#I’m lily sunders number one fan btw . love her

[soullessjack]

to me one of the most fucked up things about godjack and that whole “oh Cas and jack are doing excel spreadsheets in heaven now isn’t that so silly” thing and whatever is like. why are you putting them back into the system that abused and manipulated them. cas was literally lobotomized and forced to kill fake deans numerous times to condition him back into being the blind soldier that angels are supposed to be. jack is considered an undesirable abomination by heaven and all of the original nephilim were basically culled from existence by the flood as a result of that undesirability, but at the same time he’s still powerful enough to be desired as a weapon and extorted as such. that’s totally not vaguely eugenicist! and like, both cas and jack were conditioned into doing horrible things by heaven, things that have left deep scarring on both their psyches and senses of worth. jack tortured and murdered another subset of undesirables, the nonbelievers, and the worst part is that he only did it because he thought he was making up for Mary. His guilt was extorted and weaponized and only led to more guilt. once he realized what he’d done.

cas was nearly complicit in the apocalypse and wholly the murder of Lily Sunder’s seven-something year old daughter, again bc she was an undesirable abomination much like Jack was . And he was conditioned into that complicity, tortured repeatedly into believing total complicity and faith in The Plan was Good, or not even good, just a vague and abstract version of justification. he declared war and committed genocide on half of his “siblings,” and comrades, because he was a soldier and war is his lifestyle and if he can find any justification for what he does he will do it and he was taught to value the end before examining the means by which he could get to it, because that’s how heavens system works. ironically I’d say it’s fairly close to Christian fundamentalism, but also capitalism and militarism as well.

Like oh hey, you were born into a corrupt system that raised you with no sense of free will, individuality, or personhood, and encouraged blind obedience and justification of everything in the name of some vague absolution? You belong to a specific group of individuals who are deemed undesirable by the system unless you can be extorted for its gain? Why don’t you just join it and perpetuate it with a few inconsequential changes instead of fully dismantling it because it’s corrupt by design!! yay silly spreadsheets !!!!!!

I know spn isnt trying to run heaven as any sort of actual system or commentary on real life systems, believe me i know it’s not good enough to do that, but even if you take away that lens of heaven and just focus on the face value show canon of what it did to Cas and jack.. it’s still so bleak

[wingsoverbros]

“Lily Sunder Has Some Regrets - I’ve got some reassurances” or “My thoughts on SPN 12.10″

For previous episodes: 12.01 - 12.02 - 12.03 - 12.04 - 12.05 - 12.06 - 12.07 - 12.08 - 12.09

Now, on to Supernatural 12.10 - " Lily Sunder Has Some Regrets"

(The above men are not one of her regrets, luckily. They wouldn’t be mine either.)

In the hiatus between season 11 and 12, we got news that many of our favorite writers from SPN, both established and new, were leaving to pursue other opportunities. Andrew Dabb, the new show-runner, began cherry-picking his new crop of writers and the fans that looked into them reported that they looked promising. That was helpful, but we still waited nervously to see how they would fair. We've now covered almost half the season and most of the writers have gotten around 2 episodes each, give or take, and I must say that Steve Yockey is in the front-running for my new favorite writer.

It's a tall order, as my favorites have been (in turn) Ben Edlund and Robbie Thompson, and both left some mighty big shoes to fill. However, Yockey is doing a phenomenal job at writing well-balanced episodes with plenty of story and an excellent grasp of both new and established characters. I look forward to any additional stories he writes with anticipation. He can share the “Oh, he’s writing it? Goody!” reaction I often get when I hear of Robert Berens writing an episode (he’s my other favorite).

I loved how much new and confirmed info we got in this episode. I'd wondered in the past why Cas automatically assumed Samandiriel was dead in season 8, and considering that Crowley was first shown using an Angel blade that season, wondered if perhaps the blades had some form of identifying mark on them. How do they ensure that each angel gets his own blade back after fights? Maybe their names written in enochian on the hilt? However it's marked, this episode confirmed that an angel can identify a blade's owner from the knife itself. I also enjoyed the fact that there at least 2 angels in the episode shown in vessels that ran counter to their stated pronoun. Any angel that's able to befriend a human and attempts to do anything in its power to protect that friend is n angel that goes on my "good guy" list, and I'm actually sad that we didn't get to see more of Benjamin than we saw in the episode. Considering how sad his death made Cas, he must have been at least a half-ways decent guy.

