#thinking about that episode with the abused kid who has psychic powers like sams and sam sees himslef in the kid a lot | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

mlobsters · 5 months

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supernatural s12e4 american nightmare (w. davy perez)

was that pointed, longing look at the mom and her son just him being upset over mary or something more plot relevant

oh, dean, honey.

DEAN Cass is chumming it up with Crowley. SAM Hmm. DEAN They're hunting Lucifer together. That's right – one's an angel, one's a demon, and apparently, they solve crimes.

very cute

sam is looking extra beautiful today, i think part of it is the messier hair (and length). good lighting and coloring. lovely. oh oh, lame excuse for his more questionable haircuts. i too know the hazards of the random supercuts haircut that he must get on the road. let's blame it on that. maybe they advised him on the sideburns too

(oh god that reminds me. i think the worst haircut i ever got was before my mom's funeral. it was long at the time and i just wanted a trim because it was kind of scraggly, so i was moderately presentable for the funeral. i was in phoenix from out of town so i went somewhere random. and i got a very bad version of a Rachel haircut! in 2012! talk about insult to injury.)

SAM You sure? 'Cause ever since Mom left, you've been a little, uh... cranky. DEAN Cranky, huh? SAM Yeah. I mean, to the priest, to Carl. Heck, on the way here, you wouldn't even make a pit stop. DEAN So now your tiny bladder is my problem?

tell him, sam. stop taking it out on everyone else, dean-o

BETH You don't make a lot of friends when sometimes what's best for a family is to split them up.

little on the nose there, show :p also that is one fancy cps office

DEAN What about her? What, she took some cash, she took a cellphone she doesn't answer, and she bailed on us. SAM I mean, think about what she's going through. After everything, she probably just needs some space. We've been there. We've both had times where we needed time apart. DEAN And we both came back. SAM You don't think she's going to? DEAN I don't know. She hates the way that we were raised. She hates the fact that we're hunters. Maybe she starts walking and she doesn't stop. You know, she obviously has zero interest in keeping this family together. SAM Well, you know, sometimes families do better after a little time apart.

dean upset and jumping to conclusions, sam being calm and the voice of reason. wondering if instead of brother angst, we get mom angst? because if i had to choose between the two, i vote mom angst a million times over (sorry mary but i've had enough sam and dean angst to last a lifetime) also that red sweater on sam looks great. grandpa cardigan on dean is leaning in to costume maybe a little too much :p

ABRAHAM The things you do for family.

i snorted. one of those episodes where they're gonna repeatedly bonk us over the head with a parallel

SAM So what happened to your daughter, was that God's plan? GAIL Yes. SAM She didn't have to die. She was sick. If you had taken her to a doctor – GAIL God does – SAM God doesn't care what kind of life you live. Trust me. And God didn't kill your daughter. You did.

you're not wrong, sam, but i think that's better kept to yourself in this situation :p

were they selling supernatural candles?

man, she's gorgeous. and dean was being legit creepy. glad we got things cleared up without any shooting. was half expecting him to slide into flirting with her

this scene with magda in the basement with sam is heartbreaking. also the irony of knowing exactly where the devil is and 100% not in the poor abused girl

SAM Magda... You're not the Devil. You're just psychic. There are others out there like you, like – like me. I have powers, too. I'd get these visions sometimes and – and I could move things with my mind. MAGDA You can do that? SAM Well, no, not anymore, I don't think. But that didn't make me the Devil. It – it – it just made me who I am. MAGDA Then you are evil. Mother says I'm evil, 'cause I hurt people.

not that we've really touched on it in a long ass time but it's also nice to see sam confident in being one of the psychic kids does not make you evil or a freak. back in simpler times that was definitely a struggle

ok mom i don't think you're going to heaven what with the killing your husband thing, not to mention the violent abuse against your daughter. this whole, tying him up at the dinner table and mom going all murder rage, kind of like a less grotesque more jesusy benders situation

oh, my heart

DEAN Yeah, you were right. This whole mom thing, it's... I mean, we get her back, and then she leaves. I hate it, but I get it. I do. I guess I just...still working through some of that crap. I'll try to be less of a dick about it. SAM Deal.

look at us being adults and dealing with (some) feelings. good job, boys. and dean gets his reward directly after with a reply from mom

okay, little pissed that in order to establish how cartoonishly evil the british men of letters people are, they had to kill magda. i think the horrific torture was enough to establish that, thanks. she didn't survive years of torture to get that cheap and pointless of a death.

good moments and lovely production value this episode. little shaky on the story but i'll take it

#supernatural #spnwatch #spn 12x04 #davy perez #sam's hair

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steponmedean · 1 year

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WARNING!! SPOILERS [SUPERNATURAL & THE BOYS]

So, I'm rewatching SPN and I recently finished The Boys and Kripke has a thing for Daddy Issues and older brother taking the beating so little brother doesn't have to.

In The Boys, there's a scene of Butcher's past where it shows how he used to tell he's little brother to hide and Butcher took the punches. (I'm not sure how it happens in the comic, but if it was Kripke's or not, he still showed the idea in the series)

In SPN is never really explicitly said, but there's one in s5 e16 where Dean seems to leave it implicit that John got agressive in the past. In this episodes they're in heaven and Sam has a memory of when he ran away from John and Dean. His heaven takes him to his alone time with his dog.

Dean says: "You ran away on my watch, I thought you were dead. And when dad came home..."

And now that I am rewatching it, I came across this little chat in s1 e14, where Sam and Dean are talking about the kid with psychic powers who was abused by his father and uncle, both used to hit him a lot.

So Sam says they're lucky that kinda thing didn't happen to them, but Dean's reaction reveals otherwise.

[Sorry, I recorded this one myself just now, I can't find it in good quality on YT or somewhere to take it from 😭]

[I usually prefer english subtitles cuz it helps with the practice and I kinda have crappy hearing, but the DVD's weren't considered enough to have english subtitles]

Look at Dean's reaction! Does it look like he thinks they were lucky to have John?

Early seasons Dean Winchester was much of a John aplogist, but doesn't mean he didn't suffer. He blames himself for everything, usually small children blame themselves when their parents treat them badly instead of blaming the ones inflicting pain, lack of love or neglect.

So, yeah, I hate John and I always did thought he mistreated Dean physically, and I'm pretty sure there's more posts about this, but I needed to get it out.

And the co-relation to The Boys is cuz Kripke probably had the intention to put that in like it was shown in The Boys scene, but for some reason never explicitly did.

#spn #supernatural #dean winchester #sam winchester #i hate john #john winchester

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elizabethrobertajones · 3 years

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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wheres-sam · 3 years

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I binge-watched the spn anime because of the brain rot

It’s bad except for the parts that are good, and it’s pretty to look at. Here’s a comprehensive list of pros and cons. Spoilers ahead!

Pros:

- more psychic kid backstories: Max (Nightmare), Lily (Darkness Calling), Jake (Loser)

- more psychic Sam

- more Azazel

- basically if you want more about the psychic/demon kids, watch the anime

- more young Winchesters

- the monsters, the superhuman abilities, the fight scenes, it all looks really cool animated. (But PSA it’s violent. It doesn’t shy away from blood and gore.)

- Sam and Jessica backstory

- more of the brothers being cute and funny together

- Missouri isn’t forgotten

- includes some Japanese legends/mythology

- the impala looks great in every scene. They did Baby good

- the “Supernatural” intro title

- the outro sketches of the boys hanging out with Baby

- Episodes adapted from the original show are different, but I like some of the changes? It’d be boring if it was an exact retelling and the visual medium wasn’t utilized. (I know I said spoilers before, but this is when they get detailed. If you wanna skip over, I’ll tell you where they STOP.)

Nightmare goes more into the abuse Max has suffered. Instead of locking Sam in a closet, Max sends Sam through the floor and covers the hole by breaking his bed in half, and it’s extremely sexy how Sam shoves the 2 halves apart with his mind. Later on Dean puts bandaids on Sam and they talk about demons loudly in front of a fast food intercom.

In My Time of Dying highlights the guilt Sam feels over Dean. In both the og and the anime John verbally blames Sam for not shooting Azazel, but where in the og Sam goes right on arguing, in the anime he reels back for a moment like he was slapped. Dean’s spirit touches Sam’s shoulder, and Sam knows immediately that it’s Dean. He doesn’t even question it. Instead of “Are you here?” it’s “I know you’re with me. I can feel it.” And I love that. Dean figures out right away he’s dealing with a reaper, and the reaper takes on the appearance of Mary to convince Dean to move on to the afterlife. Instead of a Ouija board, Sam uses a laptop to talk to Dean, and the first word Dean types is “Sammy!” Dean is so fond of his little brother and Sam is so baby.

