#i wrote dean having a migraine because i literally had a migraine the entire time while writing this

[sir-elyan]

Empty Bottles, Broken Time

15x19 coda | destiel | angst; apparently i can't stop thinking about dean praying to cas. wc: ~850

[READ ON AO3]

There was a lot to fix.

For a week after they’d left Chuck in the dirt, Dean couldn’t be bothered to actually make himself start.

Sam was around. He was more energetic than Dean was, at any rate, going from room to room collecting books, magical objects, food, whatever—whenever Dean looked, there was always something in his hands. And maybe it was because Sam had his hands full that Dean thought it was okay for his to be empty.

A lot felt empty these days.

His beer bottles, for one. They were always drained before Dean could realize where the alcohol had gone, before he could snap back and see that he’d been sitting in the same spot for hours, staring at nothing and thinking of less.

They’d gone on a few hunts, since Chuck. It was funny how freedom meant repetition, how the days melted together like a run on sentence. Dean didn’t know where one hunt ended and the other began—vampires became ghosts and witches and back again. He didn’t care. He couldn’t care.

Dean just wanted his family back.

He actually gets the idea from Sam.

Dean’s back in the kitchen one night, eyes half closed as he tries squinting through a migraine to retrieve another beer from the refrigerator, when he stops before he can walk through the doorway.

“I know you’re, uh, busy, buddy. I’m–I can’t even imagine,” Sam huffs out a breath of laughter.

Dean frowns down at the watch on his wrist, tilting it to get a better look at the time. He’d been sure it was past Sam’s usual bedtime, which was why he’d snuck out of his room in the first place. Dean thinks he can make out ‘2:30 am’ from the thin little hands, one of which ticks away much slower than the rate he thinks seconds actually pass.

He thinks maybe that it’s broken, which wouldn’t be surprising considering the amount of times it’s smashed into things on hunts. He sighs at the irony.

Time. Broken.

“I just…want you to know that you—you’ve always got a room here, Jack. And we…um. We miss you.”

Dean understands, then. Sam’s praying. His breath hitches and he backs away, beer forgotten, to hightail it back to his room.

By the time Dean presses his back to the inside of his door, his brain feels close to rupturing from how fast he had retreated out of there. Prayers were private, and hearing Sam talk to their kid like that was like a taking a blow to the head.

Even his sight had muddled black from the number it had done on his brain, but Dean’s vision does eventually clear, and the room comes into view. And then, for the first time in weeks, Dean sees it—he sees the disgusting mess of it, of all the bottles piled up, the clothes lying everywhere, the discarded trash thrown wherever he could find a place for it at the time.

He sucks in a breath, steeling himself for it, and pushes himself off of the door and towards the first pile.

After about an hour straight with no distractions, Dean’s room is half better. It was easier with tunes on, easier to find motivation in the lyrics of Thunderstruck, and for that hour Dean felt more like himself than he had since…well, since he was last himself. He couldn’t exactly remember when that was, but he figures it was a long time ago. Back when…

Dean takes a seat on his bed—which he had somehow managed to clear completely—and lets his fingers intertwine together on his lap.

The music had stopped playing a while ago. It was quiet now.

“I hope you can hear me,” Dean starts. He’s said those words before. He thinks this time won’t be like the last, that he’s not lucky enough for this to end with an embrace, with a sigh of relief.

“But if—if you can, ah, I want you to know something.”

He closes his eyes.

“I want you to know that the thing—what you thought you couldn’t have…you were wrong about that. Because Cas, you—” he stops, shakes his head a little to keep his voice steady for this. He needs to say it.

“You can have it. All you have to do is come back to me, like you always do, and you can have it. I…I promise I won’t screw this up this time. I’ll do better.

I’ll stop you from leaving whenever I say something wrong. I’ll—I’ll make sure you know, man. I’ll make sure you know how much I—how much you mean to me. Because this…” He unlaces his fingers to gesture a hand at the room.

