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dyed-red · 1 year

Note

What are your thoughts on how much time Sam’s soul spent in The Cage? If we go by established time lines in the show, 18 months = approx 180 years. But Lucifer is an arch angel and we know angels can manipulate time so I think it could have been longer, or least made to feel longer. I also believe that Sam would have been fluent in Enochian after spending that much time with Lucifer and Micheal. Thank you for answering if you have time! And I hope you enjoy and holiday time you have :)

welp - you did it.

you asked a question i’ve been thinking about for over a decade and unleashed the full fury of my brainworms in action. this is the type of meta i expect like 4 people total to be interested in, but i’m going to spend days working on because I Have Thoughts.

the short answer: somewhere between 180 - 5000 years, with my personal headcanon landing just over 700 years, or 1400 for maximum whump.

The behemoth long answer is under a cut because long and math and meta. Skip to the end if you just want the math. The tl;dr is that SPN canon implies that hell has layers and that time distorts more the deeper that you go, and we can build an equation for that distortion and get to basically whatever number suits our purposes depending on what assumptions we make going in.

Time Distortion in Hell

The length of time Sam’s soul felt/experienced the cage is a function of two factors: how long he spent there in earth terms, and the degree of temporal distortion hell creates.

The first piece is easy if we assume Sam’s soul spent 18 months in the cage* (footnotes at the end).

The second piece... Dean spent 4 months dead (time in earth terms) which was 40 years on the rack in terms of his experience/perception. If we take this assumption that 1 month = 1 decade, we get to use some very simple math to say that Sam spent 180 years in the cage.

But.

I’ve always personally interpreted Hell’s time distortion to run a bit different than a static 1 month = 1 decade. This headcanon derives from some hints in canon (or at least, this headcanon is not actively contradicted by moments in canon) and from other pieces of media.

I believe that the deeper you go into hell, the greater the temporal distortion is.

This is basically like the move Inception, I’m not even gonna try to pretend otherwise. There, the deeper you go into the dream within a dream, the more time dilation there is. It makes sense to me that SPN’s Hell canon works the same for several reasons.

For starters, when Sam's wall is breaking in s6, he has flashbacks where 2-3 minutes is equated with what feels like a week in the cage (episode 6x14). We can take this at perfect face value (meaning that Sam’s soul experienced about 5000 years in the Cage). Or we can interpret this to be a function of the episode he is experiencing, where temporal dilation is exaggerated because of the nature of his flashback, or we can say he is speaking in hyperbole.

I think it makes sense for the truth to be somewhere in the middle - Sam is speaking off the cuff, not entirely literal or exact about how long those 2-3 minutes felt like, but nonetheless honestly that they felt like days, felt much longer than our formula of 1 month = 1 decade allows. And I take that as a realistic reflection of his time spent in the pit.

Another, and far more overt piece of evidence comes in Season 11 when Sam visits ‘the Cage’. In 11x09 (O Brother Where Art Thou), we see Rowena, Crowley and Sam in Hell whereas Dean is on Earth, and there appears to be little to no temporal distortion occurring between the events below and the events above. This remains true in the following episode (11x10, the Devil in the Details) when Crowley phones Dean and when Dean comes down to join them in Hell (and Cas as well shortly after).

So - what gives? Is there temporal distortion occurring in Hell or not? Did they retcon that, forget about it, what?

Well, Crowley explicitly refers to this area of Hell as ‘Limbo’, which brings us to an understanding of Hell’s temporal distortion through the lens of the circles presented in Dante’s Inferno.

Circles of Hell

It’s fair and frustrating to say that canon doesn’t give us much in the way of understanding the structure and hierarchies of Hell. That gives us a lot of leeway, but I like to anchor my headcanons to canon if and when I can.

Thankfully, there is at least some reason to believe that Hell in this universe is structured at least somewhat similarly to Hell in other popular works of fiction that derive their conceptions of it from Dante’s Inferno (which itself is the popular mainstream view of hell that even a lot of Christian/Catholics have adopted, often without realizing at this point).

Dante’s Inferno provides a view of hell that has 9 circles, or layers, each one deeper into Hell than the last. SPN implies the same.

We get this from the use of Limbo, as stated above, since this is the term in the Inferno for the first circle. Crowley refers to Limbo as the “furthest reaches” of Hell, whereas in Dante’s Inferno, it’s the top layer. SPN plays fast and loose with what it takes vs. leaves from real-world mythos, but I take this to mean that “far” or “furthest” not in the sense of depth, but as a place which may be vast and largely empty, and which few demons can enter (since, as per the Inferno, it’s not a place where guilty souls actually end up, so possibly has quite restricted access to demons).

We also get evidence of these circles from Word of God through Sera Gamble, who has apparently said that the Cage is “At the bottom of the lowest depths of the ninth circle of the worst bit of Hell.” That’s pure Dante’s Inferno, ba-bey. (/mcelroy voice)

More evidence comes from Season 8 when Sam rescues Bobby’s soul from Hell, since he goes through Purgatory as a sort of back door to Hell, being told that Purgatory is “Hell adjacent”, which is true as well in the Inferno.

Another within-canon indirect hint of this is the association between Lucifer and ice. Dante’s Inferno keeps that the ninth circle of Hell, reserved for treachery, is a large frozen lake. And in the Inferno and in SPN canon, this is where the Devil is kept, in the Center of Hell, in the deepest frozen depths of the pit, the frozen lake in the ninth circle.

Also remembering that in early seasons, Lucifer and his Cage were buried so deep in Hell that most demons weren’t sure if he even existed. His existence was a matter of faith, no different than humans believing in God, according to 3x04 (Sin City).

Based on all this, I think it’s perfectly reasonable to surmise that Hell is vast, but potentially its vastness manifesting in the way in which it is layered, and that there are regions, planes, or depths that most demons do not or cannot tread to.

But okay, even if you’re on board so far, why do I believe that time works differently at different layers? And what circles have we seen in canon?

Situating Each Circle

My fundamental argument here is that temporal distortion in Hell is more extreme at the deeper depths, in a mathematically determinable way.

If we accept that Hell has nine circles (or planes or layers), then we can assume that we’ve seen three - probably five - of them. There is Limbo, as per season 11 and stated above, in which there seems to be little to no time dilation. This makes some sense if we accept that it’s the surface-most plane*, the first circle.

We have also established what’s in the ninth circle, titled Treachery, which is the Center of Hell and The Cage. Given its depth and the lines from season 3 Sin City, we can assume that, much like Limbo, this is an off-limits zone for most demons. If we accept my argument that times moves differently at the different layers, this is where time distortion - really, time dilation - should be the most extreme. It is the furthest removed from the material plane and the deepest well (do not call it a gravity well do not call it a gravity well do not call it a - )*, dilating time and everything around it at its depths.

In between, we have seen The Rack (where Dean was tortured), we have the Throne (where Rowena sat and kept court, since many of Crowley’s ruling scenes are implied to be on the surface rather than in Hell proper, although any of Crowley’s ruling scenes would be on this same level, I imagine), we have The Dungeon (from which Sam rescued Bobby’s soul as part of the Trials), and we have the glimpse we caught of how Crowley restructured the place into endless lines as a method of torment. There’s also the space where Lilith’s horn is kept, as per the Belphegor and Cas scenes in the early episodes of Season 15. I take that to be the same level as the Throne level, since it seems to be where ruling demons would both preside and reside.

Based on the seeming lack of time distortion we tend to see (in late seasons...) when we get scenes relating the Throne level, my headcanon is that this is the second circle of Hell (Lust). In the Inferno, incoming souls are judged here and then sent to which circle their sins have them belong, so I think it’s at least somewhat fitting for this to be where the Throne is. Keeping it closer to the surface world / material plane also has some advantages if doing so minimizes time distortion, since keeping closer time with Earth allows easier monitoring of Earth and tracking of things like deals etc. It also means that higher ranking aka more powerful demons who preside here are closer to Gates of Hell and therefore have less far to travel when slipping out and onto Earth.

In contrast, I think that The Rack is pretty damn deep. There is a lot of time distortion going on to get to 1 month = 1 decade (especially if we allow that a very small amount of dilation is happening at the topmost circles, even including Limbo). This makes sense to me in that The Rack is a place of exceeding misery and horror, literally the center of Hell’s most violent and excruciating tortures.

For that reason, I place The Rack as circle seven, aptly titled Violence. This is not to be confused with the sin of Wrath, which is actually the fifth circle. Rather, the seventh circle (to quote wikipedia at least), “houses the violent”. What better way to re-interpret that in the world of SPN than that circle hosting the torturers and their tortured? Within the seventh circle are those who committed violence against neighbors, against self, and against God. What better place for someone who sold his own soul (violence against self and against God), who killed?

Of course I don’t think it’s so straightforward that violent souls get sent to The Rack. I think any damned soul can be called there for a torture session. But Dean spent his entire time in Hell on The Rack, and that can’t be standard. Bobby spent plenty of his time in hell in a cell, as per 8x19 (Taxi Driver), and demons come here to torture him.

I don’t think it’s a huge leap for me to infer that Dean was special and spent his entire time on The Rack because they were so determined to use him to break the First Seal, and that most damned souls only do short stints on there, either due to limited real estate or so that souls don’t become numb to the violence (since let’s face it, most demonic torturers probably can’t keep them in anticipation of further horror as well as Alistair can, after a few days or months being cut into.) They’re probably returned to their cells to marinate in the memory and anticipation with only minor tortures until they’re brought down again. This is what we see with Bobby and probably with the endless lineups in Crowley’s redesigned Hell.

So - without too much to go on, I’m going to tentatively place the Dungeon with Bobby and other damned souls as being in the sixth circle, Heresy. It’s a circle described as hosting souls in flaming tombs, which I think fits this notion of a dungeon with cells holding on to souls, and keeps those souls close at hand and ready for another go in the seventh circle where The Rack is held.

And this allows me to place the endless line as actually being either in the fourth circle, Greed, or the fifth circle, Wrath. The fourth involves a nation of lost souls who, in this pit of hell, lose their individuality and become sort of empty, which fits what we see in that brief clip of the Hell line. The fifth includes a “savage self-frustration” that seems fitting of the concept of that awful endless line, with sullen and angry souls fighting each other in muck and slime.

Regardless of fourth or fifth (I have no strong sense of which fits better), I see that line as being meaningful outside (above) the sixth circle, in a torment that is less acute, as souls that are less unique and differentiated, less violent, less worthy of turning into black-eyed demons.

Because in the Inferno, there’s this critical division between the fifth vs. sixth circles as the transition between the two being the transition into “Lower Hell” and the sixth being behind guarded walls, with another steep drop from the sixth to the seventh, and so on. This makes sense to me as Lower Hell being a place where they keep the Dungeon and guard the doomed souls, whereas that place outside those walls hosting the damned but less special, less differentiated, the more generically doomed... yeah, it just makes sense to me (your mileage, as always, may vary).

This distinction is important also because of that drop down. If distance and depth are important to temporal distortion, then it matters if the first few circles of Hell involve less of a steep drop one to the next. Here we should note that the seventh circle involves three rings, and the eighth circle (Fraud, aka Malebolge, another very strong contender for the location of The Rack since it’s essentially an amphitheater for torture, so I’ll do the math both ways below)*, well the eighth is basically a funnel with 10 separate rings or steps downward.

Why does this matter? So glad you asked!

Increasing Temporal Distortion at Each Level

If you’re following the hints I’m dropping, what I’m implying about getting deeper into Hell and the further drops down at the later levels is that the time distortion in Hell does not increase linearly. It increases exponentially.

Limbo has temporal distortion that is so minor as to be barely perceptible, if perceptible at all. The Rack gives us an explicit (if fuzzy) estimate of 1 month = 1 decade in terms of perception. The Cage is implied to be much, much more than that, at the extreme end up to 2-3 minutes = 1 week in terms of perception.

If the time distortion was linear, meaning that from circle 1 to circle 2, and circle 2 to 3, and 3 to 4 and so on, we should expect that the amount of time distortion from Limbo (circle 1) to the Rack (circle 7 or 8) to be a much, much wider gap than the amount of time distortion from the Rack (circle 7 or 8) to the Cage (circle 9). Like... it should be 7-8x as much distortion.

And I mean, you could take a linear headcanon approach to it. If we accept that SPN Hell has circles or layers as is Word of God and overtly implied by the narrative time and again, you could say that there’s x amount of distortion at circle 1, and 2x at circle 2, and 3x at circle 3, etc, and this would works okay when we got the math right, but like... it’s not my preference given the way canon works.

What I mean (especially for those who hate math so might not be automatically sussing what I’m saying), is that, for example, if 10 seconds in Limbo = 1 second on Earth (sure why not) then if the time distortion increases the same way (”linearly”) at each new circle of hell, then on the Rack we get 70 seconds = 1 Earth second (or 80 seconds = 1 Earth second, if the Rack is in the eighth circle).

That specific math doesn’t check out (it equates to 23.3 years on the Rack instead of 40, or 26.7 if the Rack is the eighth circle instead of the seventh), but to figure this out we should of course work backwards starting from the 4 months = 40 years. Which tells us that each second on Earth feels like 120seconds (2 minutes) on The Rack. If that’s happening at the seventh circle, then a linear difference between each circle of hell means that the time distortion in Limbo is roughly 17 seconds for every Earth second. This math works out a little prettier if the Rack is the eighth circle because that’s an even 15 seconds for every Earth second.

To me, that’s stretching how much time distortion is implied to occur at Limbo and vastly exaggerating what we see with Sam rescuing Bobby from Hell. If Bobby is actually kept in the 6th circle, that’s 102 (7th circle) or 190 (8th circle) seconds in Hell for every second on Earth. It just didn’t seem that Sam was spending a minute and a half in Hell for every second that Dean was spending on the surface in Taxi Driver, but then again, I haven’t rewatched that episode so I’d have to double check to know for sure.

Between those implications about time distortion in Limbo and Bobby’s rescue and even the Throne room when they visit Rowena to the way Dante’s Inferno (which SPN canon clearly drew from) funnels more extremely downward the deeper you go in the circles, to what Sam’s episode of Hell memories could imply about his experience of time dilation in the Cage (assuming we accept his statement about his episode “feeling like a week” even if we don’t take that number at exactly face value)... an exponential increase just makes more sense, mathematically?

And again, for anyone who doesn’t like math or doesn’t know what that means and why I keep using this word “exponentially,” what it means is that the difference between the first circle and the second circle is not as big as the difference between the second circle and the third circle. At each depth, the intensity of the time dilation increases. So that you might not even notice the difference in time dilation between circle 1 and 2, but the difference between circle 5 and 6 is massively noticeable, and the difference between circle 8 and circle 9 is like several times even that big. Like Inception!

So let’s run some final calculations and get you your answer(s), Anon!

Some Final Math and Estimates*

Assumption 1: Equivalent Dilation

If we assume that there is no difference in time dilation from one region of Hell to another, then the ratio that Dean gives us in Season 4 is accurate for all of Hell, and 1 month (30 days) in the pit feels like 10 years. That’s 120 seconds below to every second above.

This would mean that in 18 months in the Cage, Sam experiences 180 years worth of torture.

Assumption 2: Linear Dilation Circle 7

Assuming The Rack is in the seventh circle, then a linear difference at each level means that 120 seconds on the Rack equates to 154 seconds in the Cage at the ninth level. That would mean that in 18 months topside, Sam’s soul spent 231.5 years in the Cage.

Assumption 3: Linear Dilation Circle 8

Assuming the Rack is in the eighth circle (which, tbh, I kind of thing makes more sense even though I argued differently above, but shhh let’s pretend otherwise), then a linear difference at each level means that 120 seconds there equates to only 202.5 years for Sam’s soul in the Cage. Slightly less awful!

Assumption 4: Exponential Dilation Circle 7

The simple way I’m doing this is that instead of taking the time distortion at Limbo and making it x2 at the second circle, x3 at the third, and so on, I’m taking the time distortion at Limbo and making it to the power of 2 at the second circle, to the power of 3 at the third, and so on. I still have to start with The Rack being 120seconds on Earth time and work backwards to get that initial Limbo starting point before I apply the exponent, but otherwise that’s all I’m doing. There are definitely more sophisticated ways we could approach it since that’s a pretty simple linear increase in the exponent, and we could instead make the exponent itself an equation we’d derive through more complex means but... I’m really not about to do that.

So.

If we start from The Rack = 120seconds (2mins), using the exponent assumptions above, then Limbo time dilation is roughly 2 seconds (actually 1.98167 or so) in Limbo for every Earth second (works beautifully for what we see in canon, basically imperceptible), and time dilation in the ninth circle is 471 seconds (7.85 mins) per Earth second. Yes, that big of a difference, because that’s how exponents work.

This would mean that Sam’s soul spent approximately 707 years in the Cage.

What a great number! What a reasonable number, and a pretty damn canon-compliant number to headcanon. I like this number.

