#I stopped in the middle of SPN season 8 because of this shit

[damagedfletching]

I feel like I keep having to check which blog I’m logged into- I haven’t seen this much hate in a fandom towards a Love Interest since Supernatural 🙄

[venhedish]

I’ve just had a thought about part of why later seasons of SPN don’t work nearly as well for me as the Kripke era, and it’s the first time I’ve been able to articulate this particular feeling.

I’m not sure when it started. Maybe sometime around seasons 7 or 8, sometime even before the bunker. It was when the boys stopped struggling to fit in to mundane society. Their hotel rooms got cleaner, bigger. Their clothes stopped looking thrifted. Their world got sanitized. They started to look middle-class. There’s a part of me that thinks maybe the writers were trying to show us the gradual slide towards being well-off that Sam and Dean had managed to eke out for themselves, despite everything. And this, of course, culminated in the Bunker. Home. Not a shit-hole, either. They didn’t pay for it, didn’t take out a mortgage, but even still, they put down roots and it started to seem like they had made something of themselves in the white-collar way.

But this is the antithesis of what I want! Sam and Dean save the world countless times, grow in ability and skill until they’re unstoppable killing machines. Hell, they get suaver, more empathetic, they can blend in better with polite society the more years they have under their belts. But they should always struggle! They should always wear cheap clothes and scrimp for every penny. Because hunting doesn’t pay. It’s a thankless, ugly job and a life on the fringes should reflect that. Instead, they almost seem to mold themselves into the capitalist society of the show’s America without a fuss just as the obvious natural progression of things ... but it’s not obvious at all.

The bunker was a mistake. I’m sorry. I want to love it, and there are aspects of domestic Winchester life that I adore, but it should have been ephemeral. They should have clawed their way in and fought for it every step. They should have lost it, back to the unrelenting call of the road. There is no peace. Their work is never done. Even the MOTW jobs they start taking on in later seasons are so suburban, or. Suburban in a different way than in the early show, when they are so clearly outsiders skulking on the periphery. It’s all rich white witches having a domestic and holistic yoga moms at a weight loss center. I know Supernatural has always been a show about the protection of the middle class from the outside, but in later seasons they present Sam and Dean as a part of that world, smart and clean-cut and safe. Dean becomes the kind of guy who could grill a few burgers with a cartoon bikini apron on and happily talk football, and at some point that went from a cover story to part of his actual personality. And Sam slides into the role of personal trainer no problem. He shops at farmer’s markets. He goes jogging in expensive sneakers.

The picket fence life subsumed the Winchesters even as the show screamed at us, “they can never have that apple pie dream!” and it made the narrative so much less effective for it. A shame.

[ambiguousdisorderken]

in your expert opinion what are some of the most destiel-heavy episodes of spn? i stopped watching around season 7 and have no interest in engaging w the plot of the show at all but i’m in the mood for some gay yearning ykwim

Hi anon! Thank you for reaching out to me about this, I’m, no-joke, very flattered. I’d seen a couple posts on this same question, very thorough and detailed lists on Destiel-centric episodes, but at the moment I cannot find any of them, that would’ve answered your request much faster. So, in advance, sorry, my reply is probably coming in extremely late, but I did write this from scratch, so yeah.

Even though storylines in SPN can be very shitty and hollow, I do feel that to get the full Destiel experience -that long-drawn yearning- one would have to watch the entirety of the show, even if Cas isn’t in the episode or if there’s no explicit mention of their relationship/bond because it gives you a better understanding of them as characters and of how their relationship affects the narrative.

Now, you mentioned you stopped around S7, which is completely understandable and justified given the Dick plot game was very weak and, in my opinion, annoying (so little Cas!). I’m going to start listing from S7 in case you want to refresh your SPN before jumping straight into unseen episodes. Also, since you mentioned no interest in the plot and are specifically craving those sweet crumbs of gay yearning, I’ll skip most one-sided / too subtle episodes and cut to the chase.

Lastly, I hate spoiling things, but you’ve probably seen it all on Tumblr. I tried to keep the episodes’ descriptions short, as it might come in useful. Stuck to key words, quotes and/or little comments.

 Season 7

7x01 – Meet the New Boss: Godstiel, sincere apology. Cas: “I'm gonna find some way to redeem myself to you.”

7x02 – Hello, Cruel World: Mourning. Trench coat melancholy. The heart-wrenching eulogy: “Dumb son of a bitch.”

7x17 – The Born-Again Identity: Emmanuel!Cas, reunion, longing, hurt.

7x21 – Reading is Fundamental: Honey!Cas, hug, hurt, reunion, that painful SORRY (board game) scene.

7x23 – Survival of the Fittest: Honey!Cas, forgiveness, adorable, wified Cas. Dean hits us with: “Nobody cares that you're broken, Cas!" but also “I'd rather have you, cursed or not.”

Season 8 (this season is so good and Destiel is the driving motor of it, I swear. If you can, watch it complete.)

8x01 – We Need to Talk About Kevin: Dean in Purgatory looking for the angel.  Cas is referred to as “your [Dean’s] angel.”

8x02 – What’s Up, Tiger Mommy?: HUG!!!, Purgatory reunion, face touch, very romantic. Monster: “ You'll find your angel there.” //  Dean: “Let me bottom-line it for you. I'm not leaving here without you.”

8x05 – Blood Brother: Cas vs. Benny cat fight lol. Dean: “Cas... we're gonna shove your ass back through the eye of that needle if it kills all three of us.”

8x07 – A Little Slice of Kevin: Cas comes back from Purgatory, but before that Dean starts seeing him in places. Very tragic; hallucinating your dead significant other trope. Has That boner scene. Dean: “I did everything I could to get you out! EVERYTHING!” Cas helps Dean see what truly happened in Purgatory and not his self-altered memories. PACKED!

8x08 – Hunteri Heroici: Hilarious, romantic, intimate. Dean and Cas have an heart to heart. They actually communicate. Cas “I’ll watch over you.”

8x10 Torn and Frayed: They work a case together, and when I say heart eyes…

8x17 – Goodbye Stranger: THIS. EPISODE. Dean “I need you.”

8x19 – Taxi Driver: Separation. Naomi to Dean: "You're hoping Castiel will return to you. I admire your loyalty; I only wish he felt the same way."

8x22 – Clip Show: Lack of trust, hurt, tense interactions. Romantic too (basically, Cas gets Dean an apology basket).

8x23 – Sacrifice: Meaningful conversation and a gay couple hit by Cupid parallel. Dean “So this is it? E.T goes home?"

 Season 9

9x01 – I think I’m Gonna Like it Here: Dean prays to Cas IN.A.CHAPEL. Worry, longing, separation. Dean “Please, man, I need you here.”

9x03 – I’m No Angel: Human!Cas and jealous!Dean.

9x06 – Heaven Can’t Wait: Human!Cas TEXT-BOOK LONGING. GAY AS FUCK. Gazing, touching, they even TALK (for real).

9x09 – Holy Terror: Adorable Cas, flirty vibes, happyish, funny. Cas: “Cas is back in town!”

9x10 – Road Trip: Cas comforts Dean, Cas and Crowley bitching at each other, overall protective!Cas.

9x18 – Metafiction. Cas finds out about the Mark of Cain.

9x21 – King of the Damned: Hug, strong boyfriends vibes.

9x22 – Stairway to Heaven: Cas gives up an entire army, for Dean. Metatron about Cas “He's in love………………………. with humanity.”

9x23  – Do You Believe in Miracles?: At this point, it’s canon stated that Cas will do anything and lose everything if that means saving Dean. Metatron to Cas “You draped yourself in the flag of heaven, but ultimately, it was all about saving one human, right?”

 Season 10

10x01 – Black: Demon!Dean and sick/brokenhearted Cas in a slutty robe missing his man.

10x03 – Soul Survivor: ICONIC. Angel on Demon action! Cas turns down Hannah because he’s too gay and in love. Intimate Deancas talk.

10x05 – Fan Fiction: No Cas, but Destiel references. 

10x09 – The Things We Left Behind: That.Lunch.Date. Deancas introduction to co-parenting.

10x14 – The Executioner’s Song: We get Daddy Murder aka Cain. This is a Pivotal episode to understand Dean’s character development. Plus, it has Deancas interactions.

10x16 – Paint It Black: No Cas, but Dean opens up in confessionary; repressed BISEXUAL AS FUCK.

10x18 – Book of the Damned: Charlie meets Cas. Gay energies everywhere. Cute domestic little scene.

10x20 – Angel Heart: PARENTING! Essential to understand Cas from this point forward.

10x22 – The Prisoner: Just… just watch it. One of THEE Destiel episodes.

10x23 – Brother’s Keeper: No Deancas interactions but it’s the finale, and I recommend watching it because next season takes off literally right from here. No time jumps.

 Season 11

11x02 – Form and Void: Could skip to the very end which is when Cas comes back.

11x03 – The Bad Seed: Cursed!Cas. Dean takes care of him, even wraps him in a blanket. He also cradles his face. Extreme Hurt/Comfort. Jacting joices rejoice.

11x10 – The Devil in the Details: Could skip but has Casifer in it. Interesting to see his dynamic with Dean.

11x18 – Hell’s Angel: Casifer. Dean "It? It's not an it, Sam, it's Cas!"

11x23 – Alpha and Omega: Huggg! Cas willing to go on a guaranteed suicide mission with Dean. Very tender and sad.

 Season 12

12x02 – Keep Calm and Carry On: ANOTHER HUG! Dean presents his boyfriend to his mom<3 Soft and romantic.

12x09 – First Blood: Reunion hug<3, Cas pining… as in he counts his every minute without Dean.

12x10 – Lily Sunder Has Some Regrets: Direct parallel with canon couple. Crystal-clear mutual affection. One of the best. Angel Ishim to Cas about Dean “I'm gonna help you. I'm gonna cure you of your human weakness same way I cured my own… by cutting it out.”

12x12 – Stuck in the Middle with You: A dying Cas confesses his love. “I love you. I love all of you.”

12x19 – The Future: We find out Dean gave Cas a MIXTAPE!!! Very romantic and full of yearning, also worry and what could be seen as a betrayal (ish…).

12x23 – All Along the Watch Tower: Hands down, one of the most distressing Destiel episodes. Cas dies.

 Season 13

13x01 – Lost and Found: This is the worst because you have Dean trying to assimilate Cas’ death. Core of Dean’s widow’s arc. Jack introduction, that’s their new kid.

13x02 – The Rising Son: Widow’s arc (you could skip it, but why would you?).

13x03 – Patience: Widow’s arc (you could skip it, but why would you?). Dean to Sam “He manipulated him, he made him promises, said, ‘paradise on earth’ and Cas bought it and you know what that got him? It got him dead! Now you might be able to forget about that, but I can’t!”

13x04 – The Big Empty: Continuation of widow’s arc and Cas wakes up in the Empty. The Empty to Cas: "I know who you love. There's nothing for you back there." // Dean to Sam “I need you to keep the faith, for both of us. ‘Cause right now, I… Right now, I don’t believe in a damn thing.”

13x05 – Advanced Thanatology: Suicidal and hopeless Dean gets his win. Cas comes back. Gives me the chills.

13x06 – Tombstone: COWBOY BOYFRIENDS!

13x14 – Good Intentions: Happy and fun Destiel scene. So Very Married.

13x23 – Let The Good Times Roll: Season finale, Dean talks about retiring (plans include Cas of course) and just very nice to see them interact.

Season 14

14x03 – The Scar: Reunion.

14x08 – Byzantium: Deanand Cas dealing with their child’s death, then bringing him back by Cas making a deal with the Empty. IMPORTANT EPISODE.

14x09 – The Spear: Cas uses the royal We – married behavior.

14x10 – Nihilism: Dean is stuck in his own mind, and Cas and Sam try to bring him back. Cas “Please, you have to -- you have to try to remember, because the people in your life -- in your real life, out there -- we need you to come back.”

14x12 – Prophet and Loss: Dean gets his very own Dr. Sexy, aka Dr. Cas.

14x14 – Ouroboros: Basically another date (their kid tags along) and They TALK. Very intimate and established marriage vibes.

14x18 – Absence: Shits starts to go south. [ Dean: “Who cares what Jack said? We don't know what happened! But I swear, if he did something to her, if she is -- (points to Castiel) Then you're dead to me. (Castiel looks crushed after Dean says that).]

14x20 – Moriah: Tense and very upsetting. Relationship very damaged.

 Season 15 (I would advise watching the entire season because it relies heavily on Destiel. They’re the heart and the emotional motor leading the plot onwards.)

15x01 – Back and To The Future: Deancas’ in the aftermath of their kid’s death. Tension gets worse.

15x02 – Raising Hell: Tension rises, this is very intense. Cas “Dean. You asked, "What about all of this is real?" We are.”

15x03 – The Rupture: Breaking point ends in divorce.

15x06 – Golden Time: Painful phone call which speaks volumes about the current state of their relationship at the time. Also, good to see where they’re standing and how they’re coping.

15x08 – Our Father Who Aren’t in Heaven: Strained relationship so obvious they’re offered couples’ therapy.

15x09 – The Trap: MASTERPIECE. Back to Purgatory. Can (and is) taken as Dean’s love confession (because it is). 

15x12 – Galaxy Brain: So married. Little domestic date, you can see LOVE written in their faces.

15x13 – Destiny’s Child: AU!Dean and Sam. Not a yearning episode per se, but AU!Dean? SO GAY.

15x17 – Unity: God reveals that the only act of free will in any universe he ever created has been Cas choosing Dean.

15x18 – Despair: Cas confesses his love to Dean.

[hawkland]

Destiel fic recs/what I’ve been reading (round #2)

I promised (eventually!) more fic recs and I figured I’d better do it soon before my list to talk about got TOO long. Also I’m just bubbling to praise up an amazing fic I read last night that literally has given me a fanfic hangover this morning and I need you all to suffer with me.

Starting with that fic in question:

Aria for an Angel (84k) by anyrei, mugglerock. I hurt all over from this one and I command you to do the same.

That said, DO NOT READ if you can’t stand the idea of Cas finding love/happiness with someone else (even if the fic is endgame Destiel). Also don’t read if you can’t stand your heart being shattered by pain before being carefully put back together again. Those warnings aside, this is one of the most stunning fics I’ve read yet in SPN fandom and I’m going to rec it at you no matter what. I’ve been feeling very pissy at Dean lately, as I’m on season 12 in my complete watch-thru, and with how much Cas has been suffering and getting beaten down for, like, SEASONS now. And it got me looking for fics where Cas gets some of the TLC/love/care that he needs from someone else, at least until Dean can get his shit together. Enter Mick Davies. Mick comes to Cas for help with a case that ends up involving a Grigori, and the two grow closer as Cas enjoys spending time with someone who genuinely expresses care and concern for him...but when Dean finds out will he have to choose between the Winchesters, his found family on Earth, and his new boyfriend? And when tragedy strikes, is it too late for a second chance at his first love again?

This story is funny, hot, heartbreakingly sad and just completely wrung me out emotionally. The characterizations totally worked for me, the growth they all went through was the kind of stuff I only wish the writers of the show could pull off. There’s just...there’s so much pain and love and some good stuff with poor Sam and Mary caught in the middle of this shitstorm and I wasn’t sure I could be brought back around to wanting Cas and Dean together in the end, but the authors pulled it off and everything about this story hurts, and heals, in the best possible way.

