#and fucking SILLY all in the same episode. with LUCIFER. who turned out to be

[vaggieslefteye]

THEY ARE LITERALLY 5 YEARS OLD LMFAO

[allastoredeer]

What funny for me it's when I see some people in radioapple fandom saying why they can't see Alastor as a bottom is because "he would never be a bottom because of his ego!" (and right under a post with b!Alastor content, the nerve)

Meanwhile Lucifer, King of all Hell, Sin of Pride personified, the man who stole Adam's first wife and claimed to do the same with the second, and had two songs about how great he is compared to others: am I a joke to you?

EXACTLY! Preach Anon!

Lucifer's ego is just as big, if not bigger, than Alastor's. I was rewatching the show recently, and during the "Dad Beat Dad" episode, literally the only person he was nervous, bumbling, or awkward around was Charlie (and Vaggie, to a certain degree considering she's Charlie's girlfriend).

In every other interaction he was smug, arrogant, indifferent, unimpressed, or downright dismissive. His whole song with Alastor was just him flexing his power and getting more and more insecure & angry about how "close" Alastor and Charlie were. I think people forget that Lucifer is the Sin of Pride, and you can 100% see it in his behavior towards the other characters. Obviously, he got closer to the Hazbin Crew, especially during the last song in the finale, but that doesn't make his ego magically disappear.

And I love that about him.

I find his huge capacity to love (both Charlie and creation) so endearing, but it's better and so much more interesting, when it's paired with the fact that his ego gets bruised so easily. He's the most powerful being in Hell, while also being insecure as fuck, while also being the personification of Pride itself. Is that not the tastiest, most delectable character to ever character????

Look, yes, Lucifer is depressed. He and Lilith got divorced. He and Charlie were estranged to each other for years. He lost his will to dream after being cast out from Heaven. He spent all his time making little rubber ducks, locked away in his room. But that doesn't, by any means, make the man humble.

If you look at Alastor and say he's got too big of an ego to bottom, and then turn around and make Lucifer the most bottomy bottom ever, then I say go back and rewatch the show, cuz you're missing a few very important factors. Especially if you're basing someone's capacity to bottom on ego alone. (I, personally, love it when prideful, egotistical characters bottom. It's so much fun).

Mostly just...hhhhhh, please stop stripping away all of my short-kings most interesting characteristics. I don't want a small, wide-eyed, easily manipulated little UwU soft boi. I want snarky, powerful as fuck, insecure, egotistical, provocative short-king who gets pissy when his daughter talks to a homicidal deer man with a silly haircut instead of him (while also being very soft, loving, and caring). He's multi-faceted, and that's what makes him interesting.

Once again, this isn't me getting after people who enjoy top!Alastor and bottom!Lucifer. Do what you want, I hope you're having fun. Just don't go commenting below other people's posts with shit like "Alastor wouldn't bottom because of his ego," when Lucifer is just as much of an egotistical little shit as he is.

Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.

[flynncorvus]

I LOVE THESE GOOBERS (📺🦋)

CW: Spoilers and Swearing

(G.I.F's by @asmodeus542 ) So I was on a call with my friend @minkschasijasi , and I was fucking SQEALING. StaticMoth is my fucking OTP and they are so adorable in these scenes. Like the hug, their duet, the way Vox leads Val in a little drop move in their dance and when they come back up they are fucking just- Val with that comforting gesture is so fucking yes. Their commentary througout the episode, (Vox mostly) and the LOOKS Val gives- The expressions that Vel makes through everything (her hair fucking slays) I love the goobers so damn much I will cry over them because I love them so much and I SWEAR. Vox is just a silly sad man who I love and he's so immature but so perfect and I love him so fucking much and I swear to whoever is up or down there I love them all and UGHHHHH. He just needs attention, a huggos, a guy to tell him he's doing okay and he's amazing and I just love him so much his character his voice actor his everything even his personality and I UGH. Valentino too, like I love him so damn much his character design his personality his voice he's just my favorite whiny piss baby. I love how Vox cared enough to drop everything in his schedule (Ep 2) for Val, although it was probably because he knew Val would be a handful I still love their fucking guts and I want to give them all the best gifts, hugs, words, head pats, and UGHHHIEONIOEFhoiH VIVZIE I SWEAR. You gave me the BEST hyperfixation I had since BoyWithUke. Thank... god? Lucifer? Vox? Val? Whatever. Thank something that I don't need this to get out of depression, mostly because I've been happy lately. If I'm ever depressed though, I know all I need to do is turn on some BWU, get some ice-cream, grab my procreate to draw fanarts, call my broshimiskies, and just DIE in front of watching this show. I love the Vees they're my favorite beans and I just love and they're so amazing and they're the best things to ever happen to me since BWU and that's saying a whole lot like I bawled at his last concert and I haven't been able to feel anything close to that since now when I'm just staring at the screen I swear I love all these goofy goobers so damn much and this is starting to turn into such a hard to read rant but what the fuck anyway. I Love this show, I love the characters, I love the community, I love everything. How dare the cliffhanger, like Lilith has been in Heaven? That probably confirms that Eve was the one in those flashbacks. Speaking of, Lucifer fucking SLAYED that scene with Adam. Like the whole "I Fucked both your wives" Joke was amazing, and that reminds me of when Vox just screamed and did *that* on the table, and Val and Vel just looked so dead but so loving at the same time and they're so amazing. I love that they're amazing and I swear to fuck that I will die on this hill. StaticMoth is my OTP, the Vees are my main bois and girls; I love everything else as well. HuskerDust comes in a close second though.

[postmodernmulticoloredcloak]

So I watched 10.09 recently, and it has that part where Dean tells a story about him basically being almost roofied as a teen, but somehow it ends up framed as the funny joke and yet another proof that John "did what he could", and I kind of hate this? And it's the same episode in which MoC!Dean killed guys that kidnapped and tried to rape Claire, and you'd think writers would've addressed the parallels and acknowledge that Dean could've been triggered by this situation. 1/2

2/2 But in the end, it's never addressed, and the whole situation is framed as the proof that Dean is evil now. And I'm not even sure what I am trying to say, but with that being the show's approach back in s10, I'm not surprised about the finale anymore. Guess we should've known?

That’s an excellent angle to look at the issue because the Mark of Cain arc is a clear example of how people with different experiences will see the same thing in wildly different ways. There’s this phase of season 10 where everyone is like “oh no Dean is Getting Worse” and when you look at what Dean is doing... you actually go “...good for him”.

Let’s give Caesar what belongs to Caesar. It’s not “the writers” in this case, it’s Dabb. Plenty of other writers don’t fall into this John apologism thing. Just look at how the episode before Lebanon, written by Buckner and Ross Leming, says that sometimes John would temporarily kick Dean out because he was “pissed at him” despite Dean always taking his side to mantain the peace. It almost seems like a statement to sprinkle some salt given what Dabb does in Lebanon, you know? Maybe not, but there is a tension between “John was shitty” writers and “John did his best” writers.

In hindsight, we gave Dabb too much of the benefit of the doubt. We were like, weeell, that’s supposed to be way the characters perceive the truth, which is distorted by the trauma... But now it’s obvious that he truly believed in the John-did-his-best version. He brought him back and got Mary back with him. No matter what happened to the finale, the network didn’t print those pictures of John and Mary to hang on Sam’s wall. He never took Dean’s abuse seriously and it shows.

The “anedocte” of Dean getting drugged and “saved” by John from being raped is obviously there to parallel him with Claire. Which works! It’s so weird because it’s like. You are soooo close to getting the point. Younger Dean was assaulted just like this teenage girl is assaulted and Dean saves her... but apparently John yelling at those people is a good way of dealing with the issue, while murdering child traffickers is an overraction thus bad.

That’s the problem, isn’t it? That Dean’s murder spree is framed as an overreaction. Sam is like “tell me you had to do this! tell me it was you or them!” - the answer to which (by the narrative) is obviously no, it wasn’t self defense, he just killed them because he could. He just murdered those men for no reason except he felt like being murdery. And the audience is supposed to be like “oh no! Dean is murdery for no reason except for murderiness! That’s bad!”.

But it’s a power fantasy, isn’t it? Going on a murder spree on rapists and traffickers. I bet any people who’s been violated like that has fantasized of doing the exact thing Dean does here. Killing them all.

Dean had the physical strength and skill to kill them all, why shouldn’t he kill them? (I mean, in real life I’m against private justice because I’m a fan of the state of law, but the Supernatural universe obviously works on different principles than the state of law. Again, it’s a fictional narrative that plays out as a fantasy for the audience, so.)

So what was Dabb’s intention? I’m afraid it’s the worst one. “John Winchester’s not going to win any Number One Dad awards, you know? But, you know, damn if he wasn’t there when we needed him”. What the fuck, Dabb? It’s been established since season 1 that John WASN’T there when they needed him. Which... I’m afraid... leads us to the Cas-Claire plot in the episode. Cas has fucked off with Jimmy’s body leaving Claire on her own. Parallels how John wasn’t going to win wny Number One Dad awards. But! Cas is there when Claire Really Needs Him i.e. when she’s about to be raped by older men. Parallels how John was there when Dean Really Needed Him i.e. when he was about to be raped by older men.

I think the point is to say, Cas kinda sucked because he took Claire’s dad away but hey! He’s actually a good figure for Claire because he gets there in time to prevent her from being raped. Just like (ew) John kinda sucked as a father because hunting and stuff, but hey! He’s actually a good figure for Dean because he got there in time to prevent him from being raped.

It’s pretty yucky. Literally NOBODY wanted a parallel between Cas and John. But he made one. And he made one to absolve Cas from the guilt he carried for what he did to Claire (Claire’s mother is a mother so who fucking cares about her. She’s basically a Blurry Wife(TM), she’s only a tool for Claire’s arc, Cas apparently only cares about the harm he did the child, not the wife, for some reason.) and to absolve Cas from his guilt it absolves John too. Don’t worry, being a parent is hard. You often screw up. But you can *looks at smudged writing on hand* prevent the kid from being raped by predatory adults and everything’s fine now.

It’s not really important if the child suffered hunger or whatever, the only important thing is that they don’t get raped, because that’s bad, everything else is just a little detail.

All Dabb got with that scene was to paint Sam as extremely unsympathetic because he’s no longer a child, he’s a full adult now and still thinks of that episode at the CBGB as a funny story. That’s not a good look. It almost makes you think that the writer himself saw it as a funny story. Lol teenage boy biting more than he can chew. But then why the Claire parallel? The Claire scene onviously is not supposed to be anything but horrific. I'll give Dabb the benefit of the doubt on this specific thing.

It’s weird, yes, because Dabb wrote Dark Side of the Moon where he establishes that John was a bad husband/father even before tragedy hit the family. But apparently that’s the “not going to win any Number One Dad awards” part, I suppose? I guess he intended to write John as this flawed, ~complex~ figure who was imperfect but still brave and whatever blah blah did his best blah blah. I’m all for flawed complicated characters but a horrible father is a horrible father. A rose by any other name... parental abuse is still parental abuse even if the poor guy was complicated and traumatized and did what he thought he had to do to prepare his sons for a violent world.

Also, the story frames Dean’s escapade as a teenager being stupid. “You know what he got for that? Me whining about how much he embarrassed me. Me telling him that I hated him. But then he stopped and turned around looked at me and said, Son, you don’t like me? That’s fine. It’s not my job to be liked.” “It’s my job to raise you right.” This seems straight from a novel about teenagers doing something stupid that they’re too young to realize that their parents are right to be against them doing. But this isn’t just... a parent walking into a bar to stop their child to drink alcohol. Dean literally describes feeling sick from something that was inside the alcohol.

Sure, it makes sense that he’d lash out to John because of the shame and shock. But the scene is... off. Are we supposed to see this as a typical teenage mistake? Are we supposed to read it as something as horrific as what happened to Claire, literally sold into rape? Or, worse, are we supposed to see what happened to Claire as a teenage mistake, ah silly teenager, blindly trusting shady people, no wonder you end up in a situation where you’d get raped if a father figure didn’t sweep in and save you. I hope that wasn’t the intent.

To get back to Dean’s Mark-of-Cain violence, the writers clearly didn’t intend it to come from the Darkness up to a certain point. It was supposed to an arc about your own inner darkness (consider the Charlie episode, a couple episodes later). Then they came up with the idea of The(TM) Darkness, the suppressed cosmic feminine. While it caused a bit of dissonance in the subtext, it doesn’t really change Dean’s narrative, because his inner darkness is the trauma, and his trauma is inherebtly tied to the “feminine” i.e. the parts of him that don’t fit seamlessly into the scheme of toxic masculinity values. That the violence that comes from the Mark of Cain comes from Dean himself and that’s it, or is connected to the Darkness, it doesn’t change what it means for Dean. Dean and Amara have parallel histories, the feminine principle locked away, the trauma the anger stems from.

In 10x09 we’re still in the Before The (TM) Darkness era, before the suppressed cosmic feminine. The Mark of Cain arc is still about... well, Cain. But the shift is the signal that someone looked at Dean’s arc and said... you know what? “Lucifer gave me this curse so now I’m demonic and murdery” is meh. “Toxic masculinity suppresses the feminine and it creates trauma which rage and violence comes from” is more interesting. I don’t know whose idea it was, but it was a good idea, and surely the idea came from seeing how Dean’s MoC narrative was unfolding.

Dean’s MoC narrative was unfolding in a certain way, in fact, because of a pretty simple reason. There’s a fundamental tension in Dean’s MoC arc. We want him to go murdery, but it’s also our main character, so we don’t want him to do really horrible things because he still needs to be relatable. The audience cannot hate him, so he must NOT do something entirely unforgivable. He still needs to be somewhat relatable, even when demonic or demonic-adjacent.

So he goes on a murder spree... but it’s rapists and child traffickers. He’s demon, but he kills a misogynistic dude that wanted his wife dead for cheating on him. He’s a demon, but beats up dudes that harass women. He does a slaughter, but they’re nazi. He’s off the deep end, but works a case of kidnapped and abused young women...

Speaking of which. 10x23, written by Jeremy Carver. Dean works a case where a girl was killed while dressed scantily and Dean makes some slut-shaming remarks, and we’re supposed to think “whoa Dean, that’s bad”. But later he confronts the girl’s father and what does he say?

I’m just doing my job, Mr. McKinley.

By suggesting my daughter was a slut?

I’ll admit that thought crossed my mind. Then I came here, and I smelled the deceit and the beatings and the shame that pervade this home.

You shut your face right now.

And you know what? I don’t blame Rose anymore. No wonder she put on that skank outfit and went out there looking for validation, right into the arms of the monster that killed her.

Back then the episode was super controversial and everyone hated the case because of the apparent slut-shaming but I loved it! Because it’s not about the girl. It’s about Dean. Dean doesn’t think that a girl gets killed because she dresses in a miniskirt so it’s her fault. Dean is projecting on himself and he’s not actually victim blaming the girl, he’s victim blaming himself. And when he absolves the girl by putting the blame on the father... well, subtextually he’s absolving himself by putting the blame on his father. On the deceit and the beatings and the shame that pervaded his own home. He’s textually not ready to absolve himself, of course, he summons Death to ask him to kill him later, but subtextually he’s on the right path.

Rose McKinley basically did the same mistake Dean did at the CBGB when he trusted some older people who offered him drinks and the same mistake Claire did when she trusted a man who sold her for money because he offered him a place and stability. She trusted the wrong people (in this case, vampires, which adds the whole subtext of vampires and sexuality) who took advantage of her. Except Rose had no one to save her. (Her friend, Crystal, gets rescued by Dean, even if he causes the other hunter Rudy to die in the process.)

Carver’s writing is pretty brutal. The girl made that mistake because was abused at home, so she was desperate for validation and that desperation drove her into the wrong hands. (Rose even has a brother who blames himself for bringing her sister to her future murderers, destructive sibling relationship check.) It doesn’t actually even matter if Dean guessed right about Rose’s family situation, because what matters is what it tells us about Dean. He basically relates to a dead abused girl. Actually all through the season Dean is paralleled to “skanks” “sluts” and sex workers. Obviously this happens kinda all through the show, the whole “the business is based on absent fathers” thing happened much earlier in the story, so it’s not new. But s10 draws a picture of female suffering - abuse, manipulation and death. Season 10 was difficult to go through. In hindsight, it was probably on purpose because it was supposed to be darkest hour of the feminine. Summed with some good old fashioned misogyny, but hey.

The Carver era was wonky but Carver wanted to free the feminine. (I believe that Mary’s comeback, while written by Dabb because of the showrunner shift, was planned before the showrunner shift.) We thought the Dabb era wanted the same, with Mary choosing life and Amara being independent and so on, but it evidently wasn’t the case. Not a single woman arrives at end of the story. It’s hardly ~Bucklemming or ~the network or ~covid because it starts before the very end.

I’m not saying that dead sluts are more feminist than living women, but if the women die or disappear anyway (and they did) I’d rather have an exploration of trauma than nothing. And I definitely prefer a dead slut narrative that calls out parental abuse than a narrative where women live but abuse gets the you-did-your-best treatment.

Whoops! I digressed! But feel free to ask for any clarification or send me any observation or thought.

[maccaillte]

Alright! Time to scream my love to my mutuals no matter how cringy it is! Cause happy birthday to DBH and the funky androids in it.

@rcprobate Silas my beanie babe! You are such an amazing writer and you bring so much depth and love to all of your muses. You have wonderful headcanons for each other that really speaks to the characters. Our DBH babes have grown so much since we first started rping together, we have Calvin and Seven who are first were ready to just give up and then decided to overthrow Markus but a little thing called love got in the way and now Calvin is so soft for Seven and can’t live without them and it makes my heart so full. Seven and Rupert!! Oh made these two are the sweetest beans ever! With their babies and how much they support one another it makes me so happy. These two getting married feels like something out of a dream and its really happening. I love your Connor, sweet boy, maybe some day Sev and him will meet on better terms then whats going down between them with Calvin involved. I love you very much and I’m so happy to have you in my life, you’re my beanie babe.

@theveryfirst Heather and sweet sweet angel Chloe! Chloe is by far the sweetest android ever she gives me freaking cavities. Her love and adoration for Seven just makes me so very happy. Her little danger muffin, only a joke we get. Chloe has and is such a beautiful positive thing in their life they’ll never stop loving her and happy she loves them back. Also mama bear Chloe has permission to kick Neige’s frosty ass.