Assumption 5: Exponential Dilation Circle 8

As above in terms of the exponent assumptions, if the Rack is actually in the 8th circle of Hell, that much closer to the Cage, then here the math works out so that 120 seconds on the 8th circle being... roughly 2 seconds in Limbo. Because that’s how exponential functions work. It’s actually 1.81928 in Limbo vs. the previous 1.98167, but that rounds to the same thing (2 seconds) in terms of human experience, even if it makes a big difference when we take it out to the difference it makes in months, years, etc.

(But like, this is why I think it’s exponential, because this works so much better for what canon implies about the time dilation there*.)

Anyway, here, this would mean that Sam’s soul spent roughly 327.5 years in the Cage instead of the 707 from above. That’s a big difference.

Assumption 6: Off the Rails

We can also take Sam’s statement about 2-3 minutes on Earth (having a Hell flashback) feeling like a week in the pit. If we estimate conservatively and go with every 3 Earth minutes = 1 week in Hell, depending on how we approach it (depending on if you go with minutes in a week vs. a month and which way you get to a year), you get somewhere around 5000 years (in my present calculation it’s 4984, but I also calculated it another way to get to just over 5000).

Assumption 7: 9th Circle vs. The Cage

Dante’s Inferno distinguishes between the 9th Circle on its own vs. the Center of Hell as the place where Lucifer resides, right at the deepest depths. The Cage itself is remote in Hell, distant from all other demons, enough so as to be a matter of faith to many of them. If we allow the possibility that this all means that the Cage is deeper than the ninth circle itself*, we can add another linear layer or else another exponent (take our equation to the 10 instead of to the 9).

This works out to be:

Rack 7th Circle, Linear: 257 years

Rack 8th Circle, Linear: 225 years

Rack 7th Circle, Exponential: 1400 years

Rack 8th Circle, Exponential: 596 years

Meaning this is a good place to note that... depending on the final number you want to get to, you can use whichever assumptions you want to get there and justify it by math. Remember kids, there are lies, damn lies, and statistics.

TL;DR!!!!!

How much time did Sam’s soul spend in the Cage? My headcanon is that he spent probably either 600 or 700 years there, on the assumption that it was 18 months between Swan Song and Appointment in Samarra, and assuming time dilation gets more extreme the deeper that you go in Hell.

For people who want to make more conservative estimates but still embed some complexity to Hell’s time dilation and/or who be more canon-compliant to other glimpses we’ve seen of Hell’s time distortion (Limbo, etc), I think anywhere from about 200 years to 330 years is perfectly reasonable.

For people who want to go with maximum whump, the sky (5000) is the limit, but you can mathematically point to up to 1400 being pretty reasonable.

*Footnotes

1. Because canon plays fast and loose with how many months exactly have gone by, and some people headcanon that only about 4 months have passed in Season 6 before Appointment in Samarra when Death pulls his soul out. I personally read it as more like 6 months having gone by and think this is the more standard headcanon, so your 180 years is the most common interpretation, and definitely the most easy to defend. I also made calculations for Sam having spent 16 months in the Cage instead of 18 months there though, if anyone is interested.

2. There is also the Vestibule in the Inferno as the opening to Hell, before the first circle, and this requires passage from Charon to cross over and into Hell proper. This is where the quote “Abandon All Hope, Ye Who Enter Here” is from at the Gate of Hell, which of course is evoked in season 5 as the episode in which Jo and Ellen die.

I like to think of the Vestibule in the world of SPN as being any and all of the many Hellgates implied by canon, including the one that opens in AHBL2. No time dilation occurs within the Vestibule(s), as a person has to enter into Hell’s circles to properly separate themselves from the material plane.

3. Not getting into it here but if I ever get around to writing an original piece of fiction about angels and demons etc like I kind of want to, some of my worldbuilding will explicitly connect/relate angels to celestial bodies, like literally to stars, with the depth of hell essentially being a black hole, hence why the closer one gets to it, the greater the time dilation there is. Gravity and heat increase near the center of hell in this unbearable way, and then at the very center, like within the black hole itself, it becomes unbearably incredibly cold, like that frozen lake in which Lucifer is half-submerged in Dante’s Inferno. Lucifer existing impossibly both within and outside the event horizon. But I digress.

4. When you think about how many angels are implied to have died in order to rescue Dean’s soul, compared to how simply Sam snuck into Hell to rescue Bobby, I think the circles of Hell interpretation becomes quite important. If Dean was in the seventh or eighth circle, like especially that eighth circle, that’s so much deeper in than the Dungeon. The angels also couldn’t infiltrate subtly, methinks, and had to storm the walled and heavily guarded gates at the sixth circle, through that dungeon, then fight their way down the three rings of the seventh circle and possibly down into the amphitheater of the eighth. We know that their powers alone can’t kill a demon as powerful as Alistair even on Earth, so on their home turf in Hell, it makes sense that demons would have put up a really solid fight against the angels. This helps resolve some of my own frustration at what seems to be discrepancies in the abilities of angels and how dangerous they are to demons in canon.

5. Please be aware that all maths above involve some rounding, since I didn’t think anyone wanted the detailed decimals. I also calculated months as being 30 days and for simplicity, calculated years as being 12 months. I could rework the math into weeks with 52 weeks being a year instead, which gives slightly different numbers, but it’s work so I’m just going to go with these approximations. Also noting that I used calculated everything using excel to save myself a headache. I’m sorry if there are any errors, especially when it comes to the exponents, my brain got very tired. Please let me know if you find any.

6. When it comes to the exponential ones, if The Rack is in the 7th circle of hell, then if the Dungeon where Bobby was kept was in the 6th circle, then each Earth second is 60 seconds (1 minute) in the Dungeon. That’s more time dilation than I think canon implies, because 60 minutes (1hr) in the Dungeon is only a minute on Earth? In contrast if The Rack is in the 8th circle, then 1 Earth second is 36 seconds in the Dungeon. I honestly think both of these are more extreme than canon implies, but again, it’s been a million years since I watched that episode because it’s written by Bucklemming and I cannot stand their writing. But as a count in favor of the exponential argument instead of linear, if time dilation increases the same amount at each circle then 1 Earth second translates to 103 seconds in the Dungeon (Rack in 7th) or 90 seconds (Rack in 8th), both of which are a lot more dilation than our exponential account.

7. For simplicity, I’ve also ignored the different rings which occur at the 7th and 8th circles. Those would, of course, change the math here as well, and we could add another linear or exponential step for each of those rings. That would lead to some crazy numbers because we’re talking about 13 additional steps. Linearly we’d add a few thousand years, but exponentially we’re starting to talk about a geological timescale. I don’t think it’s productive to make that extreme of an assumption about those rings, but I think we could comfortably stretch the distance between the 7th circle and the pit in which Lucifer’s cage sits at the deepest depths of hell if we wanted to, if you wanted to reasonably get closer to that 5000 years estimate.

8. Since your ask mentioned it, Anon, I realize I don’t touch on Enochian in this post but I have two tag-rambles about my thoughts on enochian and I thought I had a proper post on it somewhere but can’t find it. I could/should probably make a post with a tumblr ficlet about that, since I started drafting a canon-divergent post-Hell fic with Sam and Enochian and there’s like... no chance I’ll ever finish it. But anyway.

Thanks for reading this far, to anyone who did.

#spn meta #my meta #hell meta #time dilation #temporal distortion #time distortion #headcanons #dante's inferno #this meta is 5200 words that's longer than many fics wtf #there is a tl;dr though you don't have to read the whole thing #what did you do this week phyn? oh y'know just wrote 4k words of meta to make a hell time distortion equation #that literally no one asked for (except they kinda did but i'm sure not like this)#i get one (1) day off and this is what happens #did i read the thesis chapter one of my grad students is waiting for feedback on?#nope! i wrote a time distortion equation instead #if you can't tell from these tags i'm going a little feral over here #okay whew i'm calm i'm good #i'm not proofreading this so if there are typos or issues or my math is off we're just gonna deal with that reality #probably gonna rb later for timezones because i can

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soullessjack · 7 months

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been thinking a lot about soulless jack’s arc and the various way it crashed through the ceiling and one of those ways is how there was absolutely no fallout from it in s15.

between the events of Game Night and Moriah, dean opened up an fbi file that listed jack as armed + dangerous with multiple charges, he and Sam literally tracked Jack through the trail of bodies left behind with every new target. the woman swallowed by the earth was literally televised live for half of the normal world to see, and not only did jack’s second trail of bodies with the Grigori literally get him on CCTV footage eating a heart, but it also landed him as the wanted armed + dangerous fbi target. I don’t know if Chuck reversing the lie command also reversed the world’s memory of it all or what, but Jack had like an actual impact on the normal world that just isn’t there in S15.

Nobody seems to recognize him once he’s back, not civilians who saw him telekinetically bury a woman alive on national television, not police officers or actual FBI agents aware of his still-active file or the CCTV footage of him eating a raw heart. Nothing. Of course it’s because everything Jack goes through is for plot advancement and nothing else, but that only adds to how frustrating the sheer amount of loose ends in his arcs is.

While I’d personally rework the entire season to have more focus on Jack, I do think there was some potential to revisit it in Gimme Shelter especially, where the main villain is literally a Christian Jigsaw who punishes those she deemed “wicked” and “corrupt” in almost the exact same way Duma had manipulated Jack into doing. Even in the way the episode canonically plays out, Jack and Sylvia do have some connection: both dealing with loss, grief, hopelessness, helplessness, and disappointment. Now the episode doesn’t exactly bank on their emotional connection as a plot stronghold for when Sylvia is revealed to be bad, like Sam and Ava in All Hell Breaks Loose, but the ghost of a narrative foil still haunts it anyways.

Sylvia is obviously meant to be some sort of foil or mirror for Jack in the sense that she reflects what he did and what he’s currently suicidally guilt stricken about. As usual, Jack tries to reach out and help Sylvia because of their similarities, because she’s in the same pain he is in, to which she refutes: “you’re just a scared little boy trying to make his daddies happy.” The mirror for Jack’s past actions is basically belittling his guilt-driven attempt to make things right with Sam and Dean and the rest of the world. The hopelessness, helplessness and disappointment they related to each other is exactly what Jack feels within his own situation.

I mean, he’s literally suicidal. He’s actively working towards killing himself as a last resort for redemption and atonement without there even being a guarantee that he’ll actually get it in the end.

|🚧|

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scoobydoodean · 1 year

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hi it's gadreel anon from yesterday and i just wanna say 'there's no way in hell he'd say yes to being possessed by anything' <- direct quote from dean in 9x01. we don't know what sam would actually have said if given the choice but dean believes he would never agree to it so he and 'ezekiel' have to come up with a way to get a yes from sam without sam fully knowing what's happening. good of him to try to tell sam later but he did believe he had to wait until it was too late for sam to say no.

Hi Gadreel anon! For anyone who doesn't know, this would be related to my tags on a reblog last night about the "Gadreel Situation". Anon had also sent this very appreciated message about a much needed uquiz choice!

I also JUST got another anon message that begins with,

obsessed w people who compare sam’s willingness for death in s8/s9 (which, to me at least, read as him being suicidal) to a DNR.

So DNR anon—this is for you too!

So the issue is, Gadreel anon, in my tags I was thinking of a different moment from the one you were referring to! I was thinking of this moment:

and you were thinking of this moment earlier in the same episode:

So my bad in my tags!

(This makes me even more interested in, at some point, doing a uquiz about fandom memory haha).

Too late for Sam to say no though? I didn't say otherwise. I said that Dean wanted to put the choice back in Sam's hands as soon as possible, but then allowed himself to be convinced not to when he shouldn't have, and that either way, Gadreel would never have let Dean tell Sam.

But here's what I always come back to, which is what the OP whose post I tagged on was getting at and what I meant when I talked about analyzing the situation in a vacuum (I'm not saying this is something you are doing Gadreel Anon—it just got me thinking about some of the ways fandom talks about Sam in this context and then DNR anon came in with their frustrations):

Here's 8.14 "Trial and Error" when Sam originally insists on being the one to do The Trials.

This is a Sam full of hope. This is a Sam who knows his brother intends to treat The Trials as a way to off himself because he thinks he's disposable to everyone in his life and he's disposable to himself. So Sam insists, "No—absolutely not—you will NOT be doing The Trials in this state of mind!! I'm going to be the one to do The Trials and I am going to survive then I'm going to save you from your suicidal ideation!"

By 8.21 though, Sam is no longer a man full of hope. He's a man who believes he needs to die so everyone can be spared of him—so that he can become clean:

[Gifset (EVEN MORE HEARTBREAKING) here]. And here's a rant back and forth between me and a friend about that moment, which is also a more general commentary on my thoughts about fandom framing things as "Sam had peacefully come to the conclusion that he was ready to die and Dean shouldn't have tried to stop him from killing himself in "Sacrifice", and season 9 is just him doubling down on when he was "manipulative" and "selfish" in 8.23 because he *checks notes* convinced his suicidal brother not to kill himself, just like Sam did for him in 8.14 (also, if anyone is actively attempting to manipulate anyone in 8.23—which is not how I like to view the scene on my good days—it's not Dean <3 love and light <3).

So yeah—despite the popularity of reducing the entire thing down to "Sam was ready to die and Dean just couldn't let him go!!!" It is, in my opinion, a terrible take, because it ignores literally everything that happened and Sam's actual state of mind! He originally intended to live!! That was the WHOLE POINT!!! Then that changed to him wanting to kill himself because he thought he was dirty and that he deserved it!

So then Dean makes the same promise to Sam that Sam made to him in 8.14 and couldn't fulfill. He takes on the burden of that promise for both of them instead, and he becomes the one saying, "I'll show you to the light at the end of the tunnel and you'll see there's a future and a hope for you and that you are not irreparably broken and disposable". And Sam agrees!! He agrees that he wants to live!!!

Then they get to the hospital, and Gadreel is saying "There's only one way left I can think of to save Sam" and Dean immediately dismisses it, but then he asks Gadreel, "If I consider this – and I mean just consider it – I need something, man. You got to prove to me how bad he is." And when Dean says that, he means how suicidal is his brother? How much does he still hate himself and how much is he refusing to fight on his own because he hates himself? Is he even really fighting? And this is the answer he gets:

"Nobody else can get hurt because of me"!!! Ahhhhh!!!!

I do think one thing we can argue, is that Dean should have entered Sam's mind and convinced him to fight on his own! However, in desperation, Dean happened to have made an ill-thought-out prayer doxxing his location earlier in the day to a legion of very pissed off angels, all of whom hate his guts and know that a guy whose guts they hate even more is obsessed with him (like—Naomi making him kill thousands of fake Dean's obsessed), so beating him and his brother to death sounded really nice at that moment! So Dean did not have the time! And Sam's issues were far larger than one conversation could fix (as proved by Sam's state of mind in 9.01 coming immediately after agreeing to continue fighting in 8.23).

Dean, when he first made the decision to go into Sam's head through Gadreel to get him to say "Yes", considered the action he took as applying the charge to jolt Sam back to life after he tried to kill himself, which absolutely—was against Sam's expressed wish (re: conversation with Death) that he wanted to die. But when fans complain about that, they are complaining about something we as a society do all of the time when we want people who want to kill themselves to not kill themselves. It's just that this charge Dean applies is angelic and comes with extra strings and complications and another "thing that Sam did not want" besides just wanting to live. However, Dean was thinking, "As soon as Sam is back, I can put the decision in his hands!" Then he kept allowing himself to be convinced "A little longer", "a little longer", "just a little longer" and he thought, "Well, even if Sam hates me, at least he'll be alive!"

Some people will shrug and think, "Well, Dean should have just taken the L!" And that's okay! I have no problem with someone saying, "Dean should not have done it, because even though his motive was wanting to save his suicidal brother, the actions he took to do so were too far and therefore were wrong, and he should have prioritized respecting Sam's wishes and Sam's principles over applying angelic life-support Sam would disagree with". But that isn't what Dean did, and I... just don't think the motivations for his actions were nearly so selfish and evil as a lot of fandom wants to make them out to be, and are choices a lot of people would probably make in the same circumstances and in the same situation. Including, according to himself, Sam—who admits in 9.23, after his initial claim at the end of "The Purge" that he wouldn't do the same thing—"I lied". Then he spends all of season 10 proving all kinds of insane and morally questionable lengths he'll go to to keep Dean around!!! Things that he knows Dean does not agree with!!! While Sam doesn't directly let something possess Dean, in season 10, Dean does not want Sam to use the Book of the Damned and tells him directly not to use it several times—that he does NOT want to be saved using that book, because he is afraid of the consequences. However, Sam uses it anyway and orders Oskar up a human sacrifice in his wake with absolutely zero remorse—like he is ordering pizza—which is something Sam also knows, and has known since season 3 when Sam had a couple of plots that involved it, that Dean is not cool with at all!!! And hardcore Sam stans will argue "Well Sam was trying to save the world from Dean!" but actually no!! He chose this specific path that involved removing The Mark and saving his brother (despite the forewarned cosmic consequences and Dean's repeated insistence that said consequences were unacceptable) rather than locking Dean away forever, because he wanted his brother back!!! And while they were standing in a town being ripped to shreds by Amara, Sam said, "I would do it again"!