Rising Son is an anime only episode, but it draws inspiration from John’s journal. Dean has a proper breakdown over his dad’s death and the possibility of having to kill Sam. Ms. Lyle, Sam’s favorite teacher who turns out to be possessed, is explored. John takes Dean hunting, and in the journal Dean hesitates to shoot a buck, and little Sam shoots it thinking it was endangering Dean. In the anime, Dean’s cornered by a moose and Sam makes it explode with his mind and it’s so !!! How little Sam’s first words are, “I’m glad you’re okay. It didn’t hurt you?” The boys are covered in blood and guts and Dean’s like 👁👄👁 “Why are you here? Did you do this?” And then Sam starts freaking out a little, the shock sets in. “I don’t know. I don’t know, honest.” And he’s staring at his hands, and I am a big fan of Sam showing superhuman signs as a kid. Like in the journal, Ms. Lyle tries to take Sam. She gives Sam the illusion of a choice to come with her or stay with Dean, and Sam chooses Dean. This ep is pretty much when John figures out Sam has demon blood. He kills another hunter that wants to kill Sam.

Crossroad is based on Crossroad Blues, and I love how the crossroads demon shows up. It’s hard to describe, but it’s so neat, like she’s walking underneath Dean in this mirror world, and then the mirror world takes over the regular world, so you really get this sense of otherworldly seclusion, existing outside of time.

What Is and Should Never Be shows Dean is a firefighter in his ‘Mary never died’ world, and Sam got to play soccer growing up like he wanted. The brothers hold each other after Dean is saved from the Djinn.

AHBL part 1. When Azazel shows Sam that he fed Sam his blood, Sam gags and slaps a hand over his mouth, and I like that reaction more than the live action. The psychic kids get to go more anime with their powers, and that’s a lot of fun. They don’t need weapons. Ava slams Sam into the brick side of a building and cuts him without touching him. Jake snaps Ava’s neck with one hand and then catches Sam in his arms. When Jake attacks Sam, there’s no gun or knife. He’s relying on his super strength, his fists. Sam throws his arms up to protect himself, and (accidentally?) pushes Jake back with his mind, and the collision creates a crater in the ground. Jake puts his fist through Sam’s chest to kill him. It’s brutal and it’s rad as fuck. These kids are terrifyingly powerful.

The Sam and Dean reunion before Sam is killed is not as emotional as the live action imo, but what the anime does intrigues me. Hurts in a different way. Because Sam is stunned after he uses telekinesis again, on Jake, and when he hears Dean behind him Sam freezes. He doesn’t look relieved to see Dean, but wary and weary. It’s Dean taking steps towards him, not the other way around, and it has to be because Sam doesn’t know if Dean saw him push Jake back. Sam doesn’t know how Dean’s going to respond to all this, to him, having powers that come from a demon, the demon, Azazel. Sam hasn’t had a chance to process anything. He’s scared. He’s tired. And the way the anime focuses on Sam’s eyes here. Gah. “Dean. Dean, I’m...” I’m sorry. I’m all right. I’m glad you’re okay. I’m a monster. There’s also this one shot between Sam and Azazel that sends me because of how anime it is.

AHBL part 2. I love how Sam brought back to life is animated, with all the color returning to his face and a light wind rustling his hair and his lips parting to indicate his soul returning to his body. Jake attacks Dean, and, a lot like how Sam activates telekinesis to save Dean from Max in Nightmare, Sam gets a burst of superhuman strength. He rips Jake’s arm off and tackles him to the ground and beats him to death, punches holes into his body, and it’s so savage and bloody and scary, and I love it. The Devil’s Gate opening looks so cool animated. Same goes for Dean shooting Azazel with the Colt.

Not to turn this into a meta post, but I also noticed how the last couple times Sam uses his powers they’re colored green-yellow, the same colors as Mary’s ghost when she reveals herself in the anime’s Home, and I don’t know if that’s intentional, but it’s neat how it draws a connection to Sam’s biological family instead of Azazel’s blood.

The Spirit of Vegas is like Bad Day at Black Rock, but Dean has all the bad luck instead, and it shows off the silly cartoony physics that make animation fun. The boys sleep outside and split a chunk of bread for dinner. Also this lil bit of Dean’s hair tied in a bow.

- (STOP) the brothers are pretty. I am not immune to animated Sam and Dean Winchester.

Cons:

- Jensen doesn’t voice Dean until the last 2 episodes

- The English dialogue is really bad sometimes. I wish I could’ve watched the sub, but I couldn’t figure out how to change the language

- Some character designs are really different from the live action, and maybe that’s petty, but if you’re gonna change the characters diversify them? Don’t just make them unrecognizable white people

- Missouri’s design as a stereotypical witch doctor is racist

- Gordon is replaced by some British guy named Jason?? Why

- There’s an LGBT character who is not accepted by her family and, while that bigotry is always shown to be negative and she dies the hero of the episode, she still dies ://

- In the English dub Lily’s gf is made into her roommate instead. Idk about the sub

- Bobby’s pretty much a totally different character

- Sam and Dean are OOC sometimes

- Dean’s hair usually looks darker than Sam’s and it drives me crazy

- The storytelling is, overall, not nearly as good as the live action

- The non-Japanese lore in some episodes makes no sense. Sometimes it’s just plain ridiculous?? Like there’s a giant robot made of cars and scrap metal controlled by a demon? ? I wish I was making this up

- Meg’s role is severely reduced

- No Harvelles or Roadhouse

- Shadows are overused, but maybe that’s because the og show is so dark?

- I don’t mind the art style. I like the aesthetic, but I wish it was a little more expressive. It doesn’t do Sam’s puppy eyes justice.

- AZAZEL’S SHADOW?? PROPORTIONS?? PEA SIZED HEAD

- Idk why they mashed season 1 and 2 together? The story feels rushed

- there’s not as much chemistry between Sam and Dean, but that’s a given without J2 on screen

- Nobody tells you!! That there’s scenes after the credits!! And some of them are important! Why are important scenes after the credits??

The anime would not be good on its own, without the heart and depth the live action brings, but it works as supplementary material you can cherry pick from. I would watch more if there were more episodes.

It hasn’t turned me off from wanting an spn anime. I’d like to see it continued or redone, with updated animation and better scripts. There’s a lot of potential in exploring more about the psychic kids and Sam’s powers, storylines that were cut short in the og show. Animation is a great medium for showing off the supernatural, getting creative and creepier with the designs, dramatic with the fight scenes, without having to worry about bad CGI. I don’t want a live action reboot, but I think a redone animated series could be a lot of fun! (As long as it’s not an excuse to make any romantic ships take over. SPN is a platonic love story, and I like it that way.)

If you made it to the end here and are interested in watching the spn anime, you can watch it for free on the CW Seed app! You can probably stream it elsewhere, but idk where!

#spn anime #supernatural #supernatural the anime #my detailed pros is pretty much me letting you know what episodes are worth watching #and why #its bad but I kind of like it #I like what they were going for. the potential it has #I like sam and there's lots of sam

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shirtlesssammy · 3 years

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1x14: Nightmare

Then:

Previously on All My Ghosts

Now:

We open the episode with a man pulling into his garage and promptly getting suffocated by car fumes when his car starts on its own and the garage door closes on its own.

It was actually one of Sam’s visions! The boys hit the road despite Dean’s skepticism about it all.

They get to the man’s house, but it’s too late.

Sam and Dean talk to the local onlookers and one woman fills them in that it was suicide. She can’t imagine what the family is going through --as we watch a bereft woman and son talk with the cops.

Sam wants to know why he’s having these visions, if he can’t stop them.

The next morning they head to talk to the grieving family.

For Forgive Me Father, I Have Sinned Science:

They talk to the widow and learn that her son, Max, found the body. Sam offers to go talk to him. Dean tries to see if the house is haunted by asking the widow roundabout questions about the house. She doesn’t bite. Sam talks with Max and sympathizes with the kid for losing a parent.

Dean heads upstairs to do a little investigating.

That night they discuss the case and can’t find anything odd about the house. Sam then gets another vision. This one is of the victim’s brother and a pesky window that won’t stay closed.

Until it slams down on his head, decapitating him.

The brothers rush to Roger’s apartment and find him just as he’s getting home. They chase after him but he wants nothing to do with them.

They race to the back of the building and start climbing the fire escape. There’s a lot of stairs. Will they make it in time???

The brothers think that whatever’s happening is attached to the family like a curse. Sam wonders if Max is in danger. He also says their own family is cursed. (IF YOU ONLY KNEW SAM!)