@jericholeader Becca! Markus is best boy! Amazing boy! Badass boy! I’ll come clean and say that it was Markus’ story that got me into DBH. You write him so well and he’s such a caring character, gah I love him so much. Also thank you for blessing my dash with photos of Jesse Williams. YOU HEARD ME ONCE AND YOU’LL HEAR ME SAY IT AGAIN MARKUS SHOULD HAD BEEN THE SEXIEST DBH CHARACTER IN 2018 I’M JUST SAYING!! RKs got to stick together cause who else is gonna save each other from their stubborn asses?

@erregent || @uglyanswer​ SHI!!! My love! Your trash man ruined me!! RUINED ME!!! Now I love this stinky garbage man and can’t believe Seven fell so hard for his ass. Watching those two grow together was the most beautiful thing, how far the two come from Gavin barely caring who they were to now he can’t believe they love him and he loves them back. You’ve written Gavin so well and amazingly I love what you have done with him. You pointed to the character in the dumpster and was like ‘that one’ and we all love you for it! Also you’re other muses are quality! You writing Cas made my dumb heart remember how much I loved this angel and went back to watch Supernatural episodes again (mostly ones with Cas cause Cas is love) Keep being you you amazing incredible lovely person. Also if you ever need some good nip prices don’t be afraid to ask what the stonks are.

@rkainine It just looks like we can’t be rid of each other does it? Wouldn’t that mean we’ve known each other or met four years ago? Take your pick man I feel old but I’m so glad we found each other again and once again have basically the same muse dynamic! Tiny sweet bby and big scary tough one. I’m so happy Cain and Seven are back and they finally got that hug! Seven loves Cain and will make baby brother see it! Don’t deny their love Cain! Not this time!

@anarmyofme I still adore you Ren! I always will. I’m very happy Seven and Connor remain friends. I’ll always treasure their previous relationship but like real like people change and move on. You’re still a wonderful and amazing writer for Connor who struggles with a lot but thats what makes Connor so amazing! You keep being your funky machine maybe not machine self! 

@negotiiator ANDREW! God i love you so so so very much! Look at our bots and how much they’ve grown, the silly in love droids. Connor and Seven just make me so happy and gah Connor staying be Seven going through that rough time with their body failing. These two are here to stay forever and I’m loving all of it. Also Connor knows how frisky Seven actually is so cherish that secret >w> Seeing you on my dash is such a blessing and I’m so looking forward to Sev and Con being absolute dorks in love.

@313248317 Whats up with this little thing Con and Sev got going on i need the answers owo. But these two are super cute and so soft together, no matter what direction their relationship takes I’m here for it one hundred percent of the way! Sev always makes a happy gasp seeing you poke around in the inbox or on the dash like ‘theres my crush.’

@becomedeviant || @lightbringer I love both of your muses so much! From little shit Connor to little shit Lucifer, Ev/Sev have their hands full with these two. Seven always ready to love and protect Connor because he is baby brother. Ev and Lucifer is a surprise ship but now just makes me so soft!

@failedmission I have to just give major props to Evan’s little brother right here who supported them from day one with their baby. He is the best uncle ever and really if it wasn’t for our threads where I gather confidence in writing Evan expecting I don’t think Peach would have graced the dashboards. So big big thank you and I love you from me!

@deviatiions || @rkfinale​ So much love for Connor and Nines! They both have helped Seven so much and it warms my heart to see how much these two love and cherish their elder sibling. Also I love our human au angst, Peach baby will make everything alright don’t you worry! So much love and just happy emotions for you! And having a blast in ACNH, don’t be a stranger and come on over whenever you like.

@baddcop Rat stinky man! Poor Seven seems like all of our interactions always turned out bad for them but now they’re growing a spine and won’t take Gavin’s shit anymore so thank you for unlocking mouthy Seven. You have so much love and depth for the character your writing is amazing I just can’t get enough of it.

@blueroces Gah I know we’ve done a lot of discord stuff but Nines and Seven make my heart so full and happy! They’re so good for each other and just perfect! Love chatting with you when its like late at night for me but midday for you but thats timezones for ya rip. Can’t wait to keep writing more of this happy couple!

@carbonandiron Middy! I hope you are doing well and your comic is going great! You are such an amazing writer for all of your characters every single one is so perfectly written I just can’t get enough of them!

@plasticdetective  the quickest love story right here folks instant connection. what helped was Connor’s already undying love for Seven and we had barely even gotten to full on plotting. He just went ‘this is my sibling i will love and cherish forever!’ and then finding out we knew each other vaguely, well you knew me vaguely, i knew you through your art was mind blowing cause here is me this itty bitty person gushing over your art and then find out later you are them mind fucking blown. I love all of our interactions so much and enjoy the angst train we got going its a fun ride. Not for Seven and Connor but fun for us!

@flcwcdcode Conall: this RK700 is mine now. Basically what happened so I guess we’re now best friends by default. Seven needs Conall in their life, keep them from doing stupid shit like a dumb kitten trying to climb something too big for them. Keep your idiot tiny sibling alive Conall.

Here are some other lovelies have my heart eyes and loves and everything as well!

@rxmodel @aurumhearts @rebellionmatriarch @designerfai @detrcitmade @wasscared @ambitiouslyruthless @rkplaced @badgeburdened @perfectmachiine @systminstablty @vexeddetective

[orionsangel86]

Episode Review - 14x01 - Want, Everything, Sunshine, and Beyonce

Hellatus is over everyone! Put away the crack memes and shit posts and bring out your meta caps because we are back in business! Oh boy are we back in business! 

Right before @tinkdw came over to watch the premier with me, we discussed our expectations and both agreed that whilst our expectations were pretty much in our boots, we would consider the episode a success if it was even remotely meta. We wanted to be able to see clearly constructed themes both as a continuation of what had come previously and as a foundation for a strong season going forward. We were both hoping that at least from a meta perspective, that the episode would leave us happy and thirsting for more.

Dabb did not disappoint us.

It was such a strong episode meta-wise. There is a lot to pick apart that is ripe for discussion and I seriously hope that Dabb will keep a close eye on the other writers to ensure that these themes continue throughout the season. Plot-wise it was a weaker episode, but then again Dabb has always focused on the character emotional arcs more than the actual plot points in recent years, and I am grateful for that. The second half of season 13 felt stagnant to me simply because there was little to no character development and from a meta perspective it was also extremely weak. I went into this hellatus feeling negative about the show simply because I hadn’t actually enjoyed an episode properly since 13x12. However, the season 14 opener was most definitely enough to quench my thirst and get me excited for the coming season. Fingers crossed it goes from strength to strength.

Long review under the cut

Michael!Dean - What Do You Want

Straight in after the introductory Nyoooom of Baby (driven by a grim looking Sam and a pretty impressive swap from title music to diegetic music), we are introduced to the angel of the hour. 

8 Things about Michael:

1. I am not sure how I feel about Jensen’s performance right now. He is playing Michael extremely straight and whilst I can see how this cold, calm portrayal can come across quite terrifying, it’s not a carry over from Christian Key’s performance. I don’t want to be too critical, because we only saw him in a few scenes so far, but when I compare it to how Tahmoh portrayed Gadreel alongside Jared, and the way Misha pretty much nailed Mark P’s performance (and greatly improved it), I guess I’m still waiting for Jensen to WOW me in the role. The one thing I will say is that he did terrify me and managed to come across creepy when acting alongside his own WIFE. So he's doing something right I'll give him that. When Jensen wants to have chemistry with someone, he does.

2. I like the fact that Michael’s goal right now seems to be to educate himself on our world. He’s not running around causing terror and mayhem like Lucifer, he’s learning how best to go about “improving” the world. He also appears to be inspiring people with his words: “Holy men, leaders, killers” and we have seen the effect he had already on Kip the Demon - who was inspired to run for King of Hell until Sam Fucking Winchester ruined that plan. I wonder if we will be seeing the fallout of Michael’s specific type of inspiration throughout the season.

3. “What do you want?” Obviously this question is an important one. It was repeated like six times throughout the episode, though never to the main characters. It looks like this is going to be the theme of the season and as far as TFW’s personal journey’s go, this is now the question we are asking them and the question being explored. What does Sam want? Or Cas? Or Dean? This has an endgame flavour to it that has me extremely excited. 

4.Michael’s own personal want of “A better world” is a follow on in a way of many of the villains that have come before him. For seasons now we have been exploring this concept of improving the world for the better. We had it first in season 8 when the brothers had the goal to do the trials to make a world without demons, in season 11 Amara’s vision was to destroy so she could reshape the world to her own blueprints that she saw as better than Chuck’s. Dabb era has been even more obvious, first with the goal of the British Men of Letters being “a world without monsters” which was shared by Mary wanting a better world for her boys, and then in season 13 Jack’s arrival floated the idea of “paradise world” to Castiel. I don’t think Michael is gonna fair any better than any of these others, and wonder exactly where all these escalated versions of “a better world” will end up. It's all exploring the notion that nothing is black and white, but in fact a grey area.

5. I already discussed Michael and Sister Jo here. Cas mirrors... Cas mirrors everywhere... I also side eye the "pretty things" line because it reaks of Dean and his whole sublimation thing. In that sense it seems Dabb is making Jo a mirror for both our boys. I'll be keeping a close eye on her from now on.

6. ”Why would he say yes to you?” “Love”. OH DEAN. Just, Dean wasn’t in this episode but my god did we feel his presence RIGHT HERE. And to think there are people out there that still think this is a macho mans show about macho manly men. I’ve never known another character with more heart than Dean Winchester. This show is about LOVE above all things. I wish people would stop trying to deny that fact.

7. Radioactive Pigeon:

Look I’m not trying to be critical okay it’s very pretty and this is the FIRST time they have attempted showing an angels true form and that is amazeballs and all, but still. He has little pigeon wings and a bent halo. Pfft.

8. The Purity of Vampires. I actually love this. I think it comes across a bit silly on the surface, but the whole idea of monsters being pure is a massive callback to purgatory and season 8 and anything that calls back to season 8 makes me happy. 

Sam Fucking Winchester

Excuse me while I scream HELL YES. I have been waiting for Sam to take on the leadership role for AGES. Honestly this was always my dream endgame for Sam. To organise and lead the hunting community. There’s your better world guys. It was something that the writers flirted with in late season 12, but at the time Sam only took on the position with Dean’s approval and encouragement to go ahead. Sam has always stepped back and let Dean take the lead throughout the show as the big brother and parental figure. I think this was always a role he was destined to fill and something that has been building in the subtext for a long time (much the same way as the toxic codependency has been shown to hold Sam back.) 

What’s of interest here is what will happen when Dean comes back and is fighting fit. Will Sam relinquish his leadership position to Dean? Or fight for it? Will this cause conflict? I read this amazing meta on this which turned into an epic discussion and I highly recommend reading it. My HEART.

Sam’s state in the episode is one of constant motion. He cannot stop for a second, always being pulled from one thing to another. He doesn’t sleep, he doesn’t get to change out of his hideous blue and orange shirt (which is officially now my favourite Sam shirt), he doesn’t even get to finish his soup. I know Jared said that Sam had a ‘grief beard�� but Tink and I are adamant that the beard is simply due to the fact that Sam doesn’t get the time to shave. He has taken so much weight on his shoulders and in amongst that has to deal with horribly traumatic things such as face the face of his abuser and actually be a healer to him. Sam doesn't get a moment to himself and spends all his time concerned about others. It's very noble of him, but he's going through the motions.

Sam is the contrast here to both Cas and Dean, who are physically and mentally stuck in their awful situations. Sam is also stuck in a way, stuck with no time to actually contemplate the situation he has got himself in. Stuck without a moment to breath, or to grieve his brother. Stuck holding the weight of the world on his shoulders as every other single character looks to him for support, help and guidance. Sam is the motherfucking Beyonce of the episode, that is for certain.

He is also calling the shots on hell now...

(x)

... I find it amusing that back in the early days Sam's destiny was to be the boy king of hell, and it's almost like he's fulfilled that destiny, not by being king, but by being gatekeeper and in a position powerful enough to scare the demons into submission. This is probably what Crowley intended. Sam probably owns the moon now.

About Nick - Well, first of all, I TOLD YOU SO. I did say that I could tell the guy from the back of his head and I was damn right about that. Learn to trust me guys I am occasionally good at this stuff. Okay, now that that is out of my system, let’s talk about this. Round of applause for Jared in this scene. Because he takes Sam’s hell trauma extremely seriously and made sure that every nuance, every twitch, was picked up by those camera’s. I loved that. Potentially Nick could be a good way to help Sam heal in the coming season, as Sam has finally freed himself from Lucifer’s grasp. Is it fair that he should have to look after the face that tormented him for years? No. Not at all, but could it prove somewhat cathartic in the end? Maybe. 

At the end of the day, Dabb must have considered Nick to have a purpose beyond “I want to give Bucklemming something to play with so they don’t fuck up my actual story” and “We need to keep stroking Mark P’s ego for some stupid reason”. Because otherwise I am really worried about how limited his power must be, and refuse to entertain the thought that he was overthrown by Singer and his horrid wife. I can see the potential in Nick being a dark mirror for Dean following his freedom from Michael’s possession. How Nick deals with the post possession trauma could be an indicator to how Dean is really coping even when he buries it.

At the same time, both Sam and Cas have been possessed by Lucifer, and therefore have all the experience between them to help Dean’s recovery without needing Nick to get involved. So I dunno guys. I’m trying to see the positive in something I otherwise despise. 

Anyway I thought Jared was fucking superb in that scene and pretty much the whole episode and want to give him a round of applause because it is rare that he truly gets to shine on his own without Jensen by his side.

Now all we need is for Sam to get some sleep. How he is still functioning by the episodes end I will never understand.

Castiel Everything Winchester

(x)

Look at him. So defiant and done. You can almost imagine that fire behind him burning in his eyes as well. He’s such a dom.

Several things about Cas in 14x01:

1. He is 100% done with every demon on the planet and doesn’t give a fuck. Honestly though. The way he says “Oh God” when Kip walks in. The way he rolls his eyes. I wonder if he had Dean’s voice in his head saying “You know who wears sunglasses indoors Cas? Douchebags.” 

2. He is making desperate choices in order to save Dean, which is certainly typical for him. The fact that he spends the entire episode stuck in a chair is a fantastic metaphor for his whole feelings on the situation, a metaphor then reinforced through a mirror at the end when he speaks with Jack (we never get anything explicit with Cas do we?). The fact that Cas can’t save Dean right now is weighing on him, but he is determined to do whatever it takes. The conversation he has with Sam at the end is a brilliantly short but important moment:

“I should never have gone to those demons”

“Cas no I don’t blame you. honestly I wish I had thought of it first. If it meant finding Dean I’d work with.. I’d do anything.”

The takeaway here is that actions speak louder than words. Sam HAS been distracted being leader of the hunters and having to face his own nightmares thanks to Nick, but Cas has literally been doing anything he can with a soul focus on saving Dean. 

It's an intimate moment between them. In a bunker now bustling with life and movement this is the only time in the episode that it really seems still. The library has always been Sam's private space, where he feels most at home - like the kitchen is for Dean. But here he and Cas sit as equals together weighed down by their shared grief. It's the soft moments like this that I love the most about this show. They are both willing to do anything they can, but the difference is that whilst Sam is being pulled in lots of different directions, Cas’s sole focus is Dean. Note that heaven wasn’t mentioned once. It hasn’t even crossed his mind.

3. Everyone Knows, but Cas doesn’t give a shit. 

“How is it you lost Dean, I thought you guys were joined at the... well you know, everything.”

It is an extremely explicit nod to Destiel. It is also the first time a line like this has made it into an episode since season 7 I think. The difference now being that we’ve had years of steady subtext and narrative building on the love story, hence the line has a different weight to those previously. It was very carefully written, careful not to imply that Cas was joined to BOTH Winchesters as the line was specifically about Dean. It was written by the showrunner, who would have known the significance of such a line, it encourages the view that all of heaven and hell have made their own assumptions about Dean and Cas’s relationship, and in case anyone wants to argue that the missing word was “hip” like the saying goes, the gesture and nod by Kip goes to prove otherwise. In other words, there is no platonic interpretation. Which is delightful.

Cas’s completely stoic silence is even more delightful. God I love him.

4. He can’t see demons true faces anymore. Like everyone else, Cas not realising those people were demons really threw me for a moment. Tink and I both agreed that the scene should have had Kip snap his fingers and have the demons smoke in and possess all those people instead - still catching Cas off guard but not making it seem like he is just super unobservant. I personally feel like this was just an error Dabb made. I have no desire to try to meta explain that one and I accept it as the error it is. I do like that it took an entire room of demons and 4 sets of enochian hand cuffs to overpower him though...The fact that he had to sit there and watch his family be beaten and almost killed around him whilst he was helpless again, is an excellent parallel to Dean’s current situation and what he will most likely have to face in the coming episodes, and also a reflection of Cas’s mental state (as mentioned above), Coming out of this episode it seems like this will be another season where Cas and Dean mirror each other and walk similar paths in terms of growth and development - if only those paths would meet with a kiss!

5. He’s the bait. Tink found this line hilarious straight away, where as I had to blink and ask why because I obviously took offence. But once we started discussing it and realised the quadruple entendre it is I found myself applauding Dabb on his genius. Cas IS used as bait, by the SPN PR people. Because he’s Mister Popularity. He’s also the character who causes the most conflict in fandom, with those who love him so much they are bitter and mean and those who simply hate him often complaining about the exact same things but in different ways - leaving the regular fans stuck in the middle (Tink explained this to me with delight - how both anti’s and bitter!cas girls alike will latch onto that line for completely different reasons). He’s also potentially a queerbait depending on how you look at it. But anyway. Cas’s epic eye rolls in this episode were almost enough to rival Sam’s bitchfaces. I am impressed.

6. He takes no pleasure for himself. I am forever going to obsess over Cas’s relationship with human food and drink:

“Coffee has no effect on me.”

