reasoning: A text was a very simple way to show that Eileen was alive and still in communication with Sam).

The montage slowly ends as Sam enters the library (not after he sits down). He seems to be talking on the phone but we only hear an “I’ll tell him. Bye”. As he walks towards the table, he tells Dean: “Charlie says hi. Mentioned something about Stevie’s perfect scrambled eggs we have to try.” Dean’s answer is “Awesome!” (Reasoning: Just ONE line was needed to unbury Charlie and her girlfriend. ONE LINE).

Sam sits down, opens his laptop and everything continues the same. The title card shows for the last time.

YOU SEE? In the first 4 minutes they could have acknowledged that THREE WOMEN were alive and safe: Eileen, Charlie and Stevie. It wasn’t hard! Don’t blame bad writing on Covid! Now let’s continue.

Sam and Dean arrive at the Pie Fest just the same. Dean goes to get some “damn pie” and Sam takes out his phone. He dials and when someone picks up, he says “Hey, Jody, how are ya?” We don’t hear the rest of the conversation. The scene moves to Dean coming with his 6 portions of pie. Dean sits down and Sam tells him, “Talked to Jody. The other hunters haven’t had much work lately.” “That’s good, isn’t it?”, Dean says. All we get from Sam is “Yeah.” So, Dean looks at him and asks “what’s wrong?” like it happened in the episode. (Reasoning: Again, a couple of lines to make sure the people that were killed in 15x18 are safe and remembered by the boys in 15x20. Why is this important? Because they’re family!)

The conversation about Sam’s sad face happens the same. Sam is the one that mentions Cas and Jack. (Reasoning: Because this episode was so Sam-centered, it’s obvious he was the protagonist in the finale. If we see him communicating with Eileen, Charlie, and Jody, then it’s NORMAL, even expected of him to be the one to bring up Cas and Jack). Without these additions, it’s harder for people to understand that most of the finale was NOT from Dean’s POV but from Sam’s.

Dean’s “if we don’t keep living, then all that sacrifice is gonna be for nothing” stays the same. (Reasoning: I believe it’s necessary that the show sticks to the importance of “letting go” and “what is dead should stay dead” for the first time ever because the message is “even when you lose someone you love, you can still find some form of happiness and keep living, for you and for them, because that’s what they would have wanted”. Bringing someone back means “I can’t live without you”, and that’s just more codependency. It’s how the demon deals began in the Winchester family –Mary being the first one to do it. This would explain why Dean didn’t ask Jack to bring Cas back, as he asked Chuck. He understood Jack was NOT going to interfere anymore and accepted it. Besides, when Cas saved Dean from hell, Dean thought he didn’t deserve to be saved. This time that Cas saved him, Dean finally feels worthy enough to accept that YES, HE DESERVED TO BE SAVED ALL ALONG, just as much as he deserved to be loved by that angel of the Lord. In this scene, Dean also says that the pain is not gonna go away, which means that from HIS PERPECTIVE, it still hurts that Cas is not there. The problem is that the finale is not showing his POV but Sam’s.  

Sam pies Dean on the face just the same. (Reasoning: That part was just to avoid ending the scene on a sad note).

Everything related to the case happens exactly the same. (Reasoning: At this point, people don’t really care about the MoTW, they care about Sam and Dean).

NOTE 1: The case is important to show that even when the Winchesters are finally free of Chuck’s influence, they CHOOSE to keep hunting. It isn’t something they do out of revenge or because it is their destiny anymore. Maybe they were forced into the life at first, but they’ve learned to find joy in saving people. Being hunters is who they are. However, the fact that a job application was shown on Dean’s desk is also important because it means he was willing to explore what else was there for him besides hunting. Maybe he could find a balance? Maybe he was thinking it was time to quit? We will never know! The thing is that Sam only finds out about it when he goes into Dean’s room after his brother is dead, so maybe that’s when it hits him that Dean wanted to explore his options, and Sam starts to think it’s time for him to do the same.  

NOTE 2: I believe the masks the vampires are wearing is something we can blame on covid. If they had their faces covered, it was easier to use people from the SPN crew for some scenes, instead of using more actors unnecessarily.

