#and also. one example of this is the whole “dean would sacrifice himself for sam. sam would sacrifice others for dean” thing

[lilacpaperbird]

If I could free the spn fandom from one illness, I'd choose the compulsion so many people have to present Sam and Dean as opposites in every facet, big or small. There are many preferences they both share, there are many situations in which they'd both feel or act in really similar ways, and there are certain pillars of their personalities that are essentially identical. Trying to always find that "polar opposites/two sides of the same coin" energy everywhere only ends up twisting and misinterpreting their personalities to make them fit that mold. And there's usually one brother who ends up getting the short end of the stick and being transformed into a caricature that has lost any actual connection to his canon self, just so he can be presented as the opposite of his brother

[dotthings]

Appointment in Samarra is a banger of an episode.

Let's talk about the fallacy of "Dean only cares about Sam he would let the whole world burn bleep blop bloop"--a fallacy often used by a certain standom faction.

Canon events:

Dean shows his self-sacrificial inclinations and he is doing it for Sam's sake, and lets himself be killed for 6 minutes so he can talk to Death, to get Sam's soul back, but the rest of the episode--and later episodes of the series--will show Sam isn't the only one Dean is willing to make sacrifices for, including the part where Dean temp kills himself to help the ghost of a child for one example, and is even more willing to go there because of his grief over Cas. Loss and grief often drives Dean. In S6, he is grieving Sam, because Sam's soul is gone

Dean's intent isn't to do this only for Sam, and he asks for both Sam's soul and Adam to be lifted from the cage

Death, who has had it up to here with Winchester shenanigans forces Dean to choose between the brother he's known his entire life and the half-brother he barely knows. It's not because Dean doesn't care about Adam, because Dean asked to save Adam not just Sam. There's nothing twisted or unhinged about Dean choosing Sam's soul, when Death plays hardball at him. But if the other person was someone Dean knows well and loves dearly...it isn't so simple. He also cares about people.

Death makes a deal with Dean to get Sam's soul back where Dean has to be Death for 24 hours and if Dean gives up, if he takes off the ring, he loses and the deal is off (This is one of my favorite Dean-focused episodes btw)

It starts out simple for Dean. A robber. An adult man having a heart attack enabled by his own junk food habits. Dean knows things aren't this simple but in this ep he's initially letting himself whistle past the graveyard that this will be a cakewalk...innocents don't die. Only crooks and people who don't take proper care of their bodies, right? The irony doesn't escape me that Dean himself is a junk food enthusiast himself. As is Death.

But it's not so simple. There's a 12 year old girl with a weak heart. Dean can't endure killing her and mis-uses some high-minded ideas about free will and defying fate to justify his refusal to do his job as Death in this one instance. The ripple effect causes the death of another innocent, the nurse who would have assisted in the little girl's surgery, but it was cancelled due to her miraculous recovery, the nurse heads home, and therefore winds up in a horrible car accident that takes her life, and she dies because the heart surgeon doesn't return to the hospital in time, because he went home as well due to the little girl's miraculous recovery

Dean then witnesses the grief of the husband of the nurse, raw and large and he identifies with it and his regrets are increasing

Dean then acts to save the husband, who in a drunk fit of grief, almost drives his car into a busload of people.

To save an entire busload of people and the grieving husband, Dean takes off the ring. He loses the bet. He willingly relinquishes that chance to save Sam's soul to save others.

He returns to the little girl to set things right, because if he doesn't, the ripple effect will follow her the rest of her life and people will keep dying because Dean as Death couldn't bear to kill her.

Meanwhile soulless Sam is off the chain, there's the confirmation he regards Sam as an other, and himself a separate being. He has to kill Bobby for the spell to protect him from having Sam's soul jammed back into him and attacks Bobby.

The reason Dean gets to the point where he realizes he'll have to kill soulless Sam is because soulless Sam tried to kill Bobby. (Note fallacy B, Dean doesn't really care about Cas because he's willing to kill Godstiel, when soulless Sam and Godstiel are parallel situations and Dean was ready to kill soulless Sam). You can see the exact moment where soulless Sam realizes Dean is ready to kill him, the realization from both of them.

Having put Dean through the wringer and gotten him to understand his ripple effect of his actions on the natural order, Death then decides to get Sam's soul back after all.

This is not due to the deal Dean made. Dean did not save Sam's soul. Death handed it over after Dean blew the deal. Death has his own agendas and wants Dean to be detective and look into what's going on with the souls. And maybe he does have a soft spot for Dean. Cosmic beings often seem to.

Canon is canon is canon is canon, Dean's love is not finite, Dean's heroism isn't limited, Dean never ever only cares about Sam, even in S2 when he was in a drunk griefrage yelling at Bobby, he was speaking from a place of deep hurt but he would never have actually let the world end for it, Dean's capacity to care is vast, and far far more than a certain fandom faction ever has the ability to comprehend and grasp. It's their loss entirely.

[scoobydoodean]

am I the only one who thinks the very existence of crossroad demons in canon makes it clear that selling your soul for someone else is not even something that's particularly unhinged? they have people out there making demon deals for far less than bringing a family member back from the dead lol it's just that demons are very invested in fucking with the winchesters and poking at dean's perceived neediness and vulnerability and his and sam's codependency. maybe it's just terminal deangirlism but I have never really bought into him being particularly needy or clingy I think he's baseline normal but everyone else acts like he's smothering them

Context

Copying my tags also:

Dean's main way of saving Sam is by sacrificing himself? And I think a lot of that reflects Dean's struggles with depression and suicidal ideation. Sam isn't the only one Dean has been shown to be willing to sacrifice himself for when he was at a low point. He was ready to die for Layla in 1.12 and he was ready to die in 13.05. Both emotional low points where he was struggling with his own sense of worth. 2.22 is a low point Dean has been building to all season. His worsening depression is very clear. 9.01 is simply... severely misinterpreted in terms of Dean's perspective. He risks his life every day. He stood between max and his mom in 1.14 also with a gun pointed at his chest

And yeah people in SPN make demon deals a lot. Sam says he tried to make a demon deal to get Dean back in 4.01, but no demon would deal. He also tried to re-open the Devil's Gate from 2.22 (which would let out hundreds of demons yet again to wreak havoc on the world). John made a demon deal to save Dean's life, and many fans don't even think he cares about Dean. Bobby made one, Bela made one, etc.

I could go through the whole show to prove Dean being a Needy and Clingy and Smothering person simply is not accurate... or, because I'm tired of making up people's arguments for them and proving a negative by going through a whole show is very annoying (and I am technically already doing that very extensively through a series of searchable tags), I could just say fans who think this way are incorrect.

If they don't think they are, they're welcome to give me examples of Dean actually being a uniquely horribly needy and clingy and desperate and demanding person who forces people to stay with him forever and ever because he doesn't care what they want and desperately wants to control their lives. I've certainly seen people try to make the argument before, but without fail each time they point to examples that are 1) not even remotely unique to Dean (and he's usually the weakest example and I can think of multiple for other characters showing behavior that is objectively more extreme) 2) presented in an intentionally misleading or mind-blowingly out of context manner 3) woefully (and often rather deliberately) mischaracterizes Dean's motivations.

Anyway, feel free to stream related tags I track:

#sams motivations

#taurus sam in the flesh

#In which Sam is not a helpless little waif with his hands cast over his eyes being carried along by the tides of the immutable sea

#sam the hunter

#sams moral compass

#projecting displaced aggression and scapegoating in spn

spn revisionisms

#demons lie

#youre such a control freak

[diminuel]

In continuing the “Sam actually being Michael but also a female archangel at that” how do you think Sam would deal with being a female or the whole sex change in general with having angelic powers and memories from the past that he/she seems to constantly dream about after getting back the grace from his/her past life. How do you think Heaven would try to deal with him/her like treat him/her like royalty to convince him/her to kill Lucifer and stop the apocalypse. Or He’ll now snubbing at Sam cause he/she’s actually Michael

I think the issue here would be that Sam doesn't just have to deal with one issue, but with at least three very stressful situations.

Angels don't seem to be particularly fixed within their gender identity, so while Sam's body might change it wouldn't be like Michael's female angelic identity would be so overwhelmingly strong that it would override Sam's gender identity.

I think Sam would try to maintain his identity. I think he's been struggling so much with figuring out who he is, especially as he struggles with demon blood, with being a freak and whatever else is troubling Sam at any given time.

So I think he'd try to maintain a barrier between SAM (himself) and Michael (past self). I'm not sure he'd embrace it, he'd probably struggle against it.

He wouldn't start feeling like a woman I'd say. He wouldn't change how he dresses (apart from the necessary adjustments regarding a bra, but I'd think he'd be a sports bra only type of guy.)

And I think that Sam would put effort into being unchanged, would maybe also help Dean deal with the situation and not make Sam feel further alienated from his own family. He's still Sam, he's working hard to still be Sam and Dean (and Bobby) will probably appreciate it.

As to Heaven. I think Zachariah will certainly be trying to bring Michael back into the fold and won't understand why Michael is sticking to being Sam. It's not like with Dean where Zachariah could do what he wanted because Dean was just a vessel. If he and other angels are for example hurting or kidnapping Sam's friends/ family to pressure him into joining Heaven, that might have very dire consequences for them.

Lucifer might try to reason with Sam, say to him that he's been trying all this time to make him see Lucifer's side, say that they were always meant to be together, not against each other, it was their father that divided them etc. Which I think might resonate somehow with Sam BUT since Lucifer wants to destroy humanity and Sam is not Michael, i.e. kinda cares about humanity by virtue of being (sort of) human, Lucifer won't ultimately win.

I also think that Sam's love for his brother Dean will be stronger than Michael's whatever emotion for her brother Lucifer. So Sam will be able to override any Michael coding, ultimately confirm his identity as Sam and safe the day :3 (possibly through the self-sacrifice we've already seen in S5.)

[legless-fish-on-rollerskates]

All the morons trying to claim that Dean wasn't saying anything to Cas because he was holding back slurs or something equally ridiculous... what show have you been watching? Surely not Supernatural. Like, yeah, Dean had some internalized shit for a while (mostly cause of how he was raised, let's be real), but this isn't season fucking one. Dean's in his goddamn forties now guys.

But you still think Dean Winchester is homophobic? Let's examine the evidence then, shall we?

1. Aaron Bass: Dean was flustered because he's not used to being hit on by dudes, but he was completely respectful. And he was alone, too. It wasn't like he was trying to "hide his homophobia" from Sam. He could've said whatever he wanted in that moment without anyone ever knowing, and he chose to awkwardly walk backward and wish Aaron a nice day. Then later, when they're working with him, Dean says nothing about it (other than a quick "he was my gay thing" to Sam), doesn't make it weird, and talks to him exactly the same way he would talk to anyone else.

2. Jesse and Ceasar: Dean's surprised when he realizes that they're married, again because he's not really used to it and so he made the wrong assumptions (which I will point out is really really normal, it happens all the time even between queer people, because heteronormativity is very much a thing in real life). But what does he do when he finds out? He asks them about their marriage - with genuine curiosity. What's it like to be in a relationship with a hunter, is it hard, all that jazz. Never asks about the fact that they're both men, none of those gross "so who's the woman" questions, literally just. Talking to two married hunters. That's it. Then later, when they're working, he never once questions their capability as hunters or suggests that they're weak in any way. There's no "you're less 'manly' because you're gay" mindset at all. And at the end of the episode he's genuinely happy for them, two hunters who managed to get out of the life and retire together.

There's lots of other examples (several male cops have been obviously into him over the years, his reaction to Jody talking about Claire and Kaia, all the subtext surrounding Lee, etc.) but for my last one for now, let's not forget...