“Me either, not anymore. But its like with saltwater taffee or infants, you know I just like the taste”

Although we can argue his refusal is out of stubbornness to not give the demon the satisfaction, even when accepting drinks from the Winchesters he doesn’t usually bother, or will stick with water. Even if he is seen ordering coffee it is usually only to avoid looking suspicious in diners. We know Cas enjoys some food and drink, but Cas rarely allows himself the pleasure. Even in 13x14 when Dean offered him a beer, it remained unopened. A symbolic metaphor for Cas refraining from indulging in other pleasures? This is why I am so so desperate for Michael to ask Cas what it is HE wants. Lucifer stated that Cas was a “pleasureless dullard” and I want to see this theme continue. Cas uses his grace as an excuse not to indulge and I consider this linked to meta about the “sacred oath” of heaven and Cas being duty bound and numbed by his grace. But these are all elements for a bigger meta at another time and the moment in this episode is just another snippet of that.

7. He looks awesome framed in fire. I just really liked the set up of Motown Meats as the new hang out for hell, with its fire pit and orange glowy bar. There is a lot of general symbolism there but I enjoyed the flames framed behind Cas in every shot he was in. Because even though he was mostly stuck in this episode, that fire raging inside him didn’t burn out once. He WILL save Dean. Just as he promised to Jack at the end, even if he get’s battered, beaten and bruised, his determined stubborness to save his husband will win eventually. Cas is no longer the broken thing of seasons 11/12. He well and truly rose like a phoenix in season 13 and now it’s showing through, as it’s a mission fueled by his own passion and love.

Jack Winchester (AKA my nougat son)

Poor Jack, like his father he hasn't had it easy in 14x01. He is struggling with his humanity now, his usefulness, in such a clear mirror to Cas that it kinda hits you in the face. He is desperately seeking guidance from those around him. First in the form of AU Bobby who has clearly bonded with Jack following their experiences together in apocalypse world.

It is great to finally see the Bunker gym! A room we all have ingrained in our fandom hive mind thanks to a 100 destiel fanfics. We all know what's gone on in there. >.>

Throughout the episode, Jack seeks out guidance first with Bobby, which goes badly, then with Sam, which is interrupted, and finally with Cas, which is when he finally gets told what he needs to hear. I am really happy that whilst Jack has so many father figures now, it is Cas who truly holds that torch and is able at least somewhat give Jack what he needs near the episodes end. If only he had damn well given his son a hug!

I loved the conversation so much that I transcripted it here:

JACK: I’m fine.

CAS: You did well

JACK: All I did was get punched. In the face

CAS: To be fair we all got punched in the face

JACK: That’s not - Before when I had my powers I could have done something

CAS: Jack you don’t have your powers, and your grace should regenerate in time, but until then..

JACK: I’m useless. I cant kill demons I cant find Dean and Michael is in our world and I cant stop him.

I can’t do anything. I don’t have anything.

CAS: Oh Jack. That’s just not true. You’ve got me. You have all of us. You have your family.

And we are going to find dean and we are going to beat Michael and we are going to do it together. Because that’s what we do.

This whole conversation was PERFECT. Every line chosen so specifically and weighted with meaning. Urgh Dabb I fucking love you for this.

Jack starts with “I’m fine” which Cas knows by now means you are not fine but he has also learned to recognise that sometimes it doesn’t mean “leave me alone” as Jack was crying out for guidance and support here. 

The mirrored “got punched in the face” calls to attention the fact that Jack is a reflection of Cas himself here and everything he has felt both now and in the past.

Jack’s complaint about being useless without his powers is a fear Cas has carried with him since his fall in season 9. It’s something that still weighs on him and whilst Cas now knows his place by the Winchester’s side, knows that they are a family and that he is not just a hammer, I think that fear of losing his power and being cast out is still well and truly weighing him down. It will be cathartic for Cas to see the family accept Jack as one of their own even if he is “useless” and human. 

Cas’s “That’s just not true” when Jack says he is useless - his voice breaks and you KNOW Cas has had those exact same thoughts.

“you’ve got me, you’ve got all of us. You have your family” compared to You’re my family, I love you, I love all of you” compared to “We're family. We need you. I need you.” The difference is there is no ambiguity in the word ME. Dabb turned it around, but had Cas clear it up. It’s the same line every time. The only difference is the placement of each individual statement. If this isn’t yet another clear example that the “I love you” was specifically directed at Dean I don’t know what is. THIS IS A CONTINUING PATTERN PEOPLE.

The determined promise to save Dean at the end, right after he specifies the singular and plural because obviously Dean was on Cas’s mind at that point - Mister I Don’t Get Words Wrong over here knows exactly what he means.

I love this whole conversation, but as I said above, it drums home the fact that whilst the Winchesters and others may be sources of guidance and support for Jack, he only has one true father, and I think Dabb wanted to make that clear in this episode. Remember:

Fingers crossed for more father/son bonding between these two in future episodes.

Mary and Bobby

(x)

Baring in mind I was expecting 1 small Destiel moment in the episode in the form of a line from a demon. You have NO IDEA how happy this moment between Mary and Bobby made me. If anyone saw that inktober pic I drew for premier day of me and Tink gasping in shock at the screen, it was for THIS moment. My face lit up in delight.

I said at the start of this long review that Dabb picked his moments well. With every second counting from a meta perspective. This was one of those.

Tell me, anyone, when watching that moment, would you deny that there was something between Bobby and Mary? As homework I'd like you all to play this scene to your heteronormative friends and family, or even be brave and ask a bibro. Would ANYONE deny that it was intended to be romantic?! I highly doubt it.

And yet there was nothing textually explicitly romantic about it. There was NOTHING in this scene that hasn’t been filmed a thousand times between Dean and Cas. The fact that Dabb chose to write this extremely small seemingly unimportant moment, in the kitchen, and for Bobby to use THOSE EXACT WORDS. As I have mentioned several times already, Dabb doesn’t fuck around when using well known moments from past canon in order to reinforce the importance of a thing. Dabb LOVES parallels. He wrote Bloodlines after all. He also knows the fandom hive mind and the things we pick up on and latch on to. This was a very smart calculated decision to include this in the episode and I am LIVING that he did it. GIVE ME ALL THE BOBBY x MARY/ DESTIEL PARALLELS. 

...

I actually really liked Mary in this episode. There is so much discourse in fandom about her and whilst I find Sam Smith pretty cold and wooden, I have never understood the utter hatred of Mary as a character. Hence why I praise Dabb’s genius at this moment:

(x)

Because this line literally sums up her entire arc since her return. Tink and I paused the episode and basically flailed at each other because this is EXACTLY what Mary has been trying to do. She was in HEAVEN, with her BABIES and suddenly she is back on earth with two grown men who are strangers to her, telling her they are hunters and have suffered a life of HORRORS without her. So she ran. Hell, I would have ran too. She shoved herself into hunting because all she could think about was trying to make things GOOD for her boys. Trying to FIX her mistakes the only way she knew how: by HUNTING. She was drowning in the bad. So she found focus in trying to make things good. Like in this episode, she reassures Sam so much that he snaps at her. He doesn’t want to be reassured, and that’s fine. But my god this felt like the first time Mary has truly had a voice. I really weren’t kidding when I said that Dabb made sure every word counted.

OTHER THINGS

I am unsure how I feel about the title card:

Tink called it. I think it looks a bit odd, a bit too clean. I like the title cards to be grim and dark. Black angel wings though! And hey, at least the fiery halos in the title cards are perfectly spherical... so we know they CAN do it right...

*side eyes SFX team*

Kip as a wannabe Crowley was kinda fun for a one off episode but I am glad that they are stressing now that wannabe Crowley’s get killed. The last one we had was Bart in 13x08 who was very much the same flirtatious queer coded demon. I’m fed up with the villainous queer coding by now. It’s been done too often. Give me another Demon like Alastair or Ramiel or none at all.

“Asmodeus Kentucky Fried” DID ANYONE LIKE ASMODEUS OTHER THAN BUCKLEMMING? This made me LOL.

The fight scene at the end was really weird and overly long. I dunno why they decided on so many random slow mo and wooosh shots. the whole Mary slow mo throwing the blade at Sam was cringy. I wish they’d stop being experimental and stick with what they know! You think they’d learn after 13x23!

Maggie was a bit annoying. Why bring her along if she can’t fight? Also the random cuts to her reaction after Jack was angsty had me reeling. simply because in het couples that’s a brewing romance and that is a massive NOPE from me. I like her as an individual character, I DO NOT like her as a love interest to a 1 year old, and I certainly wouldn’t like some pining story for her where she falls for an unavailable guy. It’s not fair on her character. The one thing I did like was the “pointy end” comment. It reminded me of Charlie for some reason.

The throw away line about Ketch being in London looking for the golden egg Lucifer/president extractor. Nice closing of a plot hole there Dabb.

I liked the Jesus weapon expert hunter dude. He seemed quirky. Dead man’s blood bullets are an excellent idea. 

DETROIT. Why does everything always happen in Detroit? I swear one day they are gonna reveal that Detroit is like a central universal power hub where the walls between the dimensions are thinnest or something. I could go on about this but I am sure a better meta writer elsewhere already has and this is waaay too long so I’m leaving this here.

If you got this far. Kudos and thank you for sticking around to read my thoughts. Feel free to ask me anything about any of the above. If I could hand out cookies through the internet I totally would right now.

Basically I enjoyed the episode. I have since re-watched it a dozen times and it is really the meta of it all that makes me love it. The story IS weak, and there ARE moments that are a bit odd, or infuriating depending on the way you look at it, but the heart of the episode was classic Dabb. All character driven and full of meaning. I am extremely well fed after this meta feast, perhaps even enough to get me through the horror show that will be Bucklemming’s 14x02. 

So long as Cas continues to look like a sexy beast I’m sure I’ll get through it.

I’ll just leave this here:

God he’s such a dom. :P

[tippitv]

Supernatural Recap: 14:01 “Stranger in a Strange Land”

The road so far... is thirteen years long. Thirteen years. If this show were a person, they would be dealing with acne and/or getting their period. We're on the fourth American presidential term since this show started. My dog Henry looked like this

And now he looks like this:

But back to the show's rock-n-roll montage to catch us up for this season. 

There was a nephilim boy named Jack, an alternate dimension accessible by an episiotomy in spacetime where bad angels ruled and dead characters were still alive, and a weird fight between Dean Winchester (with archangel Michael stuffed up in him like a heavenly turducken) and Lucifer that ended up looking like the video for Total Eclipse of the Heart.

At the end of it, Michael absconded with Dean's hot bod and made him wear a silly cap and break the fourth wall.

As the episode starts, Sam's full beard lets us know that some time has passed since the finale. He's driving through slick streets because it's always raining in the lush coastal rain forest of Kansas. .

But then we cut to some other bearded guy, asleep in a room somewhere that looks like a room they've used on this show a lot, but this time with a weirdly loud background soundtrack of ocean waves and seagulls. The guy gets up, puts his prayer mat down on the floor, and begins praying in what the CC tells me is Arabic.

He looks up to see Michael (in Dean) sitting there in his little cap. "Hello, Jamil," Michael says. Jamil looks surprised, as one should.

Michael quotes from what Google tells me is verse 2:98 of the Holy Quran in order to introduce himself: "Whoever is an enemy to Allah and His angels and His messengers Gabriel and Michael..." He still makes Jamil go through a guessing game. God? No. Gabriel? No. One of these guys in Newsies?

Also no. He says he's there to ask Jamil the same question he's spent weeks asking people all over the world. "Do you want your newspaper on your porch or in your mailbox?"

"What do you want exactly?" Michael asks him. Jamil says he wants peace and love. Michael says "you never would have ran" from Syria if that were true. Okay first of all, that's "would have run," Mister Archangel. Second of all... wait, where did the seagulls go? It's quiet now. As if they left to bother someone else.

Michael flings him around a bit with his angel powers. Like is that even fun? Super powerful beings always act like it is but it's just a normal part of his abilities like my being able to scratch my elbow or blow my nose is normal for me. Anyway, Michael says he wants a better world. Cut to the season's new title card!

Meanwhile, the bunker has been embraced by the resistance fighters from the alternate dimension. Is anybody feeling guilty about the fight they left behind? Are they assuming the fight over there is done because Michael is here now? Mary checks the aim of a new gun by pointing it at or very near these people's danged heads.

The girl already died once so maybe she's unflappable and the guy's too busy getting a monster tooth removed from a wound to notice. He says it happened in Phoenix... which Google tells me is at least a 16-hour drive away if you have a normal car.

Sam joins the bunker, letting us know that he's been in Atlanta checking up on a possible Michael-Dean sighting that turned out to be someone's drug-induced hallucination. It's the good thing the Impala travels a thousand mph or that would've been a lot of wasted time. He and Mary exposit about how it's been three weeks since the end of last season. That's only three weeks of beard growth? Does that seem like a lot just because I don't grow beards?

Sam has just enough time to yawn and be sad before some guy who looks like if maybe Jonathan Van Ness got halfway through getting ready to go chop fire wood tells him there are some "gypsy type" vampires heading east. Boo, Fake Jonathan. Even though he's exhausted, Sam starts delegating teams to go take care of the problem and sits down to hack into a traffic cam.

Then he remembers a cliffhanger from last season. "Hey how's Jack?"

Cut to Jack getting his ass handed to him by Bobby in a fight training session. Aw look at his cute lil sweats. Wait... what are those windows in the gym? They look look like they're streaked with rain. Isn't the whole bunker underground?

Also omg someone give that boy a face guard while he's sparring! He can't heal his cute little mug anymore!

Meanwhile in Detroit, Castiel is following up a lead at a BBQ joint called Motown Meats. And like I know "Motown" is also a nickname for the city and not just the name of a record label, but the country music playing in this joint is still annoying to me. Anyway some pink-cheeked fella who thinks burgundy brown shoes go with cornflower blue suits strides into the place all, "Castiel! Darling!" 

This fella, with his imperious little strut and vaguely Southern demeanor, simply demands I refer to him as Young Lindsey Graham. He orders sausage, brisket and "pork ribs, well done." What the fuck, Linds? All pork ribs are well done! If someone gives you underdone pork anything, you get right off your ass and call the health department!

"I didn't think you consorted with my kind," Linds says, revealing himself to be a demon and also someone who doesn't know his basic show history.

Castiel is loath to admit that he needs information. "Does any demon know where Dean Winchester is?" Young Lindsey is delighted and scandalized at the thought of Cas losing any Winchester, much less Dean. "I thought you two were joined at the... everything." He gets about as close to pointing/looking at Cas's dick as Mary got to pointing that gun at those people's heads.

Yes, I'm terrible at making gifs. Anyway, Linds goes, "What's in it for moi?" And Cas tells him, "Your life." So Linds is like, "Come again?" Honey, he ain't even come the first time yet, don't get ahead of yourself.

Castiel uses his graveliest voice on Young Lindsey, but to no avail. It turns out the whole place is full of demons. Wouldn't Cas have picked up on that? Is he that powerless? They all crowd around him and knock him to the floor.

A sign outside a church in Duluth welcomes "Sister Jo" and advertises its morning prayers at 8 in the morning. Does that seem ridiculously early to me just because I'm a heathen? Also it's clearly nighttime in this scene. Some parishioners thank Jo for saving their lives. It seems like she should be trying to fly under the radar, so to speak.

Oh now she's walking through a dark alley, counting her money. I'll give her a pass because she has angel powers, but people on this show are always being unwise in alleys. Michael approaches her. "You don't recognize me with this pretty face?" he asks. It's the hat! It! Is! The! Hat! He reveals his big seagull-lookin' wings.

Jo is naturally suspicious of Michael. "Why would Dean say yes to you when he turned you down like seven seasons ago?" she asks. "We needed a cliffhanger for the finale and he'd already been a demon," he says. I mean, that's not what they say but I'm sure they were thinking it.

He asks her what she wants, and she tries to be glib about it but he's not buying it. He says she wants love and a family and barfy stuff like that. He keeps asking people what they want and then just ends up telling them.

Back at the bunker, Sam has a chat with Jack.

"I know this must be so hard," Sam says, "without your grace, without your powers...It's a lot, I'm sure." I mean, Sam wasn't a nephilim but he used to be super juiced up on demon blood with telekinetic powers. If there were ever a time for Sam to bust out with "hey I went through a sort of similar thing," it'd be now. Mary interrupts this tender moment to say someone's awake. Way to talk-block, Mary.

Sam reluctantly leaves Jack to go see whoever this other person is. He opens the door as the soundtrack builds up tension. The camera finally swoops in and reveals...

NO.

NO! I REFUSE. I!!! REFUSE!!!! THERE IS NO WAY NICK'S CARCASS SHOULD STILL BE ALIVE. NONE. BEGONE YOU FOUL THING, BEGONE!!!

You know what this means, right? Either that whiny little baby Lucifer will come back somehow and need to possess him again, or when they inevitably get Dean back, Michael will use this empty toothpaste tube of a human as his vessel. OH FUCK HE'S TAKING HIS SHIRT OFF

Okay why does Sam need to be the one to clean his mostly healed wound? It's not like Nick's hands are broken. Nick has a big dramatic reaction. Calm the hell down, it's peroxide not alcohol. Then he just puts the same dirty old bandage back on. What. The. Fuck.

Sam is being very sympathetic, if rattled because this guy's got the same face as the fucker that tortured him for a hundred years. Nick doesn't remember much about what happened, but says Michael told Lucifer "he wanted to do things right this time." Sam goes outside to collect himself when his phone buzzes.

"Oh, hey, Cas," he answers. Young Lindsey Graham corrects him: "I'm the boy who's got your angel." Okay, when I said he was young, I meant compared to current day Lindsey Graham. He's clearly not a boy. He's also clearly not a very worthy foe.

The music goes "eeeeeEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!" to build up tension, but fourth-tier demons are like basically gnats compared to the other baddies the Bunker Bunch have fought. It's kinda silly that Cas even got captured by these twerps.

But everyone is taking it very seriously and packing up their weapons to head to Detroit. Maybe the Other Dimension people haven't fought demons before? I can't remember. Sam assigns teams. "Maggie, you're with Bobby. Mom, you're with me." 

Jack wants to come, too, but Bobby protests that he's not ready for a demon fight. And Maggie is? That poor child seems perpetually on the verge of jumping out of her own skin. But Sam's like, "He needs this, Bobby." 

Back in Detroit, a bloodied Cas sits magically cuffed to a chair. "You sure I can't get you anything hot... and black?" Young Lindsey asks him in a needlessly suggestive manner. I mean, he's talking about coffee, not Grindr. Wtf, my dude? Castiel's face right now is so relatable.

