#cas jack parallels

[impossiblyfreshdonut]

so sorry to be posting destiel on the destiel website but it needs to be said:

dean switched up his opinions on jack SO fast once cas was back he really hated that boy just because he got cas killed

#parallels parallels parallels #like sam saying dean was acting like their dad after he lost mary #when dean had just lost cas #and dean taking it out on jack the way john took it out on sam #all in the same season as ‘it’s a gift you keep those’ #literally insane #dean winchester #spn #supernatural #destiel #castiel #jack kline

[shallowseeker]

"Do as I say, not as I do."

#jack #cas #parallels #dean munches popcorn cause he trusts cas not to lose control #he didn't smite ppl when his teeth got cleaned etc etc #and he doesn't trust jack not to lose control hahaha #oh man #dean i hate to break it to you but your husband has-- #anyway

[certifiedwerewolf]

I dunno man I just feel like if you're writing Dean as being a good dad to Jack but writing John like he just spent all his time drop-kicking his kids who hate him for it then maybe you are. Mmm. I don't wanna say doing it wrong because that's not what I'm going for but like. I'm just saying there are parallels. That's all I'm saying. And if John isn't worthy of a pass then neither is Dean.

#i'm just saying if you're a dean winchester apologist maybe you shouldn't be so quick to write off john #(the fic i like best are the ones where dean knows he fucked up and tries to make it right and the parallels are drawn and clear #even better are the fic where dean does have complicated and nuanced feelings about john but almost nobody wants to write those #to paraphrase sunny people tend to write john like he was dropkicking his kids right out of the womb #and it's very frustrating because both dean and john were bad dads because of their trauma but dean's trauma gets him a pass #but citing john's trauma is treated as making excuses #anyway john and dean have something very important in common which is treating their kids like shit because mary died #not to mention the entire widower arc with cas and how much of a piece of shit dean was to jack for no reason)

[spnwin-reader]

Loss in common:

Enter Millie, The Prickly-but-Hopeful Fixer

[We note that, even after all this time, Millie's building carries the MoL Aquarian star of protection, and it's still Winchester Garage, not...whatever-her-maiden-name is.]

When we first meet Millie, she's bitter. As the one who "kept the lantern on," "the one who stayed," she's hurt and defensive, a lot like how Dean grows to be in latter seasons of SPN.

(Even post-demonicity, Dean is still expected to be the soft place to fall for everyone. Even after Jack kills Mary, Cas has this expectation of Dean's soft-heartedness: "it's possible he could work through this. One day, he may explode and let it all out and breathe deeply and move on.")

Anyway, Millie!

Her reunion with John is part passive-aggressive but loving. We see that Millie, like Dean, has intense abandonment trauma. She speaks abrasively-but-affectionately. She calls John "Kid, Kiddo, etc." which was a go-to with Dean for both Claire Novak and Jack Kline.

JOHN: Love what you've done with the place. MILLIE (passive-aggressive): Well, my husband and son walked out on me, so. It's the best I could do. (growing emotional) Dammit. Welcome home, Kiddo.

Gruff, abrasive, imperfect? Maybe. But full of love.

Alt John and Millie are united by the common loss of Henry, just as Prime John, Sam, and Dean were united by the common loss of Mary.

John thinks Henry walked out on them, but I think Millie is likely more complex. With her tacit knowledge of the Men of Letters, I think it's reasonable that she at least suspects that he might be dead.

What does that tell us about her? It tells us that the loss of Henry was unbelievably painful--it's probably easier for her to consider he left than the very likely truth: his demise.

She's a fixer. That's what she does.

She holds out hopeless hope.

JOHN: I'm fine, Mom. MILLIE: The Hell you are. You've been chasing your dad since he walked out that door. I know that's why you enlisted. But it is time to let the past go, kiddo.

But Millie isn't healed either. She hasn't let the past go, even as she pursues her dream of being a mechanic and owning a garage (like her father). Letting the past go hasn't helped her heal.

In fact, carrying on hunting and the MoL business is what seems to soothe her loss, giving her new meaning and purpose. Millie and John's push-pull dynamic with hunting is much like how it was with Ellen and Jo Harvelle.

///

But overall, we see what Henry's absence wrought. It's just as Henry feared in SPN Prime (9x17 Mother's Little Helper):

HENRY: Therein lies the problem. As our initiation grows closer, I... I worry that this might be a selfish endeavor on my part. JOSIE: Selfish. How? HENRY: If anything were to happen to me, what of John? Millie? JOSIE: They'd be proud to know that you answered the call. HENRY: No. My wife would be a widow, and my son fatherless. I don't expect you to understand. You don't have a fam--[he pauses] I'm sorry, Josie. I didn't mean it that way. JOSIE: I know, Henry. You're a good man. Millie is lucky to have you.