3. Charlie fucking Bradbury: Arguably Dean's best friend besides Cas (no I haven't forgotten about Benny, I love Benny, but he was part of a very specific chapter of Dean's life and that chapter is done). We've known she was a lesbian from the get-go, and Dean takes it in stride when he finds out, immediately improvising to coach her through some painfully awkward flirting so she can get into the office ("you've just come home, and Scarlett Johansson is waiting for you"). And yes, there's the whole "I feel dirty" "yeah so do I" bit there, but that's clearly established as a joke, plus the guy was gross - as someone who is attracted to both women and men, I would feel dirty after flirting with him too.

The next few times we see Charlie, she and Dean are geeks and dweebs together, Dean is having more fun than we've seen in years, and we see him be a really good friend - in some ways, a better friend than he is to Cas. Charlie talks to him a little bit about girls, they LARP, they go shopping together, Dean comforts her when she has to let go of her mom. When she's killed, he gets so upset he goes on a murderous rampage (maybe not the most healthy way to deal with greif, but nonetheless showing how much she mattered to him). When he sees an alternate version of her in trouble he's immediately ready to risk his own life to help her even though she doesn't know him. He loved her like a sister, and he never once expressed any issues with her sexuality.

So let's go back to Cas. Cas is in love with Dean. Not much of a surprise there, he's said it before. But this is the first time Dean understands that that's what he's saying. It makes sense that he's a little stunned, especially considering that Cas is also saying that he's about to die. I mean, if your best friend of twelve years told you one day that they've been in love with you all along, that just knowing you has irrevocably changed them for the better, and that also by the way telling you this means they're going to die, mightn't you be rendered a tad speechless?

Dean does not hate Cas for this. Not at all. Because whether or not Dean is bi, whether or not he reciprocates, Cas is still his best friend. We've seen how hard Dean grieves every time Cas dies. We know how much Cas matters to him. Of all the shit they've put each other through, there's absolutely no logical reason for this to be the thing that damages their friendship beyond repair. Not after everything. No fucking way.

Dean says nothing because he doesn't know what to say, because he's still processing Cas's confession but also already grieving and blaming himself for Cas's death. The way he breaks down at the very end of the episode? That's not a man who's disgusted. That's a man who's shattered.

How dare you try to simplify this incredibly complex and emotional moment into Dean being a dick. How dare you. It's positively insulting. The entire point of Cas's speech was that Dean is so much more than that. If you can't see that, than I'm sorry, but you're missing the whole message of the show.

Supernatural is about family and sacrifice. It's about free will, making your own choices. And it's about being more than just who you're supposed to be, going beyond what other people want or assume. All the depth beneath the surface. That's the show. That's why we're still watching after all this time. Because it means something important. Something relevant. Something real.

Don't you fucking discredit that.

(thank you for coming to my TED talk)

[mittensmorgul]

I was having a conversation with someone about spn recently. I was saying how it was compelling to me how Cas was basically the only one to embrace free will and escape the narrative, and he did this because he loved Dean. And because of that, Cas invented free will. His choosing Dean over heaven is the variable that made this reality different from every other reality, right?

The person I was talking to agreed that Cas embraced free will, but she also argued that Sam and Dean also embraced free will because they refused to kill each other the way other versions of themselves did.

So my point is that: Only Cas's love for Dean invented free will, and that's what allowed Sam and Dean to break free of the narrative.

Her point was: Sam, Dean, and Cas all simultaneously embraced free will, and thus broke free of the narrative together.

I prefer my interpretation because of Destiel/queer-love-defying-god-and-saving-the-universe reasons (my god why does this stupid show have to be so compelling???). But I'm also wondering what you think. I'm kind of looking for textual validation for MY interpretation, and I'm curious if you know of any off that top of your head.

No worries if not, I was just curious about it. You're my fav meta writer, and thanks for all you do ☺️

Hi there! I'm flattered that you've enjoyed anything I've written here! I appreciate that! But unfortunately I agree with your friend. Or... mostly...

The show has been about free will for years. Cas's arc in it was his personal coming to truly understand and embrace free will for himself. To understand all the lessons about free will that he literally learned from Dean.

"Just because you can do what you want doesn't mean you can do whatever you want," and all that.

Other angels did start down that road. Anna, specifically, chose to be born human to experience humanity and free will for herself, and then was dragged back. Balthazar took the whole free will thing to the sorts of extremes that Cas did in s6 (doing whatever he wanted, because nothing mattered in the end). It was the same sort of nihilism that plagued AU!Michael after "following all God's orders perfectly" and bringing about their apocalypse as ordered/destined by God, and then didn't come with the expected "reward" of God's return to their world.

This was Cas's primary struggle in s4, where he fought against his own essential programming, and against the belief that he was effectively created to follow God's orders, to obey Heaven's commands. We know he had crises of conscience before, in the past, thanks to Naomi's confirmation that Cas was present at other objectionable events carried out by angels in the past (killing the firstborns of Egypt, for example) that were wiped from his memory because they were leading him to question authority or doubt their orders. The difference in *THIS* universe, though, was that *this* Cas had Dean.

Dean didn't exist in the Apocalypse AU. That Cas may have had some similar objections, and from his behavior (the eye twitch, etc.) there is definitely a potential read there that Cas himself had tried to object enough, and had been "reprogrammed" enough to have finally completely broken him.

I've written about how some angels are "specialists," a term first used to describe Uriel and his city-leveling abilities. We know Zachariah (even the AU version of him) had the special power to implant visions directly into people's brains. And that Cas's "special power" was that he could "strip memories" out of people's minds. What a HORRIBLE power. But also, very much what Naomi's brain reprogramming torture hat was supposed to do, yes?

Ironic that Cas was the one that reprogramming hat didn't completely work on.

But the difference for Cas wasn't that he "escaped the narrative," because in the end he did not at all. In the end because of the love for Dean that he understood through his own free will, he chose to die so that Dean could live. Which... is effectively exactly what Chuck wanted for Cas in the narrative. He wanted him gone. Cas ultimately gave in to Chuck's narrative first of TFW.

He made the choice for himself, but Chuck's narrative was always one step ahead of all of them right to the end. It was a choice he should never have had to make. "Either we both die right here and Chuck wins, or I save Dean by sacrificing myself so he can go on without me to stop Chuck." That was what his final act boiled down to.

Once Chuck was defeated, this was obviously the very first act we all assumed Jack would undertake to undo that sacrifice. Which makes me believe that Chuck actually won... but that's a rant for another post (and a goodly number of posts I've already made lol).

But humanity was created WITH FREE WILL! Angels were not. So... I'd offer that Cas was the first angel to successfully understand free will and apply it to himself. He was also the first angel to inhabit his own body (not a vessel after 5.01), the first to have been made human within that body, and the first to experience life as a human while retaining all his memories of his entire existence before becoming human. He fully understood humanity, and said "yeah I like this better."

All these themes of humanity, love, and free will were wrapped up in his entire story arc, and I personally feel like it takes something important away from his story to suggest that he was the ONLY character with free will, when he only learned free will for himself BECAUSE of Dean and his love for Dean. Which is what Cas actually said in his confession.

"You know, ever since we met, ever since I pulled you out of Hell, knowing you has changed me. Because you cared, I cared. I cared about you. I cared about Sam. I cared about Jack. I cared about the whole world because of you. You changed me, Dean.

I refuse to take that away from them.

[finalgirlbrainrot]

I have two unpopular opinions 1) if roles were reversed and Dean was the one drinking blood, Dean stans would have excused the shit out of it and even liked it. 2) if none of Dean's trauma was addressed and ignored (like most of Sam's trauma is) Dean stans would fucking riot.

intensely aggressively strongly agree | strongly agree | agree | neutral | disagree | strongly disagree

(sorry in advance, I ranted A Lot)

2) I'm gonna start with this one. YESYESYES I mean dean stans are already constantly unironically whining that dean's traumas never get acknowledged (EVEN THO IT'S LITERALLY NOT TRUE, HIS TRAUMAS ALREADY GET ACKNOWLEDGED MORE THAN ENOUGH. EVERY TIME HE STUBS HIS TOE. EVERYONE IS CODDLING HIM AND ASKING HIM HOW HE'S DOING. HALF THE SHOW IS LITERALLY DEAN MANPAINING ABOUT HIS TRAUMAS - but apparently that's not enough for them, so I can't imagine the uproar if it was actually true). meanwhile sam's traumas either get ignored or they get treated like a fucking joke? well I guess it's just another tuesday

I've also seen a lot of dean stans moaning about sam "forcing dean to talk about his traumas", because apparently sam actually acknowledging dean's traumas and encouraging him to open up about them and being always supportive af because he actually cares is unacceptable (and I'm willing to bet that if he didn't acknowledge them, they'd still complain because sam literally can't win no matter what he does)

but dean ignoring and never acknowledging sam's traumas (not even when he's directly responsible for said trauma) or making them all about himself (mystery spot, hallucifer, soullessness, gadreel possession) or vilifying and victim blaming him (being force-fed demon blood, soullessness, gadreel possession) or using said traumas to justify his actions (hallucifer) or making cruel, disgusting and unnecessary jokes about them ("you had a girl inside you for a whole week" [meg possession] "you know how wrong that sounds, right?" "you've like an episode of teen mom" [gadreel possession - let's talk about how these two in particular are a thousand times more disgusting than the rest since he's actually joking about a violation he's directly responsible for] "smores foot" [bmol torture] "crybaby pie" [cole torture] "you saw the [devil's] john [or butt]?" [the cage] dick of death jokes right, left and center) is perfectly acceptable behaviour

1) again YESYESYESYES. I mean, this isn't even a hypothesis, we already have an extremely similar storyline for dean - the moc - and everyone made excuses for him and glorified him, even tho he was worse than demon blood sam in every possible way

actually I wrote a rant on reddit a couple of days ago about the awful double standards between demon blood sam and moc/demon dean. I'm gonna paste it here because I'm Bitter Af

comparing demon blood sam and moc/demon demon is ironically and hysterically bitter because, logically, no matter how you spin it, s4 sam is much more understandable and easy to sympathize with - both in intentions and actions - and should have the moral high ground, while s9-10 dean was flat out awful and damaging. yet both the show and the fandom crucify sam and treat dean as some poor victim or a great martyred hero who made some great noble sacrifice and I just... don't get it. so let's break it down:

> reason for drinking blood / getting the moc

- sam: exorcising demons without harming the host, thus saving people (which apparently isn't that relevant to dean) and killing lilith, first because she sent his brother to hell and then to stop the apocalypse and because she was an actual threat

- dean: because he couldn't face the consequences of his actions after the gadreel mess and decided he wanted to kill abaddon, who, at that point, wasn't even their problem (she only became a real problem in 9x17, when they learned about the soul harvesting, so unless dean has some sort of prophetic knowledge, he had no reason to take the moc in 9x11) and was a real threat to no-one but crowley

> trusting / working with a demon

- sam: I've already said this before, but ruby was a master manipulator and went to extraordinary lengths to gain sam's trust and even managed to fool every single demon (aside from lilith obviously). as far as both brothers knew, she's done nothing but help them, saved their lives multiple times and helped them save others, fixed the colt for them, was there for sam after dean died, is basically hunted by other demons for helping them, has risked her life for them several times and even got tortured for them and was helping sam to go after the demon who was trying to start the apocalypse. sam had absolutely no valid reason not to trust her. I'd really like someone to look me in the eyes and tell me that, if anyone did everything I mentioned above, you wouldn't trust them

- dean: trusted a demon who they knew is extremely untrustworthy and self-serving and only does what's in his best interest and has screwed them over one way or another every time they worked together and has hurt people they're close to

> level of manipulation involved

- sam: as I already said, ruby was a master manipulator and spent two years carefully manipulating sam to get him to do what she wanted. not the mention everything azazel did to get him there, lilith pushing his buttons at every turn to get him to kill her and the manipulation from heaven as well, who were lying to the boys at every turn

- dean: while crowley was manipulating him, the level of manipulation isn't remotely comparable to the one sam went through is s4. crowley saying “let’s kill abaddon” and pretending to be afraid of cain is not comparable to a plan that’s been set on motion since the beginning of time and crowley wasn't the only one involved in dean getting the mark. cain was involved as well and he wasn't manipulating him (unlike sam, who was being manipulated by everyone involved). on the contrary, he was completely honest with dean and even offered to tell him more about the mark and DEAN REFUSED (like can you imagine how many problems would've been avoided if dean sat on his ass for one minute and listened to cain's warning???)