We launch into a good old-fashioned Sit-n-Chat! Linds blah blahs about coffee and using Cas as bait, then reveals, without naming names, that Michael recently approached him like he did the other guest characters in this episode. He was asked what he wanted. "I realized after 600 years as a demon walking the planet...I didn't know." But now he's realized he wants everything. Start with some shoes that look better with your suit.

Meanwhile, Sam and Mary are driving through the perpetual rain. Seriously, how do y'all in Kansacouver deal with this much rain?? I live in Houston and we get a lot of rain, but in like... big groupings and not just constantly. Anyway, seeing that Sam is fretting, Mary says, "It's gonna be fine." Sam isn't convinced. "You don't know that!"

Now, normally this 900-mile trip would take about an hour, but Sam and Bobby didn't carpool so the Impala had to slow way down. Lol when Sam walks through the door at the barbecue place it looks like he's wearing the doorbell as a tiny hat.

Sam gets frisked to make sure he's not packing heat, then Young Lindsey waxes impressed about his shoulders and hair. He makes a "mm MM!" sound like he's just been presented a bowl of delicious bread puddin' and hot caramel sauce.

Here we are nearly at the end of the episode and we finally find out Young Lindsey Graham's name is actually Kipling. "Kip, for short," he says, offering his hand for a shake. Sam leaves him hanging. Also: lol "Kip." Kip's goons drag Jack and Maggie inside. Sam's nostrils flare in consternation as one of the demons punches Jack.

God this guy talks a lot. To sum up: Kip wants to be king of Hell and he wants the Winchesters to treat him like they did Crowley. You know, keep him around past his expiry date and then still somehow manage to make his death too abrupt.

When Sam turns him down, Kip has a bit of a tantrum. "In life, I rode with Genghis Khan!" he rails, mispronouncing it. He pouts and stomps some more, but Sam stays chill because he knows Mary and Bobby are about to bust in with guns blazing.

Slo-mo fisticuffs ensue! Kip throws Sam across the room with his powers. He's a higher level demon who could kill every human with a swoosh of his hand, but then the show would be over. Also, didn't the Bunker Bunch all have devil's trap bullets and stuff? These demons are taking a long time to die.

Kip somehow gets hold of the demon knife during the melee and takes one second long to admire how cool it is. This gives Sam enough time to switch things around and stab him with it. Kip dies as he lived: admiring Sam's shoulders.

Sam calls an end to the fight. "There will be no new King of Hell!" All the remaining demons vacate their meat suits. Who's going to run the barbecue restaurant now? Also, Castiel has been sitting, still cuffed, to that chair this whole time.

Back at the bunker, everyone is beat to hell. Cas and Sam have a rueful talk about what they just went through. Cas is embarrassed he went to the demons, but Sam says he'd work with anyone if it meant finding Dean.

In the kitchen, Mary and Bobby do a little Chekhov's flirting.

Cas goes to find Jack and try to cheer him up. "You did well," he says. "All I did was get punched in the face," Jack says. Don't sell yourself short, kid. You also got punched in the stomach.

Jack feels frustrated and useless without his powers. Cas tells him they have each other and they're family. Aww. I feel like Cas could also say he relates here. "I used to burn the eyes out of demons and destroy buildings with my voice!"

Sam gets a call from Jo. "We have a problem," she says. Is she working for Michael? Maybe!

Cut to a grungy abandoned warehouse, where Michael is currently having a chat with a monster of some kind. Maybe it's one of the vampires mentioned earlier in the episode. "Your want is pure," Michael says. Monsters are soooo much easier to deal with than people or angels! "You just wanna eat," Michael says as the monster shows off some fangs.

Incidentally, "You just wanna eat" also describes me at a brunch buffet.

So that's the end of the season premier! The FOURTEENTH season premier. Holy hell right?

If you'd like me to recap the next episodes, let me know. Thanks for reading!

And now’s the self-promo time when I add my Ko-Fi link! (ko-fi.com/A4017DA)

These are some very desperate times for me, so if you have a few bucks to spare and you enjoyed this fic, I would very much appreciate any donation. I know it looks like I’ve received quite a few donations recently but those larger ones were me “donating” to myself with credit cards to pay bills that had to be paid from my bank.

I'm afraid of not making rent this month, thanks to several clients just refusing to pay me for my work.

Or my Paypal address is btippi@gmail.com and if you send it as a gift I think no fees are deducted from my end.

[ashlerber-blog]

Cat’s Out of The Bag

Jensen Ackles

Word Count: 2000+

Warnings: Probably swearing I think. Actually no, everything will be swearing.

A/N: Oh look another one, but instead of supernatural it’s the actors of supernatural! Much wow! So basically I don’t have a weekend this week because I’m super busy. Not like I wanted to be. I blame my parents. Much fun. I might be writing some new things. like a Peter Kavinsky one. We’ll see. So, when you’ll be seeing this I probably won’t be home.

Masterlist | Request  <--- Hey! Psssttt Click Me :3

"Can we somehow answer everyone's questions in like the time we have?" I asked Tyler.

"Depends on if you guys fool around." He shrugs.  Jared responded by touching his heart and scoffing.

"How dare you accuse us of fooling off. We are very professional." Jared responds. I let out a laugh from my throat and Jared turned his gaze at me. "Do you have something to say, Y/n? Hmm?" I didn't respond and just shook my head.

"That's what I thought. Now, since Y/n is done fooling around how about we get a question from, someone." He suggests. I roll my eyes at him playfully as someone gets handed a microphone.

"Hi um, my question if for Y/n." I smiled and looked at Jared.

"Ha!" I said towards him. Jared rolled his eyes at me and shook his head.

"First I just want to say I love you all and I was wondering what were you doing before you started being Dean's significant other?" The girl asked. I sucked in a breath and laughed.

"Oh gosh wow. Well, I try to hide this from everyone because I hated it so much. However, it did gain me a roll in Mamma Mia-"

"Wait you were in Mamma Mia?" Jensen asked interrupting me. I looked at him with a glare.

"Yes, you dumb fuck. I made you watch it just because I was in it. The damn leading roll you idiot." I said punching him.

"Okay okay." He laughed as he moved away from me after pushing my hands away.

"Anyways as I was saying. Before I got the roll in Supernatural the same year I was singing, and I didn't earn even a penny from it so I quit it." I shrugged.

"Oh, this outta be good. You have to sing now." Jared pushed.

"No," I answered looking at him dead in the eye.

"Actually I have a bunch of videos of her singing just on set." Jensen shrugged as he pulled his phone out.

"Don't you dare, Ackles." I death glared at him. He chuckled at me ignoring me and looked over at Tyler.

"Is there like any way we can project this and get sound?" He asked.

"Oh totally." He jumped up as tech crew came out. I kept my glare at Jenson and started to shake my head.

"You are so going to pay for this," I muttered. Jensen laughed at me and just responded by shaking his head.

"Fun fact about the video you're about to see. Y/n was tied up and started singing I want to break free and it was the funniest crap ever." He explained, "It was so good that they kept that scene for a rainy day."

"How do you even remember the lyrics so well?" Mark asked as Britsh he could. We all looked over at Mark and just gave him the look.

"Because most of it is just instrumental," I answered with a shrugged. Soon after the video popped up and I shook my head covering my face. Jensen chuckled at me and forced my hands away from my face. "I am so killing you." I mouthed to him.

"Okay wait there is another funny one. The last episode of season five after Lucifer fell with Michael and crap, Y/n started singing we are the champions." He laughed. I groaned and laid my head backward and looked at the ceiling.

"How about we move on to another question?" I asked popping back up. Soon another person was handed a mic and they stood up.

"So, my question is a duo one meant for Jensen and Y/n, and I bet just as much everyone else wants to know this. On the show, your characters have such great big chemistry with each other. Just by the way Dean looks at Y/c/n we all can tell that he loves her with all his heart. How do you guys do it?" She asked. I looked over at Jensen as he looked over at me.

"Fun fact, I never took Chemistry." I blurt out to push the question away.

"Wait you never took chemistry?" Jared asked confused.

"Yeah, I never did. I took a different class since I suck at science." I explained shrugging.

"Didn't you ended up taking some type of space class?" Jensen asked. I nodded back an hummed a yup to him.

"Who the hell takes a space class unless they were going into space crap." Jared askes.

"I suck at science okay. I wanted to take an easy class." I explained.

"Are you going to bloody answer the question or are you just so dumb?" Mark asked looking at us.

"Well, I don't know how about you," I say with a British accent.

"Making fun of the British guy. I see how it is." Mark rolled his eyes. I turned my gaze back at Jensen who gave me the look and then shrugged. I sighed and nodded. Jensen smiled softly and turned towards the crowd.

"Y/n and I are dating. So, I guess that's why." He explained. That's when the crowd erupted into screams and so many more noises that I couldn't explain. I chuckle and just shake my head.

"Alright next question," Jared said laughing at the reaction the crowd had.

"How did you two meet? Was it on set or?" The girl asked. I looked at Jensen and raised an eyebrow.

"You wanna tell it or me?" I asked.

"Well, I spilled the beans how about you tell this one?" He asked. I nodded with a smile and turned my gaze back to the crowd.

"Well let's see we were about three years old, well I mean I was you had to be about six or five and you stole my ice cream. Then we became friends. Fell apart around college. Met back around a party with the song Tell her about it was playing and well he just did that. So, that's basically it." I shrugged.

"Oh come on it was way better." Jensen laughed.

The year was well awhile ago. I remember the day like it was a couple hours ago. I was in my normal dress for a three-year-old and my family took me to my favorite park. I begged my parents to get me some vanilla ice cream and after begging and crying they finally bugged and bought me one.

I sat on the end of the seesaw eating my ice cream with the plastic red spoon when a boy older then came up to me and pointed at my ice cream.

"I love vanilla ice cream!" He smiled with a beam of happiness. I smiled back at him and held it towards him.

"Do you want some? My parents taught me that sharing is caring," I smiled, "but don't eat it all." The older boy nodded and took the ice cream out of my giving hands and took a spoonful and handed it back.

"That's so good!" He beamed raising his hands up in the air. I giggled at his silliness and we both finished ice cream together rather quickly and then we were just playing.

"So what's your name? Mines Jensen." He smiled proudly.

"My name is Y/n," I responded to his question.

"That's a pretty name." He said as he slides down the slide.

"Thank you. My parents gave it to me." I said after I slide down the slide right after Jensen.

"Y/n! Come here we have to go home!" My mother yelled for me. I stood up on my feet and looked at Jensen.

"Well, I have to go. I'll see you at some point." I waved.

"Definitely! Bye Y/n!" He beamed as I ran towards my mother.

"Who was that boy Y/n Y/m/n?" My father asked as he grabbed my hand as he looked back at Jensen.

"That was my friend Jensen! I like him a lot." I explained to my father. My father responded by nodding and turning his head in front of us as we headed off towards the car.

"And that's how it went." Jensen fully explained. I gave him a look of 'really' as he just laughed at my reaction as the audience was still all over the place.

"Since you loved explaining that one will you explain the fully telling me that you loved me so much that you might die if I wasn't in your life?" I asked raising an eyebrow at him.

"Why I would love to." He smiled.

Parties usually weren't my thing. However, for some reason, I came to this one. I just had this feeling that something was going to happen. Something I would never expect. There were a lot of people there. Shouldn't complain since it was a college party anyways.

Somehow my friend has convinced me that instead of staying in my dorm room and watching some movies and singing along to songs that I should come out and enjoy the fresh air of drugs and beer.

Somehow at some point during the night Tell Her About it started playing and I was in complete shock that such a party would have such music playing. I was in the middle of everyone and just dancing and mouthing the lyrics as my eyes meant a very familiar green set across the room and just froze.

He spotted me also and smiled with a chuckle coming out of his lips and made his way towards me. This man, who I stuck by with most of my life was, coming towards me after so long of being apart.

"It's been a while," Jensen said once he reached me. I nodded and smiled softly at him.

"Yeah what have you been doing?" I asked with a raised of my eyebrow.

"Been acting ya know." He shrugged. I chuckled and started to shake my head.

"And here you are at a college party talking to a college girl. Scandalous of you Ackles." I point out.

"Not when that college girl is about to graduate. Yeah, I kept count since I'm such a perfect friend." He smiles proudly of himself.

"Do you maybe want to get out of here? Talk somewhere else where we don't have to yell?" I asked. Jensen smiled and nodded taking my hand and leading me out of the party house. After we reached a fair bit away from the party I turned my gaze up at Jensen for a bit before returning it back in front of me.

"So, what was the real reason you were at a college party?" I asked.

"I was looking for you actually. I wanted to share some news with you." He explains. I raised my eyebrow and we both stopped and looked at each other.

"Which is?" I asked. Jensen sucked in a breath and looked down at his feet before back at me.

"Well um for starters I earned a roll on this new tv show and well I wanted you to be a part of it. Even as an extra. Your ending college and will have nothing to do so I figured since we both did plays as kids we would you know." He says.

"Wait, first off, how did you find me?" I asked.

"I um... I um... Your roommate." He says.

"Man she has the biggest mouth ever." I chuckle.

"Yeah, and I also came because I can't stand being this far from you." He explains. I pause in everything and look at him with a confused look.

"What do you mean?" I asked. Jensen reached his hands down and picked my hand up in his and intertwined our fingers and smile softly at me.

"After all these years being friends and telling ourselves we won't fall for the other. Lying to ourselves to make sure we don't ruin our friendship for fear the other won't return your feelings, but I couldn't care less anymore. I am so head over heels for you that I want to flat out marry you right now." Jensen explained as the smile never left his lips and I smiled so big at his feelings.

"Jay... I-I love you too."

"And here we are still not married." I laughed. Jensen rolled his eyes and playfully punched my shoulder.

"I'm just waiting for the most perfect moment to pop the big question. You won't even tell it's coming. It's just going to be like BAM in your face!" He smiled as his eyes sparkled. I smiled lovingly at him and rested my cheek on my hand as I looked at Jensen.

"I'm in tears. That was beautiful. Now Mark wanna explain our love story?" Jared popped in. I laughed at him and then looked at Mark.

"Please tell please!" I pumped.

"That's my girl," Jensen mumbled smiling brightly.

[eisforeidolon]

Episode: Gods and Monsters

Okay, so my ultimate feeling about this one was that there was five, maybe ten minutes of worthwhile episode actually in there.  To be fair, a lot of it didn't feel like it was actively terrible to me, just kind of wheels-spinning pointless.

I think I've already talked about the mirror scene?  I have to admit it didn't have much of an impact since I'd already been spoiled for it.  It was done well, there just wasn't a whole lot to it.  Though I did get a certain amount of amusement out of wondering if Michael was regularly playing dress up with Dean in fancy clothes to lure in monsters for his experiments (a whole grave pit full!).  Which made me wonder about how many monsters we've seen recognize the Winchesters on sight and if that had happened. Watching that would have been a lot more entertaining for me than most of this episode.  

Why be the hunted when you can be the hunter?  Why write original dialogue when you can just throw out bad clichés!  Again, while I can appreciate Jensen's acting, I just am not compelled by this whole super monsters storyline.  Not least because I suspect that it's Dabb and co.'s way of getting what they wanted to do with Wayward - throw out all the rules so they could just lazily make shit up as they go along.  Not to mention it's so blatantly cribbed off the Eve plot.  Maybe they’re thinking Michael will seem more ominous if they rarely show him, like the shark in Jaws, but it’s just leaving him pretty flat and generic as a villain.  I do think it's pretty funny the first thing Dean does after Michael skedaddles is take off the silly hat.  

I feel like I should have something to say about Sam hunting for Michael with AU!Bobby and Mary?  Except I don't, really.  What little of it there was didn't make much of an impact.  It felt like any other set of scenes where the brothers split up to investigate but AU!Bobby and Mary were … there, I guess.  The only real thought I had about it was that the “joke” of Bobby forgetting what DNA was exemplified what Mark Sheppard said about the writers trying to force humor in rather than letting it organically happen.  Though, hey, at least it got Nick off my screen for a little while here and there.

Speaking of which, I guess it’s time to talk about the majority of the episode, which could easily be titled Castiel’s Adventures as the Worst Babysitter Ever.  Yet it was even less entertaining than that sounds.

Have I mentioned lately how much I just absolutely do not give a single fuck about Nick or Lucifer or any further characters on SPN handed to Mark Pellegrino to artificially keep him around?  The whole attempt at a touchy-feely moment with him whining at Castiel is just fucking interminable and incredibly boring.  Vessels get amnesia about what happened before they were possessed now … so Pellegrino can ham his hammiest through another quote unquote storyline.  Yay.  The thing is, I would maybe be interested in the idea of exploring how long-term possession affects a vessel after the fact in terms of mental state/memory/whatever … if it was literally any other character. The whole, “Nick magically doesn't know his family's dead, on noes! Nick randomly killed a guy, oh noes!”  Holy crap, I don't care.  I don't have anything personal against Pellegrino or anything negative to say about his talent as an actor, but at this point I would automatically opt out of literally anything he's in I am so sick of his face.

I tuned out through most of it (hey, at least this sweater's getting closer to done).  The only part that really even seems worthy of comment is how having Nick call Castiel out on his using Jimmy Novak becomes just another excuse for the writers to try to retcon sympathy into Castiel's past acts.  I don't think we need to harp, however many seasons later, on Castiel screwing the Novak family.  If we are going to bring it up, though?  Let's not keep playing this game where we try to turn it into a pity party for poor woobie Castiel.  This is just like what they did with Mary's deal, they brought her back and made her stone cold to her sons just to get to a resolution justifying a deal that was … perfectly understandable in the first place!  Likewise, I think most of us were clear that Castiel was a different creature in season four that didn't have the perspective to consider the consequences to Jimmy as a person.  Trying to go backwards, first with rewriting the rules of angelic possession to give him a special exception vessel (it’s okay I took Jimmy’s life away, he’s in heaven now!) and here playing it like, “Oh, look at my teary-eyed sad face!  Pity me, I'm just so very sad I ruined three human's lives!”  I mean, it’s canon that Claire was praying to him for literal years for help and he apparently just tuned it out until it was convenient to deal with her and hasn’t bothered with her since the Winchesters foisted her on Jody.  Poor Castiel!  Again, this is actively less sympathetic to me than if the writers had just left the whole thing untouched as understandable choices firmly in the past.