Dressed as priests, they return to Max’s house. Sam tries to puppy-dog-eye emotional truths out of Max, but the kid won’t budge. Everything’s fiiiiiine. The Winchesters ditch the priest costumes (RUDE), then head out to interview the neighbors. (Why yes, I AM picturing Dean grouchily taking off his costume and shoving it back in the trunk.) The neighbor reveals that Max’s father abused him. Mid-interview, Sam develops a massive headache.

Sam passes out, and our scene jumps to Max confronting his stepmother over her failure to protect him and his brother. He lifts a knife with his BRAIN and jabs it through her eye.

Suddenly we’re in the Impala, and Sam explains to his brother that he’s seeing Max killing people. Dean’s ready to kill Max in order to save lives, but Sam believes that reason will win out and they can talk him out of killing his stepmom.

The Winchesters break into Max’s house mid-murder-attempt, and convince him to step outside with them. Unfortunately for them, Max spots Dean’s gun jammed into his waistband and slams the doors shut with his mojo. Sam tries to get him to talk it out.

Sam tells Max that he knows about his killings because...HE’S PSYCHIC TOO. They were meant to help each other! Max lets Dean haul the stepmom upstairs, and Sam starts his counseling session with Max. Sam “Sheltered from Abuse by his Brother” Winchester is appalled to see that Max is still abused - and is even now covered in parent-inflicted bruises and cuts.

Sam’s therapy session gets derailed when Max mentions some VERY FAMILIAR FACTS. His mom died in a fire in his nursery - pinned to the ceiling. Sam is VERY SHOCK MANY SURPRISED but he tells Max that the same thing happened to him too. They must be connected! Sam puppy dog eyes Max ONE more time, begging for him to let his stepmom go. Alas for Sam, his soulful looks FAIL and he gets jammed into the hall closet and a piece of furniture drags over to block the door.

Max heads upstairs, where he showboats his psychic powers and threatens Dean and his stepmom with Dean’s gun.

Max shoots Dean right through the head!

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO DAMN YOU SHOOOOOOOOOOW!

Season one Sam feels the same way about this vision of his brother’s death. He reaches deep inside himself and moves that X-wing - I mean - large piece of furniture blocking the closet door. He stops Max from killing Dean, but he doesn’t stop him from turning the gun on himself. Max hears Sam’s “murdering everyone won’t fix anything” plea and decides that means he should kill himself, instead. Max falls to the floor, dead. Welp.

As the Winchesters leave, Sam blames himself. If only they could have saved him! “We’re lucky we had Dad,” Sam concludes.

I swear to fucking god, show.

“A little more tequila, a little less demon hunting...and then we would have Max’s childhood.” Dean sniffs in reply. (I stab my John Winchester voodoo doll a few times to feel better.) “All things considered, we turned out okay. Thanks to him.”

“All things considered,” Dean agrees while my brain EXPLODES AT DEAN’S PARENTAL ROLE IN SHELTERING SAM FROM HIS FATHER AND THE WORLD.

Back at their motel, they chat while packing up. Sam stews over what the demon who killed their mom was after. He also has one more bombshell to drop on his poor brother. He escaped the closet back at the house by...moving furniture with his BRAIN.

Dean being Dean, he holds out a spoon and orders Sam to bend it. DEAN, Sam has to be distressed or high on demon blood to achieve that...and later on it’ll be written out of the show entirely! Anyway, Dean’s not worried. Sam won’t go darkside because he has something Max doesn’t have. Sam...has Dean.

Quotes Love Dressing Up:

If you're gonna hurl I'll pull the car over you know, cause the upholstery

You’re...dark

“Dean I've been thinking.” “Well, that's never a good thing.”

Want to read more? Check out our Recap Archive!

#spn recap #dean winchester #sam winchester #spn 1x14 #nightmare #supernatural season 1

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laufire · 3 years

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Supernatural s2

I’m halfway through s3 already (technically a rewatch, but there were episodes I didn’t watch the first time around), so this post is a little overdue lol. At this rhythim the posts will overlap. Plus I’m hoping I can finish s4-5 during the holidays to see the ~intended ending~ before I have to slow down on the binge-watch. After that, a season a month sounds achievable AND won’t take longer than 2021 xD

ANYWAY.

-Overall, I’ve enjoyed it more than the first one, but at the same time I’ve found myself missing how... claustrophobic? Insular? Compact? That one was. s2 was about the world opening up just a little bit more, introducing new characters to the brothers’ life, etc. I do love the detail that this is something that can only have, narratively speaking, once John is dead. Again: this show gets abusive families, consciously or not.

-The foreshadowing is beautifully done. 15 seasons make for a lot of unintentional and ironic foreshadowing later on, I’m sure, but the purposeful foreshadowing is superb this season. About the crossroads deals, of course, but especially about John’s last words. I already knew he’d told Dean he might have to kill Sam (father of the year, seriously. Though I side-eye the fandom even more for always having acted as if this is only awful for Dean lol), so I was hyperaware of every single detail. My favourite moment was the absolute horror of hearing Gordon proudly, cheerfully relate how he murdered his sister when she became a vampire (which, btw, as someone that’s still bitter about what went down with the Gunn siblings on Angel, I found it healing to see something like that treated as a horror story).

-Speaking of Gordon: I unashamedly love his character lmfao. Sterling K. Brown is mesmerizing, always. At the same time, I have serious mixed feelings (especially after seeing his arc in full in s3) because man, if it isn’t a racist mess. I’ve mentioned this before, but it’s not exactly revolutionary that the first time we see the story from the monster’s POV (something I want the show to do! Often!), it’s when white monsters are stalked and brutalized by our first black hunter. Especifically a white woman, btw (although I’m happy to see Tara Maclay as a brunette vampire. I didn’t know I needed that in my life, but I did). And you can tell that the show thinks it’s just so SMART and FUNNY to have a ~racist black hunter!! I mean, the comment about how psychic kids would be “betraying their race” if they allied with demons?? FFS.

And ofc there’s the fact that he’s condemned for the exact same type of stuff that makes Dean be hailed as a hero lmfao. Though I won’t like, I love the moment where, faced with the comparison, Dean’s response is “I might be like you, I might not. But you’re the one tied up.” I love those kinds of character moments. As of s2 I officially have a love-hate relationship with Dean Winchester, I hate it here xDD

But still, on his own, Gordon is an amazing character (it’s one of the most frustrating things about the show, the greatness tainted by the bigotry :))). Charismatic, terrifying, and ofc superbly acted. Also, I love that the fact that he praised John (as opposed to every other hunter having a rockier relationship with him) is clearly supposed to be a red flag LMFAO.

-I enjoy how the seasons delves more deeply into Sam’s ~~dark origins, since it was my fave thing about him way back when. I’m already mourning the (as I suspect) lost of his powers, ngl. There’s a little more attention in how he tends to over-identify with supernatural creatures struggling with their ~dark sides too (bitch me too, the fuck xD), which I LOVE to see (among other reasons because at least in that way we get a little of their POV in the forefront lol). One of my favourites in that sense was the episode centered around the ghost-who-didn’t-know-she-was-ghost, played by Tricia Helfer. I clocked early one what was going on, but it was still very enjoyable, especially with Sam’s empathy with her (contrasted by Dean being a total bitch about it, btw. I can’t believe I still see post about how Dean is all heart/kindness/compassion/whatever the fuck. Dean is all about selective empathy and only when it conveniences him, pls).

I was more divided on the episode with Madison the werewolf, tbh. OTOH it put Sam in a better position, for a change xD. As the one willing to make The Hard Choices by fulfilling his promise to kill her because she was dangerous, even when Dean offered to ~take the burden from him. OTOH I hate that kind of thing lol. YOU GUYS KNOW A HUNTER PRO LIKE BOBBY, I BET HE COULD’VE FIGURED OUT SOMETHING TO CONTAIN HER A FEW NIGHTS A MONTH. Also, my immediate reaction was to compare this to when my man Angel had a crush on a werelady and helped her every month lmfao. But then, very few characters can withstand a comparison with Angel, in any sense :P

I also liked Sam’s subplot with his fellow demon-psychic kids, though I wish it’d lasted longer :/ (also: RME at the queer girl dying almost immediately AND her power being killing people, her girlfriend first of all, with her touch. The black guy was the last one to die at least...?). My fave was Ava, by far. I loved her since her reaction to helping Sam stealing a psychiatrist’s records was yelling “I’M AWESOME!!”. It made it easy to buy that someone that appeared so mundane, with her easy life and her fiance and whatnot, would become so power hungry and go off the rails, IMO.