”I can’t do this without you. Never could, never will. Not since you touched me in hell, when you saw me broken and put me back together again. Cas, it’s—it’s always been you. I’m sorry I couldn’t say it before, I’m sorry it took this long. I hope you can forgive me, and," Dean grips his hand into a fist, "I hope my plan works.

‘Cause I’m getting you out of there, you son of a bitch. If it’s the last thing I do.”

-

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#i wrote dean having a migraine because i literally had a migraine the entire time while writing this #so if it sucks im blaming it on that #but hopefully it doesnt suck?? #yes me starting off with 'there was a lot to fix' was incredibly meta of me i knOW #destiel #deancas #rambleoncas writing #spn #supernatural #spn 15x19 coda #roc original #b*destiel #my post #bookshelf

[movietvtechgeeks]

Latest story from https://movietvtechgeeks.com/supernatural-good-intentions-aka-paving-road-hell/

'Supernatural' Good Intentions aka paving that road to hell

I’m going to do something I never thought I’d do for a review. I’m going to give you a disclaimer with this Supernatural review: If you cannot separate any actor from the character they play (the main picture above is a helpful hint), then you’re free to go. Class dismissed. No hard feelings. Seriously. In fact, I’d rather you go. Still here? Okay, then. I’m going to start with a brief rundown of an episode I skipped reviewing last month, “Devil’s Bargain.” I skipped it for a very personal reason: because unlike some fans, I don’t hate Eugenie Ross-Leming and Brad Buckner. I don’t think they’re awful writers. I don’t think they’re misogynists or racists, in fact, I think the opposite. I don’t think “Taxi Driver” is that bad compared to a lot of other episodes we’ve endured. I think “Route 666” is unbelievably underrated and if possible more relevant now than it was twelve years ago. Finally, I think a lot of fandom screaming “canon fail” at them is a two-fold issue: one, we’re all very married to our head-canons and two, all the writers do it and alway have. Blaming just them is simply childish. And before you say it, no, I don’t care that they wrote the death of Charlie Bradbury. Seriously. I don’t care. The character was way past expiration, like a couple other characters that we’re still enduring. I digress. For now, a quick rundown of “Devil’s Bargain.” It was… okay. Danneel Ackles made her Supernatural debut as faith healer Sister Jo, but frankly, even before her first scene aired, we all knew she’d be revealed as an angel. Now, as someone in fandom, it’s hard to remove yourself from knowing that you’re watching Jensen Ackles’ wife onscreen, but since I’d watched Danneel on TV way before they even began dating I have a slight advantage, and there were definitely shades of her One Tree Hill character, Rachel Gatina, in Sister Jo. While, I would’ve liked to see a bit more comedy out of this role, because I think that’s where Danneel Ackles shines, the sultry selfishness of Sister Jo wasn’t unwelcome. In fact, it was refreshing to finally see an angel who wasn’t wearing a boring suit and acting like an office drone. Honestly, Supernatural, the angels and demons on your show have become so homogenous. One big blurry blob of maybe good, maybe bad, but all definitely bored, ad execs. Sister Jo and Lucifer were the actual highlights of this episode, separately and together. Their encounters were unsettling, but they were supposed to be, and the performances were there. Yeah, the dialogue was wordy, that’s Ross-Leming and Buckner for you, but a good actor can turn wordy into conversational. Danneel Ackles and Mark Pellegrino were able to do that. Was the sexual metaphor heavy handed? Oh, yeah, totally. That said, after the very literal hammers to the head in Steve Yockey’s episode “Various & Sundry Villains” we learned that it’s not a deal breaker for an episode. Misha Collins himself once said there was nothing subtle about the writing in Supernatural. You know what is a deal breaker, though? When your tertiary characters outweigh your primary leads and secondary regular. I spent every moment that Dean, Sam, and Castiel were on screen thinking, “can we get back to Lucifer and Sister Jo?” And it wasn’t the director, I can’t blame Eduardo Sanchez for the drag in momentum, because if anyone can build tension and deliver it’s the director of The Blair Witch Project. Sanchez is horror royalty, a tension king. I’m not going to blame the writing either because again, Danneel Ackles and Mark Pellegrino were engaging. I blame the show running and the editing. I know, I know, I’m not being subtle in where I’m going with this, but we’ll get back to that later. Anyway, “Devil’s Bargain” was passable. Not a top 20 episode, but not a bottom 20 one either. It existed. It’ll be mostly memorable for the fact that Danneel Ackles was in it. Her presence, whether it was because you know her from One Tree Hill, know her as Jensen’s wife, or just plain enjoyed Sister Jo, basically saved this episode from complete obscurity. What’s that you say? But what about the big reveal of Gabriel at the end? Well, if we hadn’t seen it coming, it might have been cool. Same with Bobby in the next episode. There’s no shock left because like with Ruthie Connell’s, between the cast, crew, and PR we know everything weeks in advance. Speaking of the next episode, let’s get into episode 13.14, “Good Intentions,” penned by Meredith Glynn and directed by P.J. Pesce. I’m going to get two petty things out of the way because they are the least of the problems with this episode; the camera angles were really awkward, and the use of the episode title in the dialogue during act one was, wow, hammers to the head again, anyone? I have one more issue that’s less about writing, directing, and acting, but I’m saving it for, you guessed it: later. Have you been filing away those “laters”? Hope so. What I am going to get into here is the overall writing of this