The absurdity of the conversations between Castiel and Nick is not helped by the idiocy of how of literally everyone there, Castiel is the one who should be least perturbed by an inability to separate Lucifer and Nick.  Come on, he's an angel himself, the idea that he's got some kind of human hangup about a clearly human Nick when we've seen angels recognize each other in different vessels is just absurd.  The same old bullshit the writers keep pulling now where Castiel is human-like when it's convenient and angel-like when it's convenient.  

I think Castiel's pep talks to Jack were at least a little better done, but that doesn't say much.  It also would have been more heartwarming for Castiel to go on about how Dean and Sam had to struggle and learn for years to get where they are if it wasn't plugged in by writers who think the best possible new characters are ones that become the most awesome hunters pretty much immediately with no indication any work or effort was involved.  If I wasn't so bitter about that and more actively invested in Castiel (whoever he is this week) and Jack (who I feel I barely know, still) I probably would have liked those scenes a lot more. 

Then again, considering the immediate mood whiplash at the end with Jack's turn from cuddly woobie to, “Hey, let's kill Dean”?  Maybe not.  No, I don't think Dean would want it any other way, but that's some impressively compelling proof you're a counterfeit Winchester, kid.

The actress playing the vampire Michael let escape did a pretty good job of making what Michael was doing sound scary and ominous.  Likewise, the couple playing Kelly's parents were convincingly warm and lovely people that made that whole scene more poignant than it might have otherwise been relying on the writing alone.  It was actually a pretty good mix of heartwarming and sad - but also with a palpable edge of uncomfortable deception, considering who Jack really was.  Calvert's performance was solid there, too, I just can't help but be annoyed that once again, Kelly seems like more of a 3D character now she's dead. 

I’m never going to care about Nick, but most of this?  If it had been side plots or individual scenes from other better episodes, I’d have no objection.  As an episode itself, though, it just feels like a bunch of minor asides put together to kill the available time, which is a baffling choice in a season that will have three less episodes.

[crackinwise]

There’s just. A fix for everything in 13x21. Small changes to make it not even GREAT, just tolerable. Join me, won’t you? Especially if you’re in a creative writing class and plan to replace ‘F’ students currently working.

--Happy dream had no purpose. Happy to have Sam happy? Yeah. Worked thematically into a cohesive story? No. Something ominous or wrong-feeling should have been there. 

--No “previously tortured angel having to extract his own grace in private” being turned into a “hurr it’s like he’s masturbating in Dean’s room” joke. Fuck. That. Adults write this show: now fucking act like it. Also, Cas could have left him in his own designated room and only didn’t for the fap joke to work. They could leave in Cas taking Gabe to Dean’s room if they’d have added Dean saying “What? Why MY room?” then Castiel seriously answering “Because that’s where i’d feel the most safe.” Cue a nice, sobering moment between friends and an angel taking care of his family by way of his new family.

--No “tiny” amount of grace being treated like some guy with a low sperm count. Adults. Write. This. Show. Also since WHEN tf has a small amount of angel grace not been enough for a spell? Wasn’t there just a spit of Castiel’s grace needed to make the angels fall? Nowhere in the spell was there a volume amount. Plus this an an archangel’s grace. You’re only making one portal to another universe and Jack had that going all damn day just by being born.

--No shot of a portal going gd limp with a joint shot of Gabe’s angel blade doing the same. ADULTSSSSS. GET PAID. TO WRITE THIS. I’m shocked they didn’t make the portal “short” for a length joke at this point. While we’re here: no “premature” joke should’ve been added. Actually have chars be confused how much power this portal takes as it flickers and closes up like every single closing portal has ever done ever.

--NO INNER THOUGHTS READ ALOUD. When has this ever happened in spn? What goblin made them think it even fit in this episode? Why was it even needed? You have a camera and actors. If you take the voice over dialogue out it changes nothing except maaaaaybe makes the scene less cringey. Yes, Gabe is this exaggerated ladies’ man who’s done porn gags. When’s the last time we saw that Gabe tho? 8yrs ago? Groping like teens in a library was far from the tone of this episode. Save it for comedy eps as a last resort. Very last.

--No silent awkward reaction from the three people walking in on this. Two of whom would be very vocal about their discomfort or at least crack a sardonic joke about not ruining the books. I’d even accept a pissed off “is the mission to rescue our mother not important to you?”

--Lucifer can sure as hell sense an angel, ok? He’d sense the bartender was SOMEthing. Seeing as how angels taste molecules in food and drink, he’d probably tell the beers were different too. I know this is way late to tell spn but, don’t make a big-bad villain stupid and foolish; make him realize but too late. Also i get being shocked to see Gabe but why shocked at his reality tricks? Didn’t Lucifer say he taught Gabe all those tricks in s5? lol I think the writers watched s5.

--I’m sorry, was there no warding or angel handcuffs/chains? They left Rowena alone with ONLY her magic binding Lucifer? Nope. Scrap that bad idea. In fact, Gabe turned out to be kinda useless in Apocalypse World so why not leave him behind too? I know this is way late for this but, no making characters that know better suddenly stupid and foolish.

--No... *sigh* No “haha i fell and my face landed in your crotch” humor. Why even? And between brothers? Yeah, angels aren’t technically related like humans, but Gabe calls Cas “baby bro”! ARE there adults writing this?? I’m concerned about child labor laws.

--^Also the loooong pause and silence there was horrible. People talk in awkward situations. If they had to have this gag, make Gabe--y’know, porn obsessed, far-from-prude Gabe--react like Gabe. Examples: “Nice vessel.” “We need family counseling.” “I’m not usually in this position.” “I’m not having the best day.” Or just have Dean roll his eyes and kick Gabe off Cas.

--^Finally, they’re all fuckin cowards having Dean be the only one not to tumble and land awkwardly/in Cas’s crotch. Cowards. As if Gabriel wasn’t powerful enough to balance himself out of them all.

--Show Gabe and Cas move more than tiny soccerball-size rocks. Did y’all see that shit? Together they could push that whole pile of rocks forwards and out the cave. It was so silly i bark-laughed.

--Have vamps attack and Gabe and Cas HELP FIGHT. Okay, writers? Where were they? An angel who’s supposed to be full power (haha, i know) and an archangel powered enough to bend reality earlier could blow all them vamps away easy. They could at least create a safe circle around the humans. Instead they were off camera doing.... rock clearing? Watching? What?

--lmao They’re telling me only Cas belatedly jogs (JOGS) after Sam and gives up without calling for Gabe or anything. If that was Dean taken, Cas would have had his whole vessel torn apart and been his grace form only to get to him.* CAS FLEW INTO HELL ITSELF AND ALL ITS DEMONS. Vampires are too much? Too much for Gabe? You realize the angels could have at least lit up the room with such blinding light the vamps would have run in pain or died? Gabriel could have made them think they were caged? LUCIFER WITH DRAINED GRACE HANDLES THE VAMPS NO PROBLEM 5MIN LATER! What kind of contrived bullshit is this writing?

*I acknowledge Cas also didn’t want to leave Dean behind in case more vamps came back while he was going for Sam. Still ridiculous.

--Have Cas stick to Dean like glue after this; not walking alone with Gabe far in the back. That’s just ooc and bad team parameter protection to boot.

--Wanna actually make death a scary thing in this show instead of laughably no-stakes? They shouldn’t have shown Lucifer being thrown into the portal yet (i.e. later explain his presence there in a retelling from him played over a flashback we never saw) and should have left Sam dead until next episode. But the showrunners are so spineless, bad at their job, and scared of a Bros Fan revolt they needed Sam back immediately. As it is now, every “drama” moment where the bros could be injured or killed is meaningless.

--Their fave overpowered wonder boy Jack could have been like “oh i’m immune to any danger with my giant head and toothpick neck so i’ll go get Sam’s body.” I’m so salty. Jack is only as useful or useless as they need him to be at any moment. His whole existence is pointless and he has no personality of his own. Don’t do this as writers.

--Hey, i know they’ve written Mary as some uncaring model to pose and give the boys manpain, but maybe let her show emotion that one of her children--the one she didn’t get much time with in the past and present--just died coming to rescue her. Okay? But it’s not like the show wants her to care about her adult kids so why start now. SALTY.

--Fire the entire glob of showrunners and their relatives. DO something. WRITE something. Or cancel the show. The Ultimate Fix.

[ourloveisforthelovely]

Coming Back for You 5

A/n: Smut 

Words: 4,042

Link to Chapter 4

Pairings: Gabriel x OFC, Cas x Dean x OFC

____________

Gabriel and Rosalie sat watching Liam and Lily play. The two would look back to their parents from time to time to make sure nothing weird was happening. Lily didn’t seem to be as concerned as Liam did. She seemed to be the one looking back at Gabriel making sure her father didn’t vanish into thin air. Liam on the other was keeping an eye on his mother for any sign of discomfort. To say that he was protective of Rosalie was an understatement. At four years old he didn’t care one bit to knock the crap out of someone if they laid a unwelcome hand on his mother.

“He doesn’t trust me one bit huh?”

Gabriel remarked to Rosalie as Liam gave his father another careful look. Rosalie smiled.

“He’s just protective of sister and I . He is more like you than anyone. Sometimes I think he is your carbon copy. He does little tricks that I have seen you do. Give him some time. He will warm up.”

Gabriel looked at his son with a small smile as the little boy held a car out to his sister who shook her head.

“I told you we were playing dollhouse.”

She said in an extra sassy tone. Liam shook his head.

“No we aren’t!”

“Yeah we are!”

Rosalie sighed looking to Gabriel a with a smirk before focusing her attention on their children.

“Alright you two that is enough. You don’t have to play with each other.”

Rosalie said calmly. Liam blinked a few times.

“Yeah we do. Come on Lily.”

He reached down pulling his sister up and running out of the room with her trailing behind. Sam who was walking in the room lifted a leg as the two kids ran right between them. He looked over his shoulder with a smile before looking back to Gabriel and Rosalie.

“So Dean and I were talking…why don’t you two go on a date or something. We can watch the kids.”

Rosalie glanced over at Gabriel who was frowning slightly.

“A date?”

Sam nodded.

“Yeah, you know a date. What people do when they first get together…just you two. You both obviously have a lot to talk about and work on.”

Gabriel smirked.

“Uh hello Sasquatch….soul mates here. We didn’t get to go on a date to try each other out.”

Rosalie gave Gabriel a disapproving expression before looking back to Sam.

“That’s a nice gesture Sam. Ignore him.”

Gabriel realized that comment had bothered Rosalie. Did she want dates? Did she want him to woo her? Gabriel mentally chided himself. Of course she did! It didn’t matter that they had been soul mates of millions of years or that Rosalie had carried his children; she still wanted romance from him.

“Yeah, Sam ignore me. That sounds nice.”

Rosalie glanced over at Gabriel approvingly before standing up.

“Give me fifteen minutes Gabe.”

Gabriel waited until Rosalie was out of the room before looking to Sam.

“Okay kiddo what are you playing at? Dean doesn’t want me with Rosalie. Why the hell would he want me to take her out for wooing?”

Sam sighed.

“Fine. It’s me! I think you two need to get back together. I don’t know why you’ve done the things you have and there are times that I would like to beat the hell out of you but Rosalie loves you. She’s been miserable these past years without you even if she won’t admit to it. Also Liam and Lily need you too and you know it.”

Gabriel leaned back against the couch looking closer at Sam.

“Do you think that I am going to abandon them now?”

Sam shrugged.

“Well Gabriel your track record isn’t that great. You abandoned Rose in heaven, when Chuck came here, then after you pretty much kidnapped her…I uh don’t know what to really say to you.”

Gabriel stood immediately making Sam think that the archangel was about to smite him. Instead Gabriel turned and walked from the room without another word. If Rosalie was going to take forever to get ready instead of just using her grace that was fine but Gabriel didn’t have to sit in a room with Sam Winchester. Even if everything that Sam was saying was the truth Gabriel didn’t want to listen to it.

“And I don’t have to!”

He thought in a extra sassy voice as he walked into another room where the twins were sitting in front of the TV.

“I told you not to do that Liam!”

“I didn’t think it would work!”

Lily frowned at her brother with an expression that was all her mother’s. Gabriel raised an eyebrow watching the two for a moment. Although he had maybe known his children a total of 3 hours he had never loved anything more in his life.

“Of course it would work silly! You point the remote at the TV and tell it what you want to watch. Dean is going to be mad at you.”

“What’s going on?”

Gabriel finally asked. Both sets of golden eyes turned in his direction. Lily walked over to Gabriel clutching onto his leg while Liam looked at little nervous.

“Daddy, Liam ordered $60 worth of Peppa Pig.”

Gabriel frowned.

“Whats a Peppa Pig?”

Liam looked back to his sister with a smirk.

“Its a cartoon show about a pig. Lily likes it but I thin its stupid.”

Gabriel tried to fight the urge to laugh at the thought of Dean when he pulled up that months cable bill.

“And you ordered $60 worth of it?”

Liam nodded.

“I wanted to make Lily happy.”

“But he’s gonna get in trouble.”

Lily added in sadly. Gabriel knew that look on their faces too well. That was the look he made many times in his younger days in heaven when he did something that would get him in trouble. It was always Lucifer that was bailing him out when he knew that Michael would be on a war path later.

“Its okay. We can fix this.”

Snapping his fingers the excessive order vanished into thin air. Liam looked relieved as he sat back down.

“I added a second channel of nothing but Peppa Pig. Knock yourselves out.”

Lily let go of her father’s leg and went to sit beside her brother. Gabriel looked up again when Rosalie walked into the room. All it took was one look to be completely in love with her again. She stood a few feet away in a navy blue off the shoulder cocktail dress.

“Sugar you look beautiful.”

Gabriel said wishing at this moment he had never left her alone for the third time. If he would have just listened to Rose he wouldn’t have wasted the first couple of years of his children’s lives as well as time with Rosalie. They could have all been together.

Rosalie meanwhile, wanted nothing more for Gabriel to pull her into his arms and never let go but she couldn’t let it happen at the same time. The biggest reasons sat looking at the the TV with an awe filled expression. Rosalie had to stay strong. Gabriel had to earn her trust back…and that would take a lot of work. Teasing on the other had was perfectly acceptable and she knew an archangel that was about to get some grade A teasing.

“What’s with them?”

She asked motioning to the twins. Gabriel shrugged.

“Peppa Pig or whatever its called.”

Rosalie rolled her eyes.

“I hate that pig.”

Gabriel looked amused at the venom in her voice.

“Sheesh cupcake hating on a cartoon pig? What did she do steal the kid’s love from you?”

Rosalie smiled at the playful grin on Gabriel’s face as she walked over to him. His honey eyes narrowed as she reached out letting her hand caress his cheek.

“She’s an annoying pig. There isn’t much else to say other than that.”

Rosalie let her eyes meet Gabriel’s and for a moment her strength seemed to be plummeting. If Gabriel made a move to kiss her would she be able to fight him off? Probably not… Maybe she would be able to be as strong as she would have hoped.

“Where are you two going?”

Rosalie and Gabriel quickly pulled away from them when Lily spoke.

“We are going out for a bit. We’ll be home after you two go to bed.”

Liam looked at little nervous at the aspect of his mother going anywhere.

“Can we come?”

Rosalie quickly shook her head as she bent down to kiss her son.

“Not this time. Its almost bed time. Do what Uncle Sam and Dean tells you. If you don’t I’ll know about it.”

Rosalie said the last part a little sternly. Lily looked to her brother warily.

“You know she will. Come on.”

This time it was Lily that pulled her brother out of the room. Gabriel chuckled as Rosalie stood straight.

“That boy watches you like a hawk. Have to say I like that though.”

Rosalie turned going back to her place in Gabriel’s arms.

“You fixed the TV when they ordered all of those episodes of that pig?”

Gabriel nodded innocently.

“What Dean doesn’t know won’t hurt him.”

An hour later Rosalie beside Gabriel at a bar. Both had been quiet for a while. Rosalie watched Gabriel as he sipped on a small glass of whiskey.  She watched the liquid in the glass move around before looking back to her lover. Gabriel hadn’t said anything for a bit and seemed as clueless as what to do as Rosalie.

“So what are we supposed to do now?”

Rosalie asked softly. Gabriel looked over at her.

“Whatever you want princess.”

Rosalie was quiet for a moment before looking back to him.

“We have a lot to talk about.”

Gabriel sighed. He knew this was coming. This was the part that he dreaded more than anything.

“Okay. Where do you want to start? Like the very very beginning or my latest fuck up?”

Rosalie frowned.

“I am not going to beat you over the head with everything that you have done wrong. I just want to know what to if you achieved anything when you were with Raphael. I deserve to know that. Don’t you dare tell me that I don’t need to worry about it either because I will slug you.”

Gabriel turned to face Rosalie before looking over his shoulder.

“Come on. Let’s go outside.”

Rosalie nodded following him into the cool night air. Gabriel turned looking down at her with sad eyes.

“Raphael is a lot worse than you expect sugar. He’s got a lot of angels on his side. A lot of angels that I never expected to go rouge. He thinks he should be in charge of heaven. Mostly he just shuffles around like an over grown vulture but I don’t put anything past him. You know who his newest target is…especially now that I picked you and the kids over him. Rosalie I know you don’t trust me for anything but I have to keep you and the twins safe. I’m not asking you to love me again but I can’t stay away…just like I can’t apologize to you enough.”

Rosalie was quiet a moment.

“How did Raphael find out about our kids?”

Gabriel shrugged.

“He was the one that told me. All he told me was he was doing some snooping. That tells me that he has been watching you and that is what scares me.”

Rosalie stood motionless a moment before wrapping her arms around Gabriel’s waist and snuggling against his chest.

“What are we going to do?”

Gabriel stood motionless a moment. He was hesitant to hold Rosalie but desire got the better of him. Gabriel quickly wrapped his arms and wings around her. He breathed in her scent as though he would never have the opportunity again.

“We’ll figure it out. We always do.”

“I just don’t want you to get hurt.”

Rosalie said in almost a whisper. Gabriel chuckled.

“Sweetheart this is me we are talking about….okay so yeah I got stabbed by Lucifer but I think I can handle Raphael. Between us, Cas, Zoe, and Lucifer I’m sure we can handle Raphael and his minions. I don’t want you to be worrying about everything.”