BTW: RME at Dean being all “oh Sam is going too dark/becoming to cold” when Sam kills Jake. Jake ripped off his spine and killed him first!! It both amuses me and infuriates me all the times Dean tries to push Sam to be more like himself and then freaks out whenever Sam is not all sunshine and rainbows (while still remaining, IMO, far less cold than Dean himself. Besides, it’s not easy to be colder than Dean, lol).

Lastly, a little character detail I loved was when Sam was jealous about Dean being in the federal database but not himself lmfao.

-I loved the new foreshadowing crumb with Sam finding out Mary knew the demon, too (information he’ll withhold from Dean, which I approve of LOL). I mean, I know exactly what’s up, I’ve watched most of s4 xD (also, what is UP with this family and making deals with demons. Everyone but Sam so far!! And then HE gets dragged for ~getting too close to one smh. Maybe lead by example!! Also also: yes, it was meant to be ambiguous, but I can’t help but notice the only kiss-pact -or further, depending to how close YED was to Lilith’s levels, since to make a deal with her you have to fuck xD- we didn’t see was the one that must’ve happened between John and YED. Cowards!! xD). Still. I’m so curious about her. Her resurrection is one of the main reasons I’m determined to make it to the later seasons, ngl.

-Another thing I LOVED about this season is how they used sibling relationships to parallel/foreshadow stuff about the brothers, the way s1 did often with fathers. I’ve already mentioned Gordon and his sister, but the others are not less brutal imo: Andy having to kill his evil twin, who wanted him all for himself (... Dean is that you xD); the little girl’s ghost who wanted her grand-niece to commit suicide to stay with her, and didn’t give in until her old sister agreed to die in her place. It was chilling. Also, at one point the parallel was between the brothers and a married couple (the ghost-who-didn’t-know-she-was-a-ghost) and asñdlfkajsf. I’m guessing they had fun with the shippers lol.

Speaking of the brothers’ relationship, this season also goes a little further in escalating the violence between them, when Dean punches Sam in the face and he refuses to respond (“you can hit me all you want, it won’t change anything”. Fuck), or when Dean again punches Sam after Sam was possessed by Meg ¬¬

-Going back to my love-hate relationship with Dean, lmfao. My biggest beef remains how much validation his POV gets from the narrative, granted or not; he’s one of the most irritating cases of protagonist-centered morality and I know it’s only going to get worse smh. At least this season it feels a little more balanced than in s1, with episodes like the one where the civilian Sam had tried to keep away dies halfway through the ep because Dean allowed him to get involved, for example. Still, it grates on me xD. The continuing prison rape jokes/demonic possession rape jokes (with Meg and Sam), his general grossness with women and his lack of sympathy for non-humans even when they’re not trying to hurt anyone don’t exactly help. Also, I often see him praised for some of his political views, a lot of which I agree with (his mistrust of cops, saying convicts don’t deserve to die no matter what they do), but when contrasted with his general attitude across the show it’s really grating ngl.

But then he has such AMAZING character details thrown in, that make me appreciate him as a POV character nonetheless, as much as I often want to curb stomp the guy xD. I loved his speech about how there’s no such thing as a dignified death. I love how he refused to come near his mother’s grave, both at the beginning and at the end of the episode (this show is like, the cure to DCCW’s shows false fuzzy sentimentality istg). I love his pop-culture references, like when Sam mentions Dean always thought OJ was the murderer or Dean jokes about freeing Katie Holmes from Scientology’s cult xD (sometimes it really hits you how old this show is lol). I enjoyed his Wishverse episode, and his lines after Sam dies/he sells his soul to save him (“I had one job”, “my life can mean something”) hit HARD.

But most of all? I LOVE how and why he starts losing respect for John. It’s so fucking cold and abrupt and makes so much sense!! Like, yes, part of it is John’s message about killing Sam (... again, father of the year!), but most of all it’s about John making a pact with a demon and dying TO SAVE DEAN (and probably, simply that he died at all. That shit de-mystifies anyone). IT’S SO FUCKING GREAT TO WATCH. “He spent his life chasing that demon. He was supposed to die fighting, not making a deal with the damn thing. That was supposed to be his legacy, not this." Damn, Dean xDD. The *contempt* with which he said that killed me.

I also love his inherently atheist vision of the world (even if yes, it’s extremely funny knowing this show has canon God and angels and shit -no Jesus Christ though, which I find endlessly funny-, or that they actually meet the archangel Gabriel in disguise xD. Either way, the episode with the fake angel and its foreshadowing was hilarious), his anti-destiny stance, and that it’s him and not John who gets to kill YED.

-I liked Ellen and Jo. Not LOVED, but I liked them. I keep fearing that secondary (especially female) characters will feel empty/shallow but the show keeps proving me wrong, even with one-episode wonders, and at first I wasn’t sure about them, but I was sold quickly. Partially because of the actresses, they both had this... humanizing, endearing quality? It worked really well. I also loved the explicit contrast between John and Ellen’s parenting styles, with Ellen wanting Jo to return to school and be safe from the hunt, and Jo wanting something different. Also, I wouldn’t ship it if you paid me, but LOL at anyone who actually buys Dean sees Jo as a ~little sister just because MEG said that rme.

This show is just REALLY good when it comes to giving depth to a character with only a couple of brush strokes, which makes it all the more frustrating when they abruptly die or disappear to never be seen again/only once more (to abruptly die!) :)))

I was less sold on Ash; he was amusing, but having a Genius Hacker TM helping them out seemed like the beginning of increasingly giving the brothers ways of deux ex machina-ing them out of problems, when one of my favourite things about the show is seeing them creatively find ways out themselves. I like when they’re competent! Like with the multitude of codes they have to improvise plans, like in the episode where with two words through a lawyer they implemented a quick scheme so that Sam would escape from a police precinct. I like that stuff.

-I’m still so bitterly jealous about the dead man’s blood hurting vampires detail. SO BITTERLY JEALOUS. I love a lot of what this show does with its lore but that little bit is the worst offender. I want it so bad xD

#talking to the void #my thoughts #spn thoughts #supernatural #sam winchester #dean winchester #gordon walker #ellen harvelle #jo harvelle #spn s2 #the winchesters get to have a tag I GUESS

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thursdaygirlgn · 3 years

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my friend i am here with the self insert oc sam parallel episode, i have a history exam tomorrow and i refuse to revise in favor of writing this. let me take you on a journey.

this is very self indulgent and spans kind of the entirety of the series (because im nosy and want to be involved in every cool plot) so im not gonna embarrass myself OR bore you but the general gist of the first episode is this:

i am an 18yr old psychic kid raised by a hunter, meeting the boys in s2 through a “my father was also murdered by a ghost of his past”, except he did not immediately assume i am the antichrist while i was an infant and raised me relatively normal, thus demonstrating that john winchester was a fucked up parent because he allowed himself to be.

i am what sam could’ve been and he is once again reminded that all he ever wanted was to be normal and loved and how that was taken away from him, unfairly. he is angry. he is jealous. he feels bad about being jealous because “her dad’s dead, what the fuck,man”. he wants me to be ok, ultimately, ofc he does, but he doesn’t understand why i got it, why he didn’t, why couldn’t john do it. this serves as more material for soul-searching bc i am a firm believer that understanding the circumstances of abuse and neglect and wrapping ur head around them helps lift the guilt we often burden ourselves with: it’s not that if sam had been a better son john would have loved him more, it’s that john refused to look at sam for what sam really was: a child wracked by generational trauma and unprocessed grief, whose autonomy was violated before he could say his first word, in need of love, and chose to instead look at sam through his own grief muddied goggles and link him to mary’s death. insane how this is turning into sam analysis isn’t it.

i am also angry because im still sort of a child but not really, not anymore, im on the cusp of adulthood and going into it knowing that the world is unfair and hateful, grief is written all over me and sam thinks oh nono, because hope’s kind of the whole point isn’t it, and i had it and now it has been taken from me along with my parent and sam feels so alone and furious with everything, he’s plagued by skull cracking demonic visions, and he doesn’t want this idealized version of himself to ultimately end up like the version of himself that he is now, the one he doesn’t understand, the one he’s afraid of. he’s looking in a weird funhouse mirror, sees a kid who was different like he was but was cherished, and sees her end up in the same position he is now: fatherless, on a quest for revenge. he thinks that if we get the monster of the week, ill be better and he’ll find his hope in that. all roads lead to rome but he wont allow this one to reach the colosseum (defying destiny theme, hello).