All of that to say—I'm not saying nothing Dean did was wrong, but fandom's analysis of the whole situation is bad and attributes motivations to Dean and Sam that are wrong!!!

#mail #9.01 #season 9 #gadreel #8.23 #season 8 #the flannel business

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diminuel · 1 year

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How do you think the relationship between Sam and Michael would be had Sam be Michael’s vessel and Dean and Lucifer had Dean be his vessel. Like what kind of manipulation tactics would they do to get under their skin had Hell seeing Dean all along and were congratulating him for breaking in the pit and being the first seal as well as the vessel of Lucifer and Heaven seeing Sam and congratulating him into helping Lucifer be free so he could be Michael’s vessel

I think what I found somewhat intriguing about Michael and Lucifer is their different approach to their vessels. Lucifer was actively trying to influence and impact Sam and create a rapport with him too. Lucifer did not trust what was "written" into God's plan to follow it blindly. He interferes to carefully weave himself into Sam's life, so he can tell him that it was inevitable.

Compare to that Michael's passivity. He trusts blindly, he believes that nothing is coincidence, that a million different choices leads to an inevitable end, where Michael will have Dean as his vessel and battle Lucifer. He trusts in the plan enough (though he still sends Zachariah to bring Dean to Michael). And eventually he has to deviate from the plan to take Adam when Dean proved to be too stubborn.

Now, the issue with the what if scenario is that so much hinges on Sam's feeling of wrongness and alienation within his family. That feeling of being "wrong" but still having a strong conviction that he has to take his path in life. Lucifer can work with that. If Lucifer had focused on Dean from the start, everything would be different.

But if we disregard that, if nothing changed, if Lucifer still influenced (hehe) Sam's life with the demon blood and the Azazel's gang stuff, but the aim was always for Dean to break the first seal and Sam the last?

Hm. Hm. Lucifer's manipulation could go into a similar direction as Zachariah's - he might play with Dean's loss of trust in Sam, that Sam would say yes to Michael, because he wants to be good and righteous and redeem himself. And I think that would work and it would also still lead to passivity on Michael's behalf because he feels his righteousness and Lucifer's reputation as evil incarnate would do all the PR work for him.

BUT, the soft "I will never lie to you" charming manipulations would still not work on Dean? Dean might be certain that Sam's going to say yes, but he still won't say yes to Lucifer. And Dean's self-loathing and guilt about what happened in hell would also not help Lucifer (if he wanted to go a "it was meant to be", "you were meant to be mine", "you sacrificed yourself for your brother and what will he do? Leave you to rot in hell? Strike you down?" route with Dean). It's not going to get better, it's not going to make "sense" if Dean said yes to Lucifer. There would just be more blood on Dean's hands, maybe even his own brother's.)

Not sure what funny little scenarios Zachariah would prepare for Sam to get him to say yes though.

#Anonymous #Diminuel replies

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sarah-dipitous · 10 months

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Hellsite Nostalgia Tour 2023 Day 192

Heaven Can’t Wait/The Bells of Saint John

“Heaven Can’t Wait”

Plot Description: Dean and Castiel investigate a series of spontaneous human combustions, while Crowley helps Sam and Kevin translate an ancient tablet

Would I Survive the First Five Minutes??: idk what that dude’s whole thing is, but…I don’t think I could stop him if he wanted to explode me

Cas studying and imitating human behavior is adorable. You are CORRECT, miss manager lady, he IS special!! 💖

GWORL. I know you got a crush but holy shit. Wait…no. She…might not? The kiss was confusing but I think she actually wants Cas to babysit for a date she’s going on

Why are the splattered remains Barbie pink??

GWORL (Dean), you didn’t just wanna bail on research. You wanted to see your boyfriend

Well, damn, if an angel came and exploded me any time I exaggeratedly said I wanna die?? Yikes.

I’m sorry. Dean. You don’t get to be like this about Cas’s situation when you kicked him out of the bunker…

I can’t believe Sam is actively manipulating Crowley….yeah.

Dean, you get NO SAY in what Castiel is going through unless you take him back to the bunker. He is doing his best with what little people skills he has. He is content right now

Yeah. He’s being called in to babysit

He has responsibilities, DEAN. Like cleaning the restroom

Can you spit out why it’s so bad BEFORE what would be a commercial break? No? Cool.

Omg…Dean telling Cas how to dress for this (not-a-)date

It’s gonna hurt to watch Cas get shut down……..at least Dean won’t be there to watch exactly…

Don’t worry, Cas, it WAS a confusing proposition. I get she was excited for her date, but she shouldn’t have kissed you.

It’s sick and twisted that Crowley wants to use Kevin’s blood to call Abaddon. He should not have to go through this…

Castiel is adorably bad with this baby. He’s TRYING but like………oh. No. He’s not bad with her, she really likes him. I…this is so cute. He can weirdly relate so much to being new to being a human.

No no nonononoooooo. The angel who’s been exploding people found Cas by the amount of emotional pain he’s in

Omg Abaddon is so hot

Literally could not care less if everything she does gets labeled wrong by the story. Don’t care that Crowley gets mad that she’s invalidating his contracts and that she’s screwing up hell. She can do whatever she wants

Bets on whether Metatron’s spell being permanent:

1) actually IS permanent, and

2) is a thing Dean tells Cas RIGHT NOW instead of keeping it a secret?

Do you have a crush on him NOW, miss manager lady???

Yeah. Kinda knew Dean wasn’t gonna be the MOST upfront

Hmmm…I’m betting this isn’t a “I want to FEEL human again” blood injection. It’s probably a “if I’m human again I can escape this bunker” one

“The Bells of Saint John”

Plot Description: The Doctor’s search for Clara Oswald brings him to modern day London

(There’s a lot to hate about the Big Bang Theory but I will never fault the show for pointing out that, though the Doctor has access to all of space and time, he sure does like modern day London (or sometimes Wales) a whole lot)

Oh yOuR sOuL’s BeEn UpLoAdEd To ThE iNtErNeT?? Kay…what else is new?? And why are you clicking on weird wifi networks? Did no one teach you anything?? And like…SO MANY people did that

This episode is making me so angry…just as someone who spent most of their day with our IT department trying to get them to take me seriously about my persistent internet issues. Yes, the internet SHOULD JUST BE THERE. I wish I knew why it isn’t but I am also not an IT specialist. (I could spend the next hour ranting about how I cried on the phone because I couldn’t get them to do anything beyond basic troubleshooting and then the second it was back for even a moment they were like ‘well, now I can’t escalate it because it’s back. If it happens again, call back’ even though that WAS a call back because I’d had the same issue the night before…..but I do need to actually watch this episode)

Ah, damn, Clara, you clicked the wrong WiFi……

Ugh…they’re doing it again. They’re too much alike. Not to rush Matt’s time but I need it to be Peter Capaldi now.

These people remind me too much of Naomi and her reign over heaven in spn

Bestie, RUN.

Maybe if the Doctor had gotten a tonsure, he’d think monks are cool

I do like the little flair the bottom of the Doctor’s jacket has now. It’s a twirly jacket

Ohhhhhh there really isn’t anything like a freshly opened package of jammy dodgers though

This is framed in a way that’s supposed to be cute and because it’s the Doctor, WE know she’s actually safe but if a strange man broke into my home after something happened to me, carried me to my bed, laid out snacks, took all my messages for me (including interacting with people close to me), and then told me NOW I was safe…I would not think I was safe. Also, the music is rather romcom-y and that’s weird because he’s several hundred years older than her

“I can’t tell the future, I just work there” is a really good line though

Ok no. This is creepy af. People should not be hackable

Is…the great intelligence behind this?? The bad guy from the last episode?

Oh these people are going to regret taking the Doctor’s likeness to get to Clara

I miss when the Doctor was a little less of an action hero. He shouldn’t be allowed to ride a motorcycle up the side of a building

I was RIGHT?? The Great Intelligence was behind it?? HOW LONG WAS HE KEEPING THAT WOMAN HOSTAGE?? HOW LONG HAD SHE BEEN HACKED?? She sounded like a little kid when she came to

#hellsite nostalgia tour 2023

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humandisorderincarnatedean · 2 years

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Things that make me love Dean Winchester so much and wonder how he is not everyone’s favourite character

He takes care of and is always kind to every kid he comes across (Lucas in Dead in the Water, Cole in Death Takes A Holiday, Katie in Swap Meat, Tyler in Plucky Pennywhistle’s Magical Menagerie, Timmy in Bad Boys, not to mention the big examples like Ben, Krissy, Claire)

He always tries to warn about and persuade people away from hunting for their sakes

All he wants to do is just. Save people. All of them

He only started outwardly caring about him going to hell and being tortured forever at the possibility of becoming someone who hurts others himself

He taught an angel love and free will by exemplifying those things himself

He made a friend in Purgatory

He goaded Eve Mother of Monsters into accidentally killing herself

He reverse-possessed an archangel and trapped him in his mind

He got thee Death to give him his scythe and his ring (twice)

He then took off Death’s ring, even though he knew it meant his deal with Death was off, to try to save someone

He wanted to use the Hand of God to save the people on the wartime vessel despite having known them for approximately half an hour

Punched god

He told Bobby “What I do have is a GED and a give-em-hell attitude and I’ll figure it out” and didn’t even believe what he was saying

Desperate and beaten-down and backed into a corner he gave Sam a wink, looked Zachariah in the eye and stabbed him in the face

He crashed the apocalypse, featuring two archangels wearing his younger brothers’ faces, with Rock of Ages as his soundtrack and was ultimately the reason the world got saved

He literally just wants to go to the beach with his family. He wants to run a little bar called Rocky’s. He wants to mow the lawn. He wants the freedom to have peace.

He cooks for his loved ones he literally cooks for his loved ones

He smiles so brightly

HE WUVS HUGS he literally will just hug people and cup their faces he is so affectionate

He goes all soft during one-night-stands and looks reverently at whoever he’s with

He takes ownership of every decision he makes

He couldn’t bring himself to murder an innocent woman even as a demon

He convinced Cole who was actively holding a gun on him at the time to let go of his years-long murderous revenge quest against him with nothing but his words

Literally under the influence of The-Curse-Of-Killing-Your-Brother, with Sam looking at him and assuring him he wouldn’t hate Dean, and Death behind him assuring him it was the right thing to do, he still couldn’t bring himself to do do it

Same with Jack, who agreed Dean shooting him would be for the best, who was a danger to the world and who Dean was furious at for having killed Mary, even after Chuck promised to “give her back”- he still didn’t do it, couldn’t do it

Even when falling apart and manipulated from all sides by powers bigger than him, when he had genuinely stopped believing he had any choices, he failed to follow Chuck’s story when reminded by Sam of who he was to him

Killed death, also twice; first to save Sam then to save Jack

He cried for the suffering of all of humanity when he met god

He saved the world with compassion, literally saved it just by reaching out to Amara

He said yes to Michael for love

When Jack had a nightmare he didn’t give him a .45. He told him he has them as well and reassured him

He named the dog miracle!!!

When offered a favour by Death he didn’t bargain for his own life, or the lives of the people he was grieving, he just asked her to release the ghosts of the haunted house he’d been investigating

He asked Chuck to bring back the birds. I don’t know why this one gets me so much but he.

He is humanity he is love he is free will, because all of those things are connected, and all of those things are embodied in him

#tried really hard not to turn this into just. a list of things about dean #he pretends to be bad at singing he gets excited about rainbow slinkies like we know this.#dean winchester #dean love club #.txt

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what-do-1000-swords-look-like · 2 years

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I'll try to address your points. It's gonna be long and might sound confrontational but I'm just sharing my thoughts, which are evidently very different than yours.

Ideas are not crimes. I'm not American but afaik, USA doesn't jail you for thought crimes. Nevermind for the "crime" of shipping a relationship between fictional characters. So while incest is illegal in states, shipping wincest is not. Even wanting to see wincest onscreen is not a crime.

You will be jailed in my country for having same sex relationships. The society will shun you. And while new gen is changing, majority are still against lgbt. But even in my country, people will not prosecute you for shipping gay ships. By that posts logic, they should start doing it, coz being gay is illegal and anyone who ships gay ships are committing a crime. That's what the post you re-blogged implied. Just with fictional incest(which you think is morally wrong) but not with fictional lgbt(which many in my country think is morally wrong).

1) Shipping is a fanon activity. Shipping is not activism, it's not about forcing the creators to make your ship canon. Its about personal interpretations, about creative expression. So your point about rules of spn universe is moot. Wincest shippers aren't out there harassing creators and actors to make their ship canon, they aren't using fake activism to make incest mainstream, they are just shipping a "scandalous" ship. Even then, I'd like to point that rules of spn universe allowed a possessed father to kiss a daughter so if Sam or Dean were female? They might have put a kiss between them to show some horror.

2) Supernatural started as horror with gothic elements. Incest is a horror trope. Spn consists of unhealthy dynamics, codependent bonds and obsession that blurs lines. It's also got a lot of covert/emotional incest going on, and there were deliberate choices made both by actors and creators.(remember Kripke had Mary kiss her Father) I'm not invested in wincest. But if you say the writers wanted to make them healthy then I have got to disagree.

You can't apply real life situations to Sam and Dean's unique case. None of us have sold our souls for siblings, none of us have our siblings as our soulmates, none of us have gone through hell trauma. Because it's a made up story which has no counterpart in reality. It's something a lot of ppl miss.

I'll also have to disagree with you about Dean. Dean's obsessed with his brother. He crosses all kind of boundaries and violates Sam's consent, even his body autonomy. His Siren is literally a submissive, agreeable little brother. You can avoid the implications or falsely claim it validates bi dean(it doesn't, or conversely if it does then it also validates wincest, perhaps one sided) but doesn't mean that rest of us will do the same. Heck, for all the "growth" he's gone through, Dean literally waits in heaven for Sam. Doing nothing until he's reunited with his soulmate. So pls don't give any credit to writers because they didn't dismantle the codependency.

3) Destiel doesn't have moral high ground if we're talking about power imbalance. Cas is billions of years older to Dean. He's also so much more powerful to Dean. He's been abusive to Dean, he's beaten Dean bloody, he's manipulated Dean, he's encroached on Dean's personal space. I can write a 10000 word essay on why destiel is also problematic(or send you links from Destiel shippers who write excellent meta about the same). Sure, it's not incest so it doesn't have the "yikes" factor but when you want to enforce your ship on others (which is what destiel shippers essentially do when they argue it is canon), you'll have to acknowledge it's flaws. If wincest glorifies abuse then so does destiel. If there are wincest shippers who get off on abuse then there are destiel shippers who get off on Cas beating Dean. There are posts with thousands of notes if you wanna check.

I acknowledge the unhealthy relationship dynamics between Sam and Dean(I hope you do for Dean and Cas). But unlike you, I blame the show for glorifying abuse and not the shippers. The show literally put Sam and Dean together for eternity, had Dean wait for Sam like he had no other purpose even after his death. But that's what the show chose to do so there's nothing I can do. What I won't do is to police other ppl for shipping things that make me uncomfortable. As long as they don't force me to believe their version (you know like hellers do) I don't care.

4) I'm a woc. I'm from a poor, ultra conservative country. I don't get or understand or agree with all of western ideas. Not to shade anyone, but a lot of ideas and identity's west pushes are ridiculed by our society and will only set lgbt community back. When you are dirt poor, when you have bigger, more life threatening problems you don't care about a myriad of identities. Things like QPR or n number of genders are essentially first world problems. Its one of the reasons why I don't interact with spn fandom much, it's like walking on egg shells when you aren't coming from a westernzied perspective. Which is hilarious coz it shows that for all the talk of inclusiveness, diversity of thought is shunned the moment you say things that go against the narrative. I hope I don't get cancelled for saying this but I won't be surprised if I do.

5)I don't ship J2. I find RPF a slippery slope. It can be ok if ppl keep boundaries but they don't. Fans today are very entitled and have no shame about blasting their personal jerk off fantasies in actors face and I find that culture distasteful. Hence you won't see me defending J2 shippers.

Initially Jensen wasn't comfortable with wincest or J2 or destiel or cockles. He's learnt to tolerate them. He had to. He wasn't comfortable with the poses destiel shippers asked in photo ops. He said no plenty of times and eventually he stopped saying no. He admitted that in last panel, you can check the video. The fans called him homophobic when he said his character was straight, when he said he didn't play Dean as bi, when he said destiel doesn't exist. I find it really sad how he's been treated and how his boundaries have been disrespected and eroded over the years. But it's what it is.

What you need to understand is this. J2 aren't anti wincest or destiel. As in, they don't care if you ship either. J2 joke about wincest. Send wincest fanfiction/art to each other. Prank Alex. They don't even care if you ship J2 or cockles. They might have in early years, but like I said, they had to get used to it. But they care when you blast your ship in their face and ask them to validate it. They didn't play wincest or destiel. Jensen didn't play a bi character. Didn't play Dean as in love with Cas or Sam. It's exactly why Jared talked about platonic love in Denver con. They are graciously allowing you your interpretation but asking you to not impose your views on them. Think about that.