> actions

- sam: in s4 sam was trying to use something that was forced on him when he was six months old, and that he hated about himself, to do good because he felt like he had to and was literally SAVING PEOPLE and trying to stop the apocalypse, I literally still don't get why he's vilified for it????? in s4 sam killed a total of one (1) person: the possessed nurse and while that was obviously bad, 1) he was clearly upset about it and 2) I still haven't seen one (1) valid reason for why she's any different from the demons dean drained and killed in swan song or from any of the other possession victims they killed with the demon knife or the angel blade

- dean: meanwhile dean was going around murdering people left and right (also another example of fandom double standards: everyone defends moc!dean and demon!dean because "he only killed bad people" - which isn't even true, but let's say he was - and yet, I seem to remember a certain kitsune named amy pond, who was ALSO killing bad people (and not for the lolz of it, but to save her son) and dean killed her and the fandom defended him back then as well. is killing bad people okay only if dean does it?), tried to kill sam, beat cas bloody

> keeping secrets

- sam: keeping his powers and the demon blood a secret was his god given right, since it affected no-one but sam himself and the demons he was exorcising. not to mention, he had pretty good reasons for not telling dean, considering his bigotry, black and white views and judgmental attitude. and yet, he was, and still is, vilified by both the show and the fandom for keeping secrets and dean even punched him for not telling him about his abilities (something in particular about this point that absolutely drives me up the wall: in 4x04 sam accidentally revealed that he knew about what azazel did to him and dean got mad at him for not telling him about it, even tho dean himself found out about it and didn't tell sam and no-one - not the show, not the fandom and not even sam and dean themselves - notices the hypocrisy. they're literally saying that it's okay for DEAN to keeps something about SAM a secret from SAM, but not okay for SAM to keep something about HIMSELF a secret from DEAN. if you don't think that's super fucked up, then I don't know what to tell you)

- dean: no-one says anything about dean keeping the effects of the mark a secret, even tho, unlike s4 sam, lying about the mark directly affected other people and put everyone around him in danger, including sam

> general treatment

- sam: everyone treated sam like a monster in s4, dean straight up called him a monster, told him he'd hunt him if he didn't know him, forced him into a torture-detox that almost killed him, tried to control him and refused to see his point. at the end of s4 sam apologized to dean. in s5 dean repeatedly told him that he doesn't trust him. sam was blamed for everything that happened in s4 and his mistake kept getting brought up even seasons later

- dean: everyone and their mom was coddling him and helping to get rid of the mark. everyone considered the mark to be the problem, not dean himself. sam was unconditionally supportive. dean never once apologized to sam for any of the awful things he said/did to him while he had the mark. sam never once blamed dean for anything that happened in s9-10 and instead placed the blame on crowley and none of the things dean did ever got brought up again

> at the end of each arc

- sam: paid for his mistake by sacrificing himself and jumped into the cage and saved the world and got tortured by the devil himself for centuries

- dean: paid for his mistake by having his mother brought back to life

send me unpopular opinions

[carveredlunds]

TW: SUICIDE MENTIONS I’m not the first person to point out that Chuck’s ending makes no sense. Chuck himself says he’s omniscient in 15.17. So, him needing a “heads up” from Michael about Team Free Will’s plan doesn’t make sense — he should have known what they were going to do, and he should have known what was happening when Jack absorbed his powers. He shouldn’t have lost the way he did. Unless he didn’t lose. When looked at another way, Chuck’s ending might have been what he wanted all along. Or rather, it would have been, if Sam and Dean had killed him.  According to Wikipedia, “suicide by cop or suicide by police is a suicide method in which a suicidal individual deliberately behaves in a threatening manner, with intent to provoke a lethal response from a public safety or law enforcement officer.” It is entirely possible that Chuck deliberately went full Big Bad in the hopes of eventually getting Team Free to kill him. He knows that Sam and Dean are the messengers of his destruction, after all. They’re the only ones who can finish him. And what better way to go than at the hands of your favourite humans? I’ve talked about this before, but here it is again: in 15.02, Chuck said “So, that Game of Thrones ending? Pretty great, right?” A lot of people assumed this was a sign that he didn’t know what constituted bad writing, that it was a nod from the showrunners to the audience, like they were saying to us, “Don’t worry! Supernatural’s ending won’t be that bad!” But what if he liked the ending of Game of Thrones for another reason? What if he saw himself in Dany’s final storyline — an evil tyrant, gone mad with power, being killed by the show’s protagonist for their own good? This theory still holds up if you also take into consideration season 11′s characterisation of Chuck. If you don’t just assume that everything Chuck did in season 11 was a trick or a lie (which I don’t), then he was absolutely willing to sacrifice himself to save the world from Amara. The suicidal intention was already there. But then he reunited with Amara, and figured he’d give living a shot for a while. But that didn’t work. By the time the season 14 finale rolls around, he and Amara have parted ways, and he is bitter and cynical and done with it all. He just wants out, even at the cost of everything he’s created. He’s alone without his sister, he hates himself (as he said to Becky) and he’s been alive for so long, creating whole worlds just for something to do. Speaking of Becky, I think Chuck’s visit to her in 15.04 was when his plan to commit “suicide by the Winchesters” really formed. He went to see her because he had nowhere else to go, and he starts out the episode lost and self-loathing. He writes an ending to the brother’s story which Becky doesn’t like (not featuring his own demise) so he snaps her out of existence, and rewrites the ending slightly (which is the ending we see in episode 19 — basically the same one Becky read, except now with Chuck’s death at the hands of Sam and Dean included. This is the scene where he says “This is gonna be good” to himself.) By the end of this episode, he is completely sold on the idea of being the ultimate Big Bad and letting Team Free Will kill him in the end. Before episode 4, he wanted to abandon this world with Amara, and go to create something new. This brings me nicely onto the subject of of his creations. If you look at Chuck’s systematic destruction of his other worlds as a suicidal person getting rid of all of their personal belongings and ties to life (on a cosmic scale) then it aligns with the theory that he was on a self-destructive mission. One of the common signs to watch out for in suicidal individuals is a cavalier attitude towards their belongings, with people who have made a plan to die often giving away possessions to loved ones. They may also appear cheerful, despite having a plan to die. But this is because they have a plan to die — they see an end in sight, and they’ve made a plan to get there. This too falls in line with Chuck’s behaviour. From 15.04 onwards, he is as happy-go-lucky as any other Big Bad of the show, cracking jokes, grinning jovially, and generally seeming happy. So, here is Chuck’s “Death by the Winchesters” Plan in its entirety: First, he set himself up as an antagonist in the eyes of Team Free Will in the season 14 finale. Then he destroyed all of his creations, except the world featuring the Winchesters who were the messengers of his destruction. Then, he absorbed Amara (the only other being who might want to talk him out of his plan). And finally, he went to face them in that final showdown in episode 19, in the hopes that they would kill him and finally put an end to his ancient, lonely, existence. Chuck shows lots of the hallmarks of a suicidal and depressed character, even in season 11, but definitely in seasons 14 and 15. He’s antagonistic, destructive, lonely, reckless, self-deprecating, and nihilistic. According to save.org, there are 11 warnings signs of suicide:

1. Talking about wanting to die or to kill oneself 2. Looking for a way to kill oneself 3. Talking about feeling hopeless or having no purpose 4. Talking about feeling trapped or being in unbearable pain 5. Talking about being a burden to others 6. Increasing the use of alcohol or drugs 7. Acting anxious, agitated, or reckless 8. Sleeping too little or too much 9. Withdrawing or feeling isolated 10. Showing rage or talking about seeking revenge 11. Displaying extreme mood swings Of these 11, we can remove “sleeping too little or too much”, on account of the fact that he’s God (though he does seem to sleep a lot as the Prophet Chuck, even in the middle of the day. This could be put down to his method acting, but still worth mentioning!) Anyway, really, it’s a 10 point list. And of those 10, Chuck displays the following signs: 1. Talking about wanting to die or to kill oneself (“To die at the hands of Sam Winchester. Of Dean Winchester, the ultimate killer... It's kind of glorious” in 15.19) 2. Looking for a way to kill oneself (His “Death by the Winchesters” Plan) 3. Talking about feeling hopeless or having no purpose (“Yeah, I just don’t know what I’m doing. I feel so lost” in 15.04) 4. Increasing the use of alcohol or drugs (drank excessively as the Prophet Chuck, hung out in a bar in 11.20, and went on a bender at the casino in 15.08 when he killed all the staff and hung around gambling) 5. Acting anxious, agitated, or reckless ( “You don’t need me. No one does […] I kind of hate me right now” in 15.04 shows his anxious/agitated side) 6. Withdrawing or feeling isolated (examples in this gifset I made) 7. Showing rage or talking about seeking revenge (“It’s time to start cancelling shows” in 15.12, and his many temper tantrums from 11.20 onwards) 8. Displaying extreme mood swings (see: every episode featuring Chuck from 11.20 onwards) That’s 8 out of 10. That’s 80%. And while he doesn’t actively talk about feeling trapped, being in unbearable pain or being a burden, he does say that no one needs him (in 15.04 with Becky), and talk about being unfulfilled and disappointed with the world (in 11.20 with Metatron, in 15.12 with the Radio Shed Clerk, and in 15.17 with Amara.) So perhaps his ending did make sense after all. He wanted the brothers to kill him, but instead, they refused, and left him alone to suffer.

[angelfishofthelord]

Between you fix it fics that have the Winchesters be there for Cas and your post about things Cas has said that should have gotten a response from somebody, I just feel so bad for Cas. Cas gets ragged on (both in the show and fandom) for not asking for help but is it any wonder why?

Dearest anon thank you for bringing this up! I never understood why Cas got criticized in both the fandom and the show for "not asking for help"; or when people say that it's a habit of his. Well no actually every time he didn't ask for help he had a definite reason that he would have (and often tried to) explain but no one was listening!

For example in s6 his first instinct was to go to Dean for help with the Raphael problem. And then he decided to spare him the sacrifice that saving the world would inevitably cost him again. But also in 6x20 and 6x22 he repeatedly tries to explain why he's doing the whole poppin-Purgatory-open scheme and no one is willing to even try to understand him, not even a reluctant "okay lets say you're right" kind of conversation.

Ditto for s8 and the angel tablet situation. Cas says "I thought I was doing the right thing" which should have been followed up with "okay why did you think that" (not whatever Dean snapped back at him with). Also Cas did ask Dean (and receive) help with the closing heaven trials and yet for some reason I still see a lot of fics where Dean is super pissed at Cas for "going off on his own again and not listening to him" -- no Dean knew exactly what Cas was doing and yes he did sort of ditch helping Cas to go to Sam but that's very in-character.

In s11 and s12 with Lucifer and Kelly respectively we see Cas doing the "I'm going to make the hard choice to spare the Winchesters the pain of having to do it". This feeds into the whole "Cas considers himself the boys guardian and has to throw himself over grenades to keep them safe" self-worth issue but I'm not gonna get into that here.

And yeah like you said I've made posts about everything Cas has suffered alone or all the times he said things that were as good as asking for help and never received any. And essentially it comes down to the fact that he's not actually considered part of the Winchester family; Sam and Dean put each other first and Cas isn't valued at the same level that they are to each other. I think of Dean "don't you dare think that there is anything past or present that I would put in front of you" and Sam "it's the only thing I've ever known that was true" and it actually destroys me to think that Cas never had someone in his corner like that.

[deantransgressions2]

4x21 when the levee breaks

this is a long one. enjoy.