Gabriel tilted her face to his with his index finger. Leaning down he pressed a slow tender kiss to her lips. Rosalie was hesitant to kiss back for a moment but quickly began to return the display of affection. It didn’t take long for Gabriel to have her against the wall. The kiss had gone from slow and timid to all out hungry and desperate.  

Rosalie moaned as Gabriel’s lips went from her down to her neck sucking gently. His kisses felt like liquid fire on her skin. If Rosalie needed any more of a sign that she was still desperately in love with him this was it. She was mentally both thanking and cursing Chuck for having Gabriel as a mate.

The moment his hand squeezed her bare thigh trying to push her legs apart Rosalie’s eyes snapped open.

“Gabriel stop.”

Gabriel groaned from his place on against her neck. He rose up looking at her with lust filled eyes.

“What sugar?”

Rosalie stroked her fingers over his cheek.

“I’m not ready for that yet.

Gabriel sighed.

“Rosalie I am never leaving you again. I want to show you how I feel about you…us.”

Rosalie swallowed and pressed another kiss to his lips.

“Soon.”

Gabriel looked disappointed but nodded.

“Fine….still love me?”

Rosalie smirked fixing his messed up shirt.

“Yes. Come on lets go home.”

Gabriel wouldn’t admit it but he was hoping that Rosalie wouldn’t shut him down. When she did he had the sinking feeling that he would never have his wife back. Although she had let him hold her hand the majority of the night and their steamy make out session was dandy Gabriel still wanted to make love to her. He missed the feeling of her skin on his.

“Time will tell”

He muttered miserably.

The next afternoon Gabriel, Rosalie, and Zoe sat at the the park watching Liam and Lily play. Gabriel was still mildly moody from being cock blocked the previous night. He tried his best to act like nothing was bothering him but he knew Rosalie could tell. She had spent most of the morning acting as though nothing had happened. Everything was just perfect in her mind.

Gabriel mentally chided himself for acting like a child. Rosalie didn’t have to let him kiss her at all.  She could have told him to drop dead and that he would never touch her again but she didn’t. In fact she had pretty much given him an affirmation that she was working toward fully forgiving him as well as let him kiss her again that morning. It wasn’t just a little kiss either it was a make out session mirroring the night before They were having a good make out session until Lily made her presence known.

“Where do you put your noses?”

Gabriel had all but jumped away from Rosalie when Lily’s soft little voice scared the living crap out of him. Lily had looked amused by her father’s bewildered expression.

“How long have you been standing there?”

Lily shrugged.

“A little while. I was bored so I wanted to see what you two were doing and I guess I found out.”

Gabriel couldn’t help chuckling at Lily’s little innocent smile. Opening the door he motioned her forward.

“Bye shorty.”

Rosalie’s hand closing around his pulled Gabriel from his thoughts. He looked up noticing Zoe’s cold frown. He rolled his eyes knowing that Zoe would never let him forget all of his misdoings. She didn’t say it because Rosalie made her promise to hush over her hatred, especially when the twins were in ear shot. Gabriel wanted nothing more than to pull Rosalie into his arms for another make out session just to disturb Zoe.

“What are you thinking about?”

Rosalie asked cautiously. Gabriel shrugged.

“Nothing really. Why do people think that pink flamingos are good yard decorations? They are tacky as hell.”

Rosalie started laughing.

“The things you think about.”

Rosalie stopped laughing suddenly and tugged on Gabriel’s arms.

“Gabriel….are those some of Raphael’s minions?”

Gabriel’s amber eyes rolled up seeing a group of angels feet away watching them with that vacant expression he knew too well.

“Oh hell! Rosalie get the kids.”

Rosalie was gone from his side in an instant. Zoe stood up and started to move until Gabriel’s arm knocked her back.

“Don’t get up.”

He said coldly as Rosalie was back at his side with Liam and Lily, who looked beyond confused. One of the angels looked at Gabriel with a cold smile.

“Gabriel, Raphael is looking for you.”

Gabriel frowned glancing over his shoulder to make sure his family was safe before looking back to the angels whose name did didn’t know.

“Really? He must not be looking hard enough to have you morons out after me. Let me guess you want me to be scared right?”

The angel smiled.

“Being scared is optional. Raphael have us orders to get you and the nephilim children.”

Gabriel heard Rosalie mutter something soothing to Liam and Lily but kept his focus on the three angels the kept getting closer.

“Well you can tell Raphael to bite me. There are a few things that I know. One we aren’t going anywhere with you…none of us.”

The angel was trying his best to look intimidating but it wasn’t doing much. Gabriel rolled his eyes again.

“Ah you lesser angels are pathetic. Again do you realize who you are dealing with? Apparently not. What is it Lucifer said? he who hesitates disintegrates”

Before the angel could respond Gabriel snapped his fingers instantly smiting the angels instantly.

“Idiots.”

He muttered before turning back to Rosalie to make sure his family was okay. Gabriel wasn’t worried about Zoe. That woman could handle herself if push came to shove but it was the twin he was worried about. Both were looking at him with wide eyes. Liam looked around his father to where the angels stood.

“That’s cool. Will you do that again?”

Rosalie’s eyes widened as she looked down at her son who was looking at his father with awe filled eyes. Gabriel smirked.

“There will be time for that later. Lets get out of here.”

Back at the bunker Zoe took Lily and Liam to get a snack hoping to get their attention on something other then then Gabriel’s smiting of a few angels. Rosalie meanwhile, looked at Gabriel who was scowling at the ground. She walked to him putting a hand on the small of his back.

“Gabriel are you okay?”

He looked up at her carefully.

“I should have known that was going to happen. Raphael is an idiot. I should have never been such a coward. I should have stood up to all of my brothers years ago.”

Rosalie sighed before taking his hand and pulling Gabriel to her bedroom. Gabriel walked to the bed sitting down starring stubbornly at the floor. Rosalie watched him carefully for a few moments. This wasn’t the Gabriel that she was used to. She wanted her normal Gabriel. The one who smiled over the smallest thing and took everything with a light heart. Sure some seriousness was nice but she wanted her Gabriel.

Running a hand through her hair Rosalie couldn’t help feeling like a giant hypocrite. One moment she wanted Gabriel to grow up and take ownership for the wrongs that he had caused to her and their children. Now all she wanted was her husband to be himself. Rosalie knew that she was going to have to choose one. She knew that it had only been a short time since Gabriel came back but he had tried hard from the moment he knew showed up. Now it was Rosalie’s turn to try as well. She had to find a way to put her hurts behind her and accept that things could get better. It would be on her to try as equally hard as Gabriel was.

She took a breath before climbing onto the bed behind him. Rosalie ran her hands over his shoulders before moving down his arms.

“Gabe, sweetheart, everything is going to be okay. You did what you were supposed to do. You protected all of us.”

Rosalie gently kissed her way down his neck while letting her hands caress over his thighs. Gabriel took a deep breath not daring to move. He wasn’t sure if making a move would be wise at the moment.

“I told you wouldn’t let anything happen to you.”

He said calmly. Rosalie pulled her shirt over her head and undoing her bra.

“Are you going to touch me or not?”

She asked in almost a teasing tone. Gabriel turned looking at his now topless wife. Raising an eyebrow he snapped his fingers making sure the door was locked. This wasn’t about to get interrupted.

“You want me to touch you?”

Gabriel asked raising an eyebrow. Rosalie nodded snapping away the rest of her clothes.

“I wouldn’t be lying here naked if I didn’t.”

Rosalie replied letting her fingers caress over her breasts and down over her stomach. Gabriel’s eyes watched with hawk like precision as her fingers made contact with her clit.

“That’s it sugar. Touch yourself just like that. Spread those legs sweetheart.”

He cooed. Gabriel waited a moment longer before taking his placed between her legs and moving her hand. His honey eyes met her violet ones before he licked her fingers clean of any juices. Rosalie moaned watching as his tongue caressed each finger before he lowered his lips to her pussy. Gabriel pressed kisses to her thighs before attacking having his way with her. He sucked harshly at her thighs making sure to leave as many marks as possible.

“Gabriel please. You know what I want.”

Gabriel chuckled. Using his index finger and thumb he gently spread her folds to gain full access to her clit.

“I know what you want sugar. You want me to suck that sweet little clit of yours. Make all of the urges you have been feeling go away. You want me to make you come so hard you can’t see straight?”

Rosalie nodded unable to talk for a moment as Gabriel’s tongue began to caress her clit tenderly before he began to suck harshly. Gabriel shoved her hips down on the bed as she moved to meet his lips.

“Ass on the bed sugarsnap.”

Gabriel caressed her clit a few more times before having enough of the foreplay.

“I know what I want. I’m not waiting anymore.”

He growled as he pushed into his lover. Both moaned at the sudden increase of pressure for both parties. Rosalie moved to meet each thrust that Gabriel delivered. She was more than grateful that she couldn’t get pregnant again. They didn’t need anymore little surprises.

Gabriel quickly flipped Rosalie on her stomach using his grace to hold her in place and he pounded into her. She cried out each time that he filled her to the hilt.

“Gabriel, I can’t…”

Gabriel chuckled and shoved in again making her come around him.

“There you go princess.”

He cooed thrusting a few more times until he was spilling into her. Neither moved for a few moments until Gabriel pulled out with a wince. Reaching down he gathered Rosalie into his arms.

“So sugar…will you marry me again?”

_____

@greenappleeyes

@tas898

@jannalionheart

@sherala007

@sumara62

@authoressskr

@everyjourneylove

[mrswhozeewhatsis]

Homesick

A/N: This is my third (and final, unless I get a bug up my butt) submission for the 2017 Louden Swain SPN Mini Bang. I have loved this song since the first time I heard it! It’s short and cute and adorable and it makes me happy. If you haven’t heard it, check it out here. Sadly, I couldn’t come up with a truly happy SPN scenario, because, well, you know. Hope this comes close to the feeling behind the song, though. As always, many thanks to the best betas in the world, @manawhaat and @littlegreenplasticsoldier who make me think and constantly challenge me. ♥♥♥

Summary: Set during the Pilot episode, while Dean is showering off the sludge from his dip in the river. Sam thinks about what home means to him.

Pairing: Sam x Jess

Warnings: Angtsy cuteness and fluffiness. You’ll see what I mean.

Word count: 852 words

Jericho isn’t that far from Palo Alto, relatively. Sam’s been all over the country, knows distances in terms of Zeppelin albums and pit stops to gas up the Impala, and Palo Alto to Jericho didn’t even make his butt fall asleep. If he’d “borrowed” a car, he’d be worried about the cops stopping him, that’s how close to home he is.

Home. What a concept.

Even knowing that he’s so close doesn’t stop his desire to be back home, though. He doesn’t want to be here with Dean. He gave this up. He’s been safe and blessedly normal for over 3 years, now, and to be dragged back into it is stressing him the fuck out. He should be back home with Jessica. He needs to be back home with Jessica. More than anything, though, he wants to be back home with Jessica. Even knowing he’ll see her in a day or so, he aches.

He's never felt a longing like this to be somewhere specific before. Sure, he’s wanted to be anywhere other than where he was, plenty of times, but he’s never had a point on a map he could aim towards. No true North. There was never an image of a specific door he’d go through to see a specific person whose eyes would light up when they saw him. He thinks this might be what feeling homesick is like, but it feels strange.

When he first got to Stanford, he was sort of homesick, but it was very different. The home he dreamed of didn’t have a shingled roof or four walls. His internal compass could have doubled as an industrial fan. Back then, home was four tires on the road, his brother making mac ‘n cheese with marshmallow fluff, and a line of weapons to be cleaned. This feeling is for the comfy couch in his living room, the leftovers in his fridge, the king-size bed he actually almost fits in, but mostly, the woman he shares it all with.

God, he misses Jess.

Sam looks around the motel room. It’s musty and dark, there are newspaper clippings and copies of pages from lore books tacked to the walls, and there’s a thick salt line on the dirty carpet. It’s the epitome of a long hunt; it’s what he pictures when he thinks of his dad, and of his childhood. Just being here feels like slipping on an old coat that he outgrew. Dean hums Ramble On badly in the shower making Sam grimace. Dean can’t hold a tune to save his life.

Jess sings pop tunes in the shower, and her voice carries through the rest of the apartment, making him smile every time. She always gets the words wrong. Maybe it’s intentional. She makes up silly lyrics, singing them seriously when she notices Sam watching her, putting on what looks like a professional concert with a hairbrush in her hand. Her smile takes over her face, her eyes bright, her jaw open wide showing even her back teeth as she belts Kelly Clarkson or Maroon 5. Sam always laughs, never able to take his eyes off her.

When she finally ends her performance, he always pulls her into his lap and kisses her soundly. She kisses him the same way, whether it’s after a lazy afternoon together in bed or a day apart, like she can’t get enough of him. He always thought someday they’d find a shortcut kind of kiss. A quick peck to say, “Have a good day,” or chaste little kisses that say, “I love you but I have to go or I’ll be late.” That never happened, though. No matter how late they are, Jess always makes time for a kiss that warms him from the inside out and says, “I love you no matter what else is going on.” Let the world crumble; they will kiss.

The shower turns off, and Sam tries to bring himself back to the present. Dean doesn’t emerge from the bathroom right away, though, so his thoughts wander again.

Having a hunt right now, having Dean show up right now, with everything that’s going on back home, makes him nervous. He aced his LSATs, he’s got the interview of his life on Monday, and he’s one paycheck away from having enough money for the ring he picked out. That’s why he had the dream, he’s sure of it. He’s planning a future, and Dean crashing into his living room right after that stupid dream is just a coincidence. It’s his fear that this hunt, Dad being missing, and everything he’s left behind will crash into that future that he wants so badly. The thing that killed Mom is long gone, so the dream is just a manifestation of his fears.

There’s absolutely no reason for him to worry. He’ll be home, and Jess will be alright, and he’ll feel like an idiot for worrying. He just needs to get through this hunt, find Dad, and then he can have his interview, take care of Jess, and enjoy being home again.

Once he’s home, they’ll be alright.

Ye olde forever tags list: @abaddonwithyall @busybee612 @ilostmyshoe-79 @charmingnoodle @oriona75  @spnashley @manawhaat @sammit-janet @littlegreenplasticsoldier @mrsjohnsmith @mamapeterson @charliesbackbitches @leatherwhiskeycoffeeplaid @castielsbecky @scorpiongirl1 @deanlover7712 @iwantthedean @growningupgeek @feelmyroarrrr @chelseamarie73 @classy-sassyandsmartassy @spectaculacular-sammy @sarahbearccxc @gadreelsforbiddenfruit @sleep-silent-angel @helixiaray @badwolfstoletheimpala @nichelle-my-belle @my-mind-is-incognito @thing-you-do-with-that-thing @ashiewesker @deansleather @your-kidding-me-smalls @winchesterprincessbride @suckonthesedragonballs @chelsea072498 @helvonasche @rizlowwritessortof @supernatural-jackles @wheresthekillswitch @lucifer-in-leather @sandycub @d-s-winchester @flames-bring-a-ton-of-ash @sandlee44 @superwholoki @charred-angelwings @percywinchester27 @jared-padaloveme @melissaj616 @sylverminx @sassyspn67

SPN tag sheet users: @vintagevalentinexx @thinkwritexpress-official @bowtiesandapplepie @itsemmyb @ezauraemmaline @charliesbackbitches  @deandoesthingstome @deerlululucy @walkingencyclopediaoffandom @mrsjohnsmith @growleytria @thegleegeneration @samtomydeanwinchester @SinceriouslyAmellPadalecki @i-never-said-a-pilot @thewinchestielboys @supermoonpanda  @sis-tafics @amaranthinecastiel @fandommaniacx @meganwinchester1999 @kittenofdoomage @samanddeanwinchester67 @prettyxwickedxthings @ferferelli @lilyoflothlorien @olitzisbae @iridianuniverse @the-morning-star-falls  @shortandlongstories @ackleslaugh @eyes-of-a-disney-princess @chrisatplay @faith-in-dean @kreborn17 @for-the-love-of-dean @winchesterfiesta @zanthiasplace @gadreelsforbiddenfruit @trenchcoats-and-bees @curliesallovertheplace @jencharlan @skybinx-blog @beachy2014 @impossible-box @tia58 @sams-little-toy @faegal04 @sunriserose1023 @jelly-beans-and-gstrings @saving-things-hunting-family @jotink78 @notnaturalanahi @howmanytuesdaysdidyouhave @lucibae-is-dancing-in-hell @pinknerdpanda @alangel1895

[caranfindel]

Episode Recap/Review 12.21: "There's Something About Mary" (with bonus episode tag!)

THEN: Kill the hunters. Lucifetus. Mary and Ketch.

NOW: Can we just pretend this didn’t happen? Please?

{sigh}

Okay. A woman is running through a forest. It’s Eileen Leahy. She’s killed by a hellhound, who is under Ketch’s control. Now let’s get drunk and never think about it again.

I mean, seriously, goddammit.

I refused to believe it at first. Because the hellhound didn’t rip her apart; it just shook her and tossed her around. I told myself she was just unconscious, that Ketch was simply using the hellhound to catch her, and that she’d be held captive in the BMoL compound as bait for the Winchesters or something. (Why would Ketch use a hellhound to capture her? I don’t know. Why would he use one to kill her? Either is ridiculous.)

Farewell Eileen, you beautiful little badass. You deserved better.

Title card!

Sam and Dean enter a hotel room, looking for Mary. Sam is perfectly fine, which means that weirdness at the end of the previous episode, with Dean not being able to wake him in the car, was nothing. Thanks a lot, Show.

Seriously, goddammit.

(Sidebar: I started watching the show with half a glass of wine. At this point I got up and poured myself a full glass.)

Carrying on. All of Mary’s stuff is gone and she apparently hasn’t been there for a while. Sam suggests contacting the BMoL, since she’s been staying there as well, but Dean says Mick hasn’t answered a single call since they “sent him to London.” (Which I kind of like as a euphemism for violently murdered him.) He calls Ketch, who pretends not to know who he is (apparently asking “Dean who?”) and then claims to have not seen Mary in over a week. The guys know this is a lie, since Mary called two days ago and said she was on a case with him.