The rest of my recs in this round-up beneath the cut.

Seek to Know You Better (32k) by ahurston. Season 15 canon-divergence—so no Empty, no rusty nail, but things are relatively calm and settled in the hunter/Winchester world. As such Dean and Cas go on a road-trip together, investigate some minor cases, and gradually open up and really TALK via a “36 Questions That Lead to Love” article Cas finds on-line. One of those fics that just gives you a happy glow inside to read; it feels very believable and the characters have a maturity and adultness to them that just feels right. The little details of all the places they stop for food while talking are a delight, and it’s just the right amount of pining (for me) before they finally get things together.

Purgatory, director's cut (27k) by runsinthefamily. THIS IS THE ULTIMATE PURGATORY FIC (well, in my reading adventures so far.) Written (apparently?) before season 8 actually aired, it takes a very different - and weirdly creative and bizarre - look at what purgatory would be like. And if Cas stuck with Dean through it all.  It also posits that as a human Dean would be “allergic” to purgatory and need Cas’s grace to hold himself together...but the deeper they travel, trying to get out, the more precarious Cas’s hold on his vessel becomes. I love everything about this fic, the weird imagery, the way Dean just...rolls with everything happening to Cas and still loving him because it’s Cas, not his vessel, that’s important.

Grooming Instincts (26k) by jemariel. More wing!kink which...yeah. Gimme all the wing grooming/back massages and weird angel anatomy, please. Cas is grumpy while going through what he describes as “molting” only...it’s a bit more complicated than that. And Dean has no idea what he’s gotten himself into until Cas starts grooming him...and Kevin is able to translate/figure out what’s happened. Funny and hot and just...a yummy happy read with great bits from Sam, Kevin and Charlie for good measure.

Things that Leave Marks (23k) by thestoryinsideme. Canon-divergent from Season 9.  Wherein it takes Dean three years to find Cas after getting kicked out of the bunker. And when he does, it’s apparent he’s been through a lot, and he’s not exactly ready to or certain about going back to life with the Winchesters. This was sad and sweet and fluffy and angsty in all the right ways for a comfort fic read. (Also features Cas the budding artist! I love that idea!)

Wavelength-gasm (11k) by Mumble-Bee. The fuck or die trope gets a very fun twist when it involves needing to fuck an angel in his true form. Dean certainly learns this the hard way! This rec is for all the trueform!Cas-loving freaks like me out there...I’ve certainly never seen a smut fic embrace the weirdness of it all like this one.

Drive Faster Sammy (7k) by almaasi. Speaking of fuck-or-die fics, pray for Sam in this one. He has to listen to Dean helping when Cas gets struck by one (again) and they don’t have time to make it back to the bunker—so things get kind of graphic in the backseat of the Impala.

Love Burns Its Casualties (5k) by anactoria. Beautiful and bittersweet fic set during “The End”. Present-day Dean can’t sleep, and ends up invited by future!Cas to spend what he knows is likely his last night alive with him.  Features casual weed use (if that bothers you), some very hot shotgunning (if it doesn’t), and is just...a wonderfully written atmospheric story that I’ve already re-read several times. (It’s especially a good read when slightly stoned yourself. Um. Not that I’m necessarily advocating for that sort of thing, unless it’s legal in your neck of the woods. Um. Anyway...)

something quiet and minor and peaceful and slow (3.7k) by celeste9. Heaven fic, so don’t read if that’s not your thing. Also don’t read if you’re completely convinced John Winchester is an unredeemable homophobe and terrible parent all around. I, personally, liked this take a lot more as it shows a struggling but not horrible John confused about why this angel keeps popping over, asking Mary questions about what Dean will want in his little slice of Heaven. The title really describes the lovely mood of this little fic and I liked it a lot.

heaven, reconstructed (9k) by vaudelin. Another Heaven fic, more focused on Cas than Destiel (but that is endgame). Goes into what exactly Cas was doing, working with Jack to try to build a better Heaven while awaiting Dean’s eventual arrival. It’s a great fic for world-building (in more ways than one!) in the SPN universe and I like a story that explores Cas’s relationships with others beyond Dean and Sam. I’d add too that as a fan of The Good Place, I just in general enjoy stories that look at the complexity of what actually would constitute a “perfect” afterlife. So imagine Castiel as a TGP architect here if you will (I certainly did!)

The Passion of the Christ (and his angelic ex-boyfriend) (4.9k) by Bzzee. Another heaven!fic, but pure delightful crack. What happens when Dean and Cas run into one of Cas’s ex-boyfriends in Heaven’s roadhouse...who just happens to be Jesus Christ. Dean isn’t too happy with that knowledge (and neither is Judas). Just read it—heresy and all. For a crack fic it’s actually wonderfully smart and wicked.

Can't You Hear It Calling (4.7k) by imogenbynight. A “missing scene” from s8e32 (Sacrifice). Cas expects to never see Dean again once he (expects to, at least) close the gates of Heaven. As a parting gift, he takes Dean back in time to a Led Zeppelin concert...and then a motel room to spend a final night together. As a music lover, the description of the excitement of the concert (and the happy/sadness when the show is almost over) totally hit me in the feels...and it’s such angsty/beautiful smut when they get together.

You're Gonna Live Tomorrow (3k) by MajorEnglishEsquire, microcomets, orange_crushed. Cas doesn’t know a lot about being human (yet), but he does know one thing - he wants to marry Dean. Sweet, sweet happy fluff, just enjoy.

Who's Counting? (1.7k) by Annie D (scaramouche). Just some pure angel-powered delicious smut. Dean learns the hard way, over and over again, that angels have basically no refractory period.

[breaddo]

Also ☕️ supernatural haha

where do i begin

i have to admit i don’t have a lot of feelings but i ALSO have a lot of feelings about supernatural. i watched up to season 8 and stopped watching for a couple years and then middle school me was resurrected by nov 5, and then i basically skipped 7 entire seasons to watching the finale live with some buddies, so most of my feelings have to do with the destiel confession scene and the finale and the subsequent s16 because i legitimately DON’T remember what i watched.

and oh GOD i have so many feelings about the finale oh my god i know i didn’t watch season 15 or the 6 seasons beforehand but that was awful. i suppose i might’ve figured that the only way the show would end is if they died, because they literally can never catch a break, but WOW that wasn’t the way to go! the thing that gets me the most is whoever said the show ends the way it would have if the pilot never happened (dean dies young on a hunt gone wrong, sam settles and lives out the rest of his life). i hate that fact so much.

on the bright side supernatural did give us so many good jokes and shit i.e. super mega turbo hell, like the spn blogs i see and follow churn out the FUNNIEST shit ever and they’ve done more than the military ever could. and also the season 16 shit that constantly gets added on is keeping me alive honestly

also! the fact that i’ve never sat down and watched an episode that has jack in it makes me want to cry. like i’ve never fucking seen this dude. i think he’s so neat and ive been called jack-coded but i’ve only seen him in GIFs and clips on tumblr. i want to eat glass. i just want to see cas and dean’s son dude.

basically supernatural just makes me feel nov 5 brain chemical mix whenever i think about it and i genuinely don’t have any solid opinions besides its Sortof Bad and Sortof Good but also i still love dean and cas and have always and still do think castiel is Very Neat. i love him so much. he’s my buddy. i dressed like him for halloween once and i still have the trench coat. also jensen ackles’ fruity cas impression lives in my head rent free.

[touchstarvedsam]

Hey, so, I don’t really know what is going on with people and why they feel the need to dog pile on your (perfectly valid and spot on post about the shit show that was season 8) but I am truly bummed and sorry that this is still a problem more than 5 years later. If nothing else, you’re entitled to your interpretation of canon and did not really violate any so called facts in a fictional tv show. I support your right to call BS on spn’s double standards. Stay cool!

I really love you. :)

Since I’m in the middle of rewatching season 8 since like... 2015, it really has just set my mood, you know? They did that season so horribly. The only good we got out of it was Sam’s beautiful hair, their hug when they reunited, Sam being freaking badass, Dean being worried when he finds out Sam went through purgatory to get to Hell, and Dean’s entire speech to get Sam to stop the trials. As well as Jared’s fucking phenomenal acting during that whole scene.

Otherwise season 8 was a goddamn mess of out of character nonsense. I stand by my headcanons about Sam being too broken and messed up which I honestly believe was behind the scenes, you know? I feel like the writers have a thing against Sam, and didn’t want him to have another breakdown like in season 7, although Sam 100% did have a breakdown when Dean disappeared, even without it being mentioned in canon.

Sam’s breakdown ended in hitting Riot and being basically tricked into staying with Amelia. Sam was broken, and alone, and even though he knew of the existence of purgatory, that did not mean he had a leg to stand on when it came to figuring out a way in. He couldn’t talk to Crowley because Crowley was not on his side. I hate when people say “Sam could have done literally anything to try to get Dean back, he could have talked to Crowley, called an angel” etc because no, he couldn’t. He couldn’t trust Crowley, especially not having back up if he was betrayed, and Castiel betrayed Crowley anyway. He would have wanted nothing to do with helping Sam if it would benefit Castiel in the first place. And he sure as hell couldn’t trust any angels.

He had NO ONE.

But yeah, he totally just left Dean to rot. So selfish. For all he knew -- because he had no facts -- Dean could have been in Heaven. Sam never would have been selfish enough to try to pull his brother out of Heaven. I will be bitter about season 8 for the rest of my life, but I will also be bitter about people that treat Sam like shit. He lost Dean barely a couple weeks after he was hospitalized with hallucinations of being in Hell. Then losing Dean literally shattered the rest of him.

Yes, I agree the writers fucked up with that entire season, but I will stand by the idea that behind the scenes Sam did have a full psychotic break. Part of me is convinced that Amelia wasn’t even real, and she was just a fever dream that he had to cope with the fact that he was alone.

[amirosebooks]

Dean’s Old Yeller Principle

“He made me so mad at first that I wanted to kill him. Then, later, when I had to kill him, it was like having to shoot some of my own folks. That’s how much I’d come to think of the big yeller dog.”

— Fred Gipson, Old Yeller, Chapter 1 (Published in 1942)

When I was twelve or thirteen my English teacher passed out copies of Old Yeller as assigned reading. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the book, the quote above from the opening chapter tells you most everything you need to know for the context of this meta post. And for those of us who are still emotionally scarred from the damned book, I’m sorry for dredging up those memories.

Now, before I go any further, a disclaimer: Blah, blah, blah, this meta and interpretation of canon is my own. I’m not trying to “preach” to anyone about why Dean “is allowed” to be an asshole while he’s grieving or going through some shit. Or any other argument that consistently gets thrown back in the face of meta posts like this whenever Dean is being an emotional dick. You’re entitled to your interpretations, feelings and reactions, as am I. I’m merely offering this meta to 1) get it out of my mind 2) point and wave about the nods to this classic book that’s traumatized generations of American children 3) cheer Dean on for turning yet another teaching from the “older, wiser generation” John came from on its head.

Groovy? Okay, now we can move on.

I’m gonna throw the rest of this under the cut for length and to keep people who are sensitive to pets / animals dying in really sad ways from having their days ruined by talking more about the book unless they’re good with having that happen.

Now, as I said in my disclaimer bit, Old Yeller is largely considered classic literature here in the states. My memories of it are a weird mix of vague on the details and strong on the emotions it evoked. From what I remember, the main character was a young teenager when his family brought home Yeller. For whatever reason, our main character hated this dog. I don’t remember the details and they’re honestly not important to this meta. The hate he felt toward the dog is important. So is the fact that the hate slowly turned into love and devotion to the dog. Which made it even more gutting when, on a hunting trip (if I remember correctly) Yeller was bitten by a rabid animal and contracted rabies.

At the end of the novel, the Coates family are once again attacked by a wild animal, a wolf, and saved by Yeller’s bravery. Yeller is bit during the attack and becomes infected with rabies. Travis knows that despite his connection to Yeller and Yeller’s protection of his family, the dog must be killed before it becomes fully rabid and does any harm to him and his family. As the man of the house while his father is gone, Travis takes it upon himself to put Yeller out of his misery with his hunting rifle. Travis is heartbroken by what he has done, but knows that it was the right thing to do for his family. (From here.)

Sound familiar? Good. That’s what I thought too when we got the shot above in the graveyard in 14x20.

[Obviously, rabies, once there are symptoms like Yeller had, is incurrable, so putting him down was literally the only option. And we are talking here about Supernatural, which operates on soap opera rules so anything goes, but let’s just roll with the similarities for the sake of argument.]

I remember telling my husband while we were watching it “Dude, they’re really going to Old Yeller Jack, omg.” (I even made fanart of the moment.)

And then, something incredible happened.

Dean threw out the script yet again and set off season 15 with the dull thud of a gun being tossed into the grass.

Now, I hear you. “That’s great, Ami. Why should we care?”

Lemme tell you a thing, friend.

In order to tell you thing thing, I want to take a trip way back to season 4. Back when the brothers were still nose deep into John Winchester’s gospel of Monster = Evil = Kill The Thing.

(Screencaps are all from Home of the Nutty.)

4x21 - When the Levee Breaks

Sam: Stop bossing me around, Dean. Look. My whole life, you take the wheel, you call the shots, and I trust you because you are my brother. Now I’m asking you, for once, trust me.

Dean: No. You don’t know what you’re doing, Sam.

Sam: Yes, I do.

Dean: Then that’s worse.

Sam: Why? Look, I’m telling you-

Dean: Because it’s not something that you’re doing, it’s what you are! It means- Dean cuts himself off.

Sam: What? No. Say it. (Sam has tears in his eyes.)

Dean: It means you’re a monster. (Transcript from here.)

I remember the first time I watched the show and I got to this episode. That fucking line was such a gut punching moment. And it was such an effective and emotional moment that Ruby was able to extend it later to further manipulate Sam.

Now, the screencap I grabbed for this moment is of Dean in tears (well, that single man tear he’s known for) after labelling Sam a monster for a reason. I want to remind all of us of just how much it killed Dean to have to use that label for Sam. To have to try to rationalize that the boy he raised, his brother, the guy who has been there forever and has always been Dean’s charge to take care of is now the thing that Dean is going to have to put down because he falls under the label of monster.

You know what, let’s go back a little farther, to the first episode of season 2. To this moment:

Remember this look? The one we later learned was thanks to John telling Dean that Dean was going to need to put Sam down? That Sam was going to become a monster? Yeah, ouch.

I added the year Old Yeller was published (1942) to the quote at the top of this meta to help give some context about the time it was written and the world it was released into. I’d also like to make note that in 1957 (or about a year before Henry Winchester jumped forward in time to meet the brothers in season 8 and give them keys to the bunker and had to choose to abandon John when John was still a fairly young boy) Disney released a movie version of the book. It’s absolutely, if the movie exists in the SPN world, the kind of thing young John would have watched and taken some kind of black and white moral guidance from.