Personally I'd be much less gracious in their shoes. If people disregarded my words about a character I played for 15 years and said I'm homophobic/in-closet if i dare to say my character is straight? I'd loss my cool. Like imagine the disrespect. And yes, it's disrespectful coz it invalidates an actor's portrayal of his character. It's one thing if bi dean or destiel was explicitly planned or written, which it wasn't. Bi dean was never written or acted, and destiel wasn't written or planned for 14 seasons. There was one ambiguous confession in last season which means J2 (or anyone else) have all the right to see it as platonic.

These shippers have sent Jared death threats. Creation found these threats credible and has recently increased his security because of them. They have tried to cancel Walker. They have spread baseless rumours about Jared(like he's a sexual harasser) and these posts have hundreds of thousands of notes. Jared, who has mhi, who wanted to quit in S10 but only stayed coz he didn't want the crew to loss jobs, who literally cried himself to sleep everyday coz he couldn't handle the pressure. This man who donates millions to LGBT charities and who suffered so much during supernatural, they bully and harass him because of a rpf ship. They send him death threats. When shipping has real life impacts like this, it needs to be called out. You talked about a fictional ship(wincest) hurting real life people and here I have given you the real hurt caused by cockles shippers/hellers.

I don't have the energy to respond to your last paragraphs but I just wanna say that Jensen has repeatedly enforced boundaries, has expressed discomfort about aggressive RPF shipping, about being asked to make poses with Misha. But cockles shippers have never respected his boundaries. They have asked him to sign sexual pictures etc. Just this con a Jared hater got a J2M op and asked Jensen to dip Misha, which Jensen refused. They might as well ask him to kiss Misha for photo ops in next con. Sadly it seems like his boundaries have been worn down. In his own words, he's given up. And I get him, it's exhausting. You eventually learn to do shocking, uncomfortable things coz saying no becomes exhausting after a 100 requests. That too when you are a man and women are asking you. Or perhaps he doesn't want to be called homophobic. God knows cockles (or destiel) shippers have done that multiple times, even had articles published on news sites.

I feel like you're low key victim blaming Jensen for not being firm with his boundaries even if that's not your intention. I do have counter arguments to those points and about Misha's baiting but I don't have time now. I might send a separate ask later if i find the energy but for now I'll leave you with this one.

Have a nice day.

Alright. Anon, I am going to respond to this but under the cut so it doesn’t clog up any dashes. Like you stated in your ask, my reply may come across/sound confrontational, or at the very least like I’m kicking off a debate, but I assure you, it’s neither. I will make one point here, though, that I do feel I need to address first and foremost:

I'm just going to get this one out of the way quickly before the cut. I must admit I am rather exhausted by the topic of Jensen these days and my supposed intentions regarding him as an individual. (which is a shame because it's not the man himself, just his stanbase/”fans” aka AA’s that are the ones to blame for my current feelings on the topic) It’s to the point where I don’t even want to see any content come across my dash that has anything to do with him. (I’m not talking about Dean, the character obviously is different) Whether that be him, Danneel, Jared, Misha, Rob, Radio Company, etc that has anything to do with Jensen. And I cannot tell you how much that irritates me because I am a fan of his and want to continue to be but I can’t help how I currently feel. I am tired of my words about this man being taken out of context, misconstrued, distorted, and then thrown back at me as if it’s damning evidence that I am victim blaming the man in a situation or rooting for him to be treated badly by past co-stars. For someone who has experienced similar things in their lives to what I have and to be told these things as if they are facts and that I should be ashamed of being such a “horrible person”, I cannot even begin to tell you how demoralizing this is and just how wrong and toxic these types of responses/statements are. I know you are just stating your perspective on my statements, but man am I tired. I am NOT victim blaming Jensen at all when it comes to the Cockles topic and his interactions with his fans. I believe I even said that specifically in my response to your previous ask if you go back and read through that section again. And I also mentioned Misha as well. I wasn't victim blaming him or Danneel or Jared or Gen or anyone. I said that specifically so I have to say that I am rather surprised at that being your takeaway from my statements. All I said is that they should assert stronger boundaries if they truly feel uncomfortable with any fan interactions they are having (in this case, you mentioned Cockles as a specific example). That’s just common sense. Jensen is a grown man and his own person; he can make these decisions for himself. Same goes for JP, MC, DA, GP, the SPN cast, and any other individual walking the planet.

Now, that being said, onto below the cut:

TLDR; wincest is still harmful when it glorifies abuse, I don’t care about J2 or Cockles, destiel is a lot healthier than wincest for many reasons, Jensen can handle himself as can Jared and Misha (the latter two who I am rather indifferent towards, the name of the blog is jackles-coded after all), destiel is indeed canon, the show did not canonize wincest and they were never going to — I think that about covers it all

Now, anon, I am going to respond to each point you made in the following breakdown (and it's going to get long which is why I put the TLDR section above) but let me start out with two very important points:

1) I appreciate you stating that you are just posting your thoughts. That helps set the tone and I am grateful you did that. I think that is super important when having civil discourse where there may be different parties disagreeing.

2) I have been in the SPN fandom close to 2 years now but that's it. I have not been in the fandom before then. I watched the show, sure, and I knew who J2M were but I had no idea of anything fandom-related. I have absolutely no idea as to the history of what Jensen has dealt with previously (except infamous examples that are either still being talked about on this site by fans, i.e. topics like Kelios, or that people have posted about specifically), nor do I know what Jared or Misha has dealt with previously, separately and together. I am a Jensen fan but that does not mean I know every single detail or facet of every encounter that he has ever had. Only he does, as well as maybe Danneel, his representation, and his possible security team. If he has stated his discomfort with the materials he has been presented with before by fans at photo ops and they still don't respect it, then they're obviously not real fans of his. And you can think I am victim blaming him again should you desire to do so, but I will say this point again because this is absolute truth: if they continue to make him uncomfortable, then he has the right to assert stronger boundaries. He is in a position that he can do that, Anon. If he wants to say no to a photo op, he can do that. If he doesn't want to answer a question, he can do that, too. It's all within HIS power, Anon. Just like any individual, but even more so because it's related to his actual safety and comfort levels. Any trained mental health professional, any communication and/or social interaction/relationship expert, anyone walking around with common sense, will say the same. Because that’s just a basic fact. If you don’t like something, say no. That’s not sitting there in judgment about it or saying this individual is bad if they don’t; it’s telling someone that if they don’t like something or how they’re being treated to stand up for themselves, to lay down boundaries and to be assertive when doing so. That’s not victim blaming; that’s good and important advice. And it’s advice that is given throughout the world to all different people in all different situations/industries. Advice that trained professionals give repeatedly whether that be a business coach to a CEO or a counselor to a patient or a parent to a school age child or a relationship expert to someone who is dating/in a serious relationship. It applies in various ways. So to look at this common knowledge as victim blaming is just beyond the scope of rationality in my opinion. It’s communication 101 in various types of interactions and relationships worldwide. If you do not know what I am referring to, then please research it and you will see what I’m speaking of.

Now, onto your ask:

I’m going to state this up front: I appreciate your perspective and I appreciate even more that you are sharing information about your country with me and the perspective there. As you probably surmised from our exchanges, I do live in the US so I don’t want to assume anything about your country or the laws there or respond to any part of that because I don’t feel that I am educated enough on that topic or I don't want to make any assumptions of knowing how things are like there from your perspective and your experience. I only know what you tell me. So please don’t take offense but I’m not going to respond to the US vs your country on the LGBTQIA matters or any differences between the two.

Having said that, I am going to respond to your other points that involve the fandom, the ships, and the actors, though: I never said shipping wincest or any other incestuous ship is a crime. I stated that incest itself is a crime in the US. Between real people. As a reader (and reblogger) of that post, I did not see the op stating that all wincest shippers should be put in jail for the crime of shipping a fictional incestuous pairing. I saw them referring to incest being a crime as a general point because not only is it illegal here, it’s also taboo. To be honest, I think you are taking what they said too literally. But that’s your perspective. So at this point, like you said, we have very different thoughts on this, and I think if you have anything further you’d like to discuss about that particular post, you should take it up with the op. I cannot speak to their intention or implications when they stated their opinion, and it’s not right for anyone to hold me accountable for that one part of their statement because I'm not them and I didn't type it and that also wasn’t the reason I reblogged it (which I elaborated on in your previous ask’s response). I have never posted here that I feel anyone shipping wincest (or any other fictional incestuous pairing) should be put in prison for shipping that ship and I honestly think you are taking what that op said way too literally, as I stated before. Perhaps it’s time for you to share your thoughts with that op in the comments section of said post. I myself will no longer be responding to any discourse/asks/replies/messages about this particular reblogged post.

I am genuinely confused by this part. How did we get onto the topic of activism? Who said that anyone, destiel or wincest or any other pairing, attempted to force the show to make their ship canon? And whoever said that shipping wasn’t a fandom activity? It always has been? It’s the very core of shipping and all that activity entails.

Allow me to remind you, Anon: I have only been in the SPN fandom for close to 2 years now (I want to say it was Summer 2020 when I took a dive into the fandom?) so if you’re referring to things in the past for either ship (or any other SPN ship), I have no clue what you’re talking about.

Wait a minute, you just said: “Shipping is a fanon activity. Shipping is not activism, it's not about forcing the creators to make your ship canon. Its about personal interpretations, about creative expression. So your point about rules of spn universe is moot.” So how are universe rules a moot point then? There have to be rules when creating a universe because it all goes into the structure of the story telling. For example, the White Walkers in GoT wouldn’t be a threat to Westeros if Westerosi people could just look at them and melt them with their minds without breaking a sweat. It’s a rule that White Walkers can only be destroyed by fire. Thus, comes the conflict/issue of how dangerous the White Walkers really are en masse and what a threat they are to the world if they overrun it. And Jon Snow and Co have to figure out a way to stop them. Rules are very much an essential aspect of world building. If you are a writer who creates worlds for stories you want to tell, then you know this to be a very important factor in the creative process.

Okay, I’m sorry, but I am going to say that you are incorrect, or more appropriately, maybe you misunderstood what I said. Trust me when I tell you that I know what I am talking about on this topic. It’s all about narrative sense. For example, as GRRM said, if spaceships landed in Westeros and aliens popped out to say hello to Daenerys or the Starks, it wouldn't make any sense because aliens are not a part of the universe. Because that rule was not applied when the universe was created. Rules are a tool that writers utilize when creating a universe to tell a story within that universe, regardless of whatever medium they are writing the story for.

Some examples of the SPN universe rules:

if someone is cursed by a witch due to a hex bag, the hex bag needs to be found and destroyed in order to lift the curse.

Salt is a protective material that assists in ghost hunting, as does iron.

Chuck and Amara do not have power over The Empty because that entity is older than they are.

When angels and demons die, they go to The Empty.

When monsters die, they go to Purgatory.

Heaven was a collection of a person’s memories until Jack and Cas change it before Dean gets there so everyone can be together.

Dean and Sam cannot be possessed by demons due to their anti-possession tattoos. Angels cannot track them after Cas marks them with specific sigils on their bones. As long as the guys continue to have both, they cannot be possessed and/or tracked by the common angel.

These are all examples of universe rules. Dean dating, sleeping with, and/or marrying Sam would not make sense within these rules because the incest-is-acceptable rule was never applied. And the incest-happens-anyway-even-if-it's-taboo rule has also not been applied. (look to stories like Flowers In the Attic for example) And the writers also did not introduce this at any point in the story. There has never been any romantic or sexual tension between Sam and Dean. The two have never been romantically interested or sexually attracted to one another. There has never been anything remotely suggesting that the brothers are more than brothers, at any point, in their history or their story throughout the show.

Here’s what I mean about the incest-is-acceptable rule that I mentioned: Going back to Game of Thrones (I’m going to keep using it as an example since that book series also has its own show, you can see what was adapted rules wise into it from the books), for example, the rules have been set up for acceptable incest, hence the romantic pairing of Jon and Daenerys (in the show), and Jaime/Cersei. Hence the ships for Jonerys, Jonsa, Jonrya, Jaime/Cersei, etc. Because GRRM had put that rule in place when creating that universe. The Targaryens married brother and sister for centuries. So even though the Targaryens’ way of life was acceptable in Westeros while they were in power up until Robert’s Rebellion, once they were no longer in power, sibling incest was no longer acceptable, because that had been exclusive to them. Cousin incest (or other kinds of incest like uncle/niece), however, was acceptable in that world, though it was becoming less and less because marriages were used as transactions if you will, in order to secure powerful alliances, wealth, and to gain power. Just like in history, which GRRM has said he modeled some of that universe after. The rules were set for that universe so when people ship Jonerys or Jonsa or Jonrya, it’s within that framework. Jonyra is a showverse fanon ship, but the fans know that, and from my limited perspective, I do not see them insisting that by Jon hugging Arya at the end, inviting her to The Wall to visit, that that moment was confirmation of their ship going canon or that they were soulmates. Obviously, things remain to be seen in the books for all of the Jon-involved ships and what becomes canon vs what remains fanon in the end. But back to the incest-is-acceptable rule: even when people ship Jaime/Cersei, it’s still within that framework because it’s a part of the story within that universe. While that relationship was framed as immoral, unhealthy, and to be the antithesis of other “sibling” relationships and in comparison/contrast to the Targaryens, it’s still within the rules of the universe because GRRM wove it into the fabric so to speak.

In SPN, Kripke and the writers never did that. So, yes, while wincest might be a fanon ship that people can choose to ship, acceptable incest (or unacceptable incest) is not an actual rule that was set up/applied in the SPN universe. I understand what you’re saying about the elements of horror but again, they never chose to go with that particular element (the incest) that I can remember in Dean and Sam’s story or any other story in the show for that matter. And that example you gave of Samuel Campbell kissing Mary, that actually is not incest for two reasons: 1) Samuel was dead, and was possessed by the YED & 2) that is how demon deals (up to that point in the show anyway) were sealed in the universe (another rule) - remember Dean and the crossroads demon sealing their deal with a kiss in order to bring Sam back in the end of season 2? Or Crowley kissing Bobby and taking a picture which he gleefully shows the boys? Those are events that are playing within the rules of the SPN universe that Kripke and the writers set up. Sam and Dean as a romantic pairing or having sexual contact in any way for whatever reason is not within those rules.

Um, yes, I can? Because Dean and Sam’s story stays mostly within the US, that means US laws apply to them. Because they are in a modern society, that means rules and norms of that very same modern society apply to them (which means incest is taboo). Which is why we see the guys needing to dodge the police, being sought by the FBI, and committing all kinds of credit card fraud in order to keep themselves afloat as they hunt.

Actually, yes, I can. You can apply real life morals and ideals/belief to Sam and Dean’s story, absolutely. Regardless of the fantastical elements you listed as events people on this planet will never go through, reality still applies. For example, I’ve never fought a huge drooling alien on a spaceship but that doesn’t mean I can’t sympathize with Ellen Ripley in the movie Aliens and identify with the feeling of doing whatever I need to do to keep my child safe and putting my fears aside in order to protect them. It also doesn’t mean that we all cannot identify with the feeling of wanting to do whatever it takes to keep your loved ones safe or doing whatever you can to keep them that way or in much more tragic cases, bring them back.

Don’t forget, there is some reality grounded within fantasy. Lord of the Rings may have elves and orcs and hobbits, but that doesn’t make the realistic elements within that fantasy story any less real. Same for Game of Thrones, or more appropriately, A Song Of Ice and Fire. Same for The Chronicles Of Narnia series and the His Dark Materials Trilogy. Even stories like the King Arthur legend and even Greek mythology. Fables even. There are lessons/morals for the readers as well as some elements of reality within the grand framework of fantasy such as emotions, situations, relationships. An even better example is the show Buffy the Vampire Slayer where the vampires were meant to represent all of the hardships adolescents go through in their journey through high school and on their way towards adulthood. Obviously, we will never know what it feels like to be the Slayer and to be patrolling cemeteries every night in order to engage vampires in battle to keep Sunnydale (or our hometowns) safe, but that doesn’t mean her emotions, the relationships she went through, her growth, and even what she experienced when her mother’s death occurred and her grief any less real. Realistic elements within a fantasy universe. Otherwise, how would we, the viewers (or readers) ever possibly relate to the heroes? The antiheroes? Have sympathy for a villain in a certain moment? Etc.? How would we be able to connect to the characters? To the story being told?

As for Sam and Dean being sibling soulmates, that is purely an interpretive statement, not an official part of the story or an SPN universe rule. While the idea of soulmates (platonic or not) is a fantastical element within a story, it does not belong within the group of examples you gave because, once again, the other events happened within the universe; they are official parts of the story. And the concept of soulmates is not reality-based, not in the way a mother will sacrifice herself to protect her son (like Lily did with Harry in the Harry Potter series) because of how much she loves him and wants him to live.