Sam’s phone interrupts this conversation. It’s Jody, calling with the news about Eileen being sent to London. Sam holds it together, but when he describes what happened to Eileen (“mauled by a wild animal in an area that doesn’t have animals that do that”) his voice gets a little shaky and then he turns away and puts his hand over his mouth and damn you, Jared. You got me. Her death is distressing not only because it’s Eileen, but because it’s the second hunter they’ve heard about in the last two weeks. (Honestly? Hunting’s a dangerous job. Two hunters in two weeks doesn’t seem that far off the mark.) Dean agrees with me and says that two hunters doesn’t mean a pattern. “But three would,” Sam points out. “Mom is a hunter, and no one knows where she is.” Duh duh duuuuuhhhh!!!

Sad boys! Worried boys!

And then Jared gets me even worse when we cut to the Winchesters at the morgue, with Eileen’s body. There’s no music, just Sam standing silently over her body. Dean gives him a concerned look, and I like that it’s acknowledged that she was Sam’s friend in particular. He’s clearly on the verge of tears as they discuss Eileen’s wounds and decide it had to be a hellhound. Although we’ve seen hellhound victims, up close and personal, and they weren’t just tossed around. They were clawed open. But okay. Dean doesn’t exhibit any PTSD symptoms that one might expect upon seeing a hellhound victim, possibly because Eileen doesn’t look like one at all, and questions why she left Ireland. Let me remind you that as I pointed out earlier, Ireland’s a lot closer to the BMoL homeland, so, maybe not so safe. (And yet America was obviously not so safe either.)

Sam and his unshed tears are KILLING ME.

Dean now says there have been seven hunter deaths in three weeks, so either they learned more about things that happened before the two-week window they mentioned earlier, or it’s been another week since they heard about Eileen and there have been more deaths. Dean wonders if all the things out there are suddenly working together, and Sam says monsters and demons don’t team up. (Spoiler alert: I wouldn’t be so sure about that, Sam.) But hunters are dying and Cas is AWOL with Lucifer’s baby mama and Mary is missing and Mick is missing and Ketch is lying and Sam says what we’re all thinking: he wants to punch something in the face. “Good,” says Dean. “Hold onto that. Cause it’s looks like we’ve got a hellhound to deal with, which means…”

Before we cut to what this means, let me point out that this is actually a lovely scene. It’s sad, quiet, dark, and intense. The lack of the typical sad piano music as Sam looks down on Eileen’s corpse effectively intensifies the horror of the whole thing. Whatever else Show fucks up tonight, they did a nice job here.

And it should go without saying that it was also very, very pretty.

And now, cut to Crowley, ordering a minion to find Kelly Kline, in case we’ve forgotten he was interested in that. (Yawn.) Next!

Next we see a hunter entering his house. We know he’s a hunter because he drops a bloody machete into an umbrella stand at his front door. So we also know he’s a sloppy hunter who doesn’t take care of his tools, cause that’s nasty. He’s surprised to find Mary Winchester in his living room, and even more surprised when she attacks and kills him (though he does manage to slice her with a broken beer bottle).

Cut to Mary waking up in the BMoL bunker. Was that a dream? Toni Bevell walks in and there’s a lot of talk but I don’t care. The gist of it is that Mary’s being drugged and brainwashed (“realigned” into natural born killer Mary Campbell, according to Toni), that the BMoL know about Mary and Azazel, and Mary finds out what John really did after she died. Mary sees a stitched-up cut on her hand and realizes she actually did kill that hunter.

Meanwhile, Dr. Hess is going through some files when we hear a familiar Limey voice behind her. This bunker has, like, no warding at all, does it? Crowley wants to make sure the arrangement he has with the BMoL in the UK will carry over to the colonies when all the American hunters have been killed. Ah, looks like monsters and demons work together after all. (Because people are monsters, get it?) Hess agrees that as long as Crowley’s demons stick to people who have signed away their souls, and share info as needed, they won’t have a problem. Um, what does that mean for unwilling demon vessels? Anyway, I’m sure none of the Powers That Be give a rat’s ass about this particular detail, but I like that this explains why Crowley was able to pop into Scotland unobstructed, lo these many years ago. We learn that Crowley is the one who provided a hellhound to Ketch, and that he and Hess are equally interested in finding the Lucifetus. Hess tells Crowley she’s not going to spare the Winchesters when it comes to eliminating the American hunters, and he doesn’t respond; he just smiles. Which could mean “absolutely” or could mean “ha, like I’m going to let you destroy my favorites, you silly twit.”

Back in Hell Adjacent, Lucifer’s little buddy is still working on releasing him, and I’m afraid I couldn’t care less. What I do care about is that while this is happening, Crowley is on the phone with Sam, claiming he knows nothing about the hellhound that killed Eileen. Because yay, angry Sam. Though it does seem like this is a call Dean would have made, not Sam, so I’m going to side a bit with you Dean!Girls who feel he’s being marginalized this season.

But still. Angry Sam bitching at Crowley? Come on. This is good stuff.

There’s some Lucifer/Crowley nonsense which I’m going to skip because I really, literally, do not care. Crowley wants to raise the Lucifetus as his own son. Did we already know this? {shrug}

At the BMoL, an unconscious Mary is carried into her room. Toni walks smugly down the hall and brags to Hess about her progress to. Ketch makes fun of her and she flounces out. Hess tells Ketch how proud she is that he’s willing to torture and brainwash Mary when he was sleeping with her just days ago, and that he might end up in charge of the American branch eventually. Or it might be Toni. (How much do I care? Guess.)

Back to “Lebanon,” although this city with a large post office and multi-story buildings is obviously not Lebanon. The Winchesters are picking up their mail, and Dean announces they have a letter from Eileen. She thought her phone and computer were hacked, so she sent snail mail four days ago. According to the letter, she was too scared to stay in Ireland and fled to the U.S. after finding a microphone in her room. Sam reads the letter aloud, his voice cracking when she asks if she can stay with them for a few days. And there’s an awful lot to dislike about this episode, my friends, but the way they’re letting Sam actually grieve Eileen… it’s fantastic. (Compare it to how glib Dean was about Sam being missing, at the beginning of the season, for example.)

I really am a sadist, because I love this.

Dean deduces that if Eileen was convinced the BMoL were after her, they might be the ones who killed her, and next we see the guys searching the bunker for bugs. Dean eventually locates the microphone under the table in the war room, silently signaling his discovery to Sam. They have a conversation about a mythical hunter named Terry who has figured out what’s going on, and set up a fake meeting.

Oh, yay, more Lucifer. His little demon buddy discovers that whatever he’s doing is increasing Lucifer’s power over Crowley as Crowley’s power over Lucifer decreases.

At the BMoL compound, Ketch and Toni are awkwardly training the hellhound. It’s a bit cute that Ketch says he’s not going to say “bad dog,” no matter what the dog does. Ketch tells her Mick’s job is practically his, and she tells him Hess told her the same thing, so now he knows she’s his direct competition. Once again, everyone on this show is so eager to play their hand. I’d have just said “oh, how nice for you,” and then laughed when I got the job. But I guess discretion doesn’t move the plot along, does it? (It’s not just Supernatural. Everyone does this.) One thing we learn is that Toni and Ketch’s relationship occurred while they were at BMoLwarts School for Young Psychopaths, which means it’s not something recent. Which means he could be the father of her son. Hmm.

Ketch is told Mary’s asking for him, so he goes to her cell. She’s affectionate, but he rejects her, saying they made it clear they didn’t have a relationship (Oooh, bet you regret that decision now, Mary). He tells her she doesn’t know the real him and wouldn’t want to, and we’re going to talk about that later. She embraces him anyway, but it’s a ploy to get his gun and try to kill herself. She should have shot him first, because when she puts the gun to her jaw, Ketch grabs it away from her. She then begs him to kill her, because “all I’ve had, all my life, other than my family, is my will, and it’s it going away.” She recognizes she’s putting her sons in danger, and she’d rather die. Ketch promises that this will all be over soon, and leaves.

Next the Impala pulls up at a warehouse, the location of the fake meeting with fake hunter Terry. A different big black car pulls up. Toni stays in the car, but two thugs with her sneak into the warehouse behind the Winchesters. Sam and Dean lock them inside (hee) while Toni watches angrily. She then gets out her little lady gun, but the passenger side window suddenly shatters. As she turns toward it and shoots, her own door opens behind her and Dean yanks her out of the car, causing her to drop her gun. They fight and he seems to lose but then she looks up and sees this.

That’s right, bitch.

Oh, lord, even more Crowley and Lucifer. Lucifer makes Crowley his puppet for a while before Crowley actually catches on, and I guess it’s cute, but I’m just over it. Let’s get the rest of this out of the way right now. Lucifer removes his chains and instead of zapping out, Crowley immediately tries sucking up and then tries to physically run. He’s stopped by Lucifer and gets flung around Hell Adjacent and then stabbed with an angel blade. There’s no flash of light, so we know he’s not dead. We see a mouse approach right before he’s stabbed, and when his “body” is dragged from the room, the mouse follows. Gee, I wonder who’s in that mouse. Will it be next week, or S13, when we get the flashback to Crowley invisibly smoking out and possessing the mouse?

And on to more important things. In the Impala, Sam keeps a gun on Toni and asks why she’s spying on them, and what she knows about Eileen. “Rule of thumb,” she says, “if you think we killed someone, then we probably did.” She’s not afraid of Sam, possibly because she remembers he could have killed her in that farmhouse basement and didn’t. She reminds the Winchesters that attacking a BMoL means they’re subject to punishment, possibly at the hands of their own mother, who is their “permanent guest.” Not just a guest, but one of their best killers. Dean snarks that Mary doesn’t like any of them, including Ketch, and Toni’s all ha ha ha, why is she banging him then? The guys are offended that Ketch said it was “some of the best sex he’d ever had,” so she quickly clarifies that it was definitely the best sex he’d ever had. (Sorry, Toni, I know that was hard for you.) Strangely enough, this doesn’t mollify them. I guess they’d have preferred that Ketch said she was a lousy lay.

The guys are stunned to learn that Mick is “quite dead.” (Sidebar: Toni uses quite the way an American would, to mean very, but I thought Brits used it to mean sort of. Of course, Toni’s dialog was written by Americans, I suppose, although now that I think of it, Eugenie Ross-Leming does sound like a very British name, and let’s just drop this and carry on, shall we?) She explains that Mick was considered too sentimental, too much like every American hunter, and that’s why every American hunter will also soon be quite dead. “Jody Mills, Claire Novak, all of your other flannel-wearing, whiskey-swilling friends. They’re dead.” The way she says that makes it sound like they could already be dead, but I choose to believe she means they are as good as dead. Because if they kill Billie and Eileen AND Jody this season, I’m going to be very, very unhappy. (Claire can go. I’m okay with that one.)

No mother jokes, Toni. They don’t go for that.

The Winchesters herd Toni down the bunker stairs, with Sam’s gun still on her. Dean instructs her to tell Ketch that if he wants to see her alive, he’ll get his “prissy ass” over here, because Dean assumes Ketch wants her kept alive. But Ketch’s prissy ass is already there, with three of his own thugs. Everyone points guns at the Winchesters and the first time I watched this, I thought Dean had his gun out as well and I was all, dammit guys, you KNOW they’re going to kill you, you’ve literally got nothing to lose here, JUST SHOOT THEM. But Sam’s the only one with a gun in his hand. Ketch tells Toni to disarm them and Sam relaxes his stance and I wait angrily for the disarming, but then they exchange a look and all of a sudden they jump into BAMF mode. As Toni reaches for Sam’s gun, he grabs her arm in slow-motion and shoots Thug #1 next to him. Dean grabs his own gun and shoots behind his back, because he’s Dean Fucking Winchester, taking out Thug #2 on his side. He then runs across the room, shooting action-movie style, at Ketch and the remaining thug, as Sam drags Toni and uses her as a human shield. Ketch sends Thug #3 down the hall (why?) but Dean intercepts him, then sneaks up behind Ketch with an awesome little slide and snags his gun.

I’m totally willing to act as Sam’s human shield if it means he’ll crush me against a wall like that. Just putting that out there. (Also, how big of a box do you think Toni is standing on?)

Dean holds a gun to Ketch’s head and demands to know where their mom is, which is of course Mary’s cute to show up, pointing her own gun. The guys are relieved to see her until they realize she’s on the BMoL side. Sam doesn’t fight at all as she relieves him of his gun; I’d elbow her in the face or something. No, I wouldn’t, but he’s Sam Fucking Winchester. He would. But he does, at least, recognize that they’ve done something to Mary, so at least he knows she didn’t turn of her own free will. He’s got experience; he knows what the BMoL can do to someone’s mind.

Ketch leaves with Mary, but when Toni goes to follow, he points his gun at her and informs her that she’s expendable and she’s not coming with him. Well, that’s one way to get rid of the competition. Awfully dumb of Toni to let him know she actually was the competition. I don’t think she’s very good at her job. Dean tries to get Mary to look at him and break the spell, because Dean knows that everyone who loves him has been able to break through someone else’s control to avoid killing him, but apparently the BMoL brainwashing is stronger than demons, officious controlling angels, and Lucifer himself. Or is it just that Mary is weaker than Bobby, Cas, or Sam? Discuss. Because this time, the power of love does not save the day, and Mary remains unmoved. Ketch tells them he’s locking the bunker from the outside, shutting off the water, and reversing the pumps that supply air, and they have two or three days of oxygen. He leaves with Mary, the red lights come on, and things do not look good at all.

Well. Some things do look very good.

Aftermath! As Ketch drives them back to the BMoL compound, he compliments Toni’s successful “treatment” and promises Mary it will become easier. “Easier to hurt people I love?” Mary asks. So, she knows. She remembers who those boys are, and that she loves them. “Easier to hurt people you don’t remember loving,” he responds. So that part’s going to go away. He asks how she feels, and she robotically says “Fine. I’m fine.”

The last scene is Lucifer standing on a lovely hilltop looking at a sunrise. Or sunset. Either way, he smiles and declares “my sun.” Or “my son.” Probably not much difference in his mind.

So.

The first time I watched this episode, I felt like this.

But on rewatch, it’s… I don’t want to say it’s good. But it’s not horrible, other than Eileen’s death. It does have some very good parts. It’s just hard to care about a lot of it because I’m really not interested in Mary, or the Lucifetus.

Eileen is dead. And obviously I’m crushed. But there are a lot of people calling for the Buckleming’s head(s) over this one, and we really can’t blame them. We can blame them for a lot of things - clunky exposition, annoying retconning, non-con tendencies, etc. But they don’t decide if a recurring character lives or dies. Someone gave them the assignment to kill Eileen, and I’m shocked to say that I’m at least pleased with how it was handled, with the way Sam was able to show his feelings, to actually grieve. Pleased and shocked.

Who is the “real” Arthur Ketch; the one he thinks Mary wouldn’t want to know? And why does he know so much about how she feels right now, after being “realigned?” I think it’s because he was realigned himself. In 12.20, Shifter!Ketch revealed that Ketch doesn’t even actually have a natural British accent. I think at some point, little American Arthur Ketch was picked up by the BMoL, perhaps “rescued” the way Mick Davies was, and realigned into a soulless killing machine with a Brit accent. And that’s why he understands what Mary is going through. Does this mean I’m going to be expected to have sympathy for him in the future? Because I just don’t see that happening.

Sam and Dean are obviously going to be forced to work with Toni, unless they kill her to save oxygen. (And I really, really hope they do that, but I’m not counting on it.) Well, there’s something new and exciting - Sam forced to work with someone who tortured him! Who could have possibly seen that coming? There is only one thing that could make me feel good about this particular development, and that is if they end it like this:

Bonus 12.21 coda!

~~~~~

An hour outside Lebanon, Toni’s headache has finally subsided. Ketch was probably being optimistic when he said there might be three days left of oxygen in the bunker; it took them two days to get out and she’s fairly certain that for most of day two, half of what she was breathing was carbon dioxide.

But that’s all behind them. The Winchesters figured out how to escape, and couldn’t have done it without her - neither of them would have fit in the ductwork she had to shimmy through - and though their alliance sits uneasy in the pit of her stomach, it is what it is. They’re speeding toward the BMoL compound, and they’ve contacted a few surviving American hunters to join them. Once Ketch and his reprobate crew are dispatched, she’ll be in a good position to take care of the remaining Americans, by persuasion or by other means, and claim her rightful spot as the head of the new American Men of Letters.

Sam Winchester turns from the front seat to look at her. He’s no longer wearing the pinched expression, no longer rubbing his forehead, so his headache must have eased as well. Time to make her pitch. “Well,” she smiles. “I suppose we’re even, now that I’ve helped save your lives. Let’s wipe the slate clean then, shall we? Start from scratch, as allies, and figure out how the British Men of Letters can guide you Americans into the future of monster control.”

Sam’s mouth twists into something that’s not quite a smile. He doesn’t reply to her, but taps his brother on the shoulder and points to the left. Dean pulls onto a rutted dirt road that leads to an old farmhouse. It seems abandoned, with peeling paint and overgrown shrubs surrounding it, but there are two cars parked outside. One is marked Sioux Falls Sheriff’s Department, and she sighs with relief. Looks like Jody Mills hasn’t been taken out just yet, which is in her favor if she wants to keep the Winchesters in her back pocket for any length of time. She doesn’t recognize the other car.

Dean pulls up next to the house, and she waits in the car until he opens her door. “The hunters are gathering here?” she asks.

“Yeah. We’ll meet here before we go take care of things.” But instead of taking the steps up to the porch, he steers her toward a cellar door against the foundation. He pulls the heavy door open and motions her down the steps.

“Ah. Secretive, aren’t we?” She hesitates.

Sam rolls his eyes at her and pushes past her to go down the stairs. “Jesus,” he says. “What happened to us being even? Have a little faith.” He pulls the chain dangling from a bare bulb on the ceiling, and she sees the cellar, bare and fairly clean, with a circle of chairs set up in preparation for a meeting of hunters.

“You know we don’t kill people if we can help it,” Dean says. “We’re too sentimental, remember? So come on.” He heads down the stairs himself, and if he’s willing to do that, willing to turn his back on her and leave her the opportunity to run… well, that’s promising. She follows him down.

It’s cool, and musty smelling, and she shudders at a sudden memory of the cellar in that farmhouse where she’d held Sam for questioning. But there is no single chair already fitted with handcuffs here, no icy shower, no table of implements. No reason for her to be afraid.

Until she turns around and sees Sam Winchester across the room, pointing his gun in her direction. Not at her head, or her heart. She throws up a hand and cries “no!” and her right knee explodes in agony. She falls to the ground, screaming. Through a haze of pain and terror, she sees Dean standing over her, pointing his gun at her other knee. “No, God, please,” she sobs.

“Whaddya think, Sammy?” Dean says, never taking his eyes off her face, or his gun off its target.

Sam walks over and stands at his brother’s side. “Nah. One’s good. We’re done.”

The Winchesters turn for the stairs out of the cellar. As Dean goes up, Sam grasps the chain to the light. He turns to her and smiles. “Now we’re even,” he says. As she howls in pain, he puts out the light and heads up the stairs, locking the cellar door behind him.