It’s the kind of book/movie that John would have probably (note, this is where we start diving into my own headcanons for a moment) made sure the boys were aware of when he started thinking about bringing them on hunts to keep them from freezing because the “person” on the other end of their shotgun is someone’s mom. I could see it being the kind of thing he’d use as a way to show them both that, yes, shit is hard but you have to do the right thing and sometimes that means killing the thing you love. At least, I could picture him thinking that way. (Also, this still makes me wonder about exactly how early John started suspecting there was something different about Sam, but that’s a whoooole other post.)

Moving on and forward to season 6.

6x20 - The Man Who Would Be King

Castiel: The angel-proofing Bobby put up on the house – he got a few things wrong.

Dean: Well, it’s too bad we got to angel-proof in the first place, isn’t it? Why are you here?

Castiel: I want you to understand.

Dean: Oh, believe me, I get it. Blah, blah, Raphael, right?

Castiel: I’m doing this for you, Dean. I’m doing this because of you.

Dean: Because of me. Yeah. You got to be kidding me.

Castiel: You’re the one who taught me that freedom and free will –

Dean: You’re a freakin’ child, you know that? Just because you can do what you want doesn’t mean that you get to do whatever you want!

Castiel: I know what I’m doing, Dean.

Dean: I’m not gonna logic you, okay? I’m saying don’t… Just ‘cause. I’m asking you not to. That’s it.

Castiel: I don’t understand.

Dean: Look, next to Sam, you and Bobby are the closest things I have to family – that you are like a brother to me. So, if I’m asking you not to do something… You got to trust me, man.

Castiel: Or what?

Dean: Or I’ll have to do what I have to do to stop you.

Castiel: You can’t, Dean. You’re just a man. I’m an angel.

Dean: I don’t know. I’ve taken some pretty big fish. (Transcript from here.)

This was after two seasons of Cas fighting by their side. Two seasons of Cas giving heaven the middle finger on behalf of the Winchesters. It was enough time for Dean’s first reaction in a time of confusion on a hunt was to call Cas for help. And it was enough time for Dean to go from assuming Cas was a demon summoned with “bad mojo” to drag him out of hell on behalf of Sam to genuinely starting to care about Cas.

Dean did threaten to take Cas out here if he persisted down the path he was on, but you can tell by the rest of the conversation and just how hard it was to convince Dean that Cas was lying to them that Dean was hoping talking would work and he wouldn’t be forced to put Cas down.

Unfortunately…

6x22 - The Man Who Knew Too Much

Castiel: You doubted me, fought against me, but I was right all along.

Dean: Okay, Cas, you were. We’re sorry. Now let’s just defuse you, okay?

Castiel: What do you mean?

Dean: You’re full of nuke. It’s not safe. So, before the eclipse ends, let’s get them souls back to where they belong.

Castiel: Oh no, they belong with me.

Dean: No, Cas, it’s it-it’s scrambling your brain.

Castiel: No, I’m not finished yet. Raphael had many followers, and I must punish them all severely.

Dean: Listen to me. Listen, I know there’s a lot of bad water under the bridge, but we were family once. I’d have died for you. I almost did a few times. So if that means anything to you… Please. I’ve lost Lisa, I’ve lost Ben, and now I’ve lost Sam. Don’t make me lose you too. You don’t need this kind of juice anymore, Cas. Get rid of it before it kills us all.

Castiel: You’re just saying that because I won. Because you’re afraid. (Behind him, Sam picks up the angel killing sword.) You’re not my family, Dean. I have no family. (Sam stabs Castiel in the back with the angel killing sword. Sam groans. Nothing happens. Castiel pulls the sword out. There’s no blood on it. He puts it down.) I’m glad you made it, Sam. But the angel blade won’t work, because I’m not an angel anymore. I’m your new God. A better one. So you will bow down and profess your love unto me, your Lord. Or I shall destroy you. (Transcript from here.)

Again, Dean tried to argue with the overpowered angel, he tried bargaining, pleading, and appealing to Cas’s fondness for them, but it didn’t work. Sam was the one who was forced to try stabbing Cas and it… also didn’t work.

7x01 - Meet the New Boss

Sam: Dean, look, I know you think that Cas is gone –

Dean: It’s 'cause he is.

Sam: He’s not! He’s in there somewhere, Dean. I know it.

Dean: No, you don’t.

Sam: No, I don’t. But, look, I was pretty far gone sometimes myself, and never gave up on me.

Dean: Yeah, and it turns out that you’re about the Same open book as you’ve always been. Hallucinations? Really? I got to find out from Death?

Sam: What was I supposed to do?

Dean: How about not lie? How about tell me that you’ve got crazy crap climbing those walls?

Sam: Why? You can’t help. You got a lot of pretty severe crap swinging your way lately, and – and I thought –what? I thought why burst the one good bubble you had left? It’s under control.

Dean: What? What, exactly, is under control?

Sam: I know what’s real and what’s not.

Dean: Sam –

Sam: Dean, look, we can debate this once we deal with Cas.

Dean: Yeah, you know how I’m gonna deal? I’m gonna stuff my piehole, I’m gonna drink, and I’m gonna watch some Asian cartoon p**n and act like the world’s about to explode because it is. Hey. You got to be kidding me. “Massacre at the campaign office of an incumbent Senator by a trench-coated man.” There’s security footage. Well, I think reaching Cas is, uh… out of the cards. (Transcript from here. And hopefully my slight censoring the last paragraph keeps tumblr from blacklisting this post into the aether…)

Here’s a sad thought for you, how often do you think–while Cas was terrorizing the country as Godstiel and, later, after he walked into the lake and exploded into Leviathan goo–Dean thought about how he should have listened to Bobby and Sam and taken Cas out before he had the chance to swallow the Leviathans and become super powered? Probably a lot, I’d guess.

This moment, as much as I, personally, hate seasons 6 and 7, went pretty damn far to reinforce this Old Yeller principle in Dean’s moral code.

He had to sit back and watch, literally, while someone he cared about went out of their goddamn mind with power while killing and terrorizing people. He had to do that knowing that there was a moment when he could have done something to prevent it. He could have killed Cas when he had him locked up in the ring of holy fire and they were having one of their many breakup moments.

Dean felt like he could have stopped all of this, but he’d been weak and tried talking it out first instead. And you can’t convince me that he didn’t check the news and every drop of blood Godstiel brought about to the blood on his own hands because of that choice to give Cas a chance to see reason.

10x09 - The Things We Left Behind

CASTIEL: How are you, Dean?

DEAN: Fine. [Cas gives him a look.] I’m great!

CASTIEL: No, you’re not.

DEAN: Yeah, well, I lost the black eyes, so that’s a plus. But I still have this. [Dean reaches over and gently slaps the Mark on his arm.]

CASTIEL: Is the Mark of Cain still affecting you?

[Dean flashes back to his dream from earlier, of the blood covering him, the dead bodies lying around him.]

CASTIEL: Dean?

[Dean blinks hard, coming back to the present.]

DEAN: Cas, I need you to promise me something.

CASTIEL: Of course.

DEAN: If I do go dark side, you got to take me out.

CASTIEL: What do you mean?

DEAN: Knife me. Smite me. Throw me into the freakin’ sun, whatever. And don’t let Sam get in the way, because he’ll try. I can’t go down that road again, man. I can’t be that thing again.

(Transcript from here.)

I may hate seasons 6 and 7, but holy damn do I love season 10. I know it’s not a favorite among many people in the fandom, but it’s one of mine.

This moment, this burger date of sadness and pain, is a big favorite for me. Dean sees the writing on the wall. He’s been a Knight of Hell now. He’s been as darkside as he can get. He’s, likely, being reminded daily of his time in Hell in the last ten years of his stay there where he was torturing souls. And he’s begging Cas to keep him from returning to that place. He’s begging Cas to adopt the Old Yeller principle because he sees it as the only option left if the mark consumed him again. And that kills me.

Let’s take another jump forward to season 13, where Dabb & Co really started putting Dean’s Old Yeller principle into text in a heavy, purposeful way.

13x02 - The Rising Son

SAM Dean, wait a second. (Sighs) The kid came through for us today. Jack saved us.

DEAN No. No, whatever that was, that was a reflex. It was a sneeze. Maybe next time he sneezes, he kills us. Good night.

[DEAN hears a clacking sound coming from a distance. He follows the noise to JACK’s room.] JACK Ah!

[DEAN finds JACK trying to stab himself with a blade. The wounds immediately heal.]

DEAN Okay. What the hell?  (he gets in the room) Give me that. You—Don’t be an idiot. Look, A, this is not gonna do anything to you, okay? And B, you… What the hell?

JACK Exactly. What the hell am I? I can’t control… whatever this is. I will hurt someone.

DEAN You know, my brother thinks you can be saved.

JACK You don’t believe that.

DEAN No, I don’t.

JACK So… if you’re right?

DEAN If I’m right… and it comes to killing you… I’ll be the one to do it.

[DEAN leaves.]

(Transcript from here.)

Can I just bask in the glory of the grieving widow!Dean arc from the beginning of 13 for a moment? I’d also like to take a moment to 🙌 Jack for being a wonderful Team Free Will mirror (and mimic) from the word go.

Ahhh…

Okay, moving on.

I loved this bit in 13x02 so much. Partially because it’s such a heavy handed foreshadow to 14x20, but also because it shows so clearly how good Jack is at reading the emotions in the room. He’s, like, three days old at that point, but he’s already having an existential crisis about whether or not he’s evil. He already understands (yes, thanks to jackass grieving widow!Dean…) the whole Monster = Evil = Kill The Thing.

He also shows that he understands the Old Yeller principle. And, for better or worse, he and Dean reach an unspoken agreement here about it. (Again, this is my reading. Your mileage may vary.)

13x04 - The Big Empty

JACK I’m afraid.

MIA/KELLY Why? Why are you afraid?

JACK Sam thinks you were right, that—that I’m good. He wants me to believe it, and I wanna believe it, too. It’s just, I… I’ve hurt people. I didn’t mean to. It was an accident. And I know I should feel bad, and I say I feel bad, but most of the time, I mostly… I don’t feel anything. And that’s why I think maybe… Maybe I’m a monster.

MIA/KELLY Jack. It doesn’t matter what you are. It matters what you do. And even monsters can do good in this world.

JACK You really believe that?

MIA/KELLY I have to. I have to.

[MIA hugs JACK again.]

(Trancript from here.)

Killing me would be kinder than subjecting me to these feelings so soon after being introduced to this fucking character. Omg. Poor Jack.

Now, yes, a huuuuge part of Jack’s opinion of monsters and the whole “What do we do with monsters children? That’s RIGHT, we kill them.” thing is because Dean is an asshole when he’s emotional and grieving and deep into survival mode.

But, that doesn’t change the fact that Jack is still worried about the fact that he doesn’t feel things the way that everyone else seems to. That he has powers no one, including him, can understand. And that he’s killed people without meaning to. He’s afraid of himself just like Dean was afraid of what he was capable of if the mark took him over again.

13x23 - Let The Good Times Roll

(Sam continues down the hallway while Dean turns to another hallway and approaches his bedroom door. He stops as if to listen to something and then continues down the hall, away from his bedroom door. He enters Jack’s room, where Jack is sleeping and talking in his sleep)

JACK Stop! No!

DEAN Jack? (Dean touches Jack’s shoulder to wake him) Hey. (Jack jumps up, anxious and disoriented. Dean holds out his hand towards Jack to calm him) Hey, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Easy. You’re just having a bad dream.

JACK (breathing heavily) Sorry.

DEAN It’s okay. You don’t have to apologize. I have 'em, too. All the time.

JACK You do?

DEAN Sure.

JACK You, um… What do you see?

DEAN Well, depends. Mostly…mostly people I couldn’t save.

JACK Me, too. Over there in the other world, I said I’d protect those people. But…I saw so many of them die. And…I tried to save them. I…I tried, but… I’m sorry. I wasn’t strong enough.

DEAN Jack… (Dean sits on the edge of Jack’s bed) it’s not about being strong. I mean… Look, I don’t know what you saw over there, and I don’t know what you went through. I know it was bad. But I also know that you came out the other side because you are strong. But even when we’re strong, man, things are gonna happen. We’re gonna make mistakes. Nobody’s perfect. Right? But we can get better. Every day, we can get better. So whatever you’re dealing with, you know, whatever…whatever comes at us, we’ll figure out a way to deal with it, together. You’re family, kid, and we look after our own.

(Transcript from here.)

It’s not about being strong. IT’S NOT ABOUT BEING STRONG.

This is where we veer away from Old Yeller a tiny bit because, again, in the book Yeller had rabies which they could do nothing about.

The moments I’ve highlighted in this post all come back to one motivation. The overpowered person/angel/asshole in question was trying to gain enough strength through supernatural (lol) means in order to have the power to destroy a (perceived) bigger threat than whatever the cost was to get that power.

Sam’s demon blood drinking was supposed to give him the power to destroy Lucifer and get revenge for Mary and John and their lost childhood. It went badly and earned Sam the label of monster and falling, at least temporarily, into the territory of the Old Yeller principle.

Cas started lying to the brothers and working with Crowley so they could gain the power to stop heaven from starting yet another apaocalypse. Cas wanted to keep the Winchesters (Dean) safe from being destroyed in a holy war after being forced to fight his brother to the death. Again, this did not go well and lead to Cas succumbing to the Leviathans’s power and dying front of Dean after losing the Winchester’s trust.

Dean took on the Mark of Cain to defeat Abaddon, the evil that made John grow up without a father. It left him torn between going on a, essentially, soulless killing spree or becoming a Knight of Hell… again.

Hell, even the way Jack came into the world was fraught with Sam lying to Dean about working with the BMoL to have the power and strength to defeat Lucifer/the nephilim. Not to mention the months of lying Cas did after he decided that Jack’s power and strength was the only way they could destroy Lucifer once and for all. Again, this ended with Cas dying in front of Dean and the BMoL trying to exterminate everyone including the American hunters.

That’s the lesson Dean is trying to instill (hypocritically, let’s be honest) to Jack here. Strength and power come at a terrible cost and if you can solve a problem without resorting to that level of fuckery that things will be better.

And, also, that if things do go bad, that Jack is family and “we look after our own.” To Dean, this is where the Old Yeller principle kicks in. It is, in a rather fucked up but well earned way, the best option he knows for making sure another one of his loved ones doesn’t fall under that monster label. That none of them end up with more blood on their hands or bringing about the end of the world, again, because of their soap opera problems.

13x23 - Let The Good Times Roll

JACK I’m sorry.

(Jack walks towards the exit and Castiel goes to follow him)

CASTIEL Jack!

(Dean grabs Castiel’s arm)

DEAN No, hey, just – just let him go.

(Jack is walking through the woods, banging a closed fist into his hand and punching his shoulder)

JACK You keep hurting people! You keep… (Jack flashes back to all the people he has hurt with his powers – Nate, Sam, Dean, the female police officer) hurting… (flash to the male sheriff) (yelling) Why do you keep hurting people?!

(Transcript from here.)

This lesson, the lesson of power and strength not being the best answer because of the cost it comes with is not an easy one to learn. Especially when you were born as a superpowered, emotional Winchester by adoption. Life is scary when that’s the hand you’ve been dealt and using the power you have is an appealing balm to combat that fear.

13x23 - Let The Good Times Roll

JACK (moving towards Lucifer, eyes glowing and hand outstretched)Tell me the truth!