NOTE 3: When Sam and Dean arrive at the barn, we get 3 visuals to remember Cas in the same scene (those are for the fandom, not for the general audience): a) the barn, obviously; b) the bag that resembles Cas’ trenchcoat so much that many people thought that’s what it was; and c) two feathers hanging on Dean’s right when he opens the trunk.

The scene with the throwing star happens the same. (Reasoning: The episode is still told from Sam’s point of view, so it makes sense that he fondly sees his brother as a man child).

Jenny the vampire? Uhhh… I mean, it’s not the best piece of writing I’ve ever seen, but it’s not the worst, so okay. That stays the same. (Reasoning: There is none, but she’s not what really ruined the finale, so whatever!)

Dean still dies impaled on a rebar. (Reasoning: OK. HERE ME OUT!!! I hate as much as everyone else that Dean is killed. I think it’s lazy writing, but that’s what we got and I can’t change that in this re-write, so if killing Dean is what we have to work around, then, memes aside, death by rebar is better and here’s why. There’s no one to blame for Dean’s death: no Chuck (the boys were willingly hunting even after Chuck was defeated), no vampires (they were all killed and were no real threat, so it was impossible for Sam to begin a quest for revenge against all vampires. What was Sam going to blame? A rebar? Can you kill it? Hunt it? NO. It was an ordinary death, a stupid accident. Just like any person can die at any moment by slipping on a banana peel. Is it a good death? No, but it’s good to know he doesn’t die trying to save Sam or Cas, because Dean Winchester is NOT willing to give up his life in exchange for anyone else’s anymore.

Sam takes out his phone and says he’ll call for help, but his phone is more visible to the audience. He dials and it’s almost to his ear when Dean stops him and Sam hesitantly hangs up. (Reasoning: People have complained that Sam didn’t call an ambulance, but actually he tried to. It’s just that people missed that part, maybe?)

After Sam puts his phone back in his pocket and says “OK” to Dean, he adds, “I’ll pray to Jack”. Dean’s immediate answer is: “No hands on, remember?” “But Dean”, Sam says, and Dean interrupts him with “OK listen to me” and tells Sam what to do with the kids they rescued. (Reasoning: Jack is God now and how come Sam didn’t remember? The viewers remembered, so it was necessary to include a line that ruled the option out and that showed Dean didn’t want Jack to intervene. The rest was fine).

The lines “You knew it was always gonna end like this for me. It was supposed to end like this, right?” disappear completely from Dean’s monologue. (Reasoning: This is the most problematic part of Dean’s dying speech. He fought God and earned free will, he is no longer controlled by fate or destiny. Accepting that he is supposed to die on a hunt regresses his character development and denies his desire to keep living. This was a total mistake and should be removed).

Instead, if going to heaven is the ending TPTB wanted to give Dean, at least he should say something more empowering. Sam tells him that both of them are going to take the kids somewhere safe. Dean answers and the scene follows like this: “No. Sammy, we made our choice, didn’t we?”, he smiles with difficulty. “We were free to write our own story and we did. We decided to keep saving people, hunting things. Because it’s what we love despite the risks.” (Reasoning: If Dean’s going to die it doesn’t have to feel like it was always meant to be that way. He should die knowing that he exerted his free will until his last breath).

The rest of the dialogue between Sam and Dean happens almost the same. Except that instead of Dean saying “‘cause when it all came down to it, it was always you and me. It’s always been you and me”, he says “’cause when it all came down to it, we’ve always had each other’s backs. Always.” And instead of Sam saying “Don’t leave me”, he says “I still can try to save you.” (Reasoning: It sounds way less codependent without diminishing the importance of their love and support for each other).

Besides, let’s change Dean’s “I’m not leaving you” for “You don’t have to be alone. You’ve still got family.” The rest stays the same word by word. (Reasoning: Dean reminds Sam that “family don’t end in blood” and there are still lots of people out there who love Sam and will be with him).

“I love you so much, my baby brother” stays exactly the same. (Reasoning: Dean always had trouble to express the big L word. I always believed and said many times that before Dean could say “I love you” to Cas or any other character, he had to say it to Sam. So, this is important as part of Dean speaking his truth).