#1: sam asked dean repeatedly to be let out of the panic room so he can explain. dean said no. instead he chose to continue to keep sam locked up against his will.

time tag: 1:10

#2: “you lied to me over, and over again. i get it now” (dean to sam).

here he is acknowledging sam has a serious addiction. he doesn’t fucking care though! because instead of treating sam like an addict, he is treating him like a monster.

time tag: 1:36

#3: “strong? this is about as far away from strong as you can get. try weak. desperate. pathetic.”

.... he is an ADDICT. quick google search will tell you that you should never blame the addict, or insult them. dean has never been able to see things from other’s perspectives, and this is a perfect fucking example of that. calling your brother, who has a drug addiction, pathetic and weak....makes me sick.

time tag: 1:55

#4: “oh lilith is going to die. bobby and i will kill her, and not with you” (said to sam).

idiot. dean couldn’t even kill alastair. hell, the angels couldn’t even kill alastair. and lilith is known to be stronger. dean has lost his mind.

time tag: 2:07

#5: “congrats sammy. you just bought yourself a benchwarmer seat to the apocalypse”.

okay a couple things, 1. sam didn’t buy shit, dean is forcing him to sit this one out. and 2. dean wants to kill lilith? cool. glad we are all acknowledging that no one knows the consequences of that yet.

time tag: 2:15

#6: shuts the hatch again and leaves to just go back upstairs while sam is screaming for dean to let him out. he not only left sam to detox alone in a locked metal cage. but now he is also leaving the basement so he won’t have to hear his screams? obviously doesn’t care about sam’s wellbeing at. all. it’s so fucked up.

time tag: 2:32

#7: “no one knows how long it will take. hell, or if sam will even live through it” (bobby to dean). dean and bobby do nothing.

time tag: 5:19

#8: “so what? we sacrifice sam’s life, his soul, for the greater good?” (said to bobby, after bobby suggested letting sam help with the apocalypse)

.....bold of dean to act like he cares about sam’s life. his brother is dying downstairs, and dean chilling with bobby upstairs. cute.

time tag: 8:45

#9: sam is too ill to walk across the panic room to get a glass of water. maybe if his “loving” brother was in there with him, that wouldn’t of been a problem.

time tag: 9:47

#10: “you got ass-reamed in heaven, but it was not of import?” (said to cas)

time tag: 14:02

#11: “can he do it? kill lilith? stop the apocalypse?” (said to cas)

oh? dean also believes killing lilith will stop the apocalypse? good to know. won’t matter though, because he’s gonna pretend he didn’t come 5x01.

time tag: 14:20

#12: “we believe it’s you dean, not your brother.” (cas to dean, about killing lilith)

we all know cas was lying, angels knew dean couldn’t do shit about lilith. but the words cas uses are similar to the ones ruby says to sam. dean is being manipulated into thinking HE can kill lilith “the right way” and if sam tries to kill lilith, then he will become a “creature you would feel compelled to kill” (cas to dean). point is, if dean was fully prepared to have the angels use him to kill lilith, then shouldn’t he have understood sam sacrificing himself to kill lilith?

time tag: 14:35

#13: the way the light was hitting him made him look so ugly for a second. looked 85 at best. he deserved to look ugly. best part of the episode.

time tag: 15:40

#14: strapped sam down to the bed. now he has zero access to water, or a toilet. smart.

time tag: 19:23

#15: bobby: “if he doesn’t get what he needs soon, sam’s not gonna last much longer”

dean: ”no. i’m not giving him demon blood. i won’t do it.”

bobby: “and if he dies?”

dean: “then at least he died human!”

dean doesn’t give a flying fuck about sam as a person. he would rather let his brother die, ALONE, just so he dies “human”.....sam hasn’t been 100% human since novemeber 2nd 1983. and ever since dean found this out in 4x03, he has treated sam as less than. he can act like he cares for his brother all he wants, but it’s obvious he fucking doesn’t.

time tag: 20:50

#16: “i won’t let my brother turn into a monster” (said to bobby)

....what kind of “monster” kills demons for the greater good. what kind dean? you let me know.

time tag: 22:27

#17: both dean and bobby think ruby got sam out of the panic room. ok. dumb. but ok.

time tag: 28:07

#18: “i am on call, in my car, on my way to murder the bitch” (said to bobby, about ruby)

time tag: 28:44

#19: ruby: “i had no idea that dean would do that to you”

sam: “you and me both”

thats just....sad. to trust your brother so completely your entire life, and then for him to do that to you....its fucked.

time tag: 30:00

#20: “us finding sam? that’s got to be about getting him back, not pushing him away” (bobby to dean).

dean didn’t fucking listen to a word bobby said.

time tag: 35:52

#21: tried to murder ruby again. as far as dean knows, ruby is also trying to kill lilith for the right reasons just let everyone else. i get he’s mad about the demon blood, but that’s sam’s friend, it’s his call to make. if sam wants to continue his addiction thats HIS choice. the addiction affects dean in 0 ways. therefore, he gets no say in the matter whatsoever.

time tag: 36:32

#22: sam: “let’s just talk about this”

dean: “soon as she’s dead (ruby), we can talk all you want”

why is he giving conditions? just talk to your fucking brother.

time tag: 37:18

#23: “i just want you to be okay” (said to sam) oh? is that why you left him alone to die in an underground metal room?

time tag: 37:53

#24: “come with us, dean. we can do this together” (sam to dean)

let’s remember sam said this. because dean is gonna act like he didn’t

time tag: 38:11

#25: “demon bitch is a deal breaker”

why are there always conditions with dean? like everything always has to go his way. god forbid anyone objects.

time tag: 38:20

#26: sam: “i’m the only one that can do this dean” dean disagrees. he thinks he is.....he thinks that because the angels are manipulating him. two manipulated boys standing in a room f-i-g-h-t-i-n-g.

time tag: 38:38

#27: dean: “you’re not gonna do a single damn thing”

sam: “stop bossing me around, dean!”

time tag: 38:59

#28: sam: “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.”

so sam trusts his brother, solely because he’s his brother, yet dean won’t trust sam because???? idk he’s too tall maybe.

time tag: 39:11

#29: “it’s not something that you’re doing, it’s what you are!” (said to sam). 

proof that dean only cares if sam is human, and not who sam actually is as a person. he started treating sam differently the day he found out what azazel did to him, and he has treated him with the same apprehension and disdain ever since. 

time tag: 39:35

#30: “it means you’re a monster” (said to sam).

time tag: 39:58

#31: sam punched dean. dean fights back. based on EVERYTHING dean has done to him, i’m gonna go ahead and say that sam punching him is completely justified. now dean deciding to beat the shit out of him....not justified. sam did nothing to deserve that. he literally just made a friend without dean’s permission, and got high. none of which, affected dean.

time tag: 40:05

#32: “you walk out that door...don’t you ever come back” (said to sam)

same words john used. cute dean. like father like son

time tag: 41:46

[phynali]

more spn discussions, just skip this post y’all

 @queerbluebird​ thanks so much for engaging with my post/reply! i really enjoyed reading your response and i have a long reply here.

i’m responding to your post/reply here rather than reblogging it because honestly that thread is - so long. so very long. 

so first - 

i agree there is a difference between entitlement and what i would call, not promise, but instead “narrative follow-through”. A story that completely lacks narrative follow-through does end up feeling disappointing, or frustrating, or rage-inducing, depending on what’s happened. to me there’s a fundamental difference between critiquing a story based on follow-through and bad storytelling (which your post aims to do), versus say, creating hashtag campaigns about a character being silenced because and spreading conspiracy theories about a bad dub (among other things honestly).

and also - queerbaiting totally sucks, we definitely do agree on that.

where we disagree, i think are these two core points:

i do not see the narrative build-up that demands a follow-through. i do not see supernatural as having built up to the story that many destiel shippers seem to think was there, and no one has ever been able to point out to me any actual textual reasons that do craft that narrative build-up  

i fundamentally do not believe that destiel was ever a queerbait. queerbait involves active intent on the part of creators to tease a ship or queer representation in order to draw in $ from queer audiences without ever making it canon, so as not to alienate straight audiences. so, refering to point 1., i do not see the canon text as having laid the groundwork for a queerbait and those romantic tropes, at least not at any point in the past 7 years. and beyond the canon, the writers and producers and jensen ackles all indicated dean was straight, and that they were not writing a romance. if anyone queerbaited the fans, it was misha collins who kept teasing the possibility, and personally i would argue that was irresponsible of him. but that’s a different discussion altogether and tends to piss people off when it’s framed as such, because misha means a lot to them and it hurts to see the man who validated their feelings get criticized for the manner in which he validated them. so i’m gonna leave that aside.

beyond that, I want to engage with some of your specific quotes:

Supernatural loves to say “wait for it.” And I don’t think it’s entitled to feel betrayed if an author uses their story to say “wait for it” in order to convince you to stick with their story and then delivers the opposite after you do.

May i ask, where was the “wait for it” with destiel? this ties in directly to the queerbaiting. i indicated in my post/reply that while i see it from cas, there’s been little to no hint of any reciprocation of feelings from dean, and if anything the past 7 or so years have driven the point home that it isn’t happening. i personally am not able to see the “Wait for it” and that was the point of my question. without the “Wait for it”, i also can’t see the queerbait. 

I asked for specifics and while i totally get not having the spoons, you provided a few:

(off the top of my head for Dean though, the mixtape, his response to Cas’ death at the end of 12, subsequent grief arc, and reaction to Cas’ return in the front half of 13 rank highly. His reaction to Lucifer’s prank call in 15x19 might rate, but maybe just because it’s so recent.)

not trying to be unkind here, but i quite genuinely don’t see any of these examples as framing cas and dean in a romantic light, or as hinting at a “what if”. the mixtape is like.... okay, maybe. i had read that as being symbolic of something else, but i can see wanting to read it from a shipping lens. (i don’t however think i’d read it as baiting or “what if” - it was quite textually not framed that way. shipping, 100%, but canon build-up, not for me).

for the other examples -- grieving for someone you consider family? and being happy when they come back? that’s not shippy to me. i mean - contrast the grief he showed over cas’s death compared to his grief over, say, mary? or, less extreme, charlie? and nothing compared to how off the rails he goes when sam is dead or he thinks sam is. so i -- i just can’t see those as creating a narrative that demands a follow-through. and when your friend who is dead calls your phone? of course you hop to the door - i don’t know what is romantic about that. sam would’ve hopped just as quick if “cass” had called his phone instead.

and look - i see what is fun to ship about all that. if i shipped it, i’d be happily collecting these moments with a smile and grinning to myself about how cute they are and much they mean. but shipping it vs. it being romantically framed in the canon are two fundamentally different things. shipping doesn’t imply narrative buy-in or deliberation from the creator.

moving on, you also spoke at length about 15x18:

15x18 made the sort of statement that drew back even people who did exactly what OP said they should do, turning off the TV years ago. It wasn’t a quiet “if you’re still watching, keep waiting,” so much as a shouted “hey we’re gonna do this thing, watch this!”

i guess destiel fans vs. those of us who don’t ship it really see this as fundamentally different. because you discuss that moment as one which requires follow-through, and say that if this were heteronormative m/f love declaration, there would be that expectation of follow-through. not necessarily reciprocity, but more - more conversation, more acknowledgment, more something.