(Lucifer’s eyes start to glow, his head tilts to the side and he starts speaking)

LUCIFER She saw me when I was scouting out the bunker. She saw me and she screamed, and then…so I crushed her skull with my bare hands. And it was warm and wet, and I liked it.

(Lucifer’s eyes return to normal and he looks confused)

JACK You’re not my father. You’re a monster.

LUCIFER (yelling) Come on, man! (Lucifer bellows so forcibly that Sam and Dean cover their ears, his eyes glowing red) Okay. I tried with you. I really tried with you.

JACK Everything you told me was a lie.

LUCIFER Because I told you what you wanted to hear, man. So what?! I killed the girl! Big deal! She’s a – she’s a human! She doesn’t matter!

JACK So am I!

LUCIFER Yeah? And that’s your problem. (pointing at Jack) You’re too much like your mother.

(Transcript from here.)

To me, this moment reads as Jack embracing that black and white Winchester thinking. He has yet (even now that’s he’s currently dead in season 15) to grasp the concept of people being morally gray. He sees himself as either embracing the monster side of himself from his bio dad or rejecting that side of himself to embrace Kelly’s human side. The side that can’t hurt people on accident. The side that makes him more like the Winchesters. Because he doesn’t want to fall under than monster label. He doesn’t want to fall under that Old Yeller principle. He doesn’t want to hurt so many people that he will have to die because neither he or anyone else can control him.

Yes, this moment is FAR more complicated than just that, but it’s definitely part of it.

14x10 - Nihilism

DEAN Sam said that one of your reapers really came through with the assist. I’m thinking that was probably you.

BILLIE Don’t tell anyone.

DEAN You broke the rules.

BILLIE I took a calculated risk. I warned you about the dangers of jumping from world to world. But you ignored me, didn’t you?

DEAN Rescuing Mom and Jack, helping out those other folks – I’d say it was worth it.

BILLIE And just look at you now. Do you remember visiting my reading room? The shelves and shelves of notebooks describing the ways you might die?

DEAN Yeah. Upbeat classics.

BILLIE Well, it’s the funniest thing, but they’ve all been rewritten. They all end the same way now – with the archangel Michael escaping your mind and using you as his vessel to burn down this world.

DEAN All of them?

BILLIE All of them. Except one.

(Billie hands Dean a book. He opens it and then looks at her, stunned)

DEAN What am I supposed to do with this?

BILLIE That’s up to you.

(Dean looks at the book again and when he looks up, Billie is gone. He looks back at the book and then looks around, a mixture of fear and confusion on his face)

(Transcript from here.)

Remember what I said about Dean being well aware of the price that has to be paid in exchange for the power and strength to defeat supposedly unbeatable enemies?

Yeah… Dean “knows” that the time has come for him to call his own bluff. The one from all the way back in 10x09 (not that he was bluffing then, but he didn’t have to take action on it then) when he asked Cas to take him out. “Knife me. Smite me. Throw me into the freakin’ sun, whatever.”

We didn’t know that was what this moment was until the next episode. But this is the moment when the Old Yeller principle went into effect again. And you can see how much it hurts Dean, how resigned and heartbroken he is over it.

14x11 - Damaged Goods

DEAN It’s a Ma’lak box. [DEAN closes the door to the box. He and SAM are standing over it.] Secured and warded. Once inside… nothing gets out, not even an archangel. Especially an archangel.

SAM Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’ve – I’ve read about these, but – but no one’s ever – they’re impossible to build.

DEAN Yeah, well, not so much.

SAM That’s your plan? You want to be buried alive?

DEAN Buried’s not safe enough. Plan is, pay a little hush money, charter a boat to take me out to the Pacific. Splash.

SAM You and Michael, trapped together – for eternity?

DEAN Yeah.

SAM You do realize how insane this is, right?

DEAN It’s the only sane play I’ve got. Michael gets out, that’s it for this world. And he will get out.

SAM Well, how do you know that for sure?

DEAN Because I do. Because I can feel him in my head. That door is giving. I can feel it giving.

SAM But there has to be another way.

DEAN There’s not, okay? There – Sam you’ve tried. Cas has tried. Jack… And I love you for trying. But none of it’s gonna work.

SAM We don’t know that.

DEAN Yeah, we do.

SAM What?

DEAN Billie.

SAM Billie?

DEAN She paid me a little visit. She said that there’s only one way this ends right. And this is it. This, right here, this box. So, she gave up the special recipe, and all I had to do was the work. It’s fate.

SAM Since when do we believe in fate?

DEAN Now, Sam. Since now.

(Transcript from here.)

Here is the moment. The one where Dean was at his absolute lowest. When he hit that point where resignation about his fate met having to act on his principles. 

14x12 - Prophet and Loss

DEAN Well, I will call this a win. Kinda nice. Going out on a high. SAM “Going out” being the operative phrase. DEAN Sorry. SAM “Sorry.” How sorry are you? Sorry that you fight to keep Donatello alive, but when it comes to you, you just throw in the towel? Or are you sorry that, after all these years, our entire lives, a-after I’ve looked up to you, after I’ve learned from you, I-I-I’ve copied you, I followed you to Hell and back… are you sorry that all of that it – it – it means nothing now? DEAN Who’s saying that? SAM You are, when you tell me I have to kill you. When you’re telling me that I have to just throw away everything we stand for, throw away faith, throw away family. We’re the guys who saved the world. We don’t just check out of it! [SAM pushes DEAN.] DEAN Sam, I have tried everything. Everything! I got one card left to play and I have to play it. SAM You have one card today! But we’ll find another tomorrow. But if you quit on us today, there will be no tomorrow! You tell me, uh, you don’t know what else to do. I don’t either, Dean. Not yet. But what you’re doing now, i-it’s – it’s wrong! It’s quitting! I mean, l-look what just happened. Donatello never quit fighting. So we could help him because he never gave up. [SAM moves closer to DEAN.] I believe in us, Dean. [DEAN doesn’t say anything. SAM gets angry and punches DEAN in the face.] I believe in us. [SAM tries to punch DEAN again, but he stops him.] DEAN Hey, hey, hey, hey! [SAM hugs DEAN.] SAM Why don’t you believe in us, too? DEAN Okay, Sam. Let’s go home. SAM What? [SAM pulls away from the hug.] DEAN Let’s go home. Maybe Billie’s wrong. Maybe. But I do believe in us.

(Transcript from here.)

And just like Dean predicted in 10x09, Sam was able to talk him out of sacrificing himself. How was he able to do that? By reminding Dean that they were the fucking Winchesters. They fucked with the cosmic balance constantly and always, always found another way. A way to avoid the Old Yeller principle. A way to live and fight again.

Which, they totally did, but the price of not throwing Dean into the ocean for an eternity of alone time with alt!Michael banging away in his head was their adopted child.

14x20 - Moriah

JACK: You’re not gonna lock me up again, are you?

DEAN: No.

(Dean raises the gun, aims at Jack and exhales deeply. Jack kneels down and bows his head. Dean, looking puzzled, lowers the gun and walks closer towards Jack. When he’s right in front of Jack, he aims the gun directly at his head. At this moment Sam comes speeding into the cemetery, car tires screeching. He gets out of the car and starts running towards Dean and Jack)

SAM: Dean? Dean!

JACK: (to Dean) I understand.

(Sam is still running, yelling for Dean. The music is getting more suspenseful as Dean holds his aim steady at Jack)

SAM: Dean, don’t! Dean? Dean!

JACK: I know what I’ve done.

SAM: No, no, no, no, no, no, no, Dean! Hey, hey, hey! Dean!

DEAN: Stay back, Sam!

SAM: (Panting)

JACK: And you were right all along. (Chuck comes up alongside Sam) I am a monster.

SAM: (to Chuck) Do something. … You’re enjoying this.

CHUCK: Shh.

(Dramatic music plays)

(Dean cocks the gun. He looks Jack in the eye for several seconds and then slowly lowers the gun. At this point, Castiel also comes running towards the area)

(Dean uncocks the gun and tosses it to the side)

(Transcript from here.)

I have yet to rewatch this episode, but from what I remember I don’t think it had completely sunk in to Dean in that moment of choice that Chuck was there revealing that he was invested in the outcome of this showdown between Dean and Jack. In that moment, that split second of choice between following through with what he’d believed for so long for following through with an extension of the order John gave him about Sam back in the hospital back in 2x01, Dean made a choice for himself. And that choice was to believe that they’d find another way. He decided that when it came right down to it, he couldn’t kill his child for making the same bargain for power and strength that he himself had made multiple times over the last 14 seasons.

He was also directly confronted with a similar situation to that from the end of season 6 and beginning of 7 with Cas and the Leviathans, in that when it really came down to it, he wasn’t capable of murdering someone he considered family.

And then Chuck had to go and erase any chance they had in following up on that. He killed Jack so that they didn’t have a chance to find a way to help Jack balance the power he’d absorbed from destroying Michael or living without his soul.

So yeah, from where we sit now with only one episode of season 15 under our belts waiting with baited breath to see where the rest of this end of the road season takes us, it makes sense that Dean, of all people, would be in the middle of an emotional fucking collapse. And that he would be a huge, whiny, pissbaby douchebag about it because that’s the Dean Winchester way.

Does that make his behavior okay? No, of course not. But does that turn any of the rest of them into saints? Nope, of course not. And I, personally, wouldn’t have it any other way. I like that they’re flawed and fucked up and keep getting back up and going back to each other and keep trying. That’s why we’ve had 15 goddamn seasons of this. Because it’s what they do.

[why-this-kolaveri-machi]

spn 15.01

SPOILERS ahead

1. sam’s hair looks especially floofy and nice this season! very season-one-y.

2. a brief google search reveals that belphegor, much like abaddon and asmodeus, is one of the princes of hell. his quippy dialogue is more miss than hit--mostly because it makes him sound like almost every demon that spn has featured over the last fourteen years--but given that he apparently tempts people by offering them shortcuts and generally encouraging them to be lazy? it might actually be an interesting choice to have him quip and spout pop culture references left and right. it’s ~meta, you see.

2.5. ... well, that was an anti-climactic end to the zombie apocalypse that was set up at the end of last season.

3. the callback to bloody mary looks weird because it doesn’t work at all without the... aesthetics of s1, if you know what i mean? when most of the horror these days on spn is more insidious and derives from the cosmic machinations that surround the winchesters, bloody mary looks... tacky, and painted on. 

3.5. how did they get ‘woman in white’ from crashed, bloody car with no body in immediate sight???

4. i’m reminded of 8.22, where crowley steadily killed the people samndean had saved from the early seasons in order to force them to meet him on his terms: it functioned well as a neat bit of nostalgia as well as something with real emotional, personal stakes for the winchesters. the ‘saving people’ bit is all that they have to justify both the crap that they have done and gone through. but these call-backs so far... are far more transparent calls to nostalgia, a neat season-by-season retrospective where the audience can clap their thigh and go, ‘oh shit is that the killer clown from s2′s everybody loves a clown??’

4.5. BUT. this is also chuck upending the table and throwing all the pieces on the ground, half-tempting and half-taunting samndean with reminders of how and why they started doing what they did. it’s fanservice, but acknowledging it as fanservice is crucial to the plot of this season. AGH.

5. belphegor is aggressively boring.

i wonder if spn-verse views religion like... a steady progression towards the Truth. like there’s a straight line from ‘primitive’ to... here, where congratulations, you’ve figured god and heaven and hell out, and hey, you got to meet his sister too! in 5.19, a bunch of gods from different ‘dead’ religions got together to try and stop the apocalypse (and were handily defeated by lucifer). but these gods also included hindu deities like ganesha and kali, and i can assure you that hinduism is far, far from being a ‘dead’ religion. but maybe that’s just how it is in spn-verse, where there is an objective God, and an objective way that the universe works. religious myths and deities aren’t abstractions that a critical mass of people decided to believe in, or explanations for how the universe works that’s rooted in their land, their culture, their very blood; these things Exist, and they do so in a hierarchy, and now the winchesters have fought, stabbed and shot their way to the very top.

chuck couldn’t be bothered to write in any kind of nuance for this universe; he’s too pre-occupied with the winchester family drama. eh. makes sense.

6. dean gets to call jack “[their] kid”. oh okay. coolcoolcoolcool. so we aren’t going to address the fact that he wanted to murder jack dead last season because he believed that jack was completely past the point of redemption? we aren’t going to have castiel--the only one of them who wanted to protect jack and give him a chance--say this? coooool, ok, ~~no worries

7. i appreciate all of the cool possibilities arising out of sam’s god-wound: the visions, the fact that he has this connection to their ultimate Big Bad and could (eventually) use it to his advantage. but honestly? i’m exhausted man. i’m exhausted by the idea of something Happening to sam’s personhood without his consent for the eightieth time, and--given castiel’s vision--by the inevitable ‘what’s wrong with sam??’ song-and-dance that’s going to follow. 

8. it’s kinda hilarious and also genius to have all these ghosts creeping about in the middle of the day and in the middle of a neat suburb? and the ghosts running after them, all in a row? LMAO

8.5. the little girl said thank you to sam! and his awkward little nod in response!! ALL YOUR SINS ARE FORGIVEN, SHOW

9. oh fuck did they really end with that shot from the pilot??? i thought that was just something intrepid gif editors came up with! 

... given the endorphin boost that that just gave me, i’m clearly not immune to Show’s repeated appeals to nostalgia.

10. so... that’s that. kind of dull for a premiere, leave alone the Very Last One. barely skimmed over the most exciting things that 14.20 set up. still: cautiously excited for the rest of the season.

[mrsmess]

Faves and fails of SPN (season 11)

Favorite episodes in chronological order:

11:1 Out of the darkness into the fire - And Crowley out of the fire into the orgy. And poor Cass. Sam asking the relevant questions, making the relevant comments. ”We have to change”. Let’s just see how much follow through comes from it. ”Do what you do, but you have to let me do what i do too.” Mr Mess’s reaction to the Darkness being a girl ”Well, at least she’ll be Dead in like two episodes.” Lol. Also; naming the big bad The Darkness

Deputy Jenna: [about the baby] ”I have no idea what I’m doing.”

Me [in Dean-voice] ”We don’t either and our baby is the world!”

Mr Mess: ”Saving the world, one poopy diaper at a time!”

11:4 Baby - About a car. Wow. This is awesome! Technically this stopped being a rewatch two episodes back so I am ecstatic to get to see this gem of an episode for the first time! Gives me hope for the remaining seasons. Seriously though: dreamy roadtrip two brothers in a car should be an obligatory episode format at least once each season. This makes my overall top list of episodes all seasons.

11:5 Thin Lizzie - Ghostfacers-references! ”Your weird serial killed-fetish” and Cass bingeing The Wire. Lol! Wow, is this the Cheshirecat Inn? The boys are fun this episode. I have to remember that most of my issues w Supernatural is surrounding the intro- and outroepisodes and that the best stuff is always in the gooey middle of the seasons. Interesting thoughts on how differently soullessness affects people.

11:7 Plush - Oh yes! Oh yes! Yes, officer? A plush bunny killed my worthless husband. Here for it. Sam can’t look at the clown! I’m dying. Oh! Full on clown-time! And Donna! I’m so happy! The story’s sad too.