The last part when Dean insists Sam tell him that it’s okay stays the same. (Reasoning: It’s the final moment when the codependency cycle breaks. No more running in circles).

The forehead touch between them stays the same. (Reasoning: I think I would do something similar if my sister were dying. I know there are w*ncest shippers out there, but it shouldn’t matter because the moment feels appropriate for that kind of goodbye). 

See? There are changes but not too many. That’s why I’ve been saying that it was easier to get it right, yet they still managed to screw it up.

The second montage stays the same. (Reasoning: Life goes on, but of course Sam has to mourn).

The call about a case in Austin remains the same. (Reasoning: It’s the only part of the episode where someone from the found family is mentioned, so I think that Donna’s name is perfect in that moment. However, without the other additions I’ve made in this re-write, that off-hand mention feels too little. Its purpose was to tell the viewers that if Donna was alive, so were the others, but the way the episode was executed gave us an isolated Sam, incapable of having friends and a family without Dean).  

After 30 minutes of Sam’s POV, let’s finally see the last bit of Dean’s POV that we’ll ever get.

Dean arrives in Heaven and Bobby receives him. All their conversation stays almost the same, except that after mentioning Rufus and before saying “and your mom and dad…”, Bobby adds an “Ellen and Jo let me borrow their place”. (Reasoning: If you’re gonna put the man outside the Harvelle’s place, at least mention them for Jack’s sake!).

Besides, after Bobby tells Dean that Sam will be along and that time in heaven is different, Dean gives a small smile and says, “Well, there’s no rush. I want him to have a long, happy life.” Bobby answers with: “I would expect nothing less from you, boy” and tells him he got everything he could ever want, etc., just like it happened in the episode, and finishes by asking “What are you gonna do now, Dean?” (Reasoning: It’s important we know for sure that Dean is NOT codependent anymore and that he doesn’t expect to have a miserable afterlife just because his brother is not there yet).

Instead of saying “I think I’ll go for a drive” Dean says, “I think I know what I want” and walks towards baby. Bobby still tells him to have fun. (Reasoning: “Know what I want” is ambiguous enough to help us introduce the last piece of the puzzle, the one thing Dean’s wanted for many seasons and has never been able to express).

 The biggest change is coming:

Dean gets on the Impala and has a moment of silence while he contemplates the wheel. He begins to pray: “Hey, Cas, you got your ears on? I hear you’ve been busy working on this updated Heaven with Jack. You were right about him, Cas. You had faith in him and he saved us all. You could always see the best in everyone, even when they couldn’t see it themselves. Even when I couldn’t see it myself. There’s so much I want to tell you. Maybe you can visit sometime. I hope prayer’s still a thing up here.” (Reasoning: Dean’s side of the confession was unaddressed and that was terrible writing. If there was no way to get him to speak his truth textually, at least take him as close to it as possible).

We listen to a flutter of wings and a “Hello, Dean” from the back seat. We don’t see Cas, but the camera shows us Dean’s cocky smile and he says “Took you long enough.” He turns around slowly. End of scene. (Reasoning: The flutter of wings confirms that angels have their wings back and ties that loose end. The final “hello, Dean” was highly anticipated and it made sense. If Misha couldn’t be there to film, for whatever reason, or if the problem was the kind of conversation Dean and Cas would have, then don’t show it, but leave the door open. Let us know that the two characters were reunited and will talk, but whatever Dean has to say is so private that it’s not for us to hear, only for Cas.  

We finally hear “Carry on my wayward son” and get a montage that begins with Sam playing with his kid. Then we see Dean driving, super happy, and Sam living his life to the fullest. We still get Sam’s Blurry Wife, BUT… we see pictures of Eileen in the living room (not just of John, Mary, Sam, and Dean). We also see photos of Jody, Donna, Charlie, and AU!Bobby. (Reasoning: FAMILY DON’T END IN BLOOD).

The scene where Sam is wearing the party wig and looks miserable inside the Impala is cut and nobody talks about it ever again because it never existed. We get a scene of Sam teaching his son how to fix the car instead. (Reasoning: First of all, don’t give Sam a life where years later he’s still in pain. Second of all, the fucking wig was a crime).