the monster of the week hunt begins thusly, with sam generally uncomfortable. i confide in him about my psychic abilities and i explain to the brothers that i can help. both are opposed, but i am a chaotic little bitch and get involved anyway. throughout my involvement, sam learns more about the world of psychic mediums and thinks aha! hope! maybe if i dig deep enough (whore for lore amirite babes) ill find someone who’s lived an experience similar to mine! miss oc what are ur book recs for “i think i am psychic and terrified of it” and i say “fear not nerd have a very small cup of coffee and let me tell you about this great college course on divination”. this is relevant because i wanted to see more of sam desperately trying to fit into some sort of community, even a community of supernatural folk john and dean might’ve disapproved of, and finding that, at this point in time, he does not. he’s an outsider to normal people, he’s an outsider to those in contact with the paranormal. really hammer in that freak (affectionate) tagline. (he WILL build a safe haven in the men of letters bunker for all misfits in his adulthood, party city wig sam i do NOT perceive you)

the hunt culminates in an impressive showdown that includes the following: pyrotechnics, a cool spell, seeing things that aren’t really there, the power of friendship and a butter knife thrown like a frisbee. at the end we all look like final girls because im gay so blood is sexy. sam, who has come to regard me like a younger sibling/some sort of manifestation of his inner child, learns what it’s like to be deeply concerned with a youth’s safety and has a heart to heart with dean about how yeah, handling a teenager with incredible amounts of simmering rage and unprocessed grief while being barely equipped for any guardian-like role IS hard, man, is this what it felt like every time i busted out a batshit plan last minute and barely executed it in time to survive??? “yeah. bitch” “jerk.”

the epilogue is as follows: we see sam feeling many complicated things, but he is satisfied for the moment. we have a little heart to heart while laying flowers on my father’s grave. we both look a little worse for wear, but hopeful. “what’re you gonna do now?” “im not sure. college, maybe?” we keep in touch. i go on to art school and make homoerotic art pieces, as is my right. i make guest appearances whenever they need a deus ex machina bs spell to get out of trouble.

maybe in later seasons i go a little ape shit and commit some magical atrocities in the name of the greater good. maybe i get a little antagonized and he gets to offer me the understanding he couldn’t get when he needed it. i see you, sam, treating all misfits in later seasons with kindness, and i offer you a claire-like parallel to be there for through the tough times, thus healing some of your own wounds. everyone deserves an angsty wlw teenager to bond with . (i am only on season 9 of my rewatch and i have not seen seasons 12-15 in their entirety, if he does get one im not disrespecting that character and i love them probably)

the boys hit the road. vienna by billy joel plays, because it makes me feel things.

Slow down you're doing fine

You can't be everything you want to be before your time

Although it's so romantic on the borderline tonight

Too bad, but it's the life you lead

You're so ahead of yourself that you forgot what you need

Though you can see when you're wrong

You know you can't always see when you're right

You got your passion, you got your pride

But don't you know that only fools are satisfied?

Dream on, but don't imagine they'll all come true

When will you realize... Vienna waits for you?

end scene.

this is poetry. i will cherish this forever thank you for sharing with me and good luck on your exam

#all roads lead to rome but he won’t let this once reach the colosseum....#clown posting #asks #sammy #i guess lol #sammy tag is needed for the sam analysis

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brelbyyy · 3 years

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I’m re-watching supernatural and oh BOY IS IT FUCKING LONG AS HELL.

Here’s season one with most of the important story stuff if yer too lazy to re watch season 1 or just don’t have the time.

notes~ Sam and dean are bro’s they mom died and their dad is like ehh let’s kill monsters until we kill whatever killed Sara or what’s her name. Sam had friends and a gf but dean dropped by with the news of dad being missing when on a hunt, Sam left the hunting life but goes bc it’d be a dick move to not, bla bla they find dad’s journal idk it probably says something bla bla bla sams gf died the same way mama died and Sam ditches his life to hunt with dean. That’s the end of episode one :)

So bla bla they still can’t find dad but uh apparently dad left a note in his journal about some number stuff, uuuhhhh a few episodes later Sam gets over his daddy issues and oh uh he also dreams of the future like in the Bloody Mary ep it’s revealed he dreamt of his gf’s death DAYS before it ever happened and like he still gets dreams of the future or something. Some poltergeist is copycating the mama killer with another family living in the old Winchester home and like Sam is freaking out about “it’s there bro we need to do some monster fighting ggihfwd-“ deans a bit traumatized about his childhood home cuz uuhhh mommy dearest death, he goes anyway. They meet a psychic their dad meat after a few days ater the fire n’ uh she’s real cool. (ALSO THE BOI MEET MOMMY BC THE POLTERGEIST WAS HURTING SAM, SHE SACRIFICED HER SPIRIT FOR HER CHILDREN, oh uh also dad was at the cool ladies home but Sammy didn’t sense him)

(Also somewhere between here a changing or whatever the fuck stole deans identity n’ caused a lot of crimes, like murder n’ torture. Maybe Sam too? As an accomplice for helping the REAL dean)

Huh huh Sam’s daddy issues returned when dad called to tell them to stop looking for him and uh the mommy killer is a demon >:D bla bla sam n’ dean have a brothers Quarrel cuz dean wants to be a good son bla ba Sam runs away only to find this hitchhiker chick n’ she’s edgy in oh woe is me my family is terrible bla bla dean calls to apologize and say goodbye but like later on Sam tries to call dean back but uuuhh he’s too busy getting sacrificed to some scarecrow god. Sams like “oh no my brother NEVER turns off his phone :’(“ and girly is like u wot u crawling back to yer family???? Come with me,,, bla bla sam saves dean and some other girl and BAM! Hitchhiker girl is eevviiillllll making blood bowl calls to her big boss/dad complaining about not being allowed to kill the Winchester bro’s and uuhhh idk.

So Sammy boi gets visions of the not so distant *FUTURE* about some guy getting murdered in way that looks like a suicide dadadq the bro’s think DEMON SPIRIT CURSE! BUT WHOOPTIE DOO IT WAS THE ABUSED SON WHOyKILLED THE FUCK-TERDS and now its time for step mommy to DIE. Turns out lil mommy killer killed this guys mom too and in the exact same way as dean and sams mom, Sam tries to talk it out but he gets closeted and telekinesis his way out when he visions deans death bla bla the other dude kills himself. Apparently hitch bicker girl is named Meg (god I really have to remember come name.) oh murder muerder trap set up for the boyos set up by Meg and her boss/dad to get to Sam and deans daddy also Meg is a fucking nasty thot. Sammy breaks free and set those shadow puppies free to make Meg swan dive n’ DADDIES HOME! Family reunion or something BUUUTTT Meg is still thoting around She pretended to be dead to give everyone a false sense of security. Ba ba ba shadow boom boom light stick aaannnd dad has to leave cuz he’s vulnerable near his bois (he fights reckless, do or die type of deal and he can’t do that when he’s near his sons cuz he’s worried about them).

More episodes later daddy dearest sends the boys to some place with very sick kiddos, like hospital sick. Turns out dad was trying to hunt this with thing but it escaped n’ now our Winchester gang is here to finish the job! Bla bla flashbacks on how dean had to sacrifice everything to make Sammy happy (the lucky charms) dean had to grow up quick for Sam to be a somewhat normal kid.

HHUUUGGHHHHH- AN OLD HUNTING PAL OF DAD’S DIED FROM MONSTERS AND THOSE COWBOYS FUCKS STOLE THIS SUPER RAD OP GUN CALLED THE COLT! Dad wants this gun cuz it’s apart of his big plan to kill the demon, bla bla dad learns to trust his boys and he finally lets them come along on the revenge train >:D they got the super op gun n’ it rocks.

Paster Jim is dead cuz Meg slit his throat, bla bla she wants the colt n’ starts threatening the lives of everyone that EVER helped em uuhhhh the gang buys a old gun n’ dad gonna pretend it’s the colt dad goes away again to trick the demons that HE has the gun something something they find out idk I forgot the rest.

( He’s kidnapped)

OH OH THEY MEET UH JIMMY? THE OLD UNCKE GUY WHO LIVES IN A GARBAGE PLACE? IDK WHAT ITS CALLED- no wait his name is Bobby, I can’t believe I forgot Bobby’s name oh and uncle bob teaches the boys the demon trap thingy and how more demons are walking among humans like something big bad is happening. Meg visits bla bla she’s stuck in the demon trap, intaragation time about dad and they threaten exorcism bla bla meg reveals what she knows. Ba ba ba dean wants to continue with the exorcism but Sam is like we promised n’ Bobby’s says that the possessed girl would DIE cuz Meg broke the body bla bla the body would fall apart without Meg but like? The girls still in there and I think she needs to be put out of her misery cuz wtf???? That’s not fun but Bobby’s like nooo she’d die but Sam listens to reason and continues the exorcism.girl is super dying. Do de de girl was possessed for a whole year la la la girl tells the stuff Meg left out bo bo ba girl dies.