episode, specifically the dialogue and characterization. First of all, can we stop asking how Castiel is all the time? I get that you are all struggling to justify the character, but no one, absolutely no one, gets asked about or talks about their feelings more than the soulless angel. It’s honestly preposterous when you think about it. We’re also going to have Castiel be the one both worried about and coddled over Lucifer being free? The dude who let Lucifer free? I know you’re fairly new, Meredith, so hey, let’s give you a break, I mean no one expects you to understand twelve years of canon. Who can? Except millions of fans who aren’t paid to do so. Let’s also discuss how you’re going to have characters that are “sometimes referred to as brothers” and then send Castiel and Dean off to fight them? Meredith, Meredith, Meredith. No ma’am. That’s just bad narrative symmetry. A rookie move, honestly. So is using “migraine” and “headache” interchangeably, but that’s a pet peeve puddle I’d don’t have the patience to play in, not when there’s an entire pond of “what even is going on here??” to paddle through. Actually, no, I’m going to address this a bit further; if I’m so removed from your storyline that I have the ability to focus your very common, yet annoying, medical inconsistency then something is very wrong. And what’s wrong is that this episode is an Everlasting Gobstopper of info dumping. It’s all exposition. No heart, no soul, no characterization. All tell and no show. This episode felt feature length and not in a good way. Actually, the only one in character is Mary. Her caring about six-month-old manchild, Jack when she can’t seem to genuinely care about her six-month-old baby turned hero of a man; Sam was very spot on. Although, I somehow don’t think you intended that bit of irony. Speaking of Mary and Jack, let’s get into a bit about the alternate world. It’s a cool idea, Andrew Dabb. In theory, it really is. I mean, apocalypse AUs have never been my personal preferred fanfic trope, but I get that it’s popular. In execution, however, if you’re going to retread the characters of Michael and Zachariah in new bodies then you need to have writers that can keep the characterization consistent with the season 4 and season 5 characters we knew. These two dudes aren’t that. Don’t get me wrong, the physical casting for Michael is superb, very nice eye candy, and hey, I’ll even allow the argument that we saw so little of Michael in SPN 1.0 that you and your writers have room to play. But Zachariah? Kurt Fuller’s performance is what brought Zachariah to life, the combination of determination, manipulation, and exhaustion all delivered with smug sarcasm. This Zachariah, he’s a generic second in command character. He could literally be anyone. You’ll notice I’ve barely mentioned Sam Winchester. Yeah. That’s because you forgot to write him and the director forgot to focus on him and yo, I’m so tired. So let’s talk about all the “laters”, shall we? I said I wasn’t going to blame director Eduardo Sanchez and honestly, I have very little blame for P.J. Pesce aside from some dubious camera angle choices. I blame the writing and the show running. Now if you’re someone who preaches Team Free Will, that door from earlier is still open, please, walk through it, because there is nothing more tedious than a scene with Dean, Sam, and Castiel or Dean and Castiel. I’m not here to debate that; it’s my opinion in my opinion piece. Not one single writer can keep the dialogue in these types of scenes flowing. It’s forever awkward, stilted, and redundant and very clearly existing because it’s required by the showrunner. Every season for the past few years has been Castiel screwing up, then storming in thinking he knows better, then screwing up again. Maybe that’s a sign the character has overstayed? Perhaps. Fact is, it’s become so boring. The only consistent thing about Castiel is his hubris followed by his pouting and moping. Another I later implied was editing. I have so many issues with the editing in this episode. Listen, horror genre is my thing. Good horror movies, bad horror movies, slasher flicks, torture porn, psychological thrillers, ghost, monsters, all of it. I love it. Often times what makes or breaks a horror movie isn’t the acting or the writing, it’s the editing. It’s the way scenes are put together. It’s the sound mixing. It’s practical effects versus reliance on CGI. This episode failed on each of these points. The thudding steps from the “giants” Gog and Magog sounded comical, not to mention the fact that we suddenly had subtitles for an ancient language. Oh, I get it, Meredith had jokes. Anyway. The other editing failures were the cut from Zachariah tossing Jack into his cell to Jack landing and several other POV switch edits that were equally as awkward and choppy. Not to mention the random moments of surprise!shaky cam. This episode felt cobbled together out of several other things. Not other episodes, actual different projects. As for the CGI, the lighting in the AU world was very near animated in appearance. The reveal of Zachariah pretending to be Castiel felt like funhouse horror editing, which can work… if you’re watching The Houses October Built. Not to mention the beheading of the giant was pretty bad, especially for a show that has had amazing beheadings in the past. And Jack turning the angels into missiles was just… I don’t even have words. Again, I come from a horror background, so these things matter a lot. But finally, my last, and biggest gripe is this: what even are we doing? Season 13, what is your thesis statement? We are fourteen episodes into this season, and there’s no story. Not really. We spent the first half setting up a spin-off that may or may not happen, and now we’re just throwing spaghetti at a wall. Michael, Mary, Jack, Lucifer, Asmodeus, Bobby, the AU world, the real world. It’s all a hodgepodge. The only thing I know for certain is what this season isn’t about. Sam and Dean Winchester.