This directly parallels Cas and his allegiance to his work, Heaven, (Heaven is a truck, and Cas is a truck-driver; Dean thinks he's Josie when he's actually Millie).

It also beings to mind the visual of ("little John") Jack's entrance as he wanders around muttering, "Father. Fa-ther. Father. I need to find him. Castiel. He was supposed to be here," while looking for his long-expected, lost father in 13x01 Lost and Found.

But it's also an off-key parallel to prime John, who would become as Millie was, a bereft widower in the cold, floundering and ill-equipped to handle the dangers of the supernatural world.

///

Enter Mary, Action Hero

(Note: Mary's got a short range, so I love how she uses speed to her advantage to get larger targets off-balance.)

///

And importantly, John...is NOT allowed to look cool. It's a RULE. He's a dorky...little...guy.

Mary knocks the demon into a blessed holy water vat, a call-forward to something prime John will do in SPNprime 01x21 Salvation.

//

When Alt John and Alt Mary meet:

Mary's father has been absent (missing) from her life for a short time, and John's father Henry has been absent for most of his life, just as when Dean and Cas meet, theirs too is a tale of missing fathers. Cas's father was absent for all of his life, and Dean's flaky dad has been gone for a (relatively) short time. It also very obviously parallels Sam and Dean searching for their missing father.

When they break inside the Men of Letters clubhouse, Mary keys into John's emotions about his father. This reminds me of of the first time Dean keyed in really hard to Cas's emotions in 5x16.

///

JOHN: How do you cope with it all? MARY (wryly, jokingly): I'll let you know when I find out. (SPNwin 1x01)

//

DEAN: Yeah, I get it. I know how you feel. CASTIEL: How do you manage it? DEAN (wryly, jokingly): On a good day, you get to kill [The Whore of Babylon]. (SPN 5x17)

///

Recent losses of friends & family:

Additionally, Mary and John have both suffered recent losses. Mary lost her narrative twin Maggie, and John lost his comrade Murph to war.

[Mary's cousin went to Hell, just as Sam's brother went to Hell in season in vintage and mid-SPN.] Mary's hunting family was torn asunder, parents separating.

And John? WIth war, John signed up to fill a void left by his father, to find meaning in life.

We can even recall Dean's words to Gordon in 2x03 Bloodlust, how Dean struggled with the idea of "The Invincible Dad" and how his death made the word more terrifying, how it left a wound of depression inside of him that he sought to fill with meaning through work:

DEAN: Yeah. Yeah, you know. He was just one of those guys. Took some terrible beatings, just kept coming. So you're always thinking to yourself, he's indestructible. He'll always be around, nothing can kill my dad. Then just like that (snaps) he's gone. I can't talk about this to Sammy. You know, I gotta keep my game face on. (clears throat) But, uh, the truth is I'm not handling it very well. Feel like I have this - GORDON: Hole inside you? And it just gets bigger and bigger and darker and darker? Good. You can use it. Keeps you hungry. Trust me. There's plenty out there needs killing, and this'll help you do it. Dean, it's not a crime to need your job.

Dean lost his dad, and Gordon lost his sister. This emptiness is depression. John lost his dad and suffered that loss all his life. He signed up to the war for the GLORY OF PURPOSE. He didn't sign up to the war for more pain and grief, but that's exactly what he got.

What's the thing Dean can't fill up, not with booze or love or even sex? It's grief and pain. It can only be filled with love, which is what Cas's confession narratively does in 15x18.

It's also what Mary's love and the love of the Core 4 will eventually do for John.

///

SPN Prime season 8 side-parallel: Connections of recent grief ALSO calls to mind season 8, how Sam connected with Amelia when they had both suffered a loss, Sam lost his narrative twin to Purgatory and Amelia lost her husband to war.

Theirs was a fast-paced reactionary relationship born of grief, something that pinged and annoyed Amelia's father, leading him to be very passive-aggressive with Sam. (Her father was a dick, but he's both a soldier himself and does know her best and probably has her best interests in mind. He recognized that was Amelia mid-freakout, OOC. He pings that her out-of-characterness is a weird reaction to grief).

He was right to be concerned about the shallowness and stability of it. These types of reactionary relationships are well-known: they can be very shaky, melodramatic, idealized, and weak when stress-tested.