11:8 Just my imagination - Sparkles! Nooooo! Brilliant concept! Sam has an imaginary friend <3 The boys dressing up as Mr Rogers. My heart. Dean trying to name creatures: a manicorn, werepire. :D The Totoro-reference. The conclusion is kinda lame and unearned, but I love the episode anyway. ”Okay. Not happening. Good talk.”

11:10 The devil in the details - Lucifer bringing it. Making very good points. Ambriel is cute, and the Darkness wearing literal Darkness - neat . But the whole thing about the brothers, Cass, being vulnerable to negging and plan manipulation centered around their relationship and importance is kinda... old? Would they even listen to trash talk at this point? The reference to Lucifer, the comic.

11:11 Into the mystic - good song, freaky banshee. And hey, Supernatural, I was gonna scold you for going all ick at age differences under the circumstances, but then: The brothers talking about the golden girls. Lol. Eileen, and Mildred - yay! Kudos to the show’s contingency having Sam apologize for the first half of season 8. Less kudos for blaming a fictional character for real life bad writing. #notforgivennotforgotten.

11:12 Don’t you forget about me - YES. Just yes. Ramdeen and Newton are both great and I love ’em. I love Dean and Sam at the dinner table.

11:14 The vessel - time for a retro nazi adventure! I love it, obviously.

11:16 Safe house - I love monster of the week stuff! But it’s rly getting hilarious, the brothers having the exact same discussion everytime they work a case inrelated to the season’s big bad. Especially since I need zero explanation. Got all the rationale built in right here *taps head*. Bobby! Oh god! And Rufus! This episode needs no more. ”Not it!” And a losing game of rock-paper-scissors. Lol. ”How messed up is our lives that you seeing a vision of me dead, is actually kind of comforting?” True.

11:17 Red meat - Yeah I get it, this is a good episode- tight and terrifying, and Sam is one badass motherfucker, but Dean! Going straight for the dealmaking w/o even making sure Sam’s dead. That is hilarious. ”He was just mostly dead.” Dying!

11:19 The chitters - I like this, mostly because I have no idea what’s going on. Partly because of the reference to It. Because of the gay hunters. The brothers being funny w each other. Monsters in the woods, my kinda shit.

Fail episodes in chronological order:

11:21 All in the family - Hey, god? You should probably be careful who you call a disappointment. Also, I’m laughing at how mismatched Dean and Amara are, and she’s so confused by his hesitation, it’s hilarious.

11:20 Don’t call me Shurley - Meta. Please tell me Chuck isn’t actually god. Fine. Chuck is god. God is Chuck. Guess that explains him being so useless. Goodness! When did Metatron become one of the good guys?

Honorable mentions:

The witch in Love hurts - I like her.

Oh brother where art thou is mostly main plotline. Yawn. Bring back Sully! But Lucifer appearing in the cage - *chills* And Rowena having her fangirl moments is pretty funny.

Lucifer and Crowley measuring up, power, sass- and it’s awesome!

Teenage!Lucifer is a it of fun. The brothers co-counselling God and Lucifer, lovely.

Things that makes you go hmm:

The fact that Lucifer needs consent from other angels to possess them, I would’ve thought it a bit more interesting if he didn’t. It would make an interesting point about free will and the lack of it, and it would spare Cass from looking stupid.

Didn’t Sam kill the Darkness sickness with fire in like the first episode? Why doesn’t he do that in Don’t call me Shurley?

Summing up:

Darnit I am enjoying this season. It’s frickin comforting. But the finale is a bit of a let down, and I’m never anything but annoyed with Amara. But then again, kudos for having a finale w some kind of peaceful sollution .

[almaasi]

reaction post typed while watching SPN 14x20 “Moriah”

I CAN’T BELIEVE THERE WAS A TRUTH SPELL AND DEAN AND CAS DIDN’T GET TO TALK >:0

04:55pm

i just want this to end happily

i doubt it will but that’s all i ever want

specifically i want dean and cas to make up before the season ends

-

04:5

SOMEHOW I COMPLETELY FORGOT ABOUT CARRY ON WAYWARD SON

 THE FEELS GOT ME WITHOUT WARNING

-

05:04

sam in the middle of their sexual tension again

EXCEPT THIS TIME IT’S NOT FUNNY AT ALL :C

-

05:05

there’s literally bits of the room of fire. they should probably put that put before everything burns

-

05:07

jack overhears “it’s not you, it’s me” between (presumably) a gay couple

i think he’s walking around listening to people lying

-

05:08

i wrote a fic once where kid!cas is infuriated by people lying all the time

guess jack ain’t so different

-

05:09

i love the puff of a bus braking(?) as it drives past

such a beautiful summer mood

like trains honking in the distance

also finding the disparity in the weather from this ep and the last few very amusing, it kind of seems like it was snowing a few days ago and now it’s early summer

-

05:11

dean: “nerds”

sam: “takes one to know one”

YEP

-

did i expect sam to take dean and GO OFF about how geeky dean is

NOPE

HELL FUCKING YEAH TELL HIM HOW MUCH OF A HYPOCRITE HE IS AND MAKE IT OBVIOUS WHAT HE SAYS =/= WHAT HE WANTS

such a tonal shift but i’m 100% into it

-

05:14

dean: “aw i got this”

camera follows dean as he walks up to a desk, smirking flirtatiously, but we don’t see the person he’s about to flirt with

WHY DO I FEEL LIKE HE’S ABOUT TO FLIRT WITH A DUDE

I SWEAR IF HE’S NOT ABOUT TO FLIRT WITH A DUDE--

okay never mind it’s a lady

now waiting for the scene where he does he exact same thing with a dude

edit: never mind i misread the intention of the lead-up. it was about the fact he can’t lie when he gets there, not the person he was talking to

-

dean: “this badge is fake”

OH MY GOD HE CAN’T LIE

OH MY GOD

OH MY GOD THIS IS FANFIC

PUT DEAN AND CAS IN A ROOM TOGETHER, STAT

i’m so freaking excited for the rest of this

-

05:19

celene dion

yeah i 100% see that for sam

BUT THE FACT DEAN KNOWS THAT IT’S NOT ELVIS BUT NEVER PRESSURED HIM TO TELL THE TRUTH BEFORE

WOW

-

05:21

laughing so hard at the political stuff on the tv

“deep ties to russia” i guess that one’s still canon in irl, even without direct collusion

-

05:22

guy on tv: “i love you, i’ve always loved you”

cut to dean

okay i need to unpack this

> apparently people are not only truthing instead of lying, but are also compelled to say truths in inappropriate circumstances

> dean’s like oh shit what if i tell cas

> CUT TO DEAN AND NOT SAM BECAUSE DEAN’S THE ONE IN LOVE

> he looks kinda into it tbh

i swear to god i want nothing more than for this episode to have dean express his love to cas ;~; please

-

05:25

“I AM THE STAPLE QUEEN”

I LOVE HER

YOU LIVE YOUR WEIRD TRUTH, LADY

-

05:27

Oh boy

i’m loving the tone of this. like everything is terrible but in a fun way

i’m just worried it’s all gonna get awful later :/

-

05:31

also cas is gorgeous

-

05:43

@ dean complaining about no gluten

does he even know that gluten has no taste, it’s just a protein that makes things stick together

it’s bread glue

-

BUT THE FACT DEAN FOLLOWS SOMEONE NAMED “8PACKMOMMY”

CHILDREN AND FOOD??????? DAMN

and apparently he doesn’t even like the blog

and yet he still follows? why??? some kind of personal obligation to enjoy children and food, and maybe women with muscles????? wat

-

05:38

THE POOR GUITAR

but also smashing one was probably on dean’s bucket list

-

05:40

radio: “the queen of england, is in fact, a lizard”

@ misha what do you have to say about that

-

05:41

AW MAN CHUCK FIXED IT BEFORE DEAN AND CAS HAD A CHANCE TO TALK :C

ULTIMATE DISAPPOINTMENT

-

05:45

um

can’t they just use the magic gun and be like “pchew~! you’re happy and only kill evil things!” and suddenly they’re both that, and then there’s no problem

-

05:46

chuck: “the old death was all about fried pickles and tickle porn”

TICKLE PORN

10/10

-

05:51

again, cas showing intense emotion is my favourite

kind of expected him to dent the car

-

05:52

isn’t that the worst knife ever? makes people die a lot

-

05:54

i swear to heck everything sam’s describing about god’s method of making universes is my cupcake theory + what i wrote in chapter 21 of hart of the storm

i guess those kind of theological ideas are a fun writer thing maybe

-

06:05

i don’t think dean’s gonna kill him

but that doesn’t stop me worrying

if he doesn’t, it’s lowkey because of cas

-

06:07

why did cas take so long to get back there

-

oh no chuck wants dean to shoot him

 if chuck shoots jack himself.... the universe collapses, right?

-

sam getting mad at the writer

this is so meta and i am LIVING for it

-

which also means he’s keeping the destiel drawn out because he enjoys the will-they-won’t-they

@ chuck we get it!! now please stop, drop, and make it gay

-

IS DEAN GONNA SHOOT GOD

and did chuck just bargain jack for mary

whatshfdgbdf

-

dean: “my mom’s my hero”

i love hearing him say that

-

06:14

*sam voice* it was day.......... and now it’s night

-

06:15

aw jack.............

:<

-

06:17

THE GHOSTS RISING

THIS IS AWESOME

THE MUSIC IS AWESOME

AWESOME

-

06:17

WAIT......... did this undo everything they’ve ever done??????

-

06:19

dean grab a rusty fence for a weapon

really fuckin hope they’ve had their tetanus shots

-

I’M SO GODDAMN GLAD CAS IS THERE WITH THEM

NOT GONNA GET LEFT OUT THIS TIME, NOPE

-

THE LYRICS “god was never on your side”

hooooooooooly hot damn potato stew

that was fucking awesome and i loved it

like......... yeah, maybe my favourite season finale ?? (edit: since season 8 when the angels fell)

billie’s talking with jack so clearly he’s not gone forever

there was Representation!!! of various kinds of people and i really enjoyed that

I WISH THE TRUTH SPELL THING HAD KEPT GOING UNTIL DEAN TALKED TO CAS. I’M SO BUMMED ABOUT THAT. THEY HAVEN’T TALKED AT ALL, PRETTY MUCH ALL SEASON, THEY JUST YELLED AT EACH OTHER

SEASON 15 BETTER FUCKIN GIVE THEM SCENES TOGETHER EVERY DAMN EPISODE AND LET THEM BE FRIENDS AND TALK ABOUT THEIR PERSONAL FEELINGS AND CONFESS THEIR LOVE, AND ALSO SMOOCH

PLEASE. that’s all i want. that’s all i’ve ever wanted. just be buddies. cuddle buddies maybe.

i really enjoyed seeing this side of chuck, making it more obvious he’s just in it for himself

but like. i sound like an asshole but i feel the need to say “not all writers”

soME OF US ACTUALLY CARE ABOUT OUR CHARACTERS AND WANT NICE THINGS TO HAPPEN TO THEM

i also found it amusing that, given a gun that doesn’t have bullets, but can shoot whatever you want (i think?), sam chooses to use bullets

SAM STARTED THIS

AGAIN

i liked that chuck was the deus ex machina a few seasons ago but suddenly this time he’s the big bad nobody expected

look i mean. this was 10/10. but i cannot stress enough hoW MUCH OF A COP-OUT IT WAS TO CANCEL THE TRUTH THING BEFORE DEAN AND CAS TALKED. I WANNA SCREAM ABOUT THIS

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

also wait. if chuck undid all their work, does that mean they undid all their friendships and relationships? does jody still know them? is donna still alive? oh no :c

actually wait, no, it seems like... rather than reset everything back 15 years, chuck just brought everything they killed back to life

but also apparently every single grave contains a zombie

I’M LOOKING FORWARD TO WHERE THIS GOES

SO LONG AS WHERE THIS GOES IS DEAN AND CAS HAVING AMPLE EPISODES TOGETHER WITH HEAPS OF EMOTIONAL INTIMACY, AND THE WAYWARD SISTERS EITHER GETTING THEIR SPIN-OFF OR HAVING THEIR STORY TOLD IN PARALLEL TO TEAM FREE WILL’S

no point asking chuck for it, huh

@ AMARA PLEASE GIVE US THIS

apparently she’s gambling in reno so maybe they can track her down

[yeet-me-into-oblivion-please]

Well, Supernatural is actually ending and I don't know what I'll do

[ Brevity is not a strong suit of mine since I've included personal details but there's stuff I feel everyone in the SPN family needs to read]

You might be expecting another post about how Supernatural saved someone's life and how devastated they will be when it ends because they've watched it for so long as well as how the actors have impacted their lives. This is probably one of those but please hear me out.

Supernatural premiered in 2005 and I was in preparatory class (aged 5 years and was before I began 1st grade). I heard of it because my aunt would watch it time to time so I'd also tried to get some peeks myself but I wasn't allowed to because it was "too scary".

Then our local cable began to show seasons 1-5 and that was when everyone in class started watching and quoting it. This was in 6th grade and I was frustrated because I knew about it before most of them yet they acted like it was a new show. I had a fair idea about the story but once I began watching it, I fell in love with it and loved it like a part of my soul.

Yes, Jensen Ackles was my first crush but I still thought (and do think) that both he and Jared are super hot. So I was sucked into this vortex, this Neverland which I never thought I would end.

I joined Tumblr for this show in 2013 because I saw the jokes about there being a Supernatural gif everywhere and wanted to be a part of the fandom/community. This was also the year I actually became interested what other fans felt though I never used this site properly until 2016 I would read the IMDb discussion boards because I hated scurrying through Destiel-infested posts.

(Fun fact:I wasn't using any social media of my own but on my mother's Facebook I liked a Supernatural fan page asking people's opinions on Destiel. This is was around the time season 8 was just finishing or had already finished so I read the comments--- people talked about Dean and Castiel being gay and didn't approve of it as there was this one girl who was conservative and didn't believe in homosexuality while others went on how Dean was always a ladies man which I agreed with. Not that I commented but I thought there was something I missed and I thought Castiel used Dean as a vessel, thus Destiel.)

But I digress. I was in deep by the time season 9 premiered and majority of the people I knew stopped watching the show except for this girl who bullied me throughout preschool who put up this update that Dean had become a demon. I doubt she watches the show now but it was hard seeing her put pictures of "I heart Dean Winchester" and pictures of Jensen when my mom asked me why I don't do the same.

Supernatural, I feel, has become that embarrassing thing you are into in middle school but suddenly drop when you're older, looking back and thinking, "Yeesh, I can't believe I used to watch this show."

I'll be a grown woman at 30 or 40 and probably eventually in my 70s and 80s but I will still look back fondly, the good, the bad and the ugly because I have like many teenagers have undergone many changes (friends, family, emotions, hobbies etc) but Supernatural has always been this constant in my life.

Because let me tell you, I'm seeing these posts saying stuff like how people are glad that it's finally over with its "bullshit" and that's it's dying. That is extremely disrespectful and insensitive to those people who literally live for it, who have invested time and money into it: gif makers, artists, meta writers (I may not agree with you guys but even you count). They don't know what to do once the show ends because it has helped them in ways others will never ever be able to fathom.