Movie TV Tech Geeks News

#Dannell Ackles #Featured #Good Intentions #Jared Padalecki #Jensen Ackles #Supernatural

[elizabethrobertajones]

Blargh so I've been talking about it here and there and everywhere and actually in some detail in some cases, but there's some other stuff I only covered in my watching notes while suffering The Worst Migraine, so I mostly just want a thing that I can find in my My Stuff or tables tag to actually just find and look at :P

So 1st gif: Jack in the library aka the Family Room of the Bunker, learning to be a hunter, and getting very enthusiastic about the job. Notice Sam hovers by the door while Dean moves right in to the head of the table immediately. Jack resurrected Cas and he doesn't even know yet, but Sam and Dean have their Opinions on that, and Sam's is to be uncertain about how Jack did that and why (and, I think, especially later in the episode it's clearer when he asks Dean about how happy he is, perhaps a bit peeved that despite all his effort with Jack he brought back Cas instead of Mary), while it has already caused the entire like remaining 75% of Dean's flip on his view of Jack, which will be expressed at the end of the episode in the conflict there.

2: Cas waits for dramatic effect while Sam and Dean warm Jack up to getting surprised, and emerges from the other room. Generally framing things from Library to War Room is bad if you're coming out of the library and good if you're coming into it, as Cas does. The War Room represents the nebulous idea of conflict and Jack's had tons of that, pretty much all of it caused because he didn't get born and immediately have Cas there to guide and protect him, as per the ideal scenario he modelled and attempted to set up from the womb. Cas himself is coming from turmoil and conflict and rejoining the little family that they made while he was gone, but of course we see it from Jack's POV because it's about his reaction and in the bigger picture of course it happened for Jack in the sense he's the one who did it.