Sam’s dying scene stays the same. The only thing is that his son signs a couple of phrases to him before actually speaking. (Reasoning: More confirmation that Dean Jr. is Eileen’s son).

We hear the final “Evanescence-like Carry on my wayward son”. Again we see the photos and there’s family other than the Winchesters there. (Reasoning: Obvious at this point).

The rest is exactly the same. The show began with two brothers and it’s okay if the last scene is with the two brothers reunited in Heaven. At this point, the other parts of the story are acceptable enough for us to feel happy that they get to see each other again after years of a happy (after)life.

Now look me in the eye and tell me this was too hard to execute. I still think that bad writing is a thing we can’t deny here, adding to the possible meddling of the Network. Maybe Dabb wanted us to hate the finale because he couldn’t get away with what he truly wanted. If that was his intention, then kudos to him. He and The CW really gave us a finale that only 30% of the fandom liked.

I hope you guys have enjoyed this and it helps to give you some peace of mind. In my heart, this was the finale we got. It wasn’t perfect, but it didn’t drop the ball either.

#supernatural #15x20 #spn 15x20 #spn finale #rewrite #dean winchester #dean deserved better #cas deserved better #destiel #the characters deserved better #we deserved better #it was easier to get it right #yet they screwed up big time #alternate ending

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ahdflksjaklf;jsls ok buddies - I hate talking about 14x13: Lebanon, but it has relevancy in the “John Winchester is a villain and cannot and should not be redeemed” discourse as well as being a crucial piece of finale denialist lore so I Have Been Thinking About It Too Much.

As you may recall, the Occult Object of the Week - the pearl - in Lebanon is supposed to grant Dean’s “heart’s desire.” Dean and Sam are Very Sure this means expelling Michael (the Dean Winchester Must Be Saved installment of season 14) (honestly that premise always seemed a little slim to me, I was hoping for Dean’s heart’s desire to be Cas, on Dean’s car, naked, covered in bees). 

Instead they summon Dad of the Year, which at first feels infuriating.  However after discussion with my earworms, I Have Fixed It (and also turned it into a grenade to launch at 15x20.)

Finale denialists and John Winchester derogatorians ASSEMBLE! and let’s discuss after the cut.

I’ve written in depth about Dean’s struggles with the cycle of abuse, so I won’t go too far into it here, but if you want to revisit any of that meta this is a good place to begin.  This post hinges on the same theory - that Dean’s true freedom is established in his release from that cycle - that is the logical outcome of any hero’s journey for him, and where he would finally be able to accept happiness and love.  This logically would also make release from the cycle of abuse and the feelings of self-hatred Dean struggles with his “heart’s desire” for purposes of the pearl.  When it comes to emotions, we also know Dean doesn’t deal with them well.  He punches things instead.  So odds are, Dean hasn’t really worked through these feelings.  

Dean also mentions when John returns that “it was what [Dean] wanted since he was 4″ - when they lost Mary, right before John became obsessed with revenge.  Season 12 Mary canonically remembers John as a “good dad,” so we can draw a line from that to the abuse really starting shortly after her death.  This is also corroborated by Dean himself:

DEAN: You know when you died, it changed Dad. 

(A visual of the John Mary remembers) (just my excuse to put pictures of Matt Cohen on your dash) (I shouldn’t need an excuse) (Matt Cohen hi you are on Tumblr please don’t read any of this I’m embarrassed).

So what Dean has is pre-Mary’s-death John and post-Mary’s-death John, post-Mary’s-death John being the one whose abuse created Dean’s own damaged persona.  Dean thinks the fix is to stop things on the front end (he is ignoring any process-centered solution, he just wants it to never have happened, he is in denial that he has to work through this and just wants it to be erased, etc etc etc).  

***also keep in mind that going back in time to change things on the front end as a “fix it” is a storyline SPN repeats regularly***

***and it always ends up being impossible to do*** 

Ok so for Dean, his damage/anger/brutal nature/darkness is always linked to John, and this cycle “began” for Dean once their family was torn apart by Mary’s death.  So the fix is his “blood family” together.  That’s his heart’s desire in Lebanon because Dean hasn’t really worked through any of his emotions, and it’s his very Dean way of fixing it - “oh if my family gets put back together I will be put back together too.”