EEHh still episode twenty something, they go to a river near a place called sunset something, Sam and dean have a fight over something dean’s like “we can kill these fuckers Sam” but sam’s like “dad wouldn’t want us to waste the bullets cuz like ravenge, we got a job to do.” Dean argues “but this is dad! You all are self sacrificing or something”. bla bla separate the humans from the demons by pulling he fire alarm! They steal some fire fighter swag to sneak into the building, they trap those demon fucks in a closet w/ salt and they get dad but the demons come.

Dean uses a colt bullet to save Sam from getting beaten to death by demon w/ making swoosh throwing powers now their back at Bobby’s and SALT THE SHIT out of the house. Dad praises dean for using a bullet to save Sammy, the demons come n’ Sam goes to check the salt: dad asks for the gun but dean goes “your not my dad, he would never praise me for using a bullet” Sam comes back bla bla bla DAD REALLY WAS POSSESSED! A DEMON WHOSE IMMUNE TO HOLY WATER (they checked him before when they saved him) IT’S THE DEMON WHO KILLED MOM, the mom killer reveals says that this is justified cuz they exorcist Meg (his daughter) and the guy dean shot was his son but like bitch get off your high horse all you & yer kids have been doing was trying to kill or fuck things up for the Winchesters. Uwawa mommy killer monologues about killing mom and sam’s gf cuz they got in the way for his plans for Sammy and AALLL THE SPECIAL PHYCIC KIDS LIKE SAMMY! yellow eyed bastard goes off on dean for interrupting him by saying “eehh waahh you give EVERYTHING to this family but they don’t need you not like you need them, Sammy is the favourite kid.” So deans like ooh getting too personal huh? I’m gonna mention your super dead or in hell kids BITCH! so yellow guy just straight up tries to kill dean with magic demon mind powers, deans calls out for dad to not let the mom killer kill him AANNND IT WORKKSSS for a bit: sam’s free to shoot the yellow guy but he’s like “you kill me, you kill dad” but Sam doesn’t give a FUCK and just shoots him.

Sam aimed in a non vital place but that didn’t work, THE FUCK IS STILL ALIVE IN DAD! Luckily san couldn’t pull the trigger to put pops down n’ the demon goes back into the ground after getting shot by ☆SUPER EPIC COLT GUN☆.

Wait where the fuck was Bobby??? Oh wait maybe they weren’t at Bobby’s....

They go on the road to take dad to the hospital, they chat about “why didn’t you kill the demon, I thought we saw eye to eye” but like Sam loves you too much John, he doesn’t need the trauma of killing you- THE BOYS GET IN A CAR CRASH, THAT DEMON ISN’T FUCKING AROUND and then the episode 22 ends.

ALRIGHT THATS THE END OF SEASON ONEE, I wish I write down more about the episodic ones, I liked those ....like the lake one! Dean would’ve made a great father to that kid.

Tldr thing??? So Sammy n’ dean’s mom gets murdered by a super demon when they were kids,dad goes on a rampage against all monsters and the boys get sucked into that lifestyle too forever, Sammy is a phycic special boy and there’s other special kids the demon made. They get special gun to kill the demon but it didn’t work so now they got in a car crash the end. Also demons among humans haha yeaah forget that

#supernatural #supernatural s1 recap #supernatural season one #supernatural season one recap #recap

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theythemsam · 4 years

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Ok, bc I have to, like from an emotional standpoint because it upsets me, here is my Ten Person List of abuse survivors I remembered from supernatural (it’s possibly I forgot some, in which case pls tell me!) ranked from relatively good portrayal to *agonized angry screams at the victim blaming from hell*. (Also Sam & Dean are excluded from this bc talking about them as abuse survivors and the way they are portrayed is an essay in itself.)

Tw for discussions of childhood abuse, intimate partner violence, graphic violence, childhood sexual abuse, incest (particularly father/daughter), murder and death.

1. Bobby (particularly in 7x10). Receives the most sympathy for how he handled his abuse. While he killed his father, he did so to protect his mother and not himself (he is the savior). And while his mother did not see it a him saving her and it is implied that she continued to reject and hate her son, his actions are portrayed as morally correct by the narrative. As an adult he gets to grow up and partially recover from his abuse, even getting to adopt Sam and Dean as his own kids, taking on the father role he never thought he could fulfill.

2. Mia Vallens in 13x04. She used to be in a relationship with a man that hurt people and who also hurt her. When she finally got out, she decided to use her powers to do good. Buddy, her ex, comes after her again and kills more people. She does victim blame herself (”What Buddy did was my fault) but she survives and is reassured by Jack that she does help people.

3. Madison in 2x17. Past abusive relationship, ex-boyfriend stalked her. There is a scene where Sam expresses confusion how someone like her could be in an abusive relationship, which Holy Batman Victim Blaming, Fuck Off. Her being attacked by the werewolf is presented as the thing that helped her get out of the relationship. Her werewolf also makes her kill people indiscriminately and in the end leads to her death. But she gets a lot of compassion for having been in an abusive relationship and the victim blaming is called out.

4. Magda in 12x04. Emotionally and physically abused by her mother. Her repressed psychic powers end up hurting people as she’s calling for help. She is given a lot of compassion, particularly by Sam, who is very protective of her. Up until the men of letters kill her robbing her of a brighter future.

5. Max in 1x14. Survivor of physical childhood abuse, ongoing into his early adolescence. Figures out he has psychic powers and decides that killing the people that hurt him is the best course of action. Realizes that even killing them all will not give him peace and kills himself. Portrayed in only a slightly compassionate way and definitely falls under the category of “broken abuse survivor” and “evil abuse survivor”. It is clearly shown that there is no happiness possibly after abuse.

6. Bela, particularly in 3x15. Bela is for a long time only described as “having killed her parents for the money”, but in this episode it is finally revealed that she sold her sold to kill her parents because her father was sexually abusing her. It is implied that her mother stood by and let it happen. Although Sam and Dean should be able to figure out that Bela sold her soul as a 14 year old, they on’t really show her a lot of compassion either. Dean says that if Bela had opened up to them earlier they would have helped her, but considering Bela’s background and the way Sam and Dean have treated her until now it makes sense that she wouldn’t tell them. She is portrayed as unfeeling and bitchy and while her tragic backstory tries to justify her actions, it feels very randomly thrown in.

7. Sydney in 11x05. She had her soul sucked out by Amara and starts killing people. She has been severely physically abused by her parents and now, without her soul, this trauma no longer haunts her. She also thinks slight annoyances justify murder, but it is implied that she has those violent thoughts previous to losing her soul. She also dies.

8 + 9. The two children in the cellar in 4x11 + their mother. The children are Bill Gibson’s grandchildren and also children. His mother, who was sexually abused by her father, killed herself after giving birth (and as an Austrian, I sure looooove the reference to the Fritzl case, especially since it was right after she finally managed to escape). They are called Girl and Boy. We love dehumanizing names! The father is called a monster, but so are the children (particularly by Sam) and presented as irredeemable, inhuman (”animals”) and “barely human”. They also all die.

10. Jeremy Frost in 3x10. Survivor of physical childhood abuse, left disabled as a result. Becomes an irredeemable drug addict and murderer. Sam then uses a dream version of his abusive father to distract him in order to kill him.

So to sum up, out of 11 abuse survivors, 10 died. 4 where killed in self defense as they are about to kill others, one kills herself out of shame (presumably), one was killed due to her deal that she made to escape abuse coming due, one kills himself because he cannot envision a better future, one is murdered just before she gets her better future, one asks to be killed because she’s afraid she’ll hurt other people (and by linking the werewolf bite to the thing that helped her get out of her abusive relationship... the implications... they are bad) and one dies a hunter’s death in the line of duty.

#sam babbles #supernatural and abuse victims #spn meta #will i ever stop making random angry lists of characters no one else but me gives a single flying fuck about? Nope.#again bobby and mia vallens are the only characters who get what I would title A Good Story concerning their abuse #madison and magda are still portrayed very sympathetically although neither of them get an 'after' past the abuse #max and bela are both eaten up by their past abuse and incapable of moving on and turned violent by it but they are given some sypmathy #sydney the kids their mum and jeremy frost never get that. they are just violent and murderous #hmmm this makes me so angry I want to chew through the writers hands to stop them from every putting pen to paper again #Sera wrote 5 of those so uhhh Ms Gamble pls I just wanna talk and also chew through your hand #shes really got a knack for killing characters that dont deserve it *looks sadly at the magicians*

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samclownchester · 4 years

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Supernatural Rewatch 01x14

Nightmare

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(Not Spoiler Free, I’ve seen up to 15x13)

Alright, it’s taken me a while to write my summary of this episode because it deals with some pretty heavy stuff, and I’m not sure if it deals with it very well. There are people who are much more knowledgeable about this subject than I am who have written really good essays on The Winchesters and abuse, so I’ll leave that to them. I’m just going to try and talk about what we learn specifically from this episode:

I’m going to start at the end, when Sam and Dean are walking away from the home of an abused kid who just committed suicide in front of them and they say:

SAM: Well I'll tell you one thing. We're lucky we had Dad.