Sam (and vintage Dean) both have this tendency to be all-in or all-out when it comes to The Cause. Neither strike a balance very easily. They tend to either be ALL IN for the Perfect War with Perfect War Companions at Your Side...or rushing into something tenuous that represents a weak idea that winds up unsatisfying because it's not genuine: Perfect White Picket Fence or Howling-at-the-Moon Dishibitory Party Life.

In SPNwin, John is doing a lot of running, too. He rushes into the thing with Betty (weak and tenuous), then he rushes into war, he rushes into hunting, and he runs into the relationship with Mary.

This theme of Running into Danger / Running From Danger persists. John certainly struggles with it, BUT in a departure from his past behavior, this new thing with Mary gets a lot of stress-testing, eventually moving from limerence into turbulence, power struggle, and de-idealization. (SPNwin 1x12, The Tears of a Clown)

///

SO.

Mary and her ragtag gang of friends embark on a journey to look for the missing Samuel Campbell the way Sam and Dean look for the errant John Winchester, the way the Banes twins look for their mother Tasha Banes in Twigs, Twine, & Tasha Bane.

Certainly the core 4 are all "running scared" and clinging to one another, having all lost loved ones in a variety of ways. They are united in empathy over their respective losses:

John (dad, comrades)

Mary (narrative sibling, missing dad, splintered family and parental separation)

Carlos (whole family killed by a monster)

Lata (no-contact with her family because they allowed her beloved nanny to die; nonsensical/cruel hierarchy of human society)

Ada (husband lost to madness, son potentially a puppy-destined-to-be-wolf)

And finally we get Henry's letter:

If you're reading this, then I'm gone. I'm sorry I kept the truth from you, John. There's a dangerous world out there, and our family has fought that danger for centuries. The answers to all your questions are at the address below. I love you and your mother. Always.

I think this idea of Henry Winchester as a secret-keeper, and as Mary-prime as a secret-keeper fed into what we know about John-prime turned into: a neuroses of paranoia and over-preparedness.

But thanks to Dean, Alt John has some new tools to work through this: knowledge. Even his anger is useful, openly telling his mother how disappointed and betrayed he feels over being kept in the dark. For her part, she gives him her emotional truth: that she only wanted to protect him.

It's the first healing step for both of them.

#writer robbie thompson #director glen winter #millie winchester #henry winchester #john & millie #henry cas parallels #john cas parallels #john sam parallels #millie dean parallels #john jack parallels #josie sands #lata #alt john #prime john #prime dean #prime cas #alt mary #amelia richardson #spnwin 1x01

[lesbianjackkline]

supernatural was soooo sick for directly paralleling dean taking his grief for cas, out on jack, with john taking his grief for mary, out on sam and dean. like what the fuck was up with that??

#you can’t look at your son(s) because they just remind you of your dead loved one #it’s not what cas/mary would want but they’re not here and it’s an endless cycle of horror #like it’s soooo fucked and i’m eating it up eagerly #also it’s sooo confusing #like if you don’t want ppl go see deancas that way why write them that way?? #why parallel them to romantic couples multiple times #including johnmary like the BIG one holy shit #supernatural wins most confusing show of all time fr #but i love her and i’ll eat up that shit no matter how confusing imao #also jackkkkkl!!! my beloved <3 #spn giving me cas who was one of my first blorbos and now it gives me jack #who’s literally a mini cas #(and a mini dean hehe) #i love him dearly!!! <3333 #imagine just being born and both your parents are dead like he is soooo tragic #like he killed kelly being born and he accidentally got cas killed and dean hates him for it oughhhh #that one post that’s like ‘cas told jack abt dean before he was born so jack immediately loved dean and doesn’t understand why dean doesn’t #love him back’ or something. im paraphrasing imao #oughh it’s so heartbreaking #my baby boy 🥺😵‍💫 #also his grief over cas waking him up in the empty #that’s love bitch! #mia shifting into kelly so jack can say goodbye properly made me WEEP #just him fr fr #jack kline character of all time #ppl who say don’t watch the later seasons are wrong bc yeah okay the later seasons get weird but also they have charlie and kevin and garth #and my sweet baby jack #you miss out on some good shit™️ #it’s funny how charlie garth and kevin were all introduced in s7 and i don’t like s7 aside from them and a few other bits #mainly bobby’s death bc that shit hurts™️

[quietwingsinthesky]

returning to the jack & abigail dynamic: i'm imagining that after the first two or three times abigail drags jack home to have dinner with her family, hannibal pulls her off to the side like "are you sure this is the friend you want to make? :)" (<- is thinking about how Jack is allergic to using napkins properly and will wipe everything off with his sleeves) (he's not rude, he was just unfortunately raised by winchesters)

and she just crosses her arms and shoots back with "you get to keep will >:(" (<- knows she will get her way, partly because hannibal is going to give her what she wants, partly because if he doesn't, she's not above asking jack to do a little mindwiping.)

at which point, hannibal just has to accept that she's going to bring home a weird little guy just like he did.