***speaking of quick fixes, I’d like to note that any case in SPN that is referred to as a “milk run”  inevitably becomes complicated and messy***

***continuing the thematics of there’s no such thing as a quick fix***

This is no different.  Stopping the cycle by simply erasing it from the narrative erases anything else that happened along the way during the journey.  It erases this Mary (who they know as a person by this point and not just the mom on a pedestal) 

and (most importantly) it erases this Cas (the episode specifically replaces Cas with one who Doesn’t Know Dean).

We Emphasize This Of Course In The Dialogue In Case You Missed It

DEAN Cas, you know us. ALTERNATE CAS I don’t know you.

***Simply erasing the origin of Dean’s trauma erases all of Dean’s growth.  It erases this family that Dean is so proud to tell John he has now. It erases everything he has already overcome despite how hard it was to achieve it.

So, John goes back.  In that way, the pearl does give Dean his heart’s desire - his realization that this is not about a quick fix, it is about the journey to the good, and all you gain and become along the way (kind of similar to “Happiness isn't in the having. It's in just being. It's in just saying it" eh?).  it’s the process.  It’s every moment along the way.  It’s the people who help him get there.

And then he starts the healing journey by taking control of his own life, by owning his feelings instead of displacing the blame, by recognizing he is NOT guided solely by the actions of his father and this cycle:

DEAN

And for the longest time, I blamed Dad. I mean, hell, I blamed Mom, too, you know? I was angry. But say we could send Dad back knowing everything. Why stop there? Why not send him even further back and let some other poor sons of bitches save the world? But here’s the problem. Who does that make us? Would we be better off? Well, maybe. But I gotta be honest – I don’t know who that Dean Winchester is.

And the episode fucking ends with Cas, the Cas Who Knows Them coming into the bunker and asking them what happened, calling each of them by name just to emphasize again That He Knows Them, because Cas knowing Dean, and Cas being Dean’s family is the cornerstone of what Dean’s heart desires.

[CAS walks in from the door at the top of the stairs. SAM, DEAN and MARY walk out from the library to see him.]

CAS Mary, Sam, Dean. What happened?

So yeah, it took 14 damn seasons but Lebanon is where Dean realizes he can be defined by more than the acts of his father.  (That’s why it’s so terrifying for Dean when Chuck snatches back any control he gained in Season 15.  Because for Dean, Chuck is just John Winchester Controls My Every Action all over again, except he’s God which makes it even worse.) 

That’s also why the final blow to Chuck is not Dean killing him. 

The last stage in the journey that begins here with Dean’s “I’m good with who I am” - [I’m still bad and dark and damaged but I’m good with it]

is Dean’s “that’s not who I am.” [the most caring man on Earth; the most selfless, loving human being I will ever know]

Thats equally why 15x18 is so brilliant, 15x19 is at least acceptable, and 15x20 simply does. not. work.

Dean Winchester’s perfect heaven cannot possibly center on the blood family.  It does not have John Winchester and Mary, husband and wife, who took away his own free will.  It is THIS FAMILY.  The found family.  Cas and Jack and Sam and the Mary that was resurrected.  Dean’s entire character arc supports this journey, and to have it culminate in something that is so established in the season prior to this one as something Dean knows he no longer wants is maddening.

I’m even more mad now because I just remembered that the most prominent picture above Dying Sam’s bed was the blood family portrait from this episode; almost like they wanted us to remember this particular stupid lesson.  This show is so stupid when it could have been so so so very good.

***I want to say thanks again to all of you who read my spiraling if you got this far.  It’s therapeutic for me to do it, but it makes it all the better that people actually read it.  Seeing you in my notes MAKES my entire day****

#seriously im feral again #spn #spn meta #Lebanon #John Winchester is a trash heap #spn 14x13 #destiel #found family #spn fandom #spn family #Dean Winchester analysis #somebody help me im spiraling back into finale denialist rage #deancas #found family forever #supernatural is a show #but it is also a way of life #just my daily therapy of psychoanalyzing Dean Winchester #somebody come get me I have officially entirely gone mad #15x20 sucks and this is why #destiel hivemind Meet the Parents #myspnmeta