I liked that we got to see what an angel summoning entails. Frankly, I always just thought it was a simple matter of them just talking like normal, so the fact that they have to activate it via a ritual was interesting. It makes sense, though. You don't want to accidentally just start chattering over Angel Radio without meaning to. I also just figured a battalion of angels were simply called "a battalion", and angels in a group were simply called "a choir". So, how does it go, then? From lowest to highest: A Flight, A Garrison, A Choir, The Host? (Do you think we can someday get a graph? And for that matter, what titles are used for groups of Demons? I'd like to see both info-graphics.)

Some unanswered questions remain, though. For a highly-controlled, militaristic society, Heaven seems incredibly permissive and rather porous. Angels weren't supposed to be on Earth for 2000 years, but any old angel could come down to Earth and hang out without attracting attention? Besides Gabriel, we now have documented cases of Ishim, Akobel, Anna, and Uriel (in “The Song remains the Same”). The last one was quickly intercepted by Michael, but how many others came down and slummed around without the rest of them realizing it? And how many of them pair up with other beings in a friendly or romantic relationship? It seems to be a fair number. Besides Lily and her friend and Cas and the Winchesters, we've also seen Gabriel and Kali (romantic), Abner and his vessel's wife (although she didn't know, so this one is slightly dubious), and Jane's parents (at least sexual, if nothing else). Daniel and Adina in season 10 also gave me a "romantic involvement" vibe.

This does point towards Jane's parent possibly being an unknown lower-level angel, and considering that none of the 1900s group questioned the identification of the child in the episode as human, that angels can't automatically detect the creation of a lower-level angel nephilim.

When we first received spoilers that the episode would involve scenes of Castiel from the past, fans peculated on many various possibilities, from scenes that fit within past episodes involving long-gone angels (I'm still sad there wasn't any Gabriel in the scenes like a lot of people hoped for) to shots of Cas in previous vessels. What we got was not anything like what I expected in the early days, but I loved what we got. Most of the speculation was of Cas in a Novak ancestor that looked like Jimmy, but Yockey decided to give the viewers an unexpected surprise by having Cas in a female vessel. I have to admit it, I squealed. She looked perfect, down to the "sunday best" dress and trenchcoat-like jacket. And although he's been in Jimmy for far longer then any other vessel, duration-wise, now it's canon that Cas has been in female vessels more often then male ones. I can't wait to see the resulting fanfic.

Seeing how cold and focused 1900's Cas was really put a focus on how much Cas has changed in the last 8 years, too. Exposure the the Winchesters has worn off so much of his soldier exterior, his other-worldliness. Although I believe that to be (mostly) to his benefit, I can see why so many of the other angels would look at Cas as different, no longer completely an angel. For a species that lives for billions of years, unchanging and static, the sight of someone just like them changing so dramatically in such a short time is bound to be incredibly disturbing. And it's not just Cas, it's all the angels that come in long-term contact with humans (think about it. Anna? Gabe? Balthazar? Gadreel? Metatron? Daniel and Adina? Not to mention the rogues that we haven't been told about, since angels could apparently come to earth at will even before the Apocalypse started. All dramatically and irreversibly changed by contact with humanity that lasted even for only lasted a short time). No wonder they view humanity as incredibly corrosive. I wonder what Ishim was like before he came in contact with (and obsessed by) Lily. He had to have some sort of good point, unless "good soldier" Cas was just blind to all faults originally. (I wonder too if Naomi's monkeying with his mind ever caused him to overlook bad behavior in other angels?)

One change I did really appreciate a well was that Cas seems to have regained his ability to defend himself when Dean goes a bit overboard. I always prefer the Cas that has a bit of self-esteem to the Cas who is utterly depressed. Cas (usually) has good reasons for what he does, and he deserves the right and ability to defend himself from the sarcasm and arguments that usually ensue whenever Dean doesn't agree with what happened. I also found it amusing that he seems to now be using a nearly identical response to the situation as Dean does, all snarky sarcasm and the silent treatment. With Cas and Dean engaged in mutual "Sam, tell *fill in the blank here* to pass the coffee..." sessions and snark fights, I can only really feel sorry for poor Sam, caught in the middle of a fighting couple in tight quarters. We should probably start a fund to get Sam a survival pack: a stress ball, anti-heartburn meds, a good set of headphones, and a trip someplace beachy for a week. He looked like he needed it this episode.