DEAN: (Looking astounded and pleased) Well, I never thought I'd hear you say that.

SAM: Well, it could’ve gone a whole other way after Mom. A little more tequila and a little less demon hunting and we would’ve had Max's childhood. All things considered, we turned out ok. Thanks to him.

DEAN: All things considered.

This is an argument used very often throughout the show to absolve John Winchester of his guilt, of how much he failed as a father – it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. It could have been worse. Much worse. At this point in the show Dean is still completely dedicated to his father, and although Sam pushed back against him and thinks how they were raised “was jacked,” I don’t think he’s fully conceptualized it as “child abuse.” I don’t know if either of them really ever do. (Once they kill Chuck, they really need to go to therapy). What we do learn here is that John didn’t regularly beat them. And Sam is grateful for that. That’s a really low bar.

A moment that I feel like is worth commenting on is when Sam is talking with Max, trying to understand him and Max says, “When my Dad used to look at me, there was hate in his eyes. Do you know what that feels like?” and after a long pause, Sam answers “no.” I can’t tell whether Sam is lying here or not.

In my personal, very unprofessional, and uninformed, opinion, I think Sam is realizing that his relationship with his dad wasn’t That Bad ™ and so he doesn’t feel qualified to compare it to what Max is describing to him. (For instance, I have been Depressed ™ but when I had a friend who was officially diagnosed with Clinical Depression and started taking medication for it, I didn’t feel like my experience was bad enough to really compare and I started to think that maybe I had never really been depressed to begin with (news flash, although my experience was different I was still definitely depressed)). But that’s what I think Sam is feeling here. He had a bad childhood, he has a bad relationship with his father, and normally he’s not afraid of acknowledging that, but when faced with something that is bad on a whole different level, he suddenly feels like he doesn’t have a right to dislike his dad. Like he doesn’t have a right to be hurt by the way his dad treated him, because his dad never hurt him in this way.

I think he does know what it’s like to see hatred in his father’s eyes. But John never crossed that line so … it couldn’t have been abuse, right?

(Wrong)

This episode also features an argument between Sam and Dean that we will revisit often throughout the course of the show: Kill the monster or give them a chance to be human?

Sam: … I was connecting to Max! The thing is I don't get why, man. I guess -- because we're so alike?

DEAN: What are you talking about. The dude's nothing like you.

SAM: Well. We both have psychic abilities, we both...

DEAN: Both what? Sam, Max is a monster, he's already killed two people, now he's gunning for a third.

SAM: Well, with what he went through, the beatings, to want revenge on those people? I'm sorry, man, I hate to say it, but it's not that insane.

DEAN: Yeah but it doesn't justify murdering your entire family!

SAM: Dean...

DEAN: He's no different from anything else we've hunted, all right? We gotta end him.

SAM: We're not going to kill Max.

DEAN: Then what? Hand him over to the cops and say 'Lock him up officer; he kills with the power of his mind.'

SAM: No way. Forget it.

DEAN: Sam...

SAM: Dean. He's a person. We can talk to him. Hey, promise me you'll follow my lead on this one.

DEAN:(After a long pause) All right fine. But I'm not letting him hurt anybody else. (takes Gun)

Something interesting that I’ve notice is, up to this point in the show, almost every monster they’ve faced has looked very inhuman. In later seasons we see more Vampires and Werewolves, monsters who look mostly human until they attack. The monsters the brothers have faced in season 1, even the reaper in “Faith,” don’t look like people. Even the demon they exorcised in “Phantom Traveler” didn’t act like the demons we meet later in the show – it didn’t talk much, and when it did it was with a monstrous voice. None of the monsters have been shown as sentient, conscious beings who can make decisions for themselves (with the exception of the Shapeshifter in “Skin” but he was so obviously creepy and messed up that any sympathy the audience felt for him was mixed with revulsion).

The point is, Max is the first “monster” we are introduced to who we understand to be fully human, capable of reasoning and understanding. Sam, with his deep empathy, sees himself in Max even before he knows they’re connected. He wants to help him. Dean, on the other hand, believes that evil deserves to be killed, and if something is killing people by Supernatural means – even if those killings are “justified” – then it’s his job to put a stop to it. This is something that the brothers never see eye-to-eye on, and it’s interesting to track how it affects the way they approach problems all throughout the series. (Including Jack who, sadly, Dean sees as a monster before he’s even been given a chance.)

The last comment I wanted to make is just an observation of the different ways Dean tries to protect Sam. There are two points in this episode where Dean is forced to confront the reality that his little brother suddenly has psychic abilities:

Once, while driving:

DEAN: I don't know Sam but we'll figure it out. We've faced the unexplainable every day. This is just another thing.

SAM: No. It's never been us. It's never been in the family like this. Tell the truth, you can't tell me this doesn't freak you out.

DEAN: (After staring straight ahead for a long moment) This doesn’t freak me out.

And again later, at the very end of the episode as they leave their motel room:

DEAN: I know what we need to do about your premonitions. I know where we have to go.

SAM: Where?

DEAN: (Deadpan) Vegas.

DEAN grins at SAM

DEAN: What? Come on man. Craps tables. We'd clean up!

DEAN follows SAM to the door and pauses on the threshold. He considers SAM, looking very thoughtful, then turns to pull the door closed.

In the first scene the audience (and honestly probably Sam) can clearly see that Dean is worried. But he won’t admit it. He knows Sam is scared of what’s happening to him, but it’s Dean’s job to protect his brother and he’s not going to make this any scarier than it needs to be. So he calls it “just another thing” and he tries to casually say that it doesn’t freak him out, even though it does.

Later, we see him joking about it. In a previous episode I made a comment about how I feel like Sam is bothered that Dean doesn’t seem to be taking this seriously, but in this episode, we see that the jokes are being used to mask his fear (in typical Dean Winchester fashion.) He is deeply worried about Sam’s powers, but he doesn’t want Sam to know. He doesn’t want Sam to worry. So he makes light of it, forces himself to laugh about it, all in an effort to protect Sam.

#supernatural #supernatural rewatch #01x14 #1x14 #nightmare #abuse #cw: abuse #tw: abuse #sam winchester #dean winchester #max #psychic #seriously this episode is very upsetting and I hate it #abuse tw #abuse cw

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supernatural-rewatch-3 · 4 years

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American Nightmare

So this episode. We get another child with psychic abilities, and oddly enough...she’s the first child that we see actually punished by her family for them. Max was abused, but that was before his powers were a thing. Andrew and Ansem were complete unknowns and so was Eva. Magda is the first kid that we see actually punished for the abilities she possesses. Her mother accuses her of being the devil, but Sam and Dean know Lucifer personally. In fact it wouldn’t be a stretch to say Sam knows Lucifer better than any human in existence. He knows this girl doens’t have an evil bone in her body.

For her part Magda is a young confused child who is screaming for help. She doens’t know or understand what is going on and the only ‘help’ she receives from her ‘loving family’ can’t even be called that. And then she meets Sam, who is the first person to understand her, to tell her she isn’t evil, that she just has some powers she can’t control yet. Sam had tried to plead for her, to help her, and finally for the first time she isn’t surrounded by pain.

When Sam had thought at first that Magda was dead, he was furious on her behalf because her family just let her die. Learning the truth sent him to heights of new anger because her family was treating her like a freak. She didn’t have Dean, like Sam did, she had nothing. Sam wanted to be that person for her.

Meanwhile we see Dean is not taking Mary’s departure well at all. Dean is the Winchester who was most trying to keep his family together, even getting caught between John and Sam all the time trying to mediate. So for Dean to think that Mary doens’t care about family is crushing. Not to mention the abandonment issues flaring up and not improving with the thought that Cas is running around with Crowley after he refused Dean’s help. However like Sam points out, sometimes people just need their space. Dean admits that he’s afraid that if Mary gets her space she just won’t come back. By the end of the episode though Dean decides that her getting her space is important and her sending him a text to tell him that she will always be their mom is enough confirmation for him at the moment that she won’t just leave and never come back. However this isn’t easy for Dean, and I honestly am so angry with Mary here but at the same time I get it.