I saw the video put up by the guys. I saw and I could tell that Jared, Jensen and Misha had probably cried their guts out before the announcement because their eyes were red and puffy. Jared was controlling himself by talking less as Jensen was clearly on the verge as well but yes they said that they should save the angst for next year.

I love the guys; I love Jared being a goofball and Jensen being equally goofy as well and I'll say this too, I used to enjoy some of Misha's crass jokes (not the highlight ) as well which was why I looked forward to the gag reel every summer (because of J2) because it was cathartic after a traumatic season finale. I love the witty banter and the pranks the cast would do and I will miss it tremendously.

I have some issues with my aunt but everything would be okay when we would fawn over the guys and bingewatch the entire season the summer after it finished airing. We'd quote quotes back and forth and even spiritually killed ourselves watching short clips of "Sammy, close your eyes", "I'm proud of us" etc. Hell, she even promised me that when we go visit my uncle in the States we'd attend a con together.

If, and whenever we do go, it'll be different because the show won't be on air anymore and I know for a fact that I won't feel the anticipation of an episode.

So don't say disrespectful and callous things like "fucking finally". You can dislike the cast/plotline/show but don't ridicule and mock those who invested in the show,some of you are most probably speculating and have barely seen it.

I'm not some dumb, blind fan. I can see some stupid mistakes and don't always eat up what the writers show. For example, everyone must have figured that I dislike Destiel because it's based on groundless assumptions. I thought the Bloodlines was a crap idea that had nothing to do with the main plot and knew it was destined to fail.

As for Wayward Daughters/Sisters or whatever the fuck it was supposed to be called, I was not looking forward to it at all because it was one of those "forced diversity" shows, y'know gender bent stuff.

I felt that they were bastardising everything that Supernatural has and will (always) stand for because some people had a hair up their backsides. Yeah, I loathed Claire and that Kaia mourning thing was bullshit. Thank goodness I was sick that day and couldn't keep my eyes open for that episode.

If we were told that there would be a Men of Letters(with Henry Winchester) or even a Bobby-Rufus spinoff I would be okay with that but for now since the show will finish next year let's the wounds heal first, shall we?

I hope that Jared and Jensen get some offers once the show is done and I will pay good money to see movies, TV shows of them etc but for now I will keep quiet since I hope we get an ending we (and the boys) deserve.

Yes, the writer situation scares me and I think they should call Eric Kripke for a last hurrah. I mean, it is his baby and he should get to have a say in the series finale as well as J2.

Will one of the brothers die and the other will live (I'm worried we'll get a reverse Swan Song)? Will they both die leaving Cas behind and Jack as some sort legacy who trains future hunters? That would be a possibility since the sheriff in 14.16 asked the Winchesters why they don't tell people about monsters. What happens to Baby?

I seriously doubt the ending will be happy(maybe not 100%) but the best thing would be if they go driving with Baby into the sunset...

Dean at the steering wheel with Sam riding shotgun, where they should be ---- where they will always be, home. Dean plays his "mullet rock" as Sam would playfully mock his brother's musical choices. No chick flick moments. Just the Winchesters.

The boys need to lay their weary heads to rest, so they can cry no more. Because they are the legendary Winchesters, the hunters who saved the world countless times unbeknownst to many. I don't think their work will ever be done but there will be peace when they are done and how they will reach that point we'll never know till 2020.

Everyone will hear "Carry on wayward son" for the last time ever in Supernatural over a painful montage of "Dad's gone on a hunting trip and he hasn't been home in a few days" and "Saving people, hunting things, the family business". Now who in this fandom wouldn't be wracked with pain?

This is the show we all joked about that made a deal with the devil to never go off air but I did expect this a long time ago. Only thing was that I didn't know how I'd treat the news. I was that person who would go, "pfft, of course Supernatural would get renewed". Then again, this was the show that an ending was imminent and the whole season 4 debacle about Misha and the angel storyline saving the show blah blah blah.

So next year, everyone will flock to see the finale and epic conclusion to the Winchester saga whether they stopped at season 5,6,7 or 10,12. Diss it all you want for the shit show it may have become but wherever you left off, you may still want to know what happens to Sam and Dean Winchester in the end.

Once Supernatural ends, I'll turn 20 next summer and I would like to think of it being poetic that I end my adolescence with a show I have loved when I brave the cold, ruthless world of adulthood. I'm a picky person and can't say what's my favorite xyz is but you know what I'll say about my favorite TV show.

We will have completed 327 episodes which is the highest for a scifi TV show so I do hope the boys get some sort of recognition. It was us crazy bitches and jerks that gave the show the mileage and it was us that gave Jared and Jensen faith that they could carry on so for the remainder of season 14 and for 15,support these guys. Support these annoyingly sexy and ridiculously hilarious dudes for this show. I'm sure Jared and Jensen love the show like it's their kid practically but I wish everyone would just shut up, tinhatters, bronlies, stans, destihellers because we are all fans of the one show so let's ease the time we have left.

But seriously imagine Sam and Dean on a desert highway, the orange and yellow rays of the setting sun make Baby shine in all her splendor which makes Dean swell with pride. He starts the engine with a low rumble and they're off. They might to California to feel the sand beneath their feet or to Disneyland. They're living the "apple pie life" and this is their personal heaven : with each other.

I wouldn't mind this playing in the background if the ending is the inevitable and unspeakable you know what :

It's wishful thinking, since I wish they'd actually play some Zeppelin instead of song titles being used as episode titles but I wish they could use some Queen or Guns n Roses and stuff before 1979 because everything sucked ass afterwards according to Dean.

I want the classic rock resurgence in the show as well but I know they'll end up using the cash elsewhere. I wouldn't mind a body swap episode but if wishes were horses, right?

[givedeanhisangel]

Was tagged by @supernaturaldevoted thank you!

1. When did you start watching Supernatural?

December 2017. It was an accident, I swear. I used to be really into Overwatch (before uni took over my gaming life (I dont play anymore)) and I came across this post. At first I thought it was like Dr. Who or something, I didn't know. So I reverse image searched it on Google, and found Supernatural. I found out it was on Netflix, and watched the pilot. I was scared, but didn't think it was anything special. But then Jess burned. And then at Sam's "we have work to do" line, I was sold.

(And then I sat through 7 seasons trying to spot the scene that was in the gif that started it all.)

2. Who is your favorite in TFW?

Castiel, easily. That isn't to say I dont like Sam and Dean though. I love all of them. All of them. I just have a preference for Cas

3. Who is your least favorite in TFW?

Stop.

4. Tag your top 5 Supernatural blogs.

@aloha-cowgirl @malevolent-dean @alexander8calvert @bisexualdemondean @dimples-of-discontent

5. Who is your favorite character (not including TFW)?

I lump Gabriel into tfw 2.0, so i'm gonna go with Garth

6. Who is your favorite woman in Supernatural?

Claire. I love Claire so much, but i'm probably biased b/c I'm a huge Kathryn Newton fan.

7. John or Mary?

Uhhh I loved Matt Cohen's Michael!John, but I've had more time to love Mary

8. What were your first opinions of Sam, Dean, Cas, and Jack?

Sam: I was genuinely worried about him not making it back to his interview on time. I just wanted him to be alright.

Dean: I wanted him to be my older brother ngl. He just cares so much, and I loved that about him.

Cas: "Holy shit that's Castiel. Oh my god that's his voice?" (I thought he would lose the voice and the trench coat over time. He did neither.)

Jack: I just wanted him to be good so bad. I was so relieved when he turned out to be an actual bean.

9. What’s your favorite season?

Season 12, probably. I didn't like the whole BMOL thing, but 12 has a ton of my favorite episodes (Stuck in the Middle (With You), Lily Sunder has Some Regrets, Baby, All Along the Watchtower)

10. What’s your least favorite season?

Season 7. There's just... not a lot there? Leviathan weren't as big of a threat as I thought, and there was a substantial lack of Cas.

11. Opinions on Destiel?

Oh god, it's taken over my life. I love it, I really do, because you know what? It's so goddamn sweet, and soft, and romantic, but at the same time it's tough, it's gritty, and it's just two guys trying their best under almost impossible circumstances. And at the end of the day, when the world is safe, they deserve each other. They've earned some semblance of peace, which they can find in each other. No one understands Castiel like Dean does and vice versa. They're a match made in hell and they're perfect for one another. I just want them to be happy

12. Do you believe Supernatural queerbaits?

Well, to some extent yes, but not on purpose.

13. Seasons 1-7 or 8-14?

8-14. Maybe it's because there's more Cas, or maybe it's the character development. Maybe it's just personal preference.

14. Favorite villain (plot wise)?

Lucifer from s4-5. In case any of you didn't know, I used to adore Lucifer when I first watched the show. He was my favorite character when I was watching seasons 4-5, (like almost toppled Cas for 1st place favorite). I really liked Lucifer. When they brought him back officially in season 11 I was ecstatic. Then they kept him in 12, but his personality wasn't the same. Then 13. It just really ruined the character for me, and I wish they just let him get his closure in 11 before ending his storyline completely. But no. They just. Kept. Bringing. Him. Back. And now he's like a whole different character entirely. I hate it. I miss old Lucifer :( Sorry for the rant

15. Do you think they should end the Lucifer plot line?

Lucifer is dead, so technically it's already over. But I would be really upset if they brought him back if that answers that question.

16. Who do you think has gone through more trauma (Sam, Dean, or Cas)?

It's not a contest.

17. What’s your favorite Supernatural episode?

It's a tie between Stuck in the Middle (With You) (12x12) and Lazarus Rising (4x01)

18. Do you like case episodes?

Yes. It reminds me of Old Supernatural, and it's just nice to see the boys helping people no matter what. End of the world be damned that lady has a poltergeist and hell, if they aren't gonna help her who will?

19. Who do you relate most to in TFW?

Dean. I dont know if it's the music, the cars, billiards, humor, cowboy obsession, or being a closeted bisexual, but we've got a lot in common.

20. Why do you like Supernatural?

It's such a unique show. When I first joined the fandom, and I saw the tag SPN family, I was like haha sure. But once I got involved, holy hell. Absolutely no fandom is like the Supernatural fandom. Yes we may have our differences in opinions, ships, characters, but everyone here loves this show. And I love everyone here. It really does feel like a family. This is kind of the same reason I adore the show. The theme of found family, and the way that Team Free Will will always find a better way because that's what they do. I love this fucking show and I love this fandom. Thank you

21. If you could bring back one character and kill off another who would they be?

G o o d b y e  N i c k. I would like one (1) Gabriel back please

Tagging @aloha-cowgirl @malevolent-dean @moosesquirrelandwings @cas-you-assbutt-dean-needs-you @trenchcoatsandfreckles and whoever else wants to play

[deanssweetheart23]

Something Borrowed (AU) - Chapter II

Title: Something Borrowed: 2007 (Chapter ΙI)

Summary: When Dean meets her that night on Charlie’s rooftop, he can’t imagine she’ll end up being his entire world. And then, life gets in the way. Again. And again. And again.

Author: deanssweetheart23

Characters: Dean Winchester x reader, John Winchester, Mary Winchester (both mentioned)

Word count: 1357

Warnings: Fluff, language, references to cancer. Dean Bean being his adorable domestic self and did I mention fluff?

Author’s Notes: This is it. The second chapter to my new series. This is my submission for @thing-you-do-with-that-thing‘s British Song Challenge. My prompt is High Hopes by Kodaline.  Beta credits go to my beautiful sunflower @trexrambling for all her love and support. I love you <3</p>

PS. This is set 11 years before the first chapter. I cannot thank you enough for all the love you’ve shown to this story. I promise you, I’m going to take you to a wild ride you’ll never forget. And now...

Enjoy <3 (Catch up <b>here)

Tuesday, 19 June, 2007

Bar Harbor, Maine

Dean tries not to fall for her.

It’s a bit unsettling, putting effort into not loving someone too much, makes him feel like he’s fighting against invisible restraints from which he’ll never be able to set himself completely free.

He’d never been so absolutely overwhelmed by his feelings before, never felt his heart bruise at the sound of a name, the sight of a smile, not even when he was with Lisa, the first, the only, girl he’d fallen in love with.

But with Y/N, things are different.

With her, things have been different from that very first night they met two years ago, when he felt something in him coming alive, felt himself tipping along the edge of something new, something real.

Still, he tried.

He didn’t kiss her goodbye when they parted ways the following morning, didn’t call her when he temporarily moved back to Lawrence to help his mum or when he returned to Ithaca a few months later, pretended his heart didn’t flutter when he caught sight of her on the street one day.

And then he literally ran into her at the entrance of Charlie’s apartment, and she waved and smiled at him like he’d never disappeared.

And him?

He was a lost cause.

They grew inseparable after that, buried the memories of the night and the morning they spent together in some sort of wordless agreement and become each other’s best friend.

Despite his best efforts though, despite the fact he knows she’s off limits, knows nothing could ever happen between them, she always does something –smiles when she catches him staring or covers him with a blanket when he falls asleep on her couch- and he finds himself falling a bit deeper, a bit madder in love with her.

The bedroom door creaks.

He opens his eyes, lets out a small groan as he sits up on the bed.

Slowly, his gaze drifts to Y/N, takes in her cute button-down romper and her disheveled hair, the way she seems to be soaked into sunshine, like all the brightness of the day has finally decided to settle across her skin.

A smile plays across his lips at the thought.

“Finally,” he smirks, rubbing at his eyes with the heels of his hands. “I almost fell asleep over here.”

“Hey, this shower has water-pressure.” She applies some body lotion on her legs and, though he tries very hard, he is unable to keep himself from following the smooth movement of her hands. “And I was not the one who insisted on a shared room so-”

“S’ peak season.”

“—you-” she jabs a finger at him – “don’t get to complain.”

He lets out a laugh, shakes his head in what he hopes is clandestine adoration. “You’re a brat, you know that?”

“You love it.”

Another chuckle.

Hands that wrap around her middle.

“C’mere.” He pulls her to him, laughs into the crook of her neck as she squeals and groans. “I do love it.”

“Hmm, good, because m’-” she lets out a small yawn, stretches in his arms, cat-like- “too tired to argue.”

“Now that’s a feat.”

“Hey,” she whines, smacks his arm as his laugh shakes her body, “I had to wake up at six in the morning for this trip. Show some empathy, will you?”

He snorts and helps her settle against his chest, the crisp sheets caressing their bodies. “Empathy, huh?”

“Yup. S’ a virtue. Besides-” she leans in, pecks his jaw- “you are to blame for my lack of sleep, remember?”

Somehow, he’s expected this, but, the fact he’d been correct, the realization he knows her like the back of his hand makes his heart flutter in a way that’s embarrassing, spreads warmth across his limbs.

“I told you to go back home, didn’t I?”

“And I told you I wanted to catch up with your parents.” She pauses for a second, seemingly thinking about something. “Speaking of-” her fingers clutch at his shirt- “John, uh, he… He seemed a little off last night.”

Dean’s body tenses.

He wonders, briefly, if she can feel his muscles flexing under her fingertips.

“He did?” he asks, but his voice is slow, weary.

She doesn’t seem to notice. “Yeah. He was kind of…” She pushes some hair off her face, gnaws on her bottom lip. “Is everything okay?”

He sighs, squeezes her waist because he doesn’t know what to say to her.