You are certainly free to disagree with me on this and I appreciate you explaining that point, but I must also respectfully disagree with you here. Dean was not obsessed with Sam as you claim. If you read up on parentification and trauma (i.e. abuse, abandonment, neglect) or speak to someone who is proficient in these types of matters or even has experienced it themselves, his relationship with Sam is very on brand for Dean and his characterization/story line. Sam even utilizes this realization he has in season 9 (I think it’s 9, if not it’s 10) when Sam tells Dean that Dean is afraid to be alone and uses that fact against him. We see this play out time and time again: Dean making the demon deal in season 2 to bring Sam back, Dean taking the overdose of pills so he can speak to Billie when Sam is killed by that werewolf, and yes, the one you mentioned, Dean tricking Sam when it came to the Gadreel issue in season 9. That’s not him being obsessed with Sam; that’s him being afraid to be left alone as well as what I mentioned in your previous ask: Sam is his responsibility, he will always overcompensate to save him and protect him. That’s what he has been programmed to do and he and Sam have a toxic codependency. (something the show kept trying to get both brothers to realize when they had other characters throw the fact of how both brothers would unhealthily sacrifice themselves in order to save the other brother in their faces) And of course boundaries between them get violated and often; proper boundaries were never set up between them in the first place. They had to learn and work towards that. Again, another consequence of the abuse (more specifically, the parentification and codependency). Not only did John do his work well with the parentification (and spousification) that he forced onto Dean but also through the abuse (which again, is confirmed in 15x17 by Sam’s own words) which fostered that toxic codependency.

And yes, they did break the codependency. 15x19 was the found family finale, the finale that Dabb and Co. was leading towards with the mythology and characters and later season fans. 15x20 was meant to satisfy the GA and the fans from the first few seasons (while also pushing that core audience towards Walker). This is why Dabb said there were two different finales. 15x20 is literally an alternative episode to 15x19 (should fans continue to watch past 15x19). Dean and Sam have two different endings. While Jensen and Jared may not acknowledge that publicly (I doubt they’re allowed to, tbh), that is the case. I believe that is why they and the show still continue to straddle that fence to this day. “I was in both camps” - that’s literally from Jensen himself in the podcast interview when saying both groups of people who liked the finale and those who didn’t like it, that all of their feelings were valid. If you take what Dabb and Jensen have both said about the finales, and about Dean’s death, it’s all right there. It’s the reason the found family montage was done in 15x19, why the initials were carved into the table in the bunker, why Sam and Dean drink to those they’ve lost, and then drive off together in Baby, on the open road. Conversely, it’s the reason why in 15x20 it’s brothers only, it’s a milk run hunt or a meats and potatoes case (pick whichever analogy you prefer), the OG-Winchester only mantle in Sam’s house, why Sam’s son is named Dean, Blurry Wife, and Dean and Sam end up in Heaven together. Two. Separate. Finales.

And I would just like to make this point: if I lost someone that I loved, no matter who they are to me or what our relationship might be, if they were able, I would hope that they would wait for me in Heaven, too, while being happy and at peace, doing something they loved. That doesn’t characterize or equate to obsession or the concept of soulmates. How many people have near death experiences where they claim to have seen and/or spoken to their loved ones in the forms of friends who have passed or family members or children or even siblings? How many people talk about wanting to see their loved ones again in Heaven? People who they normally would not characterize as soulmates. Again, the concept of soulmates may be a fantastical element (it is) but reality applies here as well (once again, there is always reality mixed in with fantasy). You can interpret Sam and Dean as being soulmates but it’s not something the show confirmed or spoke officially on. By having Dean meeting Sam in Heaven, that’s not a confirmation. It’s simply a brother waiting for the last person in his family to join him where he is, since Cas and Jack are somewhere there already, and so are John and Mary.

About Dean driving, listen, Dean chose to go do something he loved while he waited for Sam (again, the last part of his family that was living) and that was to drive in Baby. Had he enjoyed golf or watching horror movies or fishing (which let’s face it of course he loves those last two but not more than driving in Baby) or to go hang out with his parents, he would have done those things, too. Had the actors been available, I’m sure we would have gotten that Roadhouse scene they talked about with everyone in it. He would have spent time with his loved ones in the Roadhouse while Kansas performed and he drank beer and that’s how he would have waited for the last person in his family to join him. Had Sam already been there and let’s say Jack was human and not God!Jack, you can bet he would have waited for him, too, and it was never confirmed either that he and Jack are soulmates.

This is the problem (well, one of them anyway) with the 15x20 finale. While there were some beautiful brother moments for Sam and Dean, and it was a celebration of the brothers and the ending to their long journey (again, 1st season fans were meant to enjoy it more than any other group), that was not the appropriate ending narratively, not based on the story they told for those two characters the last two seasons. It completely undid all of their character development and regressed them back to their season 1 characters, while also regressing the story back to season 1 (and undoing all of the story development). And even more troublesome, some (such as yourself based on your ask) see it as confirmation of a somehow soulmate connection/relationship between the two brothers. While some might believe in the possible phenomenon of platonic soulmates or kindred spirits even (which siblings could be, for sure), that still is not what happened here. Dean loves Sam and Sam loves Dean, as brothers. They were each other’s family (outside of the found family they created over the years). Their bond is purely familial with an underlying friendship between the two that formed over 15 years. (in 1x01, they were brothers, not friends; by season 15, they were both)

Of course I’m not going to claim that this somehow validates bi!Dean, falsely as you claim or otherwise. Dean and Sam’s relationship has absolutely zero bearing on Dean’s sexual orientation and romantic orientation because it affects neither of these things. (same goes for Sam) Dean and Sam’s relationship was never romantic or sexual in nature.

The siren was a man. Was that whole dynamic Dean shared with the siren meant to illustrate the growing chasm between Sam and Dean in their relationship as brothers at that point in the story? Sure. But that was it. There was nothing romantic or sexual about it for either brother. The Siren even makes them fight at the end of the episode, after using Dean’s issues with Sam to be able to get close to Dean and entrap him. As a matter of fact, if you even look at the details Dean and the Siren discuss when “bonding”, the Siren actually sounds like more of a best friend that Dean is looking for (that is similar to himself) rather than Sam himself. The Siren appears to their victims in the form of what they desire. When the show began, the only outside connections that Dean looked to make were casual (except for Cassie) and to keep to the Winchester only group. Sam was the one who had expanded outside of this frame of mind, not only by going to school and making friends and dating Jessica, but also we see him continuing to attempt to make those connections like with Sarah, etc. How many times did someone pop up from Sam's school days/past? With Brady being that last link? As Bobby and the Harvelles came into the story, Dean’s sticking to the Winchester club (very) slowly started to change. Not only do we see Bobby’s relationship with the boys that slowly starts to be revealed as him being more of a father figure to them as well as a guide and they have history, but it’s slowly expanded outside of the Winchesters only club, but still kept within the hunters only group parameters. With each new season, the boys continue to do what they have to do but they also expand slowly outwards (again, all part of that breaking the toxic codependency while also making narrative sense for their journey together). And thus you get the found family as well as all of the fan favorite characters that came and went in the SPN universe over the years. Dean was always looking to connect to someone that this Siren exemplified. He may have had Lee when he was younger but they obviously had lost touch with one another for a long time before 15x07. Cas, Benny, and Charlie were the only friends he had (outside of Sam) that connected to him on a level that he had been looking for. My whole long point being that the Siren was not meant to represent anything about Sam except for how alone Dean was feeling, and I’m not even talking romantically or sexually, I mean just in general. He had just been to Hell, an experience that he couldn’t even talk about for a while to Sam. He was resurrected (which waking up in his coffin and digging out of his own grave is another traumatizing experience in itself), he has no idea what the real reason is why he was brought back other than what Cas and Co have told him, they just got angels and all that entails dropped into their laps and angels are not the self-proclaimed good guys everyone has been made to believe over time, and now Sam is keeping things from him and working with a demon (one that he specifically doesn’t care for). Sam, the one person he always expected to have his back no matter what because they’re family. But that is all the Siren was meant to represent. If it was meant to be indicative of what you’re suggesting, the Siren would have been Sam himself or more like Sam in personality or using details about Sam to entrap Dean if Dean really desired Sam romantically and/or sexually. Which as we know did not happen.

Oh boy. Now we are onto the alleged imbalanced/abuse of power dynamics between Dean and Cas. How did we get onto the topic of destiel again? I honestly can’t even remember. Alright, let’s do it.

I personally think that yes, the relationship between Dean and Cas can be imbalanced at times, but it comes from both sides. Cas (thank you for not using two ‘s’ btw, I will never know what persuaded the show to do that lol) may be billions of years older than Dean but that does not mean that Dean does not sometimes hold the power in the relationship between the two. For example, Dean is able to hold Cas back physically when we know that should Cas choose to disregard him, Dean could either get hurt or at the very least, be easily brushed aside. This happens quite a few times in the show. Not to mention that Dean sometimes utilizes this bond he has with Cas to his advantage. And when I say utilize it, I’m not talking blatantly. He doesn’t want to lie to Cas or trap him in the ring of Holy fire in 6x20 but it’s a necessity so they can get to the bottom of what is going on with Cas and to figure out if he is working with Crowley, to find out why Cas is spying on them. For all of the points you made about Cas, please know that the same could be easily said about Dean. We saw Dean beat Cas up in 10x22 and while some like to claim it’s the Mark of Cain making him do it, it’s not. Dean’s theme plays when Cas asks him to stop and Dean comes back to beat him up more and grab the angel blade. Dean purposely doesn’t kill Cas and warns him to stay away from him (and also for Sam to stay away from him, the two people he feels he needs to protect from himself), Dean feels guilty over it which we see in 11x03 when he doesn’t allow Cas to heal him (after Cas beat him up while under a spell, because it truly wasn’t Cas while Dean was himself when he beat up Cas and Dean knows that), and we see that Cas allows him to do all of it. While Dean gives Cas a moment’s opportunity to take his hand off of his shoulder and to back off, Dean knows Cas will allow him to do whatever to him (because, again, Cas has allowed him to before and Dean is not ignorant to how important he is to Cas with the whole profound bond thing) and that enables him to go as far as he did in that fight. But to be fair to Dean, Cas also does take advantage similarly which we also have seen happen. A great example is Cas using his knowledge of where Dean hides the Colt in order to “borrow” it as well as Cas using his knowledge about the Winchesters (as well as Lisa and Ben’s unexpected kidnapping) to clear the way for him and his objective of getting the souls from Purgatory to defeat Raphael. They both did it, time and time again, but by the end of the series, I will say that I think they were evened out or more appropriately balanced out, as much as they could be, while still remaining a billion year old angel and a forty something human hunter. And what was the final catalyst in that balance? The 15x09 apology confession done on Dean’s knees, an earnest prayer when faced with the possibility that Cas might be stuck in Purgatory once again or possibly die again. From then on, if you watch their story closely, it’s fairly balanced between them up until Cas’ death in 15x18.

If you would like a great example of abusive/imbalanced power dynamics in a relationship outside of the SPN universe, may I suggest that you look at Jon and Daenerys in Game of Thrones, especially in episode 8x04 in the bedroom scene? As well as the fireplace scene in 8x05? Pure, solid examples of abusive power dynamics and imbalance in a relationship. Then compare destiel (and even wincest) to that.

Okay, allow me to state this distinction: destiel does not glorify abuse, wincest does. Here’s how: wincest itself does not glorify abuse as a standalone; the celebration of the codependency the boys have in response to what happened to them as children does. When people make posts and/or comments and tweets stating how much they love the codependency both brothers have and how it’s proof of their “love” for each other while being aware of how toxic and unhealthy it is and how it formed between them, that’s glorifying the abuse. You don’t see that with destiel (or at least I personally haven’t). You just stated yourself that you have read destiel meta with thousands of notes where the meta writers have discussed the imbalanced/abusive power dynamics between Dean and Cas and how that’s problematic. Thus, they are aware of the problem and not celebrating it. Do you see the difference? It’s not the ships themselves that glorify the abuse, it’s the shippers. And I don’t want to generalize obviously, there are some wincest shippers that don’t glorify the abuse and just want both boys to be happy. But trust me, there is definitely a difference when it comes to both ship groups when it comes to this topic. And the show/writers must agree (on the DeanCas front), because Cas’ romantic confession in 15x18 was prefaced by the words that Dean needed to hear and process about himself, to release himself from his anger, and ultimately contributed to leaving him in a healthier place by the end of the series. It also helped him to make the decision not to kill Chuck. “See, that’s not who I am.”

Which then brings me to my next point, destiel is canon. Say it loud and say it proud, folks. By what happened in 15x18, by Cas telling Dean “I love you” with romantic intention, that brings destiel as a subject matter into the universe and into canon. Dean didn’t have to respond or reciprocate. Even if he had responded and said “thanks dude, I’m flattered but I don’t feel the same” that doesn’t negate destiel as a principle becoming canon. Because Cas being in love with Dean is now something that has been brought in-universe to both characters’ attention as well as the audience’s. Therefore, it is canon.

A lot of people get hung up on the canon vs fanon discussion but they miss one of the most important and basic points of that topic. Canon means something that is an official part of the story. For example, John and Mary were set up by Heaven and fell in love after Cupid shot them with his arrows. That’s canon. John went on a revenge quest after Mary was killed by the YED and he raised both of their sons to be hunters. That’s canon. Dean loves his car. That’s canon. Jody lost her husband and child. Donna’s ex-husband Doug treated her horribly. Bobby possessed a maid from a hotel in order to try to exact vengeance on Dick Roman. Cas likes to visit the Heaven of a man who relives a calm Tuesday afternoon over and over again. Jack copies Dean’s movements to try to be like him in the beginning of season 13. Werewolves can be killed by silver. Blood sigils can banish angels. All of this is canon. So if Cas is telling Dean he loves him romantically, even if Dean himself didn’t hear it or wasn’t conscious when Cas said it, it is still canon. What it is not because the show chose to remain ambiguous on this topic after Cas’ confession and it wasn’t confirmed one way or the other, is the canon romantic relationship between Dean and Cas. They didn’t go on a date, Dean didn’t respond, they didn’t buy a house together or kiss on a bench in a park, etc. The mutual romantic relationship is not canon.

For example, we see Kaia return from The Bad Place and she is ready to go with Jody back to her home. She asks if Claire will be there which Jody confirms, but ultimately we never see Kaia or Claire say “I love you” to each other or go on a date or do anything romantic, but a lot of people accept that relationship as canon. Why? Because of what Jody says before Kaia appears, about her being Claire’s first love and how much Claire is still affected by losing Kaia. And it’s obvious it’s requited because of Kaia then later asking if Claire will be at Jody’s. That is a canon relationship because both sides were shown, though Jody was used in proxy of Claire speaking for herself.

Another example outside of the SPN universe is (SPOILER ALERT) Ryan and Sophie in Batwoman. This is now a confirmed canon relationship. But before it launched into the actual romance itself, there were flirtations, romantic tension, and all that entails. Wildmoore (as they are called) was already canon on principle because of Luke asking Ryan if she was flirting with Sophie on a mission, and then of course everything that happened after that. The relationship itself just hadn’t become canon yet (until it did). Another relationship that exemplifies canon vs fanon is the one between Sophie and Alice or aka Sophice. A lot of people noticed the chemistry between the two when they started to interact more once Ryan appeared on the scene, but this is a fanon relationship. Nothing wrong with it at all (I like the idea myself tbh though I am Wildmoore all the way) but the idea of that pairing has not been introduced into the story as an actual idea. There is no romantic tension, no flirtation, etc. You never had Mary commenting on how Sophie was flirting with Alice or Sophie and Alice acting like fake girlfriends in a situation while checking each other out and commenting on each other’s appearance. It’s currently a fanon relationship. Luke and Mary, sure, there’s been a lot of hints but it hasn’t officially been brought into the universe romantically as of yet. It looks like they may go that way, but as of right now, it’s not canon, in principle or in relationship. There is a distinct difference in canon vs fanon, and how canon actually happens.

My whole long point is that once something is brought to the characters’ attention in the story and thus the audience’s, it is canon. Because it’s an official part of the story. It could be anything from an idea of a romantic pairing between two other characters to how a character felt in a scene (like Ryan did with Jada and Marquis) to what a character prefers to do on a Friday night even (like so and so like to go bowling at this particular alley every Friday at 7pm sharp). No matter how big or small the detail, if it becomes part of the official story (on screen or in a book), it’s canon.

Listen, I applaud you for reading destiel meta when it’s obvious that you don’t care for the ship. I really do. And 99% of the time, I would be like you, interested to see all sides to a situation (or a ship) and take whatever resonates or that I find interesting while leaving the rest. However, when it comes to wincest in particular, I cannot do that. It’s not because of any hatred or disdain I have for the pairing or its shippers/meta writers. It’s because the idea makes me extremely uncomfortable. And it makes me extremely uncomfortable because Dean is essentially Sam’s parent, up until they are able to place proper boundaries on their relationship and restore it back to a brotherly one by the end of the series. Parent/child incest is horrifying and absolutely disgusting, even if only fictional, I don’t care who that statement offends. You want to talk about abusive power dynamics and imbalance in relationships, there you go. Going by what you said above, am I saying that fictional parent/child shippers should be in jail? If the children are underage, then yeah. Because that’s indicative of a whole other problem and even more disgusting while also being incredibly worrisome. If the children are of age, no. But either way, I want nothing to do with that topic and I don’t care who is offended by that or who thinks of me as being judgmental or critical about it. It 👏 is 👏 disturbing. And in no way will my mind ever change on that.