(i mean - if there was more, but that more was “hey i love you too but only platonically, sorry man” would that be better?)

but no - i actually just... disagree with your point on that front. i can see why you feel the way you do and i acknowledge that it can be read as the start of a conversation. to me though -- and clearly, now that the finale is out, how the writers saw it -- that was actually the end of a conversation. the end of, like you pointed out, 12 years. a 12-year conversation that ends in a gorgeous declaration of love, and specifically how love isn’t about being together, it’s simply about being - it’s about the fact that you love someone, and that feeling alone is the most beautiful thing in existence.

to me, that declaration can only be written and interpreted as an ending.  a sacrifice, a declaration, and a goodbye. so - while i kind of expected seeing more people in episode 20 and realize that didn’t happen largely due to covid - i’m not disappointed we didn’t see cas, because that culmination of his narrative (and then knowing he was with jack, after, rebuilding the heaven that he rebelled against and finally completing his narrative circle by fixing all the problems with it alongside the good god he sought to find all along) is kind of perfect. 

and i genuinely don’t think if cas was in a female vessel this entire time that that would change. maybe some audience members would feel differently, but i think many of us would see it for the end it was nonetheless. there’s plenty of stories with m/f ships that are one-sided and that character sacrifices themselves for the person they love, so i don’t see why this would be any different (except the bury your gays issue, but that’s a whole other and very real conversation about media tropes).

moving on to the series finale.

As many people have pointed out in praise of 15x20, Sam is the absolute most important thing in Dean’s life, his priority above anything and everything… And yet there, at the actual end of the world, Dean ignores Sam’s call and instead cries over the loss of Castiel. Dean’s loss of Castiel plays in tandem with the loss of literally the whole world. But we’re not to take that as a promise that Castiel means more to this story, or to Dean, than a couple seconds of wistfulness after the dust settles?

I... yeah. i don’t see what this even is arguing. that dean taking a minute to himself to grieve his best friend, who just died in part because dean decided to go hunt down billie (who was literally dying anyway). he’s hurting. there’s nothing about this that’s a promise - it’s an end. it’s grief. it’s the horror of losing someone you care about, and the silence that comes after. it’s fundamentally human in it’s pain. and we, the audience, are invited to grieve with dean.

so I mean - of course cas means more to this story. of course he’s meant more than a few seconds of grief, after 12 years. but just because that’s the last time we see him on screen doesn’t mean we don’t value his story, and celebrate how it too came full circle.

You mention cas as a sort of avatar for a different potential ending for the brothers, and highlight him representing:

An ending where higher powers stop yanking them around and they get to actually live in the life they’ve built for themselves.

So while i never considered cas an avatar for that, i do think we all wanted the brothers to have their freedom. “finally free.” so we can agree on wanting that end. but we disagree on whether it was delivered, i guess? because i feel it was.

you also talk about what you and many other fans conceivably wanted a happier ending to look like. can i -- i’m going to be totally honest. i have not seen a single person who’s critiquing the end saying “i just wanted sam and dean to grow old hunting together with their dog until they retire together and die of old age.”

would that be satisfying to those who are mad about the end? i personally don’t think so, but maybe my opinion is being coloured by the most vitriolic fans i’ve seen. if sam and dean got to have the life they wanted free of chuck, and dean didn’t die, and they kept going (or retired and opened a bar together!). maybe sam still had a kid, but again because romance wasn’t the point, the wife wasn’t important and they left her blurry still so we could interpret ourselves if she was a wife or a co-parent or a surrogate or what. maybe dean has a kid too, with a similar question-mark-wife. maybe we get a few images of them having a holiday with jodie and the girls. and then getting to heaven together in old age, greeting bobby with a beer, and going for a drive.

would that be an end that wouldn’t cause fandom uproar? i would enjoy it, soft an slightly discordant as it would be to me. i prefer the ending we got, bittersweet and heartbreaking though it was, but i wouldn’t be taking to social media to yell about it if we got a softer epilogue, so to speak.

on the other hand... would that still not be enough, at least not for so many of the angry fans? i’m genuinely unsure. it seems to me that so much of the ire is about destiel itself, even if people are pretending it’s about more and other things than that. not everyone, but like, a big portion of them. which leads me to believe that nothing short of dean and cas at least interpretable as together is what they wanted. if every other single thing about the existing finale was the same except that cas was the one to greet dean instead of bobby, and even with the same basic dialogue, without discussing the confession, but they have a lingering smile, and dean leaves to drive and wait for sam with the promise he’ll see cas later - 

if everything else stayed the same except who greeted dean, i genuinely don’t believe i’d be seeing almost any critique of the finale on my dash. maybe i’m cynical, but that’s where i’m at.

which is part of why i really struggle to believe that people are engaging in good faith when they critique the finale. because i feel like if it offered them either a) everything they’re purportedly asking for but still no cas and zero hint of destiel, vs. b) every other thing they claim to hate stays the same except there’s a wink and nod to destiel - i believe they would take the wink and nod. 

   On to some other things you raised:

But how can you know to walk away from a tragedy if the tragedy says “the end won’t be a tragedy, keep watching” right up until it ends in tragedy?

Oh i Get this. I hate thinking i’m consuming fun media only for it to rip my heart out at the end. i’ve literally - well, i’ve had a very unpleasant and distressing experience of this, actually. so i get it. also the opposite: i sometimes feel disappointed when i’m consuming media that is gripping and intense and painful, but then the end is too easy, too soft and happy?

BUT - supernatural never pretended it would have a happy end? the end was so. much. happier. than i ever expected. the Swan Song end was going to have Sam in hell being tortured by lucifer for eternity. according to something i read which i am fundamentally too lazy to link because who knows if it would have turned out this way but -- kripke was apparently going to have Dean jump in the cage with him at that end, if the series ended on S5? the ‘horror’ ending. completely devastating sacrifice for mankind (sam), and completely devastating sacrifice for his brother (dean). just -- oof. even if that wasn’t the plan and the series would’ve ended as the episode did - sam was still in the cage and cas was off waging war in heaven and dean was living every day knowing he was alive and his brother was being tortured.

i’m sorry if you thought you were watching a happier show. i know how much that hurts. that doesn’t mean the story was actually that happy though. sometimes, it’s on us as consumers to acknowledge we were misreading the media. i’ve had to do this. it’s hard, it hurts, but it helps you consume things healthier. i’ve had to do this growing recently, and i’m better off for it.

regarding the specific manner of dean’s death - that’s really not what my post was about and i’m not gonna address it here. i’ve talked about it elsewhere and so have others, and @lovetincture‘s original post spelled it out beautifully, in how human it was. i have feelings on how and why i loved dean’s death, and why it was the absolute opposite of what Chuck’s ending was and what he wanted (no blaze of glory), but i’ll leave those for another time.

They cast aside all the relationships they’ve built. [...] They lost/walked away from the life and home they built in the bunker. Dean got a season 1 death. Sam got a season 1 life.

I feel that there is a very huge difference between regression and progression when it comes to cyclical storytelling. And that difference seems to be missing from the ongoing discussions i’ve seen about this in fandom.

Coming full circle to season 1 does not at all mean that the development is ‘undone’ or that the story has regressed or that anything has been lost or destroyed. It can mean that, if the storyteller doesn’t know what the hell they’re doing, but in this case i don’t (personally) feel it’s a fair critique.

Dean’s death might parallel his s1 not-quite death from Faith, but the s15 result of that death is night and day. Dean is no longer alone. Dean does not go up to a lonely heaven filled with bittersweet memories, where even his canonical soulmate and him have wide gulfs between the memories they fill their shared heaven with. Dean dies a hunter, but he dies a hunter who literally saved earth and changed heaven and gets to spend eternity with his brother, side-by-side and together without all the pain and miscommunication, and he gets to see his family and loved ones too. he died having literally made the world so much better.

even without that though?

his story comes full circle, but dean’s character development isn’t about his death, it’s about the fact that in the first several seasons dean could hardly admit he cared without acting like his teeth were being pulled. he was too afraid of abandonment to ask for someone to be by his side. he was too afraid of rejection to let anyone in. and in the end? he asks sam to stay. he tells him that he loves him. he pours his heart out and says all the things that 15 years ago were stoppered in his throat, words trying and failing to claw their way free but his hurt and fears were too deep.

dean is free.

the point of dean’s story coming full circle to season 1 parallels was specifically to highlight this incredible development, not to undermine it. he is different. he is free. 

god it makes me tear up just thinking about how happy i am for him despite how gutted i was by that scene??

(i could write a similar analysis for sam, about how he left for stanford to escape his life and how his finale life montage bits were the opposite of that, but honestly this post is long enough already).

Destiel is loosely a part of that promise in the sense that Castiel is a part of that promise. The symbol of free will

You make a super interesting argument about Cas being a symbol of free will. I don’t have much to say about it, because I’m gonna mull it over, because I think it’s kinda cool and I’ve never thought about it.

That’s - all i’ve got. thanks again for engaging. i’m happy to continue the convo if you have questions or want to reblog/reply 

(though my followers might hate me omg, i’ve been spamming long spn meta posts for weeks now, it’s just been so confronting to see the ongoing fan reaction on twitter and how divided it is...)

[scoobydoodean]

#prev he’s the moral one bc he’s consistent enough to be willing to kill innocent humans for the greater good (or dean)#not only innocent monsters like dean is#he has a moral compass it’s just a bad one <3#also i stand by it being very meaningful that this mostly starts in s3#being resurrected by dean trapped him in this cycle of doing evil to protect their family#mary passed it onto john who passed it to dean who passed it to sam#in many ways they probably also passed it to castiel and jack

Sorry, but I can't always resist tags on my own gifsets. (For anyone needing alt text—this set does have it now if you click on the original).

The cycle of sacrifice begins in 1.12 "Faith", when Sam takes Dean to a faith healer, and a gay man dies in Dean's place. While Sam didn't know someone else would die in Dean's place at the time, I don't actually think he feels bad about it... ever. We get no indication that he ever thinks about it. The only feelings of guilt seem to fall on Dean, who wrestles with what happened the whole episode, and in the end, stops running from the reaper and plans to let it kill him so Layla can be healed. 1.12 "Faith" and John's sacrifice, from my perspective, are both motivations for Dean's own deal in 2.22 (John's explicitly) where Dean "sets the universe back into order" by removing himself from the world since he isn't supposed to be here anyway (he hasn't "belonged" on this plane since 1.12). As he tells Bobby, "I'm not even supposed to be here."

Dean specifically asked Sam not to work with demons to try and save him all of season 3, and in 3.16 essentially made it his legacy/dying wish. Sam knowingly went against Dean's dying wish, which is his prerogative, but let's be honest about it and about Dean not "making" him do anything, and also acknowledge that he's a grown man, and so is Castiel. They frequently do things Dean specifically asked them not to do, in fact, and Dean isn't responsible for their choices as if they are children and he's their mommy who is raising them badly.

Season 3 was filled with repeated examples of Sam being willing to make moves Dean wasn't (turn them both into Frankenstein's monsters who live forever, sacrifice a virgin), and to also turn on his own previous principles.

Sam is the one who had a problem with killing humans who were murderers. We saw this starting in 1.12, where Dean argued for killing the person using a reaper to kill people for clout. We saw it again in 1.14 "Nightmare" when Dean was willing to kill Max and Sam wasn't. Sam called Ruby a cold bitch when she said he did the demon meatsuits he killed in 3.04 a favor, only to kill a crossroad's demon for making him angry the very next episode and kill the meatsuit. Textually, this is because his morals are shifting as he becomes more desperate to save Dean and angry that he can't without violating his principles. This makes his principles more flexible, and he ultimately abandons the attitude of not killing humans who murder in 3.09, where he immediately says they should kill the small group of witches doing neighborhood murders and curses even though they're humans, much to Dean's surprise, who explicitly questions him not because it isn't something Dean would do, but because Sam "isn't acting like himself." Sam responds that his morals have gotten him nowhere, and he has to become stronger (i.e., change his morals) to prepare for or deal with Dean's death. This does not make Sam's moral switch Dean's responsibility, anymore than I'd say Sam's move in 1.12 "Forced" Dean to continue the cycle. Dean is an adult, and Sam is too.

Sacrificing innocent humans is something Sam is willing to do only in extreme circumstances where he feels he can justify it—and Dean's life is always on the line when he considers it. Sam and Dean are of one mind in 4.07 when Uriel and Cas say they're going to destroy the town and everyone in it to prevent Samhain's rise. Right along with Dean—standing as one unit from beginning to end—Sam fiercely argues to risk the seal.