He wants to be honest, of course, wants to let her trace his doubts, to listen to what she has to say, because she’s his best friend, the person he shares everything with. And yet, there’s a part of him that worries she’ll be disappointed if she learns what he agreed to give up on the night before, worries that someone as wildly independent as her won’t be able to understand his choice.

But then he feels the sweet weight of her body on his, the patches of bare skin that brush against his own, sun-kissed, rough with sea-salt, and realizes that she’s the only person he can trust, the only person he wants to trust with this.

So, he presses his lips against her temple and-

“Yeah, we’re fine, he just...” He lets out a breath, runs a hand over his face. “Do you remember how we talked about me applying to the Fire Academy?”

Her smile is so brilliant it hurts. “Of course I do. But what does that –oh.” Her eyes light up in earnestness. “You applied, didn’t you?”

“I did, but-”

“Oh my God, D, that’s great. You’re going to be the best-”

“Kid, please, don’t…” He stops himself, clears his throat, quietly. “M’ not going.”

“What?” she asks, and it’s like the words have been forced out of her. “Why?”

He blinks, feels the muscles in his jaw twitching. “Dad… He doesn’t think this is a good idea.”

“A good idea?” she repeats, disbelief laced in her voice.

“Yeah,” he breathes out, searches her face for any tell-tale sign of disapproval, of distaste, but finds none. Somehow, he deems the realization comforting. “Look, he just doesn’t… He says this could distract me from the family business. And, I dunno, maybe he’s right.”

“Dean-”

“I know what you’re going to say, okay? But I can’t… This is Dad we’re talking about, Y/N. And after everything he went through when Mum got sick… He needs me.”

There’s a crease between her brows and when she takes his hand in hers, it hitches. “D., I know that. But what about… What about what you need? Every time you talk about the Fire Academy, you get that look in your eyes and s’ just… You look so happy.”

There’s urgency etched onto the words as they lash out of her mouth, but her gaze is pure melancholy.

“C’mon, kid. Now you just make it sound like I hate working construction.”

“You don’t. I never said that. But, D-” she runs her fingers through his hair, soft, gentle– “I don’t want you to lose your dream.”

“Hey now… I never said I won’t go for it. It’ll just have to wait for a while.”

One, two, three seconds pass, and then.

“You’re a good son, you know that? In fact-” she clings closer to him, pecks the tip of his nose sweetly- “you’re a good everything.”

A hint of a smile plays across his lips.

He threads his fingers through her hair.

“So, you don’t think I’m an idiot for doing this?” he asks, and it’s like his entire existence is hanging from what she’s about to say.

She looks at him, faux nonchalance dancing in her eyes. “I mean, generally speaking, you are an idiot, but, in this case…” She laces their hands together, makes sure to meet his gaze. “I’d probably do the same.”

He lets out a breath he doesn’t know he’s been holding, shakes his head.

His lips brush against her forehead in a lingering kiss.

“I don’t know what I’d do without you, kid,” he says.

And he hopes to God he’ll never have to find out.

A/N: Next part coming 8/17

Forever tags: @jpadjackles @supernatural-jackles @trexrambling @percywinchester27 @torn-and-frayed @atwistoffate @there-must-be-a-lock @masksandtruths @princess-shurii @lipstickandwhiskey @sunlightdances @thing-you-do-with-that-thing @ravengirl94 @hannahindie @escabell @spngeronimo @dreamingdean @becs-bunker @wordstothewisereaders @imagining-supernatural @kathaswings @sgarrett49 @iwriteaboutdean @mogaruke @ruprecht0420 @captainemwinchester @pickupthatamulet @imissyoualittlemoreeveryday @wellthatsrandomkek @winchestersnco @jayankles @winchesters-flannels @akshi8278 @persephone-divine        @tiny-friggin-human @keepcalmandcarryondean @becominglionhearted @polina-93 @mandilion76 @spn-dean-and-sam-winchester @ravenangel33 @holahellohialoha @atc74 @dancingalone21 @dancing-the-hellfire-rumba @juanitadiann @yourvoiceislikearose @sinistersaltqueen @carryonmyswansong @emoryhemsworth @superapplepie @princess-of-erebor1992 @bebravekeeponfighting @carryonmywaywardcaptain @sebastianshoe @kleinkariertebetrachter @stellaa33 @samisimportant-blog @jessilliam-caronday @shutupiminlooove @annoyingpeople-postingthings @waywardlodging @caitthejourno @no-shit-sherl0ck @wh1sp3r1ng-impala @superflurry @mrswhozeewhatsis @starry-chaos @rlawson418 @novaddictx  @blushingokoye

Something Borrowed Tags: @girliciousdreams @ms-baekhyun @ellen-reincarnated1967 @superwholock-fangir1 

[yourfandomfriend]

SPN Fic Inspo

Maybe this is just me liking the sound of my own voice, but I’ve been writing my infrequently updated SPN fic, Concordat, for over five years now and outside of my bestie, I’ve never got to talk about the inspiration behind it or anything like that. So here I go a-doing that.

Why not? It’s my blog and I love extras. Maybe it’s an insight into my process? Maybe we can all talk to each other about inspiration? Or maybe I’ve just been dying to scream my secrets into the wind? YOU CAN BE THAT WIND.

What If?

The sane part is, I wrote a shorter fic preceding it, set during “Swan Song” where Bobby prepares for the possible eventuality of Sam and Dean dying at Stull and Cas faces the possibility of having to live as a mortal. I had Crowley stop by for just one chapter to mwah-ha-ha at them (the first time I’d ever written for him, an experience that actually made him my favorite character).

And I had to wonder: if Cas didn’t get his powers back, who would Crowley have gone to with his Purgatory plan? And what would become of Cas and Bobby? The whole thing took off from there.

Inferno

But that’s not the fun part. To me, the fun part is where I totally ripped off Darkwing Duck. 

See, there’s this grim, hilarious episode I saw as a kid called “Dead Duck” where DW chases a villain on his motorcycle without putting on a helmet and crashes head-first into a brick wall. Spoiler alert, he lives through it, but he dreams he died. And in the world where he’s dead, the villain everyone thinks killed him, Megavolt, became super-famous and a popular talk show host.

Pretty dark for a children’s cartoon, right? 

But what got me was that dying, watching his loved ones grieve him, getting chased by the literal Grim Reaper, and leaving his world to the mercy of a homicidal maniac didn’t upset him nearly as much as finding out that the bad guy became more famous than him.

For real, his headstone is a polaroid taped to a road pylon.

In case you're wondering, this is where I got my sense of humor from. So, yeah, I thought it would be hilarious to put Sam and Dean through the same thing and see which one of them got more pissed off. To my surprise, it was Sam.

Greek Chorus

In a few chapters, I showcase a turd gallery of minions, all of them originals... but two of them were not quite whole cloth. PA demons, Shipley & Lydecker. 

The latter, Thomas Lydecker, died of heart attack in London in the swinging 60s and went straight to Hell. As a demon, he's a jaded, cowardly, hedonist (with hidden depths) who’s worked for Balthazar since Inferno started.

The former, Fred Shipley, is a remarkably heroic demon. Once a Manhatten cop with a conscience, he sold his soul to help a lady who tricked the shit out of him and his contract came up in the 1970s. Sent fresh from The Pit to be Crowley’s latest assistant (he goes through them like tissues). 

Together, they provide exposition and comedy relief for the reader, since Shipley is a rooky who needs everything explained to him and Lydecker can’t take anything seriously. And they were inspired by these two cuties.

Monty Pippin and Eddie Arlette, two police detectives in a one-season-wonder TV show from the noughties called Keen Eddie. The show started as a knock-off of blingy Guy Richie crap but was really ramping up to be a show about saving souls. I missed Eddie and Monty, so I sent them to Hell. Is that weird?

Samandriel

This one’s a little controversial. There’s a point in my fic where I think a lot of fans stop reading -- the death of Heaven’s cutest angel, Samandriel. The thing is never intended to kill him, but when I was doing research on him to get the voice, my hindsight kicked in and I finally realized who S’mandy really was, underneath the cute vessel. If Balthazar read Samandriel’s mind, then what he saw would make him want to kill him.

Brother Stuff

Can’t tell a story with the Winchesters without angst. The fic is set in the middle of season 8 because that’s when I started writing the outline, and while I don’t specifically have the boys fight about their season’s issues, it went a long way to coloring how they took the other timeline. 

Sam loves it, and goes from being a mopey boy to a fluffy, sunny boy so fast, you know it’s not normal. The thing is, Sam was feeling mighty guitly about everything that happened with him quitting after season 7, and this new timeline was one where he died a hero. His friends are alive, Cas never went crazy, Michael and Lucifer are dead, and no Dick Roman. It’s awesome! But in order to save that timeline, Sam and Dean would have to destroy their own, with them in it. And part of Sam is actually considering it, such is his guilt...

Meanwhile, Dean hates the place because, well, it’s doing so well without the Winchesters. Friends are alive and happy, there’s a Keurig, etc. His instinct is to defend the timeline that he and his brother are from, to favor it, not only because he wants them to survive but because he wants to believe they’ve changed the world for the better. But if everything is better in that other world? He feels like it’s their fault things got so screwed up in his world. Angst!

Crowlthazar

While most shippy fics start with the pairing and work backward, this was another thing I didn’t see coming. I knew Crowley would team up with Balthazar -- he needed an angel if he was gonna go up against Raphael. But while Crowley stuck to the plot outline, Balthazar wouldn’t. He kept derailing things by palling around with Crowley, in ways that weren’t super platonic, and he wouldn’t let me finish a chapter until I let him do it.

The problem with that is, if anyone gives Crowley sympathy and helps him work through his issues, he loses his motivation to king things. “Blade Runners” is an entire episode dedicated to the theory that if Crowley is allowed to feel his feels, he’ll get super horny and abandon his plans.

I tried all sorts of things to keep Crowley and Balthazar apart, to no avail. Finally, I gave in and, surprise surprise, it turned into love, or as close as those two weasels could get. Their motive to follow the plan was reinvigorated -- they wanted to defend what they’d found, Crowley especially.

If you post an spn fic inspo of your own, tag me in that biz!

[elizabethrobertajones]

like? i honestly don't get people (haters and those who stopped watching) who say spn has bad writing? of course not ever episode will be as good, but for a show at it's THIRTEENTH season the writing hasn't let up at all (it's just more simplified), sfter all those years i still find the dialogue utterly fascinating. i really don't get it but maybe i'm just biased :/

Yeah, and the thing is the show has gradually moved from what was good writing for season 1 or 4 or whatever, to whatever makes it still work after 8 or 13 seasons… 

Like, the internal mirroring in season 1? It’s there, it’s good, there’s a lot more than you think and you’d basically have to watch the season twice, once forwards and once backwards as soon as you’re done before you forget all the little details to catch all the stuff. I mean there’s some things which are obvious like the Mary and Jess dying either end of their episode things. And then there’s stuff like 1x09 and 1x17 both having Sam and Dean obsessed with drawing something that they’re trying to capture on a piece of motel notepaper or whatever. Little motifs that barely mean anything but give a sort of coherency and nod to earlier writing, which is basically just stuff you do to assure the viewer there’s a sense of having things under control. 

Cycle all the way up to season 13 and you can have so many nuanced references going on that just the MotW in 13x05 mirrors 5 different season 1 episodes, a season 8 main arc thing, a random season 11 motw, or 7x19 even, for the house full of ghosts thing… and probably some other stuff I can’t even remember now, and that’s before we get to the main plot half, and the emotional arcs. And those references aren’t just in there as a competency check, but because it means stuff and it’s relevant. The parallel to Lucas the mute kid in 1x03 who Dean related to? SUPER RELEVANT to his emotional state now. For like the entire season we’ve had 1x02′s “saving people, hunting things” speech lurking around in Dean’s actions visibly decayed and broken from its original meaning. 1x10 was visually referenced and that is important because of the Sam and Dean at odds stuff, and some of their most important yelling at each other about how they see each other and how John affected them and how they see John through each other happened there, all of which is being recycled in how they’re treating Jack. I could keep going but point is, the writing is good surface viewing, and a really rich soup of past canon references for people who want to analyse it, because just showing they understand the story they’re telling is a huge sign of good writing, and makes me confident to assume they do mean basically everything they imply. 

But on the other hand in season 1 you can really feel scared and alone and confused and like the entire universe around them is too big and filled with evil and they’re small and incompetent and just want to find their dad and go home, and that aesthetic is excellent, but you can’t keep going with that past even season 1, so they start to get more people in their lives, even just passing acquaintances at first, and a couple of settled locations. And the story can’t just be the same simple goals over and over again or what’s the point in setting up a big looming battle between good and evil from the very start if it’s just escalating and deescalating clashes with a few important demons, a 4 episode per season main arc about family, and then a bunch  of monster hunts? For one thing they’d run out of hunts :P So more plot, more characters, and it all starts eroding the original aesthetic because better writing for what they’re working with means abandoning what originally made the show good because it can NEVER make the show good again IN THAT WAY.

And by season 6 the mytharc is all concluded, and you basically have to pick the show up and turn it around, and start telling it all backwards, and make it personal instead, because not only is escalating threat meaningless after the victory in season 5, but they have a massive world full of characters and resources and KNOWLEDGE and you can’t have the Winchesters alone against the world. There’s jokes about how in season 1 they wouldn’t know a vampire if it bit them on the arse but then in season 8 Dean just goes and clears a house of them out for his vampire BFF. Or season 1 Dean vs demons and then just cut to him and Crowley drinking together. Like… it’s experience and competence and also just the story can’t maintain itself if it never explores new avenues where monsters stop being scary for being monsters and start being scary for what they say about the characters… Which 2x03 does for Dean, and everything since has been post-picking up the story and turning it around. I mean, that can happen at any point really, but the season 1 approach to monsters was completely unsustainable because they’d run out of monsters. Look at how werewolves never came back until season 8 and when they did, Robbie retconned the crap out of them so they could be used in different stories. Werewolves who transform unknown to themselves and can be monsters without ever knowing it? Are good for like 1 story only, and that was the one they told in Heart. And until you suck it up and retcon it, you can NEVER use werewolves even as incidental monsters. We didn’t even see them in season 6. 

And all these changes are happening all the time, and bit by bit things like “can’t have the Winchesters without any reoccurring side characters to help/hinder them” and “monsters aren’t all evil” and “escalate the mytharc at least a notch higher than previously or start over but make it personal” and all these changes happen one at a time for good reasons, until you end up with a show which looks nothing like the original one but still has its DNA. It’s just grown up into an adult version of itself that can carry its own weight. And that’s good long-form writing.

I don’t actually think the writing has simplified, it’s just behaving in a different way now. Season 1 and 2 were pretty raw and full of character dynamic stuff but the main plot was very simple and tropey because it could afford to be because the show was a bunch of world building and a focus on the MotW episodes, and the main plot was a bonus and a mystery to string us through episode to episode, so the main pull WAS the character stuff between Sam and Dean as an identifying feature of the show. But you can’t tell that story over and over where they don’t know what’s happening and it never comes near them until shit hits the fan. For one thing, they blew all their cards ages ago on things seeded into their life from birth that they had no idea about but were always fated to happen, unless there’s something that happened to Dean that’s just been idly ticking away waiting for him to hit 40 for him to be slapped with some ancient curse Millie Winchester activated poking around with artefacts Henry brought home from work or something. Again, once the demon blood reveal comes you basically pick up the show, turn it around, and start telling in the other direction from the build up to that reveal, and we’re still going in that same direction that Sam’s been reacting to since 2x21. That’s the hugest thing to happen in their family history in terms of plot so everything has to loop around that somehow, and new reveals are just “why” ones not “what” ones, in 4x03 and 5x13.