So, essentially, wincest makes me extremely uncomfortable because it is very close to that line. Had Dean not been Sam’s parent at all (and if it also hadn’t been a byproduct of abuse both boys suffered), I probably wouldn’t even bat an eyelash. I wouldn’t say I would ship it, obviously not based on the topic of incest and universe rules that we discussed, but it would just go into the pool of several other ships that I don’t ship but have a very ship-and-let-ship attitude about, like Chestervelle or Megstiel or Dean/Lisa or John/Mary, etc.

But unlike you, I blame the show for glorifying abuse and not the shippers. The show literally put Sam and Dean together for eternity, had Dean wait for Sam like he had no other purpose even after his death. But that's what the show chose to do so there's nothing I can do. What I won't do is to police other ppl for shipping things that make me uncomfortable. As long as they don't force me to believe their version (you know like hellers do) I don't care.

Well, I already discussed above how the shippers are actually the ones who do glorify the abuse so I won’t repeat myself. However, I’d like to address the points you made here. How is Sam and Dean being together for eternity 1) confirming them as a romantic pairing/soulmates and 2) glorifying the abuse? Once again, wouldn’t you want to be with your family for eternity once you have passed on? Or would you prefer to be alone and never see them again? I truly don’t understand how if a family member waits for you in the afterlife that this is then seen as they can’t move on without you or indicates that their soul is tied to yours or that they are somehow in love with you. Look at the series finale of The Vampire Diaries, do you also believe that Damon and Stefan are soulmates and that Stefan couldn’t move forward without Damon being there? That Elena’s family couldn’t either? Like…? Why wouldn’t you want to be with your family and your loved ones for eternity if given the option? The show didn’t have Dean waiting for Sam like he had no other purpose, not the way you’re implying. Dean was doing something he loved (driving in Baby) until Sam got there, because everyone else in his family both OG and TFW 2.0 was already in Heaven with him. Not to mention, it goes hand in hand with the point I made above about how important Sam is to Dean, because not only is he his little brother and his friend, but he also still feels responsible for him and cares for him. Of course he was going to wait for Sam until the latter got there. Even if he and Sam weren’t that close, let’s say. Sam is a part of both his family of origin and the family he chose/built for himself. Nothing about that screams romantic or soulmates, I’m sorry. That’s just a basic idea of everyone being together, which is exactly what Bobby says to Dean in 15x20 when talking about how Jack and Cas had changed up Heaven before he got there. “The way it should have always been.” That’s all it was. So in essence, that’s not the show glorifying the abuse or even wincest in general.

Anon, I have to be honest. It seems like you have a lot of gripes with individual groups in this fandom and that’s totally fine. But I kind of feel that you’re coming to me with all of said gripes, not for the sake of discourse, but to make me have to answer to them all. Whether that be destiel, Cockles, Jensen critics, anti-wincesters, or anti-J2ers, SPN itself, etc. And ultimately, I’m not responsible for any group or anything to do with each of them. I am only responsible for how I choose to conduct myself on this social media platform we’re on. And I can tell you 100% that I am not a heller in the derogatory sense that you are implicating me (and essentially my followers) to be. Do I ship destiel? Absolutely. Do I write meta about them and showcase how the show was going there even before 15x18 and celebrate the fact that destiel is indeed canon? Yes. In no way do I travel around this site trying to enforce my beliefs on others. The most I’ve done is respond to some of the bullying and harassment I’ve seen others be subject to over the last 2 years (specifically since 15x18 aired) by commenters/posters where they very much are shoving their opinions and beliefs down their throats while also invalidating not only others’ thoughts and feelings they don’t agree with but also invalidating their identities and desire for representation and devaluing them as human beings in general.

You say you don’t care but do you realize that you are technically doing what you said you don’t want people to do to you? I’ve been very open on this blog about what I ship and what I don’t, what I am in favor of and what I’m an anti of. I’ve even made anti-wincest posts as a matter of fact. I tag appropriately and I reblog content along those lines. While I understand and appreciate that you are just sharing your thoughts and we are having a civil discourse, I do wonder why you feel the need to keep trying to impress upon me through these 2 asks (and particularly this one) that essentially, destiel is bad and wincest is good. I’m glad if you felt my ask box was a safe space where you could share these opinions, I think that’s important, but you are stating them in such a way that I do feel like you are trying to police my beliefs and what I choose to ship, etc. I have no idea who you are (obviously you’re on anon) so I’m not sending you any asks obviously but you do not see me going to pro-wincest blogs to state my beliefs in a similar manner to how you are stating things here. Just some food for thought.

I actually agree with you here, Anon. I don’t ship J2, Cockles, Jenneel, Jarevieve, Kimilia, Bennifer, or any other RPF pairing, actually romantically involved or not. It’s just not my cup of tea. I don’t judge others who do, the ones who like you said, maintain appropriate boundaries. The rest of it? I’m not a fan. Those who are super pushy and disrespectful about it, completely disregarding the fact that these are human beings who have personal lives along with marriages/relationships and/or families? That is not only distasteful but also very disturbing. And that is where the point I made about Jensen and Co needing to assert boundaries comes in. Should the fans automatically respect them? Absolutely. But those guys also need to enforce them. For example, I now have better context on what you mentioned about the supposed Cockles kiss request. I know now that Misha and Jensen talked about them giving up and giving in to fan requests at photo ops, in separate panels. This is exactly what I was talking about in your previous ask. Jensen and Misha should have kept saying no and maintaining that boundary. But they didn’t and chose to indulge (or at the very least, keep from declining) some of the more specific requests brought to them that might have made them uncomfortable at some point. That’s not victim blaming; that’s stating that the person who has the power in the situation (ultimately J & M) should have enforced the boundary if they didn’t want to ever acquiesce to a certain type of photo op request/have a certain type of fan interaction. While people shouldn’t ask them to kiss, for example, they also shouldn’t give in and kiss if it makes them uncomfortable. They shouldn’t give in or be worn down is my point.

Jensen is not in any way homophobic that I’ve personally seen. To be fair, I don’t know the man, only the public persona he presents (and even then our knowledge is limited), but based on what I’ve seen and read from the guy himself, I don’t see that. Not only has he been involved with an outreach program for the LGBTQIA community but he also has a family member that is a member of that community that he appears to be close with. Not to mention that there have been reports (from either people who knew him back then or himself) that he defended a classmate back in school who was gay, from what I'm not exactly sure but I assume it was bullying. The man is constantly evolving and growing/learning (like any other human being) and he has a come long way from his younger days and a time period where the idea of someone being gay was okay but was still treated as “the other” and something you didn’t want to talk about or focus on too much. It took years for society to start evolving past this (and we obviously still have a long way to go) and media helped with that in the forms of films like Brokeback Mountain and television shows such as The L Word and Queer As Folk as well as same sex marriage finally being legalized countrywide in the US. Gay, Lesbian, and LGBTQIA characters were always kept on the outskirts of the main story in any film/televsion show/book (if they were there at all), but now they were (and are) being moved to the forefront (as they should be) as the mains. Now, today, we have not only a Black Batwoman but also a Black Lesbian Batwoman. We have Henrietta Wilson in 9-1-1 who is a Black Lesbian firefighter. That was all unheard of even five years ago. We also have Clarke Griffin in the 100 who is a Bisexual Female main character. We have Love, Simon. We have TK and Carlos in 9-1-1:Lonestar or aka Tarlos as a main couple of the show. We even have Crowley in SPN who was confirmed (by the story events) to be Pansexual. And we’re continuing to get more and more representation as each day passes, not just for LGBTQIA but also the Transgender community as well as for POC and Women. Jensen, Jared, and all the rest have also evolved as has everyone else that works in the industry with how they approach certain topics and how they address things publicly. I don’t pretend to speculate or know what Jensen and Jared think in their heads obviously but it appears that as individuals they have also grown with the times.

The fans who do call Jensen homophobic are obviously not real fans. They don’t listen to what the guy says or what his actions speak louder than any words of his could. They’re simply saying that because based on the context you’re giving here in your examples, he didn’t say something they wanted to hear. Saying destiel isn’t real isn’t homophobic, it’s invalidating. There’s a difference. Of course people were going to be upset when he said that (I wasn’t around then myself) because it invalidates their reading/interpretation of events going on in the show. Which you yourself stated above that people have the right to, which let’s face it, is just basic common sense and all fans/viewers should understand that not everyone will see things in the show the same way. But it also probably upset some because by those words, Jensen just unintentionally gave ammunition to certain hateful sections of this fandom that do jump on destiel posts and hate on said poster, that keep insisting Dean is straight and only likes women, and that there’s something wrong with those people (yep, I’ve seen a TON of this the last two years on here myself, especially after what Jared said at Denver Con 2021). And speaking as someone who is LGBTQIA, that shit is tiring to say the least. It’s exhausting, it’s hurtful, and it’s toxic. So naturally people were going to be upset when he said that. I think he’s learned from it (and possibly other examples), though, and that is why he is so careful to keep saying now that people can interpret the DeanCas relationship and Cas’ “I love you” how they want to. (even though Misha did say it was intended to be romantic and Berens wrote it with that intention)

Here’s what I think when Jensen says he didn’t play Dean as bi:

1) That’s a genuine answer because he is the actor who read the scripts, got noted by directors, and most likely discussed his character’s progression with not only the writers but also Kripke at one time or another. Not to mention, he has lived inside that character’s skin for 15 years and has gotten to know him pretty well. So if he didn’t assimilate a possibly different romantic or sexual orientation into his performance, he didn’t. It doesn’t take away from the edits or scripts that the show had, but he as a performer, did not come from that place in his performance. That’s fine. It’s his personal read on the character and his interpretation, and obviously this carries weight because once again, he had inside knowledge of the character and the story, being that he played Dean himself.

2) This does not take away from anyone’s interpretation of Dean being bi. Once again, the show chose to air certain takes of scenes/edited shots and include lines of dialogue that very much implicate that there is a strong possibility that Dean has a slight interest in various male characters. It may be unintentional most of the time but there is absolutely queer coding in there, and at the very least it produces the possibility of had destiel become a canon relationship in the show (with non-binary Cas obviously not being really male, only in a male presenting body) or Dean had been with another male character for either a sexual encounter, a flirtation, or a date, that it would be possible and not completely out of left field. If you don’t believe there is queer coding in how Dean was written, allow me to give you two examples. A) Do we ever question Sam’s supposed romantic or sexual orientations? Are we ever surprised when Sam gets involved with a woman? Whether that be Eileen or Amelia or that diner waitress or even Blurry Wife? Was him being romantically and sexually attracted to women ever doubted? No. And why? Because Sam wasn’t written with queer coding. B) Kripke has talked about in the past how Dean was not only to be the Hans Solo of this universe but that he also gleaned slightly from On the Road by Jack Kerouac. Dean Moriarty is based on Neal Cassady who not only was sexually promiscous but also reportedly had an on again/off again sexual relationship with Allen Ginsberg for years. It’s not much of a stretch, especially with the things/hints that the show chose to include in their final edits and air, for some to interpret Dean as bisexual or at the very least biromantic. Subtext is very much a thing (look at Buffy and Faith from Buffy the Vampire Slayer for example, look at Brooke and Rachel in One Tree Hill, particularly the scene where they join the Clean Teen club aka subtext) and it is peppered throughout the show, particularly when it comes to Dean and Cas, especially in season 8 and beyond.

3) Even though I stated above that Jensen has grown, there is one actor who I would love to quote, as his attitude towards it all is the right one and should be the model that all actors should follow moving forward. That actor is Oliver Stark from 9-1-1. He himself replied to a comment left on one of his Instagram posts, where the commenter was telling people to stop forcing a gay ship (i.e. Buddie) onto the actors and to quit making them uncomfortable. And here was his response:

Pure perfection. And you know why? Because this is exactly how an actor should look at a character that they’re playing. The romantic and sexual orientations may be key components to the character just as much as say what happened to them in childhood, what their relationship with their parents is like, did they get their heart broken in high school or college, did they ever try drugs, did they ever go to jail, what kind of job do they have, how do they respond when in a situation, etc., but that’s all they are. They essentially make up the character. It’s not something to be feared or that would make someone uncomfortable or the other. That narrative of LGBTQIA being the other needs to stop. Love is love and that’s it. Any actor worth their salt knows this to be true and doesn’t let it hinder their performances or prevent them from taking a role (unless they are truly uncomfortable and decline it instead but if they take it, then they should not be surprised and uncomfortable should something develop in the character or within the story line, especially if they discuss it with the writers/showrunners). Each different character they portray that is human is just that: human. And last I checked, we have 7.9 billion different versions of those running around the planet.

As for Jensen’s own discomfort, I am willing to bet (though tbf like I said above I’m not inside the man’s head) this had more to do with how he sees the character and plays him, his own interpretation of the material he was presented with when filming the show, based on the discussions he had with Kripke, Singer, and the writers/showrunners. I don’t think he was uncomfortable with the idea of Dean being bi or being in love with Cas or any other male character for the sake of being uncomfortable about the character’s purported sexuality or romantic orientation. He played a bisexual character in Blonde after all, and had no issues with it. I believe he even stated at some point when asked by a fan should they choose to make Eric Brady gay in the show, that he would be okay with it. (tbf, I’ve never seen the show so I have no idea what the context of this fan ask was) And like I said above, he’s not homophobic. I think he was initially uncomfortable when people suggested Dean might be bi and that he might be in love with Cas because that’s not how he was trying to play the character. I think it all comes down to his performance for him, as it does for any natural born story teller. But that’s just my opinion. I obviously don’t know him personally and can’t 100% speak for him on that.

As for the nude fanart and his boundaries, it all goes back to what I’ve been saying all along. He needs to assert his boundaries and people need to stop bringing that stuff to him. It’s my understanding that these guys have handlers at cons that they do and from what I’ve read (I’ve never gone myself nor will I to be quite honest), everything they sign in autos needs to go through the handler first before being passed to them. If Jensen truly didn’t want to see a Dean dick pic for example or Dean and Cas getting it on in a painting, then he could refuse to sign or better yet, he could tell the handler 'if you see this, tell them thanks but no thanks'. Honestly, I have no idea if he ever signed anything that was nude for Dean or destiel or wincest related. But again, he has the power to do that, to say no. And do I think fans should be bringing these things to him or to Jared or to Misha to sign or to show them? No, I don’t. Once again, I’ll use the example of reverse roles. If these guys were bringing this kind of art to actresses to have them sign, that’s not appropriate. Say if male fans brought a painting that was NSFW and/or sexual for WildMoore to Javicia or Meagan to sign, that’s not appropriate. NSFW artwork should remain in the fandom imho. However, if the painting is a SFW kiss between two individuals or them holding hands or hugging or laying down together or on a date, I don’t see the harm. At that point, it becomes again about Jensen’s (and these guys’) boundaries and what he feels comfortable signing.

And while I agree with you about how sad it is how Jensen has been treated over the years, once again, it’s up to him on what he allows in a fan interaction. He can’t control what people tweet or say about him online or in videos, but he does have the power to curate his interactions with fans at cons, for photo ops or autos or even how he chooses to answer a question in a panel (or not answer if he doesn’t want to answer). That also goes for Jared, Misha, the rest of the SPN cast, and any other celebrity/performer. Boundaries, I will keep saying it until the end of the time. And anyone who doesn’t respect those boundaries once they’re asserted and keep being asserted doesn’t belong in the convention centers. That’s the bottom line. It's a basic truth.

What you need to understand is this. J2 aren't anti wincest or destiel.

I do understand that and while I don’t think it was your intention to come across this way, that statement is slightly condescending. But yes, I agree. Actors are not their characters. I don’t know how many times I’ve said this in the past two years as have others on this site, the ones who have a clear distinction between fantasy and reality. For example, Jensen is a bit of a sore topic for me right now (not the man himself but what I mentioned above), but I have no aversion to Dean content whatsoever. Why? Because I can compartmentalize and I know what’s real vs what’s not. So please don’t assume that I or anyone else you interact with here that may be a destiel blog or even a cockles or J2 one don’t also have this understanding.

As in, they don't care if you ship either. J2 joke about wincest. Send wincest fanfiction/art to each other. Prank Alex. They don't even care if you ship J2 or cockles. They might have in early years, but like I said, they had to get used to it. But they care when you blast your ship in their face and ask them to validate it. They didn't play wincest or destiel. Jensen didn't play a bi character. Didn't play Dean as in love with Cas or Sam.

Yes, and they also don’t care if you ship destiel. Despite what Jensen may have said in the past, he also has made jokes with Jared and Misha about it. As a matter of fact, after 15x18 aired, Jensen himself stated that he and Misha were exchanging fan reactions to the confession scene (which if you think about it, it's very interesting because if Cas’ confession wasn’t romantic, then why were they so interested in the reaction to the confession itself? Makes you think, doesn’t it? Because if it was just about Cas' death/ending, Misha may have shared those with Jensen but Jensen didn't need to remark on it publicly. Hmm 🤔). Jensen did watch a few of those reactions. He stated as much after that episode aired.