Sam was willing to sacrifice Dean for the greater good in the season 11 finale, but Dean was also willing to let Sam die for the greater good in 5.22 "Swan Song". He was willing to let Sam take on the Mark of Cain (a death sentence) in season 11. Sam was not willing to let Dean die in 8.14 or season 10, or in season 14 for the "greater good". In 3.16, he summoned Ruby to help him save Dean specifically against Dean's wishes, and only didn't go through with it because Dean caught and outsmarted them because he knew Sam wouldn't listen and prepared a trap. Between season 3 and season 4, he lets us know he tried to make a deal and tried to open the Devil's Gate (which would let out tons of demons into the world yet again) in order to get Dean back (4.01, 4.09).

Dean did not trap Sam in a cycle of doing evil to protect their family. There is a family cycle that exists, which Dean recognizes in 3.16 and urges they should break by explicitly not dealing with demons to save each other.

In multiple cases, Dean explicitly asked Sam not to do things Sam chose to do anyway—like use The Book of the Damned, and develop his powers with Ruby. He doesn't do a few other things in these gifsets because Dean, specifically, won't go along with it. People are responsible for their own choices. I find the need in fandom to make Dean responsible for everyone else's decisions rather concerning.

Sam + Human Sacrifice 1/? | 3.12, 3.15, 4.22, 7.03, 9.03, 10.19, 10.23, 11.01

[samwellwinchesterthebrave]

Because I can't let this go.

I've said before that the finale felt like the perfect ending for season 1 Sam and Dean and Cas not existing. The more I think about it, the more sense it makes and the more right it feels to me.

I'm also starting to think it was completely intentional.

There were so many callbacks to season 1 in that finale. From Jenny (who I didn't even remember until the flashback) to the clothes Sam and Dean were wearing in the final scene. It could have been a love letter to their beginnings. It could have been a "look where we started, look how far we've come" type of callback.

It wasn't.

Instead, to me, it felt like a deliberate attempt to -recreate- season 1. It was an attempt to roll back the entire story to that point, when Dean was 26 and Sam was 21. To when Sam was a boy trying to escape a life he didn't want and Dean was an older boy trying to live up to the ideals of an abusive, broken father.

To get meta about it, which it's Supernatural so why not?, the first season was about the only season where the show was under control. It was new, still trying to establish itself and find its legs and audience. The actors were still settling into their characters, filling in the silhouettes they'd been given.

Sam was still the angry, rebellious son who couldn't take being told what to do anymore when he desperately didn't want the life he was told to live.

Dean was still the one-dimensional party boy, never looking past the next burger, the next fight, the next woman. The dutiful son who did what he was told no matter how much it hurt.

The show was supposed to appeal to the white, cis, straight male population. I kind of wonder if the showrunners and network hoped to pull viewers from the X-Files because the shows are somewhat similar. And, iirc, the X-Files ended around 2005? But it was supposed to represent a kind of red-blooded American male dream of the open road, classic car and music, burgers and fries, and willing women whenever you wanted. It was supposed to be the little guys' big damn hero moment.

But then it grew. Thanks in a lot of ways to Jensen Ackles and the depth he gave Dean. Also thanks to Misha Collins, later on, and how he portrayed Castiel.

And so, the show grew a life of its own, beyond what the creators had intended. Like Sam, it rebelled against the box it had been pigeonholed into. It decided, thanks to the wonderful actors and writers and fans who decidedly weren't the original demographic, that this wasn't all it was. New characters were introduced, changing the feel of it from the Sam and Dean show to a whole world. It changed and developed a soul of its own.

"Family don't end in blood"

"Always keep fighting"

These became the touchstones of the show, of what it had become. Against all odds and attempts to wrench it back, the show expanded. Side characters were loved, given prominence, given importance. An angel who was supposed to die after a 3 episode arc became a lead. Another angel who was meant to become a love interest died. (Essentially, they swapped places)

Which brings me back around to the finale. In 15.18, Castiel confessed his love to Dean. It had been there all along in subtext, in action, in expressions and body language. But now it was spoken aloud (no longer the love that dare not speak its name) and irrefutable. He did it to speak his truth, to acknowledge who he was, and to save the man he loved. He was also killed for it, a classic example of the Bury Your Gays trope. While his death was meaningful and accomplished a goal, it still followed the trope.

And because it happened so fast, Dean has no time to respond. Death, literally, is beating down the door to get to them. He has been taught all his life to repress his emotions, to swallow down anything that wasn't anger. This is also his best friend saying goodbye, to dying once again. And Dean had believed he wasn't worthy of love, that angels couldn't love in the same way humans did.

So we're left with resounding silence on Dean's end, a love confession heard but not responded to. We don't hear Dean's side but we see him fall apart after Cas is taken by the Empty.

Then 15.19 wraps up the season. We get Lucifer tricking Dean with Cas's voice over a phone call. Always before, when the devil is trying to gain entrance somewhere, we see him using the person's significant other. The subtext here screams. We see Dean bolting up the stairs to open the door, likely words burning on his lips, only to find Lucifer.

Dean never mentions the confession to Sam. But we do see him mourning. He also never says anything in return to the confession. There's a resounding silence on Dean's side as he tries to process losing Cas again. But he does use what Cas has told him, the words that changed how Dean views himself, to beat Chuck.

Then, in the finale, Sam brings up Cas and Dean doesn't take this opportunity to tell Sam either. He says that they need to live or Cas's sacrifice was in vain. Which, fair, but it still feels like not something Dean would say. No asking Jack if there's any way to get Cas out of the Empty, no research to see if there's a way? Nothing?

The writing has moved past the confession, burying it hurriedly and hoping to never refer to it again. It takes a hard turn back to season 1 with a monster of the week hunt. We see the brothers on their own, no found family or support around them. They have Miracle and it's adorable. But Sam barely notices the dog in the beginning, which always seemed off to me. Sam canonically loves dogs and he has nothing to do with the one Dean finally adopts?

They pull out John's journal again, looking for information and guidance from their father and his hunts once again. They fight vampires, Dean fumbling in the fight in a way we've never seen him do. Then he's killed by a piece of rebar in his back on a vanilla monster hunt and Sam goes on to live the apple pie, white picket fence life.

This would have been a good ending for who they started as. Dean dying on a hunt he'd dedicated his life to, saving innocents and standing for those who couldn't stand for themselves. Sam escaped a life he never wanted and lived the calm, normal life he'd always longed for with a family of his own. And later, they reunite in Heaven.

Just the brothers. No family, no extended family, no friends. Ignoring what the show has been saying, the core of its soul, for the past 10 years, at the least.

It felt like a last ditch attempt to drag the show back into the red-blooded straight American male wet dream no matter what. No matter who was dropped along the way and what themes and messages were ignored. Even Eileen was dropped, the woman Sam had been in love with throughout the entire last season.

It was a disconnect from the season. To me, it felt like it was trying to reclaim a personality that had long ago changed and grown. It was a regression and not just a fond callback

[shardminds]

okay i know in the grand scheme of things it’s been about 5 minutes since i got into spn and about 4.5 seconds since i started following spn blogs on tumblr but i just want 2 share some stuff re: what i would have liked to happen in my ideal ending. spoilers below.

number 1, sam and eileen endgame. after losing her in 15x18 and trying so hard to hold it together, sam’s quite obviously devvo’d. man’s a mess but he can’t let himself fall apart. 15x19 happens and everyone chuck disintegrated faster than communion wafers comes back and the FIRST thing sam does? calls eileen. high tails it out of there. speed limits who? there’s a heartwarming moment. maybe an ‘i love you’ or maybe not but it’s touching and heart wrenching and everyone cries and it’s nice. there you go, sam winchester. not only did you help save the world, but you got a happy ending in the process. eileen moves into the mol bunker. don’t @ me. she’s also great with miracle. and, in the long run, kids.  

number 2, deancas. my whole thing is, if they didn’t want canon deancas ending, why have cas confess? like i get the empty deal and i understand ‘happiness isn’t in the having, it’s in just being. it’s in just saying it’ but... if u didn’t want people to swarm on the possibility of deancas... why include it at all? especially for it to never be mentioned again. for cas, a man/angel/being of celestial intent that had spent like... 12(?) years at this point in sam and dean’s lives. you’re gonna tell me they just... let him sacrifice himself and then dip? ok. seems we have been watching different shows. or the same show from different perspectives. so, hear me out. dean says it back. maybe not in as many words or he pulls a hans solo ‘i know’. okay so they beat the shit out of The Literal Abrahamic God later to supercharge jack faster than shotgunning three monster energy mango locos ever could and leave chuck belly up in the mud like the invertebrate he proved himself to be and jack is Thee God now and dean just straight up asks. give that to me. give me the “please, jack.” and dean, so close to breaking, holding himself together with nothing but pure strength of will and residual adrenaline. give me jack’s reluctance, give me his admission of not wanting to mutate into the same megalomaniac chuck proved himself to be,using the winchesters as chess pieces in his own game. give me his humanity. the parts he inherited from kelly. give me his humanity and his grief and his loss and—castiel was his father, for fucks sake! he lost a father and a mother and he’s about to lose the only family he ever had. yes, he’ll be omnipresent—a perk of the job—but he’ll never be there in the way they want. so let him do this. there’s like a whole genesis parallel, you know all ‘the lord said let there be light, and there was light’ only not as on the nose as that. jack’s one selfish act before he himself, combined with amara, ascends. he does his whole speech. i’ll be in every drop of falling rain etc etc and then he dips. only, he’s gone and when dean turns around. cas is there. boom. 

there’s no kiss. no explicit ‘hello look at this confirmed gay angel and his human hunter ??sexual friend making out’ because that too much too fast. dean has spent the past 15 seasons trying to unfuck himself from the damage john winchester left behind (the nun hunt on his 17th birthday? lebanon? i will meet john winchester in the pit.) and as close as he is to finally just allowing himself to be himself, he’s not quite there yet. but the relief on his face. the—i’m gonna say it—love in his expression. cas’s confession clearly affected him, just look at 15x18. maybe dean doesn’t know what that means yet. maybe he does. but there’s a hug. an embrace. one of those that says ‘i don’t know why or how i like you, fruity little angel man, but i do and i’m not letting go’. it lasts a beat too long. maybe there’s tears. i’ll leave that up to jackles jacting joices.

number 3, michael sacrifices himself to save adam. OKAY SO THE WHOLE MICHAEL STORYLINE IN 15x19? BULLSHIT. especially with the adamichael scene in 15x08? where it is canonically confirmed that, after spending a real life decade (which is OVER ONE THOUSAND YEARS in hell time. 4 months = 40 years so 10 years or 120 months = 1200 years) trapped in the cage together, they became friends and shared control of the vessel. michael considered adam his guide on earth. michael. MICHAEL. M I C H A E L. seeing how spn painted him as one of, if not, THE most powerful and fearsome angel? man’s whipped. and then he loses adam when chuck has his thanos snap moment. imagine sharing a vessel with someone for twelve. hundred. years. and then being completely alone in a world you don’t know. how maddening for there to be only silence in your head. the fact that they then rammed this bs of him being jealous of lucifer for being ‘daddy’s favourite’ was exactly that. bullshit. no no no, my friends. michael was playing his own game; crossing the winchesters for chuck but actually, crossing chuck for his own gain. he learns of the winchesters plan to utilise the fact that jack is the power hungry equivalent of a shamwow and uses that to his own gain. i haven’t figured out the particulars but when chuck beats the shit out of michael, he kills the angel but leaves the vessel (think like jack at the end of s14). michael the winchesters think michael died a snivelling god fearing soldier. and then, when jack does his whole thing, up wakes adam. the winchesters take him in and explain what went down when he, you know. and adam lets them know that no, michaels not like that etc etc he did it for me etc he did it to save me. michael’s fall was imperative to the destruction of god. and, for that, he will always be remembered. adam’s not a hunter, but he stays at the bunker anyway. he has nowhere else to go. 