#parallel here not meant to imply jack & abigail romantic relationship tbc #its just that abigail hasn't had any friends since that one girl died. and jack hasn't had any friends. uh. ever. #they're not dating they're more like the codependent homoerotic friendship you form with that one girl in middle school. you know the one. #abigail is weirdly obsessive about jack in a way that would be red flags for anyone else #only he (models his idea of how relationships should work off of the ones he's seen ie sam & dean. dean & cas. sam & lucifer) #sees it as sweet. abigail stalks him once #and he knows the whole time because angel powers and he's 🥰 'she cares about me so much. we must be best friends.' #spn #hannibal nbc #jack kline #abigail hobbs #hannibal lecter #they get high one day (hannibal's secret stash) and abigail goes 'i would eat u u know.' #and jack goes ':3 i mean you could! i don't think it would hurt me! i'll heal!' #they are such normal besties

[daily-sloop-john-b]

Gosh....this idea is so retro, but I need a crossover where Dean Winchester ends up in Faerun (maybe instead of Purgatory or something) and he spends the entirety of the first two acts having to be held back from knifing Astarion and bonding with Wyll and comparing Gale to his "nerdy little brother" and looking for his angel. And everyone just assumes he's looking for his partner and they point him towards the Nightsong (he thinks Cas' picked up a new moniker) and trying to avoid the gay panic Astarion's sending him into (all while denying to himself that he and Cas are more than Just Friends (TM)).

Then he goes down to the Gauntlet of Shar and there's some body double angst and he meets Dame Aylin. He realizes that she's not *his* angel, but is *someone's* angel....and *oh.* all the denials about Cas suddenly seem different.

(then maybe Cas gets rescued from the pods with Zevlor or he's whisked off with the Duke to be turned into a puppet for the Absolute and Dean has to keep adventuring to get him back.)

#I also imagine Sam as a True Soul and going the early-seasons blood addict route #and either Durging it or swallowing illithid tadpoles left and right #and Dean has to talk some sense back into him like Minsc #If it's s14 then Cas is perfectly fine and he and Jack are hanging out with Thaniel the whole time #Jack just making the shadowfell nice for the kid #Dean charges into the shadowfell after Helsin mentions other people there #all bloody and tadpoled and gross from fighting everything #and Jack and Cas are having a tea party with apple juice #bg3 #baldur's gate 3 #supernatural #destiel #yes this gives rampant superwholock crossover vibes #I just want Dean bantering with Astarion and getting the PARALLELS with Dame Aylin

[garashir]

I see Sam being a father figure to Jack in the same way Dean was a father figure to Sam if that makes sense

#like idk sam doesnt feel as paternal and unlike cas he doesnt really lean into entirety of fatherhood with jack #and also this parallel is really juicy to me and helps to give sam layers since the writers kinda dont give a fuck about him #supernatural #spn #sam winchester #jack kline #dean winchester #my posts

[jensensitive]

(4x20)

CASTIEL Of course we keep our promises. Of course you have our gratitude. You served us well. Your work is done. It's time to go home now. Your real home. You'll rest forever in the fields of the Lord. Rest now, Jimmy.

JIMMY No. Claire?

CASTIEL She's with me now. She's chosen. It's in her blood, as it was in yours.

JIMMY Please, Castiel. Me, just take me. Take me, please.

CASTIEL I wanna make sure you understand. You won't die or age. If this last year was painful for you, picture a hundred, a thousand more like it.

JIMMY It doesn't matter. You take me. Just take me.

CASTIEL As you wish.

---

(14x08)

CAS: Take me.

COSMIC ENTITY: A little louder, please.

CAS: Take me in his stead. Take me.

COSMIC ENTITY: You?

CAS: I'm the one you want. I'm the one who woke you up.

COSMIC ENTITY: You? But you're already mine.

CAS: Not for years… eons maybe. But if you'll agree, I will go now, and I will go willingly.

COSMIC ENTITY: Deal.

#spn 4x20 #spn 14x08 #cas and Jack #parallels #spn thoughts

[stillwinchester]

God tested Dean and said to him, “Dean! Take your son, your only son Jack, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as your revenge.” 