I get what you’re saying about fans asking the guys to validate their ships but I do have to ask, do you think wincest shippers haven’t done the same? (does anyone remember when this person Kelios supposedly disagreed with Jensen on how he and Jared performed a Sam and Dean hug? I think it was at a Jibcon?) I’m not saying it’s appropriate. I do think some of them are honestly looking for validation for their reading of the show because it matters to them and they want to know they are on the right track or to have hope for either ship to come down the line. I also think some of them (namely destiel shippers and bi Dean fans) are looking for validation in representation which is even more important to them. Especially in a show that exuded toxic masculinity to a tee in earlier years and it was lacking in main LGBTQIA representation. Where the show in earlier years treated the idea of being gay as a punch line to a joke every single time it came up.

It's exactly why Jared talked about platonic love in Denver con. They are graciously allowing you your interpretation but asking you to not impose your views on them. Think about that.

Okay, number 1) It’s not gracious to allow fans to interpret the story and/or characters as they do. No one can tell you how to interpret something. Which is why wincest still goes strong even though the show has never confirmed them as canon, in principle or in relationship, but people refuse to hear the whole “They do know we’re brothers, right? Oh come on, that’s just sick” line in 4x18 that Dean said as well as Dean’s line in 10x05 “You know they’re brothers, right? Why don’t you take a substep back there, ladies?” along with Dean telling “Dean” and “Sam” to stand as close as they want but then also saying “I want you to put as much sub into that text” to “Cas” while she nods in response. They refuse to acknowledge that while the actors and show may not have a problem with people shipping the brothers together, it’s not somewhere they ever intended to go in that universe. The relationship was purely familial/brothers. Hence why Dean and Sam are not confessing romantic ILY’s to each other ever in the series, even in the end. Their ILY's are familial only. "I love you, my baby brother." It's right there. But regardless, people still see what they see and interpret how they interpret. Like Jensen said, he likened it to an analogy of two people looking at a painting. Person A may see something different than Person B and he is not going to be the person to tell either of them what they saw or invalidate their interpretations. So to use the word gracious for them allowing to happen what has been happening with art for decades, in all different forms, is incorrect. People will see and interpret no matter what the actors say, no matter what the show does or says, and no matter what some of the fandom says, even when presented with solid evidence that would hold up in a court trial with judge included and Jensen and Co testifying to prove to them that hey, this is what the show was trying to get across to the viewers on this particular subject/part of the show. And when people are asking for validation, that does not equate to them imposing their views on the actors. Imposing their views would be to cancel Jensen for example for saying destiel isn’t real. That’s imposing your views. Asking for validation is very different.

Number 2) Do not even get me started on what Jared said at Denver Con last year, please. That was not a validation for platonic love. That was homophobic and acephobic rhetoric that was actually harmful to the LGBTQIA community. Listen to those words again, pick them apart if you need to, break it down but for the love of the planet, that is NOT validation in how you or any wincest shipper/Jared stan thinks it is. That speech even superseded the topics of destiel, wincest, and even SPN. I’ve already spoken at length on this topic and just how harmful it was and also from a destiel perspective. I’m not diving back into it again. It took me quite a while to put that out of my mind and come back to my love of SPN on this site, and it also made me anti Jared. Not anti in the sense of I hate the guy or keep digging at him repeatedly, I don’t. I just don’t support him and really don’t care to see content of him come across my dash at all if it can be helped. I wish him well and hope he learns, but I’m out when it comes to him. You disagree? That’s totes fine but I won’t be discussing it further here, I’ve already said what I needed to say on this topic.

While you are correct that each individual viewer has the right to interpret the 15x18 confession scene how they interpret it, one thing that is not up for interpretation was the intent with which the scene was written and performed. You can still certainly see it as platonic if that’s what makes you feel better when it comes to this topic, but you can’t debate what has been said by the actor of the scene on not only how he tailored his performance to the written intention of the scene but also the discussion he had with the writer of the episode. (again, if not romantic, why the line 'Dean can't reciprocate' in the script? If it was just platonic or brotherly?) Jensen had to give his approval on it in order for the scene to even make it to production. (and again, if the confession wasn’t romantic, why did Jensen need to approve it? To use your words “think about that”) So if Misha says he acted that scene with romantic intention, then that’s it. Because you can’t make the argument about Jensen not acting Dean with bi intent or romantic intent when it comes to Cas and we should respect that, but then dismiss what Misha is saying about the 15x18 scene being intentionally romantic and that's how he acted it out. You just can’t. It’s one or the other. You can’t have both. Either we take what Jensen says at face value about Dean and what Misha says about Cas, or we don’t for both. That’s it.

And just a bit of background for you, the CW did do market research for destiel in 2016. They only decided to go through (halfway) with it in the final season. Feel free to look for those receipts on this site. They would have never done market research for that particular subject if there wasn’t a simple thought or discussion about it going on behind the scenes, just saying.

I brought up cockles shippers coz they're currently everywhere. J2 ship is almost dead. Cockles isn't. Cockles shippers are also notorious for stalking and harassing Jensen and even Misha. For getting their medical records, utility bills. Look up occamshipper person. They stalk Jensen's location. There are plenty more who do the same. These shippers have sent Jared death threats. Creation found these threats credible and has recently increased his security because of them. They have tried to cancel Walker. They have spread baseless rumours about Jared(like he's a sexual harasser) and these posts have hundreds of thousands of notes.

It’s interesting that you brought up occamshipper. I did not know who this person was until recently. Regardless of whether they ship Cockles or J2 or aren’t shippers at all, stalking, harassment, threats, and doxxing are NEVER okay. Obviously. I think that goes without being said really. I’m glad Jared has increased security. All of these guys should be safe at these conventions. Unfortunately, there are some people out there that are disturbed and resort to disgusting tactics like death threats or threats of violence upon a person. It is good that CE is taking it seriously and is stepping up security.

Once again, I don’t know anything about alleged sexual harassment claims made against Jared nor do I know anything about Walker or its run. I refused to watch Walker after the finale aired and have kept true to that. The only thing I’ve heard about Walker recently on this site is that Lindsey Morgan left the show. That’s it.

I don’t really know anything about the J2 ship fandom nor do I really care. That isn’t the circle I travel in so to speak. Same goes for Cockles. I enjoy Jensen and Misha’s friendship and their interactions and even some jokes on here (like ‘Jensen, do you know your husband is traveling around the country eating food on camera?’ which are innocent and harmless when they’re not sent to the actors or disrespectful to Danneel & their family or malicious in intent; same goes for Jared and Jensen and their panels/interviews) but that’s where it ends for me.

Once again, Anon, I feel that you are holding me personally responsible for the Cockles fandom as well as destiel, that you're holding my feet to the fire, and I will tell you again that not only is it completely unfair to me, but you need to bring these gripes to the appropriate groups you have issues with. Like I said above, I don’t mind civil discourse and I don’t mind my ask box being a safe space for those who just want to have said respectful discussions or to vent, but how on earth could I possibly answer for all of the Cockles fandom when I’m not even in that section of fandom myself? I feel that you are just venting your frustration and that’s fine, but continuing this particular part of the conversation I don’t feel would be productive for either of us. Nothing I say for or against these shippers and that fandom could possibly shed any more light on the subject or be helpful to anyone including yourself. So this will be the last time I touch upon the Cockles topic.

Jared, who has mhi, who wanted to quit in S10 but only stayed coz he didn't want the crew to loss jobs, who literally cried himself to sleep everyday coz he couldn't handle the pressure. This man who donates millions to LGBT charities and who suffered so much during supernatural, they bully and harass him because of a rpf ship. They send him death threats. When shipping has real life impacts like this, it needs to be called out. You talked about a fictional ship(wincest) hurting real life people and here I have given you the real hurt caused by cockles shippers/hellers.

Once more, let me reiterate that I have no idea what you are referring to. I have no idea what Jared endured during the filming of SPN in earlier seasons. Let me remind you, I only dove into the fandom as recently as 2020, which obviously season 10 and anything occurring around that time was way before that. I only know of Jared’s initiative/campaign of AFK that he started. That’s it. While I didn’t mind Jared and I liked Sam as I watched SPN over the years, I wasn’t a fan of him so to speak and so I didn’t follow his career at all. I was a fan of Jensen and did follow his career but I didn’t know anything about his personal life or who he was as a person or anything pertaining to that until I got involved in the fandom. Before that, I had no idea who he was married to, how many kids he had, how he spoke at cons (I hadn’t watched a single Jibcon video for example), that he could sing, that he had a brewery in Austin, etc. So, if I didn’t know anything about Jensen like that before 2020, imagine how little I knew about Jared and Misha.

And also let me remind you that while you speak of what Jared has suffered (who shouldn’t be forced to endure or suffer any of this horrible treatment he got that you’re referring to), do you really think that Jensen and Misha have not received the same type of treatment from disturbed groups of fans at one point in time or another? Despite the good things they have done in the name of charity? Despite their positive interactions with their fans? I’m not saying any of it’s right, of course it’s not, but they all have gone through it. Should they have had to? No, ofc not. But they have all been through it. If you ask me, Jared seems to be doing better now and appears to be happy. (I’ve only seen him in con photos/videos with Jensen) So despite the increased security threat he may currently be under at cons, he is still living his best life and doing well and isn’t that all we could want for the guy? Same goes for Jensen and Misha. In no way am I saying any of this treatment or behavior is okay, I just want to clarify. I’m just saying the three of them will be okay and hopefully the people who are doing such abhorrent behaviors are caught and then be subject to the consequences of said behaviors.

Okay, I only said that wincest is harmful to people because it glorifies abuse (which we determined up above that it’s more the shippers that do that, not the ship itself). I think you’re either misreading/misunderstanding or misconstruing my words. I even gave you specific points in that previous ask that prove what I said. As an abuse survivor myself, I absolutely can recognize and point out how abuse being glorified is harmful. To dismiss the fact of abuse being glorified as harmful is not just dismissive but also deeply concerning. I’m not saying you’re wrong with what you’ve said about the extreme behaviors of a select few when it comes to Jared or Jensen or Misha, but it doesn’t negate the point that a ship, fictional or otherwise, having abuse glorified within it is harmful. To imply that the harm this does is not “real” because it’s a fictional ship vs RPF ships is absolutely hurtful itself and very cold and apathetic. Please keep that in mind when going forward and interacting with others on this site. You never know who is an abuse survivor and who is not (unless they specifically tell you or speak on their experience), and you never know what someone has been through. So please, if nothing else, please hear what I’m saying to you here.

Have a nice day.

You say that you don’t have the energy to respond to my last paragraphs on the previous ask but you keep expending energy to keep making the same point over and over again. I’ve already said what I’m going to say about Jensen and his boundaries up above and due to the energy I’ve expended in replying to your ask here as well as the harassment I received from AA’s for having the audacity to criticize two things Jensen said in his podcast interview with MR, I’m not going to keep repeating myself and I’m also not going to continue to touch upon the topic. As I said above, if you feel that’s victim blaming, that’s how you choose to take it/interpret it. I know for a fact that it isn’t and many experts in different fields would agree. Because it’s basic common sense. We as a society obviously have a longer way to go in our understanding of boundaries and all they entail, especially when it comes to enforcing them and teaching other people how we want to be treated. That’s not victim blaming, Anon, but like I said, your choice on how you interpret it.

Personally, Anon, while I feel that you made a lot of good points here, it’s obvious to me that you’re very frustrated on some of these topics you mentioned. For example, you apparently have a lot of anger towards the Cockles fandom/shippers and even seem to have a distaste for destiel. That’s all fine and good, it’s your prerogative, but I myself don’t have anger or frustration towards either group. I am a self-professed destiel shipper; I’ve never pretended to be anything else. I don’t ship Cockles and while I may not care for some of the content clogging the Jensen tag recently (tho tbf I stopped looking at his tag after all of the AA harassment I received a couple of weeks ago), I don’t have any anger or ill will towards the group itself. As in any fandom, in any section of it, there are good and bad apples. And just like in any other group, the bad apples tend to ruin it for everyone else and/or go to the extreme. Cockles, J2 - both have similar good and bad experiences. While I may not agree with the bad’s actions in either group, I don’t hate them or feel anger towards them or wish them ill in any way. I do hope they stop exhibiting any bad or extreme behaviors, especially if they make the actors uncomfortable, but I can’t control them or what they do or say or think. If you want to speak up to them on Jared’s or Jensen’s or Misha’s behalf, by all means, please do so. I myself, however, am not getting involved. If I was in charge of Jared’s or Jensen’s security or married to either one of them or they were my brother or good friend, then obviously that would be a different story. But I’m not and they are not. Alas, I am not stepping up to the plate to take on the world for them, sorry. I doubt they would want me to anyway, even if they were aware of my existence and/or just how much the fandom fights on here. If you want to take up that mantle and defend them against the Big Bads in the Cockles fandom and the SPN fandom in general, go right ahead. Bring all of your valid points to their doorsteps and duke it out with them. I’ll be here in my little corner of the Tumblrverse rooting for you.

Anon, if you ship wincest, then more power to you. I personally am anti wincest and I ship destiel, so I’m not sure how much more of a continued discourse between us would be productive here on this topic. We can agree to disagree because obviously, neither of us are going to change our minds.

I wish you well, too, Anon. I hope you are enjoying your weekend. Btw, I did get your other ask that you asked me not to post and I just want to say I hope you’re feeling better now and that you’re no longer sick. I appreciate you sharing your thoughts and perspective, even though we disagreed on a lot. But thank you all the same.

I hope you have a nice rest of your evening. ✌️

#ask #ask answered #anti cockles due to content of ask #J2 mention due to content of ask #anti wincest due to content of reply #destiel #anti wincest #jackles #putting jackles tag due to content of ask #antiwincest

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rainbow-shine · 3 years

Text

i'll never wear your broken crown, but in this twilight our choices seal our fate

An alternative s4 in where Dean has powers and that changes everything and nothing. Dedicated to @wormstacheangel and inspired by this headcanon.

It started with little things.

So little that Sam wouldn't have noticed them had it not been for the fact that he couldn't help but look at his brother like a hawk lately, partly to comfort himself that he had Dean back and partly to make sure his brother wouldn't find out about his extracurricular activities.

Dean doesn’t gets hurt anymore.

Sam felt his heart stop inside his chest when he entered the kitchen at Bobby's house and found Victor's ghost with his hand embedded in Dean's chest. With a swift movement Sam fired, the ghost disappeared and Dean fell to the ground.

Completely unharmed.

"Are you okay?" Sam asked either way. Dean gave him an unimpressed look before saying no.

The thing was, Sam had seen Olivia's corpse, had seen the corpses of the rest of the hunters. Right now Dean should be bleeding to death on the floor, his heart ripped from his chest, but instead he was just catching his breath like he'd just taken a good hit.

Sam, at that time, thought it was a fluke.

But it kept happening.

They had a dangerous job and the threat of the apocalypse only made the monsters worse, but Dean was always unharmed. Not a single mark stained his body and the times something or someone managed to hurt him, those wounds always disappeared in less than a day.

"You test him, right?" Sam whispered to Bobby, as soon as Dean went to buy something for dinner and Sam stayed with the excuse of researching something on a new book.

"Who?"

"Dean," Sam clarified. “After he was resurrected”.

"Of course I test him, Sam," Bobby hissed. “Do you think I'm stupid?”

"No, it's just…" Sam stopped speaking, realizing that his arguments at the moment would sound more like conspiracies. The fact that Dean was apparently untouchable wasn't exactly a bad thing.

"What?" Bobby asked sharply.

"Nothing," Sam replied, quickly coming up with an excuse. “It's just that I feel like there's something different about him”.

"Sam, your brother just came back from hell. Literal hell,” Bobby exclaimed slightly condescending. “His mind is trying to process a trauma that, as far as I know, no one has ever experienced. You can't expect him to be the same as before, because he won't be”.

"I know, Bobby."

"Then stop complaining".

So Sam stopped. After all, Dean was still Dean and the fact that nothing could hurt him was just one more reason for Sam to do everything he could so that nothing that could reach him.

•●•

The first time Dean went to sleep after being rescued from hell, in the uncomfortable but familiar couch in Bobby's house, he dreamed of a light.

A light so bright that he felt it might be able to melt his eyes out of his sockets, but at the same time it was warming a part of him that always seemed to be cold.

A light that was comforting and gentle. A light that meant love and salvation.

That night, in an abandoned barn in Illinois, Dean knew that he hadn't been dreaming at all.

•●•

When he was a kid and dad decided to start taking Dean on hunts, Sam used to kneel by his bedside and pray that god would keep his brother safe.

After Jess appeared nailed to the ceiling and their apartment was consumed by flames, Sam began to pray for forgiveness.

The day Dean was dragged to hell Sam stopped praying, because he knew that no one was listening to him.

But then Dean was saved. Dean was saved by an angel and Sam felt his faith restored. How he couldn’t have faith when an angel had achieved what he had been trying to do for months?