3: The infamous hug where Dean lurks in the background, overseeing this reunion and being emotionally linked to it in a powerful way where it's clear he has a stake in it too because why include him like this. Sam hanging back to the side for other reasons also contributes to him not being a part of this, while Dean gets to observe this reunion; I have a lot of feelings about the reason Jack reached out for Cas and the connection between Dean and Cas that Jack accidentally facilitated, so in a way the 3 of them are connected about Cas's return in a weird way where all 3 had a part in it. I wrote already about Dean being in the heart of the family and head of the table, and of course the fact this is the family room being used for the meeting. If they'd met in the War Room the entire tone and meaning would have been different.

4: On the other hand Dean's not involved except off to the side of the foreground, observing, as Jack demonstrates his powers. @mittensmorgul has written quite a lot all over the place about how Jack completely brushes off his powers bringing back Cas, which he didn't realise he'd done, to focus on the little magic trick he had learned and the minuscule amount of control he does have. Sam's purpose in this framing is now revealed as he's been worried and curious about how Cas came back from the moment they start talking in the episode, and finding out Jack did it has been making him more and more worried. His expression when Jack moves the pencil is surprise and at the end of the episode he's the one who reacts strongest to seem scared of Jack, by raising his hands and backing off. Cas and Sam are the ones connected to being concerned about Jack's powers, the ones invested in his arc for these reasons, and when Dean makes the decision to send Jack home with them of course it's them in the car as the most judgement free people imaginable after you accidentally kill someone with your magic powers you can't control. This framing shows in the opening moments what's basically the set up for the conclusion and getting some important emotional moments out of Sam and Cas when trying to comfort Jack about what he'd done. Specifically, Cas and Sam are shown with Jack about his powers, Cas and Dean are shown with Jack about family.

5: On the other side of the episode we return to Jack in the Bunker where he's in the same seat but feeling like absolute crap. The room is darker, and he's no longer engaged with anything, just sitting sadly staring into space. Now we get a sense of him being watched; he's returned to this room because it HAD good associations but it is different, colder, less welcoming now. The one doing the watching is, of course, Sam (and Cas) because of the thing about Sam observing Jack earlier in the season - I mean Cas would be doing it too, but Sam has thematic history with this, and he and Cas are essentially placed to stare at Jack while Jack sits away from them. In the motel room as well, TFW1.0 cluster into a nook of the room to talk in low voices about Jack while Jack sits on the bed, also silent, and probably able to hear them, and there's similar framing of him sitting being talking about or stared at.

6 & 7: some of the best shots this episode are the ones looking from the Library into the War Room, as Jack has to give up the comfort of the home the Bunker offered to him and move in to face the conflict. Here we have Dean returning and the camera going from his arrival at the top of the Bunker to Jack lurking in the Library still. Dean joins Cas's side and he and Cas are again literally aligned on top of Jack, while Sam is still off to the side. Again, Jack and Dean are linked just because we go from Dean's entrance to Jack lurking, listening from the other room. They know he's here this time at least. His isolation from the family group is obvious, especially compared with the start of the episode where he was in the heart of the family and Dean's arrival sort of flanked him into being in the middle of them all.

8 & 9: Jack gets up from the no longer welcoming Library and crosses through into the War Room, where of course there's that prison imagery lighting on the floor that he walks into the middle of - he feels trapped here, he has to fly the nest, and he's facing the consequences. He comes down the stairs demanding to know details about the guard, and to get into the conflict. From here, of course, everything goes down around the War Room table, because that's where you have fights :P

10 (bonus off topic but last space in the gifset): the dark Library and its lights work excellently to give Jack wing imagery, right before he stretches his wings and flies. Previous shots in this discussion took him from just off to the side, I guess mimicking that Sam or Cas n Dean were looking at him. He also has wings with the sparks but I don't like giffing flashing things, because migraine.

#13x06 #nougat winchester #look at this effin table #my stuff #lizbob gifs