number 4, episode 15x20. what do you mean dean and sam both die? not in this universe i carry inside my head they don’t! this episode is just a bunch of scenes from throughout the years. you might think it boring but i think it’s great and this is my post so u can’t tell me what 2 do. dean opens up a bar for hunters a la 14x10 and has pictures on all the walls of all the fallen hunters and friends that have helped them throughout the years. you want a picture on the wall for a friend you lost? sure! just bring a photo and tack it on up there. out of sight, kept to the wall of the office, they keep pictures of the non-humans that helped. it’s private. a reminder. sam and eileen stop by a couple times a week if they can. jody and donna make the rounds with the girls too if work allows. or they come on their own. the girls are old enough to take care of themselves now. claire pops in when she can, always bringing a present for cas (despite him reprimanding her for doing so) and dean is always happy to see her. she doesn’t text enough. 

sam sets up the bunker as a base for hunters again, trying to get a system up and running like before where hunters can check in and get help and use the weapons and resources they have for cases. 

they don’t deal with heaven anymore. they haven’t seen jack since he disappeared but they also haven’t had any angel troubles either. maybe it’s because there are so few. castiel helps a lot as he still has his grace—although he’s still unable to teleport and he seems to be aging, trapped in some kind of space between. not angel and not human and definitely not nephilim. he’s powerful and powerless at the same time. he doesn’t complain about this, knowing what it means. it’s a kindness. 

rowena is also on side, mostly, although she has her own gain in mind always. they have the stray demon that pops up every now and again but she– uh... prefers to make an example of them using her own methods. sam has learned not to question it. she teases him incessantly, as usual. 

also, stay at home dad sam. eileen jumps back into hunting. they’ve had conversations—arguments—about it before. he doesn’t want to turn into his father, driven mad chasing mary’s ghost if something were to happen. she refuses to even entertain the thought of that. yelling “you are a lot of things, sam winchester. your father is not one of them.” and at the end of the day, there’s a mutual trust there and he knows she won’t put herself in unnecessary risk, and he 100% roped dean in to jumping on as backup if and when she needs it. the kid(s) are raised love and cherished and surrounded by family. sam also learns how to sign one handed with a baby on his hip. it’s adorable.

anyway we never have to find out about heaven because no one dies thank you for coming to my ted talk.

[black-quasar]

Dean Winchester wanted to live

He says multiple times that he wants to go down swinging, but it’s not because that’s what he really wants. He says it, because he just doesn’t see any other way.

Dean’s entire childhood is filled with violence and death. And in all that he has one job – to take care of Sam. It’s his only responsibility. And then he starts helping his father with the hunts. For Dean, family is the most important thing, so hunting is his way of being close to his father. He doesn’t question it, he can’t. He has to follow John’s orders. But even before Mary’s death, Dean’s life is far from perfect. How messed up his childhood must have been that one of his happiest memories is him cheering his mother up after her argument with John (5x16)? Dean never gets to experience a regular, happy family life. That episode also shows a stark difference between Dean and Sam. Sam’s memories are of him being happy. Dean’s memories are of him making other people happy. It’s one of his main personality traits – finding happiness through giving it to other people. Sacrificing himself for his loved ones. Ignoring what he wants to give others what they want.

Should I remind about the Djinn episode (2x20)? Suddenly Dean’s a civilian, has a girlfriend and a normal job. And he is thrilled about it. He goes so far as to say that it was great that his dad had died of a stroke, because the alternative was much worse. When he discovers that there’s something wrong, he’s devastated and conflicted. He visits his father’s grave and asks: “why do I have to be some kind of hero?” Why do I have to give up on my own happiness to save other people? Why do I have to sacrifice myself? But then his inner sense of responsibility kicks in. He knows there is no normal for him, he knows his life doesn’t matter if it means that other people die. In one of the final scenes, Mary says: “it doesn’t matter [that it’s not real]. It’s still better than anything you had. It’s everything you want.” But Dean decides to leave because his little brother needs him in the real world. Because that apple pie life isn’t real, both literally and, for him, metaphorically.

There are other episodes too. Cassie (1x13), Dean’s first love. After he opens up and tells her the truth about his job, she leaves him. She does it, because she thinks it’s what he wants, but Dean openly denies it. When they say goodbye, he hopes he can see her again, he desperately tries to convince himself it’s possible to go back to her. But it isn’t and we never hear from Cassie again. Here I should mention Lisa. Dean is clearly disappointed that Ben isn’t his son at the end of 3x02 episode. In 6x06, Veritas says that Dean didn’t want family, which he denies. He states that it’s not that he doesn’t want it, he just thinks that what he’s good at is “slicing throats.” In season 3, he mentions going to see the Grand Canyon, escaping the life. In season 14, he admits wanting to retire. He says that if he knew the world was safe, then “hell yeah,” he would retire. He paints a beautiful picture of him, Sam, and Cas on a beach with drinks and matching T-shirts. The only thing keeping him in game is his sense of responsibility. Again. At some point he says that if cholesterol is what nails him (no pun intended), then it’s a win. In Lebanon (14x13), Dean’s wish is not to defeat Michael, but to have his family back together. His biggest dream isn’t to save himself or the world, but to be with his loved ones. In 9x07 (Bad Boys), we see young Dean admit he doesn’t really like what his father does for a living. He says: “my dad expects me to follow in his footsteps, so I’ve kinda gotten used to it.” In the same episode Sam realizes that living at the boys’ house was the best part of Dean’s life and he says it out loud. Dean doesn’t deny. And later we see that young Dean doesn’t want to leave. He does it, because he has to take care of Sam.

Dean values normal life. That’s what he wants for Sam, which he states multiple times. He wants Sam to have a family, to study, not only because that’s what Sam wants, but also because that’s what Dean sees as a good life. We hear Dean say how hunters’ lives are miserable and how their lifespans are short, how there’s no happy ending for them. He tries to protect others from it (young Sam, Patience, Claire, Krissy, Charlie, Adam). “Going down swinging” is Dean trying to make the best out of his situation. To get back at the bad guys who stole his chance for happiness for the last time. He assumes it’s better to die on a hunt than, for example, in a car crash. That it’s a more honorable death for a hunter. It’s not so much that he wants such death. It’s that he never thinks he can have a different one. He is never given a choice. With the whole world on his shoulders, he forgets about his own happiness, about his perfect ending. But accepting that you can’t have something doesn’t mean not wanting it. “Going down swinging” is like a mantra for Dean. It’s like he’s trying to convince himself that it’s the way he should go down, because it’s the best of his limited options. It’s easier to accept you can never have a normal life than to have to deal with the fact that you really want it, but there’s always something standing in your way. It’s less painful.

And the finale of course. Dean is finally free, he has a freaking dog, and he starts filling in job applications. He begins to live at last. After hearing Cas’ words, he starts to accept that he can have a regular life and to see himself differently.

And then they kill him.

Dean is terrified in that death scene. And him asking Sam to let go isn’t what he wants. Not really. It’s Dean going back to the way he used to think all these years. It’s him thinking “hey, I wanted that normal life, but I guess I can’t have it after all.” All these years of repressing what he wanted and longed for, years of self-hate, years of seeing himself as a burden, all of that kicks in. Cas’ words started changing him, but they didn’t have time to truly and entirely undo years of trauma.

So yeah, Dean’s perfect ending wasn’t dying scared in a barn, being impaled on a rusty nail by a stunt vampire number 3.

[nellie-elizabeth]

Supernatural: Despair (15x18)

I'm having an out of body experience, I cannot believe this. Last night was legitimately one of the weirdest nights of my life, and not just because of *gestures broadly* but also because of *gestures broadly* and myriad other small but still totally bizarre personal things coming at me from all angles... strap in, y'all, I've got some shit to say.

Cons:

We're gonna talk about it. Ohhhh, we're gonna talk about it. But let's start with some other shit before we get there.

So... are we ignoring "Dean was willing to let Jack sacrifice himself" or something? Like there was that moment with Sam and Dean where they talked about it, and Dean apologizes for pulling a gun on Sam, and Sam is like "oh it's okay Dean, no worries." But at the beginning of this episode, Dean seems to be just as worried for Jack, and as protective of him, as the others, with absolutely no acknowledgment of what happened in the last episode. This... should have mattered. There should have been some regrouping and some serious talks about this. Seriously.

The Thanos snap thing... guys, when Infinity War did it in 2018, it was kind of fun and shocking and cool, and we knew the deaths wouldn't be permanent but it was still wild to watch our heroes react to such an immense loss and then leave us all in limbo for a year. This... is not that. The sheer tone-deafness of having this episode contain a moment of domesticity for AU!Charlie and her cool egg-making girlfriend Stevie, only to have Stevie vanish... and then to end the episode with the biggest queer-bait/bury your gays moment imaginable... like...

Okay, sorry, no, saving the Destiel thing until I've sorted out the rest of this nonsense. The point is, seems pretty clear that the deaths in this episode (other than Cas') are temporary, and Supernatural already has the biggest power creep problem of any show I've ever seen... they really couldn't think of another way to up the stakes for the ending, other than doing the thing where everyone gets killed? Didn't... Crowley... already do this to them several seasons back? Am I hallucinating? There's nothing new under the sun with this show.

Why does this show introduce things and resolve them in a single episode? Like, big, huge things? We just figured out Death was trying to double-cross them, and now by the end she's dead? This show either limps along and does nothing, or speeds through plot stuff at lightning-speed. These last two episodes were big and dramatic and full of Plot but in a way where it all feels kind of unreal. Pacing issues like whoa.

And speaking of. Ahem. Okay. Let's... let's do this. I have some things about the Destiel scene that I'm going to put in the "pros" section below, and hopefully as you read on you'll understand why it's really hard for me to be black and white about it. If I had to, if I had to determine whether I am "happy" or "sad" or "grateful" or "angry" I'd say... sad and angry, 97%? Like? Let's dive in, here.

Setting aside the larger context, a couple of smaller notes:

Acting-wise, what the fuck was Jensen doing in this scene? Misha was acting his whole heart out and Jensen gave him nothing to play off of. I don't understand how Jensen accidentally played Dean so obviously in love with Cas all this time, and then in this moment, no-homo'd it so fucking hard. Even the stage directions in the script page that was floating around said that Dean didn't reciprocate. That's dumb, like, in a shipping sense it's disappointing, but also... Dean, what was your face doing while Cas gave his whole monologue about how amazing you are? What a great and loving man you are? Even if he hadn't ended the whole thing by saying "I love you" and then dying right in front of your eyes, surely you would have been feeling some kind of way about the whole situation?

Also, the scene was shot so awkwardly, there was too much space between them, and then Cas pushes Dean out of the way and he just sits there on the floor with Pikachu-face while The Empty opens up and takes Death and Cas away, making these weird shocked noises... Supernatural often has awkward pacing when dramatic things are happening in action scenes, where certain people have to stand still like it's not their turn on the initiative order in a D&D fight or something, and this was one of the more embarrassing and awkward examples of that.

Cas' deal with The Empty has not been brought up practically since it happened. Cas has been sidelined as a character a lot this season, the past couple seasons, really, but we had this hanging over our heads, right? When Cas says "I've figured it out, true happiness isn't in having, it's just in saying it", the moment doesn't really work on a character level, because we didn't get to see Cas do any of that figuring out. We didn't know he was curious about his true happiness, we didn't know it was an internal struggle/debate for him, wondering what it could be. A lot of Destiel people wanted it to be Dean confessing his love to Cas, and that being the true happiness... but of course that would never happen in a million years. Others thought it would be "yay we defeated the big evil, we can all be a happy family together," oh snap, I'm too happy, goodbye. Which would have been... weirdly anticlimactic, but at least would have made some level of narrative sense. This idea that telling Dean how he feels would bring Cas peace is... well, it's okay, it's fine in isolation, but there's no buildup to it, no tension to his moment of "realization."