But apparently Sam Winchester couldn't have good things, because again his faith was destroyed and the angels, as Dean had said, were nothing more than dicks with wings.

The boy with the demon blood.

The curse Azazel left on him and the only chance they had to truly stop Lilith.

There was fear in Dean's eyes.

And that hurt so much more than anything the angels could have told him.

His powers were a curse, but he had stopped Samhain thanks to them. They may not have saved the seal, but an entire city was beginning their day with nothing to worry about thanks to them.

Sam was doing the right thing. He truly was.

It didn't matter that no one seemed to agree with him.

•●•

"Let me guess, you're here for the ‘I told you so’" Dean said, turning on the bench to look at the angel sitting next to him.

“No”.

“Well, good, cause I’m really not that interested”.

"I am not here to judge you, Dean." The angel's voice was surprisingly gentle and Dean tried to ignore the way the light from his halo suddenly looked alluring. Dean hadn't told anyone, not even Sam, what he could see.

Because Dean still wasn't entirely convinced that he hadn't gone crazy.

Big black wings curved slightly around both of them as they chatted and Dean, for a moment, stopped seeing Castiel, the righteous angel of the lord and only saw Cas, someone who looked as lost as Dean felt.

"I don't envy the weight that’s on your shoulders, Dean," Cas whispered. “I truly don’t”.

Then Cas leaned into him and Dean felt his mind short circuit for a second, because the angel clearly seemed to want a kiss. But no, Cas stopped an inch from touching his lips, simply watching him simultaneously with the blue eyes of his vessel and with the hundreds of curious eyes of his true form.

“What…?” Dean's question was interrupted by something coming from Cas' lips and colliding with his. Dean instinctively parted his lips and allowed Cas to give him whatever he wanted.

It wasn't liquid, but it wasn't a gas either. It was tasteless and Dean didn't feel it pass down his throat or vanish in his mouth. His heart raced and he felt… safe. Blessed.

As soon as it started it was over and by the time Dean managed to control his heartbeat, Cas had vanished and no one seemed to have witnessed what had happened.

•●•

Ruby didn't like Dean.

For many reasons, some more obvious or justifiable than others. But for the sake of the role Sam had to play, Ruby forced herself to cooperate with the older of the Winchesters.

But this was too much.

The mere presence of Dean made her feel like there were cockroaches crawling all over her body. His soul had taken on a new glow and Ruby didn't want to know what kind of things Dean was doing with his angel to have that kind of purity.

"I think there's something wrong with Dean," Sam confessed and Ruby could feel the fear making his voice shake or maybe the shaking came from the blood that was still running down her arm.

"What are you talking about?" Ruby asked sweetly, almost genuinely concerned. If it were up to her Dean would still be rotting in hell, but Sam was on his way of doing a miracle and Ruby felt that someone like that deserved all the happiness and satisfaction in the world. Even if it meant having to put up with Dean Winchester.

"He looks different," Sam said. "I think the angels are doing something to him. My brother would never have..."

"What?" Ruby prompted. "Would never have risked his life for an angel?"

"Well, no".

Ruby had a sudden epiphany that they weren't talking about Ana.

"Maybe the angels are… purifying him," Ruby suggested. "I mean, you know what he did when he was in hell".

The idea of Dean, brave and kind Dean, torturing souls in hell and enjoying it was too funny to be true.

"It's something more than that".

"What do you think it is?"

"I don't know!"

Ruby thought that they had already wasted a lot of time talking about Dean, so she decided to silence Sam with a deep and dirty kiss, climbing onto his lap and thinking that heaven could purify Dean as much as they wanted, because she would see to it that Sam was more powerful than they could ever imagine.

•●•

The angels had taken his brother and Sam swore he was going to kill them as soon as he found them.

Wasn't it enough that they were manipulating and corrupting him, they also had to make him relive what happened in hell?

Dean had protected him from many things. Dean, his older brother, had taken it upon himself to give him a childhood that he never allowed himself to have. Dean had been in the front row of his school play. Dean had made him tomato rice soup whenever he got sick. Dean had put a wad of money and a cell phone in his bag when he had left for Stanford.

Dean had sold his soul to save him.

So now it was Sam's turn to save his older brother.

•●•

"For what it's worth," Cas murmured against his lips. Dean was shuddering with what could be fear or perhaps anticipation. "I would give anything not to have you do this".

•●•

Sam had killed Alistair and Dean was furious.

Hundreds of emotions were piling up in his mind and he wasn't able to understand how his brother could be so stupid to not see that his powers were changing him for the worse. Dean could feel that something was wrong with Sam and his little brother didn't seem to mind.

"I did it to save you!" Sam insisted, throwing his hands up as if Dean was going to lunge at him despite still being slightly dizzy from the hospital drugs. "I only used my powers to protect you when the angels couldn't!"

"Cas did the best he could."

"Really?" There was a note of hysteria in Sam's voice. "Are you going to defend him?"

"Sam..."

"He forced you to torture Alistair despite knowing what you did in hell!"

"He had no other choice!"

"He's using you!"

"But at least he has never lied to me!"

The lightbulb in the room exploded.

Both brothers froze and Dean could see that Sam was breathing heavily and refusing to meet his eyes.

"Sammy?"

"I'm going to get some air," was all Sam said before he practically ran out of the room.

Leaving Dean wondering if things between them would one day stop being so broken.

•●•

Dean's eyes glowed blue.

Angelic blue.

Sam had to save his brother before it was too late.

•●•

The first time Dean healed him, Sam felt like something inside him was burning.

It had been a hunt like any other. No seals threatening to break, no angels or demons. Just the two of them against an angry ghost, just like old times.

Except the ghost was really angry and by the time Dean managed to burn their bones, Sam had been thrown into several graves and several trees and he was sure the back of his head was bleeding.

"Sam!" Dean yelled, running up to him and gently laying him on the ground, with his head in his lap, examining the severity of the injury. Sam felt like a little kid again, feeling safe next to his big brother.

For a moment, there was no apocalypse or arguments. Just the warmth of his brother's body and gentle fingers running through his hair.

"Dean, I'm fine," Sam managed to say. "You know how much head injuries bleed. It's less serious than it seems".

"I know, Sammy".

And then Sam felt the soft strokes on his hair turn into flames and a gasp escaped from his throat. The pain lasted only a second and by the time Sam regained awareness of his surroundings, none of his injuries were still hurting.

"What did you do to me?" Sam hissed, pulling away from Dean and standing up quickly and nearly falling back to the ground from the wave of nausea that washed over him.

"I… I don't know." Dean looked as terrified as Sam felt. "I just wanted to make you feel better".

Dean wasn't normal anymore. Whatever the angels had done or were doing to him was changing his brother.

And Sam no longer knew if he could save him.

•●•

"What's happening to me, Cas?" Dean asked. Trying to convince himself that his little brother was safe and that even though Lilith had escaped, she at least hadn't made any deals with Sam.

"You're changing," was Cas' soft reply. "A metamorphosis, a revelation".

"Am I not human anymore?" Dean asked with his voice showing the terror he really felt.

"You're always going to be human, Dean," Cas reassured him. "Every saint, every messiah, was as human as you".

"I don't deserve this, Cas," Dean gasped, closing his eyes to avoid seeing Castiel, his wings and halo, his eyes and his light. He wasn’t worthy of witnessing the greatness of an angel, not this angel at least.

"Do you still think you don't deserve to be saved?" Cas whispered and Dean trembled slightly as he felt a warm hand gently touch his chin, forcing him to look up and open his eyes. Cas was looking at him so adoringly that Dean felt like he was going to combust in any minute. "Do you think you don't deserve to be loved?"

This is love? Dean almost asked, but instead he connected his lips to those of the angel in front of him and tried to ignore the way in which, for the first time since he had been dragged to hell, he felt pure.

•●•

Castiel couldn't keep doing this.

Heaven had lied to them. Castiel had delusionally believed that he was keeping Dean safe, that he was rendering him immune to demons, healing his wounds and protecting him from all danger.

When in reality Castiel had only been poisoning him.

Shame mingled with guilt within his grace. His wings were flapping as fast as they could, pulling him towards Dean. Trying to warn him about what heaven was planning. Trying to save him from the hell Castiel had condemned him to.

The angels found him first.

Castiel felt how his wings were imprisoned and how his entire being seemed to be consumed by the most absolute pain.

"Take him to Naomi," ordered one of his superiors. "Fix him as soon as possible".

The last thing Castiel felt was the bond he had begun to form with Dean being brutally ripped apart.

•●•

No demon could touch him and surprisingly that wasn't the strangest revelation Dean had that day.

No, the fact that the demon that tried to touch him in Jimmy Novak's house let out a scream of pain as he held onto his burned hand paled in comparison to everything else:

Seeing Sam, his baby brother, throw himself on a demon to drink her blood, broke his heart in a way that Dean couldn't even begin explain.

After that, seeing how Cas looked like his wings had been passed through a shredder while his true form's eyes seemed dull and unfocused only served to make his wounded heart surrender completely.

Dean was practically invincible, but right now, with the broken pieces of his heart trying to stick together, he felt more fragile than any glass.

•●•

Bobby wasn't having a good day.

No, that wasn't good enough, Bobby wasn't having a good life.

But this day was particularly bad.

No matter how much he wanted to ignore them, Bobby could still hear Sam's delirious screams. And to think that the boy who had entered his house years ago, hiding behind his older brother and observing everything with big eyes full of curiosity, was now going through a detoxification process for having consumed demon blood, was something that Bobby could hardly tolerate.

The fact that Dean was a mess didn't help much either.

Dean appeared to be a shadow, drowning in alcohol and carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders. Bobby wondered if there was something wrong with him too, for on more than one occasion the lights around him seemed to flicker and his eyes seemed to emit a strange light.

What had these two idjits gotten themselves into now?

•●•

Dean didn't know what else to do anymore.

"She's poison, Sam," Dean said, praying his brother saw reason. Sam just gave him a wry smile.

"What about Castiel?" Sam hissed and Dean instinctively took a step back. "Is he poison too, Dean?"

They had both lied to each other and here were the consequences.

"Cas is an angel," Dean replied. "He's just protecting me".

"What makes you different from me?" Sam asked. "Tell me, why are you allowed to be a freak and I'm not?"

"Sam that's not how things are..."

"Of course they are!" Sam yelled. "All my life I have been the freak of our family, I never fit in with you and dad, and I was ready to accept that I'm different from you, but it turns out that you are the same freak as me!"

"It's different and you know it, Sam," Dean tried to argue. "Cas never made me drink his blood, he never made me promises too good to be true, and he never made me addicted to anything".

"Why?" Sam asked, sounding exactly like the scared little kid who had believed that the monster under his bed was real. Dean felt his heart ache. "Why if we are both freaks I have to be the monster?"

"It's not too late, Sam," Dean pleaded. "We can still stop this. No angels and no demons, just you and me. Like before".

"I… I can't do that, Dean," Sam denied.

"Of course you can," Dean insisted, moving slowly toward Sam. "Say goodbye to Ruby, return with me to Bobby's house and we will find a way to end it all. I just want you to be okay, Sammy".

Sam's skin began to burn the moment Dean placed his hand on his arm.

No.

"Sammy?" Dean didn't recognize his own voice, he felt like his body had ceased to be his. A witness of his worst nightmares. A tear ran down his cheek. "Sammy, please".

The blow hurt less than the implications of what just happened.

•●•

It wasn't fair.

None of this was fair.

The place where Dean's hand had touched it still hurt. A reminder of what he had sacrificed for the greater good. A mockery of what he had lost by trying to be a hero.

But he couldn't stop, not now that he was so close to ending it all. Not when it was only a matter of hours before Lilith tried to break the final seal.

Ruby's presence was a comfort with the same intensity as a punishment, because Dean hadn't trusted him the way she did, but still Sam wanted the presence of his older brother.

That part of him that had believed for years that his older brother was a superhero right now wanted to run up to his brother and beg for forgiveness.

But Sam was no longer a child and his brother had made a decision.

It was time for Sam to made his, too.

•●•

The angels had kidnapped him. There was no other way to describe what they had done to him, but Dean had made a promise and he planned to keep it. So he stayed there and listened to what the angels told him.

But the moment Zacharias leaned toward him, his movements clinical and expressionless in a way Cas' had never been, Dean couldn't resist the urge to seal his lips, lower his gaze, and take several steps back.

"Dean," Zacharias sighed, as if Dean was a little kid who didn't want to eat his vegetables.

"No," Dean refused and before he could regret it he added. "I want Castiel to do it".

The expression on Cas' face was heartbroken.

"Very well," Zacharias agreed, before ordering Cas to come over to him.

With Cas' lips so close to his and with the warmth of what he now knew was grace enveloping his body, Dean wondered if Sam had been right and Cas had been poisoning him too.

Perhaps both of them had poisoned each other.

"You're almost ready," Zacharias marveled when Cas broke away from him. "Everything will go according to plan".

Dean wasn't so sure about that anymore.

•●•

"Sam," Ruby said, her dark eyes showing a panic Sam never remembered seeing. "Time is running out, are you going to do it or not?"

With Dean's voice telling him that he was a monster echoing in his head, Sam knew he really had no other choice.

•●•

"You know what's real?" Dean asked and didn't wait for an answer before grabbing the lapels of Cas' trenchcoat and slamming his lips against his.

Cas seemed to freeze for a moment before reciprocating the kiss with intensity. His black wings curved around both of them and Dean felt the heat of his halo brushing against his hair. Invisible hands caressed his skin and hundreds of eyes watched him adoringly.

"This is real," Dean gasped as they parted. "This, us, people, families— that's real. You're gonna watch them all burn, Cas?"

"What would you have me do, Dean?" Cas whispered. His wings trembling slightly.

"Get me to Sam," Dean said. "We can stop this before it's too late".

"I do that, we will all be hunted," Cas replied. "We'll all be killed".

"If there is anything worth dying for... this is it" was all Dean could say.

Dean barely had time to react before he was being pushed into one of the walls and kissed desperately. Dean raised his hands to tangle them in Cas' hair and parted his lips the moment he felt Cas' tongue touch his lower lip.

His body accepted Cas' grace with ease.

"We have to find Sam, we have to stop him from killing Lilith," Cas told him when they parted.

"Why?" Dean asked, feeling a little dizzy. "Lilith is going to break the final seal".

"Lilith is the final seal," Cas said. "She dies; the end begins".

•●•

Sam had never felt a power like this.

It was all about to end and he could finally have the life he deserved. His nightmare would end and everything Azazel had planned would be in vain. Sam would use the powers that hell had given him for good. He would use the demon blood that ran through his veins to prevent the apocalypse.

And maybe, when things finally ended, Sam could apologize to Dean and all of this would be nothing more than a bad memory.

Lilith was smiling and Sam was eager to erase that smile once and for all.

Finally, everything was about to end.

•●•

Castiel was committing treason.

He didn't even think twice before vanishing Zacharias and carrying Dean as quickly as his wings allowed him to the house of the prophet of the lord. It was the only chance they had to find Sam and stop the apocalypse before it started.

"You guys aren't supposed to be there," said the prophet, frowning. "You're not in this story".

"Yeah, well..." Castiel said. "We're making it up as we go".

Castiel then took a moment to look at Dean, his soul shining as bright as the sun and cradling his grace as if he never wanted to be without it. Castiel felt a wave of affection for the human he had rescued from hell, for the man who had kissed his lips like a lover.

He sensed the archangel's presence long before he appeared and Castiel knew that they had run out of time.

Regardless of whether the prophet was watching them, Castiel pulled Dean to share a heavy kiss. A kiss of regret for lost time. A goodbye kiss.

"I'll hold him off!" Castiel gasped against Dean's lips, allowing most of his grace to flow to him. If Castiel couldn't protect him, at least he would make sure his grace did. "I'll hold them all off! Just stop Sam!"

Dean connected their lips one last time.

"Good luck".

In the end, Dean had been right. This was something worth dying for.

•●•

He had been too late.

•●•

"I was the best of all those sons of bitches!" Ruby yelled, a maniacal smile curving her lips. "The most loyal!"

Sam had stopped listening to her, just staring in horror at what he had done.

This is not how things are supposed to be. This shouldn't have been the end of this. He had made a stupid mistake, he had been arrogant and he had been naive. Sam had only wanted to protect the world; he had only wanted to take some of the burden off his brother's shoulders.

Sam, for once in his life, had just wanted to do something right.

"You're too late," Ruby scoffed and Sam felt like he might start crying when he saw his big brother.

"I don't care," Dean hissed and Sam could only watch paralyzed as Dean placed his hand on Ruby's forehead and she started screaming, her eyes on fire and the demonic essence of her fading.

"I'm sorry," Sam sobbed. "I'm so sorry, Dean".

Dean couldn't even look him in the eye.

"We have to get out of here," was all Dean said. "Let's go, Sam".

"Dean," Sam gasped. "He's coming".

Dean ignored him, grabbing his arm and pulling him toward the exit.

For the first time in months, Dean's touch was no longer uncomfortable.

•●•

The apocalypse had begun.

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