The show the hardcore original couple of seasons fans are longing for is one that wrote itself out of existence with its OWN good writing. Sam and Dean DEMANDED more characters to interact with to show more facets of themselves and for them to be challenged, so they got Ruby and then Cas. The plot was rolling along building up steam so excitingly that it COULD go to an epic fated apocalypse, and sell that our guys were the ones caught in the middle and ready to save the world. They weren’t the same dweebs as season 1. 

And instead you get this INCREDIBLE character writing… Like, Sam and Dean leap off the page as it were right from the start, and without them being good characters the show would never have amounted to anything because Sam and Dean was all the show depended on to start with. And it’s still going on their charisma and chemistry, but it’s FAR from all that now. They get characters thrown at them to see what sticks, and increasingly characters begin to stick. Characters would basically never be seen again originally. And then a few began to show up over and over after Bobby and then the Roadhouse lot, and season 3 had a whole bunch of actual reoccurring characters and stuff like surprise returns for the Trickster or whatever - things that began to make it feel like the world was populated with more than the Winchesters. And by season 8 when the narrative shifts to being primarily character-based and action driven, repeat characters are allowed to show up and stay in ways that they never would have in the past. You get in season 8 Garth, Kevin and Charlie all coming back since season 7 first appearances, Cas and Crowley get their first season they’re actually both in all the way through at the same time, and then there’s repeat characters introduced in that season for its story. Amelia and Benny, and Abaddon and Metatron. It’s CROWDED. The Winchesters are being defined by the people around them and it’s how they react and make their decisions that affects the story. Which allows for delving right down into them and doing masses of character building because all the plot stuff is affected by character things.

And I think Destiel gets so compelling around this time because the shift to emotional storytelling means it’s less what they do and more how what they do affects them and each other. Everyone’s getting defined more by the people around them but Cas and Dean have this whole weird profound thing going already. 

As we go through all that the story becomes more and more self-reflective. 6x01 and 8x01 both reboot the story in weird various ways, going back to the pilot for inspiration. 6x01 just again is about picking up the story and turning it around and telling it in another direction, but 8x01 gets really meta about it… Dabb era snuck up on us because it starts somewhere in the middle-end of season 11, but the end of season 11 is another pick up and turn around moment, but instead of re-telling it begins to completely deconstruct and break down everything that the story had been previously defined by. Which means in many ways the drift back to trying to tell simpler episodes with season 1 themes and style makes it look simpler, but after you stick out 12 years of the show and then get to it, if you look at what they’re doing, part of the reason why the episodes feel SO good, is because there’s a deep intelligence to it all, at least in storytelling terms. Finding what is fresh by taking the things which are worn down and tiresome and trying to do something with them. Subtly, in season 12… A bit louder for the people in the back in season 13 :P But there’s a clever purpose behind it, and the episodes are engaging for other reasons and as a bonus we’re seeing the characters in ways we haven’t really seen them before. Or as we haven’t seen them for a long long time. 

I think a lot of intelligence in good writing is not forgetting the beginning of the story halfway through or at the end or anything. Which is a serious problem when the show is so long. It’s why you sometimes get lines like in 5x21 where Sam and Dean have an exchange where they talk about remember when we used to just hunt Wendigo (*takes a shot*) or in 12x06 why that was the monster they had that game about… It’s meta commentary for mentioning it to go back to the start, to examine their lives (as we were doing to Asa) and remember how it all began. To get a sense of context and continuity that these are the same guys from the start of the show, who have been through *all that* and are still here, being themselves, in their further adventures. 

I think the style has obviously, necessarily, changed a lot but I don’t think it’s simplified anywhere, just that the changes and evolution it’s been through means that the way it’s told now is different, in this case blending nostalgia with trying to convince us we need to keep watching, still, after 13 years, for some of the weird ideas they have going forwards… I think that involves a LOT of character emphasis like being able to take most of 13x01 to mourn Cas when we know he’s coming back, or this whole grief arc, really. Or look at the evolution of Dean worrying about Cas in season 8, 11 and 12 when he’s missing/possessed and how each time it was significantly louder and more important as what Dean was dealing with and how it was affecting him and how important it was to the narrative as a whole. It’s like someone saying a sentence over and over but repeating it with different emphasis. And louder. And the longer the show goes on the less it can rely on one type of telling and the more it has to rely on the other, although I sort of feel like season 13 is hitting a point where I’m not sure where else they GO from here :P 

It’s flipped right back to season 1 in a way, that there’s very little “main plot” intruding on them, right now, except via grief or having Jack around, which of course just elicits a bunch more character development and emotional arc stuff. But the entire history and complexity of the show is still there, so a regular MotW can turn into a chat with Death, who talks to Dean about cosmic matters. Their world is never not going to be huge now after it’s been escalated so far, but on the other hand, you can go back to that season 1 feeling where character development was basically all they had lying around… It’s all massively complex, but on a sublime lower level to what’s going on in the main plot. 

Same as last year, the plot stuff all just served the emotional arcs and it could be literally anything as long as it gave the right nudges to the characters. So far this season it’s been going much better, probably because it feels simpler and there’s been less direct main plot nonsense going on and letting the characters breathe and deal with the emotional stuff… 

Idk, tl:dr I sort of feel like everything season 11 onwards has just been rewarding fans of the show who kept watching that long, made by people who love the show and are delighted it’s been around this long… Like, if anything, the writing might seem simplified because they’ve written so much show that it’s like a self-fuelling self-nostalgia perpetual motion machine for the last couple of seasons. But the very fact it seems easy and simple is betraying how intelligent some of the writing actually is, because at no point has it let up on the depth it’s written at, and with more show it just means MORE stuff to mirror, parallel and build off of. The writing is probably proportionately better than it ever has been because it’s not a level playing field, it’s a MASSIVE MOUNTAIN of past canon all the new writers have to wrangle, learn, and love before they can start writing. And they show that they HAVE and produce great episodes out of it. 

[wuxian-vs-wangji]

Hello. You said before that you wrote a supernatural fanfic that you lost? I was just wondering if you could say what it was about (if you want to, I don't want to be a bother)? I read some of your other fics and while I don't understand a lot because I'm not in those fandoms I feel like you would have a better end of Supernatural than whatever that was we just got (If you've heard about that). Sorry for long ask, thank you if you answer or if you don't!

Oh, I’ve heard about it, LMAO! 

I used to be deep in the SPN fandom on tumblr. Went to a con, met Jared, Jensen, Misha, Jim (got a photo with all 4 of them!), Kim, Rachel, Richard, Matt, and even met Genevieve in passing! Oh, and the guy who played Dick the Leviathan. I totally blank on his name. I think I bailed around season... 8 or 9? 

Kind of rage-quit after they killed off Kevin. At that point they’d just done too much of that crap in a single season and it was pretty obvious they’d lost any semblance of care for the writing, so I bailed.

I’m fine talking about the plot of my fic. When I’d had time to process the shock of losing more than 200 pages of writing *sobs* I posted a summary of how it was supposed to go for my readers. When I do that it’s my way of saying “I quit forever”.

I’ll put the main answer below the cut, since it’ll probably end up being long. My fic was in the form of an entire season of SPN, one 45-47 page chapter per “episode”, so it’s a bit to summarize...

The story took place at some indeterminate point after Season 6. It was written to be independent of the Leviathan Storyline, but really could fit in just about anywhere. I think I’d used details from the season where Sam Carter from SG1/SGA was an evil angel lady, but also it was heavily anchored in Seasons 1-6.

It started with mass destruction in this one town. In the middle of the crater something ragged and uncontrolled and evil appeared. Seriously- destruction was the core of it all. Pure, raw, uncontained power lashing out at everything.

And then the creature at the center of the swarm starts to walk away, leaving a path of destruction behind it.

After a chapter or two of monster-of-the-week type stuff, Sam and Dean started hearing whispers of this thing. Like it was circling them. Through Cas they find out that Heaven is on edge- something has escaped from the deepest, darkest corners of Heaven’s Prison (Dean makes a comment about how hell is supposed to be heaven’s prison, but Cas explains that there are some things too horrible to be sent to hell, away from the watchful guard of angels).

My favorite chapter of anything I’ve ever written opened with people shopping in a store in some small town, kind of a boutique store, and there is a sudden violent quake, everything goes pitch black, then kind of orange. They hear strange noises and long story short Hell is basically growing unstable, collapsing on itself, and this store just randomly fell into Hell. With all the dicking around on the surface with the apocalypse and Leviathans and whatever the fuck else, reality is essentially collapsing in on itself. Heaven, Hell, Purgatory, and the mortal world are all colliding.

Sam and Dean are trying to figure out why this store just kind of vanished (the authorities say sinkhole but it’s basically a crater where this thing once stood) when Sam collapses.

Dean gets him to the hospital and is suddenly dizzy. He turns and finds himself trapped in his own mind, where the thing circling them appears. It needs something from Hell, Dean needs to save the humans, and neither can complete their goal without the other.

The woman (it is all in black and appears to have no face, but speaks with a female voice) has ripped a piece of Sam’s soul away. He is trapped in horrific agony and the woman will leave him there forever if Dean doesn’t help her.

She manages to open a path between this world and hell and Dean goes back to hell with her.

When they return (somewhat victorious but it’s very gory and a lot of people died), Dean has no idea what it is she’s taken. But also where there was once swirling black mist under the hood of her cloak, there is a face rotted, ripped, and destroyed.

Adventures, Adventures, Adventures

The boys cross paths with the woman again. She’s stronger now and her face is looking more human-esque. Castiel is also extremely agitated as he learns about this woman and all he’ll tell Dean is that he needs to kill her on sight. Castiel gives Dean one of the angelic blades for protection (Cas was with them for a lot of the story but I can’t remember what I had him doing). 

Dean comes across this thing again, it is standing over Sam as he screams and writhes and so he stabs it with the angelic blade- the thing that should kill anything.

It doesn’t do shit.

Adventure, drama and whatnot later (around what would be episode 19) the story comes out in fits and bursts:

Once upon a time, in the 1600s, Zachariah decided to make an apocalyptic safety net. He manipulated events to bring together a Campbell and Winchester line (implied Sam and Dean are descended from siblings of these two). The couple had two children- Elizabeth (older) and Matthew (younger).

Two powerful demon hunting families were outcasts in their village. They were forced to live far from the main settlement, and one day the villagers went all witch-hunt-ie and burned the parents alive. Elizabeth and Matthew (only a small child) were left alone.

One winter, as Matthew was dying and Elizabeth- barely alive herself- was hunting in the forest, she came across a young native American man. It was love at first sight. She collapses and he follows her tracks to carry her back to her hovel. When she comes to he’s built a fire, prepared some food (Elizabeth was a shit hunter, couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn from 3 feet away), and has also given Matthew some herbs that help break his fever.

Elizabeth and the young man (I can’t remember what name i gave him) fell deeper in love over that winter. But right when she starts to think things are getting better, the villagers are incensed. They attack, and make Elizabeth watch as they burn Matthew and her love. At this point Matthew is like 6, so, you know, truamatic.

Elizabeth is deemed a feeble-minded woman and kind of thrown aside. That night she goes on a rampage and murders a lot of the villagers in their beds before they catch her and hang her.

But that wasn’t the end of Elizabeth Winchester’s story. It was the beginning.

Elizabeth was a safety net for the apocalypse. Her soul should have gone to Hell for what she did, but instead Zachariah dragged her up into Heaven’s Prison. There, Zachariah tortured Elizabeth for 400 years (which is idk in heaven-time, there is a whole segment of the fandom who analyzes the time in heaven/hell vs on earth).

She became, essentially, a demon made by Heaven itself. They were trying to get her to say ‘yes’ to Michael. That way, if Dean proved to be a turd (spoiler alert: the biggest turd), heaven could resurrect Elizabeth and Michael has a backup. One of the main tortures Zachariah employed was literally strapping angelic grace to her. Demons on Earth are burned up when they catch a glimpse of Grace, but in Heaven she couldn’t even die, so it both drove her overwhelmingly insane and also made her incredibly powerful.

After Zachariah’s death she was forgotten, and left in her cage with that grace burning her soul for years.

Bobby, Jo, Ellen, etc. canonically wander through heaven at-will, evading angels when needed. They were the ones who found their way into the prison and brought her out, but too quickly lost control of her and she returned to the world of the living herself.

A demon with the grace of an archangel.

Bobby, Jo, Ellen, etc. made a pact with her- they let her go, she enters the Cage and destroys both Lucifer AND Michael.

What appeared to be Elizabeth torturing Sam (it kinda was- she’s half demon remember) was also a sort of act of kindness. Sam’s soul was still lashed to The Cage. It was covered in the markings of that place, and when he died it would suck his soul back in. Elizabeth was removing those marks- essentially skinning Sam’s soul and applying those pieces to herself to give her access to the Cage. Taking Dean with her to Hell was also so she could get something that would help her in the Cage.

As they are preparing for her to rip apart the rest of the marks on Sam’s soul (which may kill him), Heaven is trying to intervene to stop her (because Team Michael and they want the apocalypse back on track). They send an archangel to stop her--

The young man she’d fallen in love with back when she was human.

It turns out the man was an angel all along- he played her and arranged his own horrible end (and that of her brother) to push her over the edge. They needed a pure soul with a bit of demonic power to maybe give Elizabeth an edge as a vessel for Michael.

She rips the grace out of the angel. Zachariah’s torture- constantly strapping her to a grace and ripping it away taught her how. It is the most agonizing and horrific end to an angel possible, her act of vengeance.

Eventually Elizabeth would make it to Hell, rip Michael’s grace from Adam, and the Cage would seal behind her after she sent Adam back up. There was going to be a sequel (second season) in which Elizabeth returns.

Her relationship with Sam and Dean in “season 1″ was very contentious and kind of frenemy-esque (think Meg at times). “Season 2″ was going to be more about her just not knowing what to do now. She can’t trust heaven or hell, so she kind of ends up lost and following the Winchesters on their hunts without them noticing her at first or being able to speak to her (like she only shows up sometimes and then vanishes again).

“Season 2″ wasn’t really planned out, but by the end of it they’d have found out Chuck was God. As a sort of apology/ way to get them to stop constantly resurrecting people in the goddamn show/ reward Elizabeth’s soul was “healed” of it’s demonic edge, the Grace would fully anchor (making her an archangel), and she would be given a new realm of death to rule over- one for hunters or supernatural creatures who had been resurrected or in some way used by Heaven or Hell to spend their afterlife at peace.

No chance of resurrection, no matter the spell, and no interference even by other archangels. The hunters dicking around with the paths through heaven would be sent there too (for their protection, the angels in heaven were starting to hunt them in return).

I feel like I’m missing details, I somewhat repress my memories of this fic because losing it was that traumatic, but yeah. That was the general thrust of it.