And now to fry some bigger fish...

Let's forget about the fact that we never thought this would happen to begin with. Is it actually... worse that it did? Seriously, queer angel man confesses his love to stoic human man who stands there without making a single expression, and the act of confessing said love, knowing it's not reciprocated, knowing he won't get to be with Dean or even be near him ever again, is enough to make Castiel so truly happy that he's willing to die peacefully and forever, all in the act of saving Dean's life? Is that not... like... textbook homophobia? People toss around "bury your gays" a lot and I think what they're missing is that the trope doesn't automatically apply just because a queer character dies. It means a queer character dies because of their queerness, or they are revealed to be queer but can't get any measure of happiness and then they die immediately. This is textbook that. The act of confessing his GAY LOVE is what KILLED CAS. It's a one-to-one sequence of events. It's not a coincidence that Cas died right after saying this. Saying this is what made him die. That's... appalling. Truly, in a very real sense, it's appalling.

Another thing I haven't seen people talk about much is the manufactured nature of this sacrifice. We just found out Billie was going to turn on them at the end of the last episode. If Cas was going to die in a sacrifice-y way, did it have to happen now when Billie was basically just knocking on the door trying to get at Dean for a last-minute revenge thing, even though Billie was already at death's door? This was so contrived, like, can Cas not whoosh them away to somewhere else? Keep them running until Billie succumbs? I get that it wouldn't have been easy, and maybe Billie could have caught up to them anyway, but my point is, they manufactured this moment to be "the only way" that Dean could survive, making Cas' sacrifice so noble and necessary or whatever... but I was sitting there thinking there's got to be another way. If they'd wanted to write in another way, there could have been. The inevitability felt so very contrived. And, as mentioned, the impact of dying on this show has lost all meaning, so even Billie trying to kill Dean, squeezing his heart in his chest, did absolutely nothing for me. I knew he'd be fine, because there are two more episodes left. And if Cas hadn't been there to do what he did, Dean would still have been fine because he's Dean. Am I making any sense?

We have two more episodes left. I am... fairly confident Misha won't be in those episodes. All context, both within the show and without, points to that. I truly think that after all this time, he gets the only ending in the whole show that's unambiguously unsalvageable and tragic. We have a world where the afterlife exists and people can hang out there, but The Empty is a different beast, and this means Cas is... gone. Permanently. Like, his consciousness no longer exists, he's caput. They could bring him back from The Empty, in fact, they've already done it once... but if they decide not to, that's just... where we leave things, and that's brutal and unnecessarily grim. The other characters, even if we get an end-of-show TPK (which would be STUPID, more on that later), could at least have canon or implied-canon reunions in the afterlife. If we don't see Eileen again, we can get the implied ending of her coming back to life, or Sam dying and joining her in Heaven. Same with Charlie, with Charlie's new girlfriend, with Bobby, with Donna, with every other character that's died along the way, including Mary Winchester and OG Charlie, OG Bobby, whatever you want. The fact that Cas gets this, after everything, is truly the part I'm the most sad about, setting aside love confessions entirely.

So as I said, two more episodes. I'm worried that Cas dying is gonna get swallowed up with everyone dying and not get its due, thus making the confession completely isolated. Like, here you go, gays, have this one scene, which, in isolation is quite heartfelt from Cas' perspective, but can be carefully boxed up and not touched for the last two hours of the show. If they don't want to touch on how this would affect Dean specifically, they don't have to. He can be generally angsty and sad about Cas, but they could get away with never bringing it up again, and that is some grade-A level bullshit right there, my friends. At minimum, Dean needs to tell Sam about this. He probably won't, but he should, if the show has any sense of integrity left in its bones.

Ahem. Like I said, I have... lots of thoughts. More on Destiel later, but let's turn to the "Pros" section and talk about some other aspects of this incredibly crowded episode.

Pros:

Despite my issues with everything that didn't get resolved re: Dean letting Jack die, I did kind of like the "to somehow" scene, because it was a nice little breather for the brothers, it solidified them as being on the same side to the bitter end, that despite all the crazy shit they've been through, that they've put each other through, they'll have this as a bedrock at the end of the day. I'm not a brothers-only sort of fan, at all, in fact, I think a brothers-only ending betrays most of what's beautiful about this show in its good moments. But they are the stars, they are the protagonists, they should be the center of their own story, and I like it when we get check-ins like this, that shows how unshakable they are underneath all the other crap.

Charlie and Stevie... okay, cute that their names are like that, cute that Charlie said: "I liked the way she handled herself" and that's how they got together... eggs are cute, whatever... and if these deaths are impermanent, which... come on... they have to be, I do like that Charlie gets to have a girlfriend and be happy as a hunter and as someone's partner.

I liked the tense car ride with Sam texting Eileen, with Dean, Jack, and Cas all silent in the car with him... that was a nice moment of solidarity, all of them entirely on the same page about being there for Sam and helping Eileen however they could... even knowing the futility. What were they going to do when they got there? That was a great tension-building moment, in isolation, even though the deaths are likely temporary.

Cas and Jack's talk was good, I'll admit I've definitely been won over by Cas and Sam as Jack's dads... Dean too, once upon a time, but dude needs to do some groveling before he gets to be Dad again, seriously. It's nice that in the midst of all the chaos, there was a check-in moment. Jack is the embodiment of a lot of our end-game themes, here. He had a noble destiny to sacrifice himself, and then it fizzled out and didn't work, and now he's just left in the aftermath, not sure what to do with himself. It was important that Cas tell him that Jack is worthy of love and family, even if he's not "useful" in the way he thought he could be. Definitely nice to have that nailed in.

If we're following the Infinity War/Endgame line, the last two episodes will be majority Sam, Dean, and Jack, but at the last moment there will be a way to reverse it, and everyone else will come back in a moment of triumph. But probably not so much Castiel, which... well... see above complaints. The point is, seeing Charlie, Bobby, Donna, Eileen, etc. all burst forth for one final moment of glory could be really cool, if they manage to stick the landing with it. It'll be an incredibly manufactured sense of triumph and nostalgia, but it will probably work on me because it's been... guys, I don't know if you know this, but it's been kind of an emotional year. :)

I will say, working under the assumption that the dead characters will come back, I'm actually oddly... not mad about Donna dying. It was actually a legitimately shocking twist. A rule was set up: if a person had died before and been resurrected, or if a person was from another universe, they could be Thanos snapped by Billie. Makes sense. Sam and Dean are in danger because of all their deaths, Jack and Cas aren't safe for the same reason. Charlie, Bobby, Eileen... sure. But Donna should have been safe, given the parameters we started with.

And then Dean and Cas are confronting Billie, she says she's not killing anyone, we realize it must be Chuck... and then Donna, who isn't from another world, who has never died... GONE. I gasped.

And the hits kept coming... Billie is dying because Dean killed her with that small wound, and didn't even know it. That's another excellent twist. The past two episodes, back to back, have kept me on my toes about who to ultimately be afraid of. Chuck? Billie? The Empty? It's so much better than this slow march to Chuck vs. Sam and Dean that we've been getting all season, even if we do loop around to Chuck again as the final Big Bad.

The Empty is actually quite a complex, interesting idea for a villain, this entity that doesn't get involved in petty squabbles, doesn't have personal vendettas, but actually just wants to sleep and be left alone. Having Meg be the Empty's face here at the end is also a nice touch. I wish we could have had more of this, truthfully, and I'm curious how The Empty will play a role in how things shake out, if at all.

So... I want to go back to something I've been saying these past couple episodes, about how if this show has a grimdark ending, it will be a betrayal of everything they've set up. It will be so stupid that my anger will manifest in yet another round of hysterical giggles. What I suspect is that we'll get something peaceful, something where trauma will linger but people will get to start anew. Maybe Jack creates a new world outside of Chuck's power. Maybe Sam and Dean take over as God and the Darkness, as some people suggested, and Jack is the new Death. Maybe maybe maybe. Bottom line, I could be satisfied with the majority of this ending, and I can even (obliquely, reluctantly) understand that they wanted one final perma-death to really make the stakes feel higher. If they aren't killing off the Winchesters, that leaves Castiel. So what I'm saying in this paragraph is basically that I'm not guaranteed to despise the ending of this show yet. They could still get it right.

God, that sounds pretty bleak, doesn't it?

Before I end this, I want to talk about, as promised, the few Destiel-related points that I'd classify as "pros", albeit with a big asterisk.

First off, Misha clearly found the moment very cathartic, and he pulled out all the stops, and, in isolation, the confession was hella romantic and quite poignant. Without context, just reading these lines? "The one thing I want, it's something I know I can't have" and "because you cared, I cared. I cared about you, I cared about Sam, I cared about Jack, I cared about the whole world because of you..." like, that's some premium content, I won't lie. I also kind of enjoy the idea that Cas finds happiness in saying the words out loud, in being true to who he is. I hate a lot about what happened to Cas here, but if Cas' arc, in its totality, is about embracing humanity, and Dean is the anchor to that, this really does come full circle. He pulled Dean out of Hell, he saved him, he loved him, he'll die for him, and in accepting that love, that human love, he is finally at peace with who he is. Now, mind my comments above, I'm still not happy, but I can see how in one sense, this is narratively poignant. And if others are satisfied with it, I'm happy for them.

(Added bonus, while Jensen's acting was WACK for the majority of that scene, I did like the ending shot, the silence, him not answering Sam's call, crying silently into his hands. That was very nicely shot and acted, I thought.)

Secondly, and this isn't actually praise for the show, it's more a... meta experience? I have to say, the idea that Destiel became sort of canon, but in the most homophobic way possible, in the year 2020, while we're all still waiting for election results to come in is... one of the wildest, most hilarious things to ever have happened to me. I mean it, last night sitting alone in my house I kept cackling loudly to myself, in complete and utter disbelief. I saw Tumblr explode in a way that hasn't happened in years. I was transported back in time nearly a full decade, to the person I was when I started writing these reviews, or even before that, when I was new to Supernatural, new to the whole concept of being truly involved in a fandom.

Here's the thing... I never. Ever. EVER. Thought we would get any sort of textual confirmation. I thought at most, if they went for a happy ending for everyone, we'd get Dean and Cas as hunting partners, and we could all fill in the post-canon gaps. I once told my sister that I'd be happy with a one-sided love confession from Cas to Dean, because that part was practically canon before last night, and in a way, I am happy. I'm happy that this crazy thing actually happened, and if nothing else, all of those clowns can put away their makeup. I was never with them. I never believed, and there's this sliver of me that's happy to have been wrong. It's completely bogus how it happened, but the fact that we live in a reality where it happened is still kind of tripping me out in a major way. So I'm happy, I'm... flabbergasted, but I'm experiencing a very unique, unprecedented soup of emotions this morning and I never would have felt like this if Cas had died with a no homo parting.

And that's the thing, they let it be unambiguously about Dean, not just in that one moment, but all along, and that's really satisfying in a meta narrative sense that when everyone was reading it as "Castiel is in love with Dean," they were... correct. It doesn't really matter when they decided this, in last night's episode they made it crystal-clear that it wasn't a whim, wasn't a recent development, in-universe. This has been Cas' truth from very, very early on, his entire experience since meeting Dean has been shaped by him, he's loved him all this time. That... I don't know, it's absolutely bonkers that this is all we're going to get, but it does mean something, if you want to let it.

Welcome back to 2012, Tumblr. Last night was a wild ride, I won't deny.

I'm giving the episode a bad score, but I just want to say the Destiel scene gets a simultaneous infinity-out-of-ten and also zero-out-of-ten, imploding the multiverse instantly. That's where I'm at, folks. Insert gif of Chidi dropping Peeps into a big pot of chili. I'm gonna go take a nap.

6/10