Dean also has a huge issue with CPS and honestly...same. I know CPS does some good things, and I know as a whole they try....and I support them on the kids that they do help. However my personal life experiences with CPS...well let’s just say I have not had any good experiences with them as a kid. There’s a lot of scar tissue there and I understand Dean’s dislike of them just as much as I get the support for them. Dean was also raised to fear CPS. CPS was just another monster to him that wouldn’t understand their family situation and take Sam away and him and probably separate them. Mary having just left didn’t help the situation either. I do like that him and the social worker Beth could come to an understanding though.

And then we meet Ketch. He’s been in the background for the last few episodes but we finally meet him and he is introduced as a merciless killer who will destroy anything supernatural, no matter how misunderstood or innocent it is. We see he’s been tailing Sam and Dean, and they don’t know it yet. Well that can’t be good.

#superntural #american nightmare #spn 12x04 #dean winchester #sam winchester #magda peterson #mary winchester #arthur ketch

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laufire · 3 years

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Supernatural s1

my dash: decries Supernatural every five posts.

me: time to watch it seriously for the first time in my life.

-First thing first: it’s an amazingly well-crafted season of tv. I’m a character-focused watcher, not a plot-focused one; I never connected emotionally to the Winchesters (still haven’t and likely never will, as interesting I might find them as character constructs), so I feared I’d be bored and would want to skip scenes. Nuh huh. I was many things, but none of them were bored xDD. Each episode was a lesson in good pacing and the entire season another in proper build-up. There are one or two or a few dozen tv-writers I would like to show it to, ngl.

-Another thing it excelled at was in its portrayal in abusive family dynamics. The way Dean went mellow and so unlike himself when John gave an order (and what a SHOCK it is in the later episodes when he finally stands up to him!!). How Sam said HE would apologize to his father when they saw each other again, or how he made apologies for his father because “it could have been worse” (at least John didn’t beat them up, like it happened to that poor kid!). John showing Sam more “““respect””” (as far as he’s able at least) simply because Sam already proved he’s capable of leaving him; the way John controls the information he gives them and when and how and how much and how small they feel when they reunite with him. Dean knowing his father had been possessed by a demon because it wasn’t reprimanding him and belittling him. Dean’s psychic shapeshifter (?) expressing his resentment towards Sam for getting to escape. Dean’s quickness to resort to violence when Sam says something that makes him angry, or how he tries to severe ties between Sam and his college friends, or how he guilt trips him when Sam says he plans on returning to his studies, or how he minimizes Sam’s experiences with John or how Sam criticizes Dean’s compliance... (I don’t think Dean’s being consciously manipulative. I think it’s intuitive. Which is far, far scarier. He’s the Elena Gilbert of Supernatural and a walking red flag for controlling behavior). How it’s paired with ~honeymoon periods. The way they use the families around them to highlight their issues. It’s... chilling and terrifying and I can’t look away. I won’t get into the shit John pulls in 2x01 because that’s for the s2 POV, but oh my god I’m so happy he’s dead.

I wasn’t all that sure of how self-aware the creators were about this trend (especially because of how centralized and validated Dean’s POV is in his conflicts with Sam IMO. OTOH... characters like Dean and actors like Ackles are the type to take over a show by charisma alone tbf. The way he swoops in in the pilot and starts disrupting everything, including Sam’s relationship, reminding me of both Angel in BTVS and Chuck in Gossip Girl, Doylist-wise. This comparison is going to make sense to like three people I talk with regularly xDD). At least on early seasons, since certain spoilers about the later ones make me think it grew over time. I’m still unsure but I think they are a little self-aware because of this quote:

Eric Kripke said of Buffy: “I loved ‘Hush’ and ‘Once More, With Feeling,’ but overall, Buffy really taught me about effectively using metaphor in genre. For Buffy, it was ‘high school is hell (literally),’ and Joss Whedon did such a masterful job of grounding his horror and fantasy concepts in this notion, and ultimately telling allegories about high school, which turned what could’ve been B-Movie material into an all-time classic. I used that same philosophy on my run of Supernatural, with the mantra ‘family is hell (literally),’ and always grounded my horror episodes around the notion of families, to the show’s benefit. So thanks, Joss Whedon. I owe you a beer. (Credit: The WB)

everyone wants to be Buffy lol.

-My absolute favourite thing was how competent the Winchesters are (I’m even reluctantly including John here. That bastard). They’re sneaky with local authorities, crafty about fake IDs, credit scams, research abilities, DIY supernatural detectors xDD... I loved the lack of an audience proxy, the fact that the story throws you into the deep end with people that already know their shit. And that the other side is competent too, like when Meg & YED’s plan to trap John relied on the Winchester being competent; on Sam immediately going into the defensive because, what are the chances of finding that cute weird girl a second time, miles away?; on John suspecting it was a trap and only revealing himself after Meg appears to be dead... Another scene that I loved in that sense, from 2x01 (I watched until 2x03, I wanted to see Sterling K. Brown’s first appearance lol) was how upon discovering Reapers are shapeshifters, Dean immediately knew that cute ghost he’d befriended was the one after him. I get the feeling this aspect will get lost in future season and it’s a pity, tbh.

-Related to that, some of my favourite moments: Sam straight up bribing a guy to get into the morgue when Dean’s arguments are failing (with Dean’s money!); Dean’s plan of “well, if this guy is haunting the house and there’s no other way to kill him, we burn the house. No house no haunting”; Dean telling that kid to fake appendicitis to get his parents out of the house; John blessing the tank of water knowing he’s walking into a trap with demons... I dig this stuff.

-I get whiplash sometimes, with the show making a point of (very briefly) telling you racism, homophobia or pro-life attitudes are Bad(TM) and the brothers are Against them (the Racist Truck episode, the one where a woman used a Reaper to exchange “virtuous” lives for those of sinners...), when the rest of the show is err... what it is lol. Dean is toxic masculinity’s poster boy (I was so disgusted by how he acted with Jess omfg), in s2 we don’t get the monsters’ perspective on hunters until we’ve conveniently met our first black one (I love the episode AND the character but it’s fucking true)...

-I need to make a note of paying attention to the writers credits/Bts stuff because I find this show’s progression fascinating on a metatextual level. The only problem is that audience reaction seems to have played a big role (which is a problem on one or two different levels imo xD), and tracking that down is sliiiiightly more difficult lol. Oh well (I don’t even think I want to see too much of this fandom, even to satisfy my curiosity. Some of the glimpses I’ve caught of it are disturbing to the extreme).

-The detail about dead people’s blood being toxic to vampires is SO COOL OMG. I’m tempted to steal it xD

Some random stuff:

-The monsters of the week were some legit creepy stuff.

-I love that Meg has her own hellhounds. Is that still a thing when she returns?

-Dean: you and dad are reckless and I’m going to have to be the one that buries you. / Me, with the power of foresight: 👀

-Also Dean: sometimes it scares me how good I am at killing. / Me: it scares the shit out of me how good you are at killing, too, fam.

-I get the impression Sam loses his demonic-in-origin powers later on, right? What a waste, I love those.

-I’m pretty sure at one point it’s implied John used Dean to honeytrap monsters (when he sends him as a trap for the lady vampire that stole the Colt) and I really don’t know what to do with this information.

-Cassie was GORGEOUS and even make Dean likeable for me while they lasted xDD. But given this show’s track record I’m considering the lack of more appearances a blessing.

-So many guest stars. Everyone’s been on SPN. Especially if they were on the Buffyverse first (I totally get the impulse of casting Buffy actor after Buffy actor lmfao).

-Funny how Luther Hargreeves is exactly who a lot of fans think Dean was (Dean is far, far colder imo), and yet one is constantly called pathetic and evil and the other woobified. Very Funny Indeed *coughs* (funnier still that the character I often see Dean compared to is Wynonna Earp when the parallels are kids-pool deep at best and offensive at worst. Dean is not a Wynonna. Again, Dean is an Elena Gilbert xDD).

-The two paranormal investigators were dumb as rocks, but their motto was “What Would Buffy Do” so I like them (if they ever change that to What Would the Winchesters Do or something like that I’m going to be furious lmao).

-When I want to ~chill I dress about exactly like Dean (minus the flannel I’ve seen in later seasons, you can’t pay me to wear flannel). Like, I think I have a couple of shirts that look exactly like ones of his. I don’t know how I feel about this xDD

-IDK how I’ll feel about Bobby later on (I get the impression every long-term character on this show has their hateful phases xD), but in his introduction he said the last time he saw John he threatened to shoot him (“he causes that reaction in people”), so he’s so far the most relatable character around lol.

#talking to the void #my thoughts #spn thoughts #the writing tm #sam winchester #dean winchester #john winchester #and others #abuse mention cw #here be negativity warning lol #spn s1 #the winchesters get to have a tag I GUESS

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