I do love that even 1900 Cas was snarky, btw. Season 4 Cas being a smartass to Uriel in that deleted scene from "Heaven and Hell" is still one of my all-time favorite clips from Supernatural.

(Side note: Misha's been Cas for 8 years. Nearly a decade. He was initially hired for just 3 episodes. Let that sink in for a moment... ok, moving on.)

Dean has been a snarky passive-aggressive guy all season. Normally, this would annoy me, but as it seems to be how he reacts to both Mary and Cas both, I'm willing to go with it. He used a few funny lines, and I appreciate that he actually explained to Cas at the end of the episode why he was being so grumpy about what happened to Billie in "First Blood". I can take one of my favorites being snotty at my top favorite, as long as it's addressed and at least worked on in the episode. The fact that the snarky responses towards Cas went on the back burner as soon as someone else started being a twerp to Cas also helped. It gave Dean's responses in the episode a protective "no one can snark at him but me" vibe. Cas is clearly family to Dean, no matter what anyone around them says.

I was not expecting to find the supposed villain of the piece so relatable . Lily was stated in the press release as a woman who practiced black magic and was out to slaughter Cas, so I expected to find her to be a fairly stock villain character. That was so not what we got. (And who writes the press releases, anyway? The release and the episode barely resembled each other.)

In "In Memory of Asa Fox", Yockey's previous episode, he was able to write both established and brand-new female characters with skill. He handled Mary, Jody and Billie with an expert hand, each being quite recognizable and perfectly in character. Likewise, his new characters (of both genders) were lovely beings that I look forward to seeing again, especially the Twins. (I loved that they were in "First Blood". I wonder if they'll be anywhere in the rest of the season as well.) Lily is not one I wish to see again, but that's solely due to the whole "return if you decide you have to kill me" thing. If she would give up the revenge thing, a century-old expert in all things angel would be a welcome addition to the new chapter of the American Men of Letters.

I liked that Lily was part of a story-line featuring a human and angel partnership that was intentionally undefined. They never definitively stated (that I caught) whether she and her angel bodyguard were involved or not, just that a jealous angel was spreading the rumor that they were and had done things against the rules. Angels seem to have been a rather gossipy bunch for ages. I wonder what the commentary around the angel cooler was about Dean and Cas over the years. Considering the commentary about Sam and Dean by Zachariah in season 5 and the "You *always* choose the Winchesters" bit from the angels in "Form and Void" last year, you know the commentary by the rest of them had to run the gamut from "the mud-monkeys are using Castiel like a tool and the moron is dumb enough to not see it" to "Oh, they're just buddies" to "I think they may have started sleeping together the minute they met". We know there's stories, several angels have already said (like Ambriel in "Devil in the Details” of season 11.)

Random observations:

I laughed at the fact that Benji was playing Rampage. It makes sense that a 1000 foot tall being constructed to fight and destroy evil (or whatever they label evil) would enjoy a game featuring enormous monsters that destroy buildings. Bet he liked "Wreck-it Ralph", too.

Ishim played "teenage hunter trio" Krissy's dad a few seasons back. They're recycling actors faster then normal.

Letting a human live after slaughtering everyone they love is anything but a mercy. It was that, before anything Lily said, that told me who the true villain was in the episode.

I liked that even as a bad-ass pre-season 4 soldier angel, Cas still flinched when the human child was killed. Even as a robot, Cas favored humanity.

I enjoyed the mentions of Uriel and Balthazar. (I miss Bal.)

Dean refused to banish Ishim because it might hurt Cas if he got booted. This is a considerable improvement to the banishments in season 5 and season 7. Dean deserves a cookie for this character growth. (or a beer. Whatever works.)

For the final minute of the episode, and the Winchester Family Angel Pep Talk, Sam also deserves a cookie (Dean can have a second one. For the pep talk and the "Cas is our family" comment.)

With his second episode being of such high quality, Steve Yockey has managed to take the lead for my position of best writer on SPN. His ability to both create great new characters, manage the development of our favorite existing characters, and tell entertaining and fast-paced stories gives me hope in the continuation of SPN as a entertaining show to watch. I hope he stays a while, and I can't wait to see where he and the show goes from here.