So, he went to the place of which God had told him. And he took in his hand the gun and put this to his son's head.

And Jack knelt down and said to his father Dean, “I understand! I am a monster.”

And the Angel of the Lord showed up and said, “Dean!”. But this time the Righteous Man didn't listen. It wasn't God's will, but human's choice, he had to make decision.

And God enjoyed the show.

#fic? kind of #bible quotes #abraham and isaac #dean and jack #spn #supernatural #spn fic #dean winchester #jack kline #supernatural fic #chuck shurley #castiel #cas #spn 14x20 #spn parallels

[meatmandean]

you can't begin to imagine the merlin and supernatural parallels that live in my mind

#arthur is dean obviously #merlin is cas #morgana is sam #gwen doesnt have a perfect parallel she would either be cassie or lisa i guess #i prefer cassie so im gonna pick cassie #gaius is bobby #uther is obviously john #mordred is jack #now imagine either character in the opposite world #in the same scenarios #its very fun honestly

[caspock]

corollary. i think cas and claire’s issues and dean and jack’s issues are in conversation

#not necessarily in parallel or in rhyme but in something. foiled even perhaps #claire wants cas to be family and she cannot fucking stand the idea and he is her father figure no matter how much she hates that #jack STILL views dean as a father even after everything #it's like the. toxic found family of it all. appeals to me #caspock.txt

[shallowseeker]

The black hole of grief left by your father’s death:

2x03

DEAN: Yeah. Yeah, you know. He was just one of those guys. Took some terrible beatings, just kept coming. So you're always thinking to yourself, he's indestructible. He'll always be around, nothing can kill my dad. Then just like that (snaps) he's gone. I can't talk about this to Sammy. You know, I gotta keep my game face on. (clears throat) But, uh, the truth is I'm not handling it very well. Feel like I have this -

GORDON: Hole inside you? And it just gets bigger and bigger and darker and darker? Good. You can use it. Keeps you hungry. Trust me. There's plenty out there needs killing, and this'll help you do it. Dean, it's not a crime to need your job.

///

Versus Sam’s: “He’ll be fine. He always is.” / “What about Cas, is he really dead?”

///

And Jack in 15x19

Outside the diner. Jack looks up at the sky.

Jack: Cas?

As Jack’s in front of the diner, the plants he passes shrivel and die. He does not notice. Jack enters the diner.

Jack’s collapsing “into a divine energy black hole” was present in 15x18, but worsened following the death of Cas.

Dad?

Fathers are supposed to be invincible. And always be there. Without them, there’s a void.

script via @spnscripthunt

#john henry parallels #jack cas parallels #dean john parallels

[famdommcfanface]

Was not expecting Jack. OR present Bobby. Didn't really care about either though.

#the Winchesters #the winchesters spoilers #like omg Jack! yeah k whatever where's Cas #I like that Dean called them family that was cute #and it's always nice to see real Bobby #(excuse me and my vendetta against the parallel world versions) #posts what i done

[shallowrambles]

What if “I did all of it for you,” was about Dean but it also wasn’t. It was as much about punishing the family with a firm hand for not seeing things his way?

#spn parallels #daring to parallel John and cas #taking power by force on behalf of the family #then becoming the tyrant that has no family #absolute power corrupts absolutely #which is why I think chuck won is just as delicious as corrupted jack #spnwin #spnwin parallels #about choosing war to keep loved ones out of it #but also being about simmering anger shame powerlessness #I’m fighting to protect you I swear

[angelcasendgame]

Bestie. I'm feeling extremely

A lil fic I didn't realize that would be so delightfully damaging to my heart. It's like not that I got shot through the heart but someone's jabbing me just above my clavicle with a blunt arrow and that arrow is your fic.

Omg 🥺🥺🥺 I'm so sorry for the pain but ahhh!! Tysm for stopping by to say this, I had literally abandoned this fic last year bc I was starting to hate it but mayhaps I shall continue!!! It starts off as baby!Jack but he speedruns his life like Amara in like two years. Widower parent!Dean my beloved <333

#same fic where dean has the nightmare of lucifer burning cas on the ceiling after possessing sam and dripping his blood into Jack's mouth #bc we love parallels in this house #i mean im assuming you're talking about the widow arc dean exerpt and not my full fic?? #fjlshflsjsk sorry if i misunderstood #LOVE YOU #also this is in retaliation for all your ashmick posting earlier i havent stopped thinking about it #alex tag 🧠 #writing adventures #mailbox #tldm