~~~~~

What did you think of the episode? And please help me remain unspoiled for future episodes!

[elizabethrobertajones]

So I'm rewatching s4 right now and I am a bit confused now. We learned in s12 that Lucifer created the princes of hell after Lilith. So the hirachy is basically this: Black eyed demons as the food soldiers red eyed demons who handle the crossroadsdeals, yellow eyed demons as the generals of hell and then Lilith? white eyed demons. Now Alistair is a white eyed demon too and he knew some crazy stuff like exorcisms for amgels. So how does this all fit in Ivm so confused.

I think the answer is that they’ve been winging it the entire time with lore - I think the early seasons changes to lore also made little holes because I remember finding some of the early big changes like Lilith or Alastair showing up, or Azazel’s plan being retconned into being all about finding one kid instead of raising an army (or, of course, the boy king plot disappearing into being just confused demon rumours which kind of makes it all work once you know Lucifer better, like, say, after 5x04 or 5x10…) or or or wtf was Meg up to and was she and that other demon REALLY Azazel’s children or was that an exaggeration, and how much of his plan did she KNOW and -

(And also wtf is a King of the Crossroads and was he or Lilith in charge of the deals and were they really lovers or was that a weird embellishment from Becky, and how comes he got the Colt THEN but did Lilith even really hold the deal or was it just assumed Crowley would give it to her but it doesn’t matter because he didn’t EXIST for two more seasons and all the time the crossroads demons obliquely mention their boss it’s probably supposed to be Lilith in season 3 and now you’d think it’s Crowley if you watched the show backwards…)

Yeah, I’ve been struggling with this since like, season 3, so at this point they could just be like “and here’s a whole bunch of peers from the Demon House of Lords” and I’ll be like okay then I guess that’s a thing what sort of nonsense are they getting up to then?

(And yeah I know there’s answers to most of those questions and ways to rationalise them or later context that makes it all make sense and as the years have gone by I’m now at peace with all these weird changes to canon like the fact Sam’s powers were basically just a silly side effect of being groomed to be Lucifer’s vessel or Crowley somehow accidentally-deliberately ended up ruling Hell because literally no demon no matter how late they were retconned into the story, felt like bothering with it even if they had to time travel through a closet to answer the question of why they had never tried before or retire to fish or keep bees or whatever it’ll turn out Dagon was spending her time on while avoiding getting involved in something as dramatic as the apocalypse…)

(Or maybe she or the other surviving Prince of Hell DID but behind the scenes in such a way that they were never hauled out into the Winchesters’ path, but were busy doing things like breaking seals and stuff in all the nonsense that happened way way off screen because it would be too much money to show it…)

Anyway for what it’s worth your impression of the hierarchy seems as good as any. Hell seems to produce a lot of grunts and low-quality demons. The ones with the special spark either made too much of a name for themselves and got killed (same as how Heaven now literally seems to be quiet because all named personalities with the inclination to try and rule it have been killed off, and I think Joshua is basically the only angel LEFT up there with a name and personality :P)… I think the smart demons end up in the crossroads business and the red eyes probably show their extra powers which I assume get burned into them one way or another… That department is responsible for restocking Hell faster than it would fill up naturally with the run of the mill sinners (though stuff like Jeffrey’s demon is a bit ambiguous about if he was picking up pre-booked for Hell serial killer types and just egging them on a bit to cause the most mayhem on Earth before they go to Hell, which they probably would have regardless…) and that’s a very separate division. Admin and bureaucracy, and Crowley runs Hell like a business crossed with a medieval court, a great combination of King of the Crossroads/Hell and his salesman style elevated to CEO of Hell Inc. 

I think Crowley crossed lines, anyway, by becoming King of Hell because it seems like power used to be all in the military types - Lilith led Hell into war in season 4, and Lucifer basically picked up where she left off. If you assume she’d been in charge the whole time before that as the highest ranking/oldest demon, it would make sense, although in season 3 it’s implied she’s on the rise, so it’s not like ALL the demons recognised this, although how much of that is like the angel fall and personal ego trips (but without the emotional hook from Cas to make it upsetting they’re infighting, and they are happy to be there unlike the angels) making random factions happen, idk… By season 4 anyway the leadership was clear since it was a choice between Sam and Lilith for the demons, and in season 3 early on the demons realised Sam had no intention of leading them like he was supposed to.

I think Alastair is equivalent to Crowley, running his department of Hell (the crossroads deals feed into his torture chamber) and I’m guessing since Crowley came late to the game, only in the last couple of hundred years, he had to Crowley his way up to the top of the crossroads hierarchy, but Alastair was clearly an old demon, probably turned either by Lucifer directly or by Lilith (which is why his eyes were like hers)… 

Cain seems like quite a personal thing for why Lucifer turned him, and we don’t know the timeline on if he made the princes of hell before or after, but the knights of hell are definitely lower on the order… If Cain ever fitted well into the Hell hierarchy, he’d have been in charge of the armies, while the princes would probably have been responsible for everything although all of them except Azazel retired to beekeeping/fishing lives before the story starts, meaning we never see Hell fully functioning. It’s probably been in shambles for hundreds of years - Crowley probably went to Hell ~1700 and Cain defected some time in the 1800s; if you give Crowley 100 years to become demonised, he shows up about the time we know for sure the leadership in Hell is crumbling. Colt and the Hellgates thing whatever was going on there (and what happened to Cold Oak, South Dakota, because that’s serious demon nonsense and probably concurrent) happened just two years before Cain fucked off to keep bees and probably WHILE he was massacring the Knights of Hell depending on how long that took him and when he met Colette and all the stuff that was going on with him. I’m guessing there’s an unexplored story there which maybe even the writers haven’t noticed while flinging random dates for reasons significant only to their episodes (but who knows, it IS Robbie Thompson putting the keystone in, as it were) but anyway, Hell has been in a Bad Way for at least 200 years if not many centuries. The Croatoan episode suggests they were testing the virus back in the 1500s and that never amounted to anything, which means they failed to kickstart the apocalypse five hundred years ago and who knows what damage that did to morale…

Anyway I think Hell is a mess, canon is a mess, and it’s pretty much impossible to work out what all these demons are and how they’re related because they make it up a bit each time they introduce new ones depending on what sounds cool, leading to a “just say yeah when they introduce new canon” kind of response I now have to anything about demons on this show >.>

[dustydreamsanddirtyscars]

Things about 12x14 “The Raid” #4

Verdict:

Behind the cut for likely pretty unpopular opinion and well... criticism.

This episode started out with having me hope that it could actually be a good episode and indeed it was basically sadly only the first 5 to 10 minutes I liked. :(

I can’t even say anything, just that I feel this Supernatural has nothing to do with the show anymore that I fell in love with. This whole elitist BritMoL organized in an army or military like fashion is just not for me. I miss dirty backroads, I miss small towns, I miss muddy landscapes and old and rustic bars. Most of all though I miss emotion. I miss depth. And I miss prorgression and development. Right now I feel the opposite is happening. Of course a show develops over time and changes and that’s alright, but the sterile feel of the season sadly really isn’t doing anything for me.

The set up of the episode could have been promising, because usually vampires pop up in the narrative when family dynamic are put under a microscope but yet again this episode ended with Dean getting taught how to love his family right and apologize for feeling hurt when he had every fucking reason to be angry and hurt. He didn’t have to apologize for anything. It would be nice if the other characters would meet Dean with the same amount of understanding that he offers them. In any case it’s disheartening to say the least how this episode ended.

Furthermore, I dislike a great deal how they reintroduced the Colt in the first place, but now that silly retcon with Sam suddenly knowing how to make those bullets? Like...

And don’t even get me started on Sam being on the BritMoL’s team now (if he is alright with working those who tortured him, maybe he then also is just as open to say yes to Lucifer a second time round - never mind that him saying no last season was such a major progression for him - I mean: Dean screaming Sam and Luci directly after another... yeah), that’s just plain stupid and so out of character for Sam - who always made a big deal about how not all “monsters are bad” and sticking up for them. Sam to suddenly being a-okay with just wiping all of them out just cause their vamps is just... not just absolutely against what Sam usually is - I enjoyed how the show operated in shades of grey, so this black and white kind of thinking that’s re-addressed... well, I guess it’s part of the end game, but I can’t say I am very intrigued by the prospects...

Tbh I hope that Dean will not be bullied into working with the BritMoL anytime soon too. So really, I am not to keen on Sam on top of Mary now trying to teach Dean better and yada yada and getting him to join. I just hope that in the end Dean will turn out the one voice of reason when all the rest of his family started trusting the wrong people...So yeah, sorry for the wank, but I keep on hoping every single episode to feel differently, but I just don’t. And it makes me sad. And yeah this episode imo was wasted potential and only left me incredibly angry in what it implies.

The one good thing about the episode may have been Dean back in the red shirt of doom and some very vague references to the MoC arc. Plus: He looked really pretty when drinking. So at least there was some eye candy.

[orionsangel86]

13x12 - Episode Review - What is Fifth Base Anyway?

So the people at Google must have been confused when they discovered the number of searches for “fifth base” drastically went up overnight… Steve Yokey you cheeky bugger I love you! (Show of hands everyone who did this? Go on, admit it!)

This episode was really good. One of the stronger ones of an already very strong bunch as season 13 continues to exceed in quality. It had jokes, it had deep emotional revelations, it had Cas once again using his SuperPower of sassing the fuck out of things to get what he wants. Yeah it was pretty awesome! So let’s delve into the main points.

The Red Herring Love Spell

We were all expecting this to be an episode similar to 12x11 based on how it was marketed to us. Dean is under a love spell! It’s up to Sam and Rowena to save him! That seemed to be the gist of the PR team’s focus. As ever, PR is not Showrunning and this turned out to be one giant red herring.

The love spell lasted all of five minutes. So why bother? WHY was a love spell even PART of this plot?! Seriously? Someone tell me how this episode couldn’t have followed the EXACT same narrative with the sisters using some other spell to force people to do things for them? The fact is, that love spell was pointless for the plot but excellent for getting people thinking about LOVE. Specifically, Dean Winchester and LOVE, or at least, what love should be, and what it most definitely is not.

Aside from the fact that the clunky music whenever the love spell was invoked made me cringe, I thoroughly enjoyed how innocent it all seemed. Dean got to play Prince Charming to the princess and provide her with a gift of her choosing. I think it says something about Dean that the love spell encouraged this fairy tale vibe specifically for him, when for Dale at the start it was all about him playing protector and hero through violence and theft. I just thought it was an interesting statement about Dean’s wishes and desires compared to other men. Though I gotta admit, the gift giving, goofiness and oh I dunno, protecting his lover from a gun? It all seemed rather familiar to me… Hmmm…

I mean who else has Dean previously entrusted with powerful one off weapons?

Who else has Dean had to recently protect from a pointed gun much to his own horror rather than the recipient who is unlikely to be harmed by a regular gun anyway?

Who else makes Dean goofy and pull these silly delighted faces?

*looks into the camera like on the Office*

Yeah, but see these are not really examples of true love, even though they are all things done with Cas. What IS true love in season 13 is something that subtextually KEEPs getting referred to in EVERY EPISODE. That in 13x01 – 13x05 Dean was deeply lost in grief. Deeply mourning over the loss of Cas – someone who he is truly in love with. Love makes you do crazy things? Yeah, and as Billy said in 13x05 (Yokey’s last episode FYI) Dean wanted to die. Cas’s death had brought him to that level. The fact that now it is SAM who is feeling low, feeling powerless because of the loss of Mary and Jack, and Dean is able to remain focussed and have HOPE that they will save them, continues to be astonishingly hypocritical of Dean given where he was when Cas was dead. But it does keep drawing our attention to that fact, and for that I love it.

Bonus point for “I think you may be right, I think its time we go ahead and call Cas…” … “I’m in love” because Yokey could have written Sam saying ANYTHING at that point but he chose to remind the audience about Cas at that exact moment… as Dean announces he is in love, because the two are connected (and because it then wouldn’t be that much of a stretch to assume that Sam’s initial reaction is “Oh… so you finally admit it?”)

(FYI this crappy gif is my own. Don’t judge. It’s the first I’ve ever made.)

Sam’s mild amusement here just fits the “oh so you finally admit it? We can call Cas and start the wedding preparations?” interpretation and NO ONE can stop me seeing it that way! :D

Bonus Point two for the mentions of “Soulmates” (which relate to Angels in the show) and “Cosmic” (which again, tends to relate to angels and Cas).

Bonus point three that this is an episodes marketed as Dean being in love! LOOK AT ALL THIS HETEROSEXUALITY! It seems to scream at our general audiences, and yet, as always in SPN, if the GA are seeking heterosexuality, they are to be disappointed. They got a 5 minute mini love spell plot and Dean once again is without even a hint of an actual true female romantic partner. Nope, sorry heteros seeking a woman for Dean. You won’t find that here!

Basically, it’s not too much of a stretch to interpret this entire love spell mini plot as exposition for the TRUTH regarding Dean and “true love”. Because we all know it. It’s right there in the subtext. I just wish they’d make it text already.

Review continues under the cut as per usual...

Addressing Long unspoken Trauma – FINALLY

Officially my favourite part of the episode (unofficially my second fave part after “fifth base”), the conversations between Sam and Rowena about their trauma at the hands of Lucifer had me welling up. This is the first time in SPN history that Sam has actually opened up to ANYONE about his Lucifer trauma. Read that again. Be amazed that it has taken this long. Send Dabb and Yokey a fruit basket for this.

One thing season 13 has been excellent at doing, is making things textual that were previously only implied. This seems to be a continued trend following on from the reveal in 12x22 that Dean is effectively Sam’s parent (A fact meta writers have been talking about for YEARS.)

I don’t really have much to say about it actually, because it’s all just THERE in the text. It has left me kind of speechless.

SAM: Its not gonna change anything, you’re still gonna feel helpless. What Lucifer did to you…

ROWENA: I told you I don’t… before he crushed my skull, Lucifer showed me his face. His true face. I’m scared Sam. All the time.

SAM: I’ve seen it too. What he really looks like behind… behind whatever vessel… yeah it still keeps me up at night.

ROWENA: How do you deal with it?

SAM: I guess I don’t deal with it, not really. I mean I…Ive pushed it down, and the world kept almost ending and so I keep pushing it down and I dunno… I don’t really talk about it, not even with Dean, I mean I could… he would listen but, it’s not something I really know how to share.

…..

SAM: Even if you do get the book, and even if you get your power back. It won’t matter. You won’t ever be able to change what happened, you won’t be able to change how helpless you felt, or how helpless you feel. You’re still gonna get scared. That feeling, that feeling never goes away.

ROWENA: Never?

SAM: Never.

…

Honestly it’s perfect. Yokey has decided that enough is enough. We need to discuss this. We need to talk about the fact that our main characters have a shit load of trauma. It’s about GODDAMN TIME.

(x)

I just want to scream about the shots for a second though because god bless Amanda Tapping for being so excellent at capturing emotions. I am starting to think she is one of the best directors for it. The intimate long close ups on the actors faces as they open about this stuff, it just works. The soft music in the back ground pulls no focus away from the gravity of Sam’s words. It’s intense, and harrowing and kudos to Jared here because I think he must have been ITCHING for a moment like this for Sam for YEARS (and for god sake someone ask him about this scene at a con instead of more bloody prank questions PLEASE.)

I also love that it’s Rowena who Sam opens up to about this stuff, because she has that in common with him. I know that it can be argued that Cas has also experienced trauma at the hands of Lucifer, but since Cas is an angel it’s not the same. I doubt Lucifer’s true face would affect Cas, since Cas is already an angel with the ability to see and cope with seeing things that human minds struggle to comprehend.

I think Rowena and Sam is our new Dean and Crowley. They are enemies, but they have a mutual respect for one another and I see this as a really good thing both for Sam and Rowena. Because Crowley was changed thanks to his bond with Dean (love for Dean), he was able to find redemption in that. Rowena could also now find redemption, especially considering her newly powered up status. For Sam I think it was a smart choice to give Rowena the pages at the end. It wasn’t just about the bond they formed over shared trauma, it was Sam knowing that Rowena is right, that Lucifer will always find a way back, and Sam knows that eventually he will have to face him again, and he needs all the help and power he can get, so a powered up Rowena is a powerful ally to have against the creature that tortured and broke both their spirits.

Am I shipping them? No, not really. I still think Rowena is a villain. I never shipped Drowley, though I acknowledge it’s existence in the show as basically a hairsbreadth away from canon. (it’s technically just as close to canon if not more so than Destiel and strongly implied that they hooked up in various episodes). But if the show did go there with Sam and Rowena I wouldn’t mind it as such. I just don’t think it would be endgame. But sure, it could work for a while. I see them more like frenemies with mutual interests. Besides, I’m a Saileen girl all the way and will continue to hope for Eileen’s resurrection this season.

Narrative Mirrors – Witches and Winchesters

Ah narrative mirrors, don’t we love them? I especially love them when they highlight the Winchester family dynamics and just how screwed up they all are. Our witchy sisters fall extremely easily into this category. Jamie and Jenny or “J2” as I now plan to call them (I see what you did there Yokey). So J2 are motivated to do whatever it takes to bring back mum. Whatever it takes even though they are hardly competent witches and only seem to have one spell mastered – the love spell. The older sister uses her charm to encourage the victims to do whatever they wish for, whilst the younger sister is the smarter of the two, more skilled in magic (I wonder who they are supposed to represent?)

They have one purpose, and will stop at nothing until that purpose is fulfilled:

JAMIE: I’m sorry, I know I’m the big sister and I’m supposed to be the strong one or whatever.

JENNY: Yeah?

JAMIE: I just really miss her.

JENNY: I do too.

JAMIE: I know, and I like, really believe in us

JENNY: Jamie, I just want her back so bad

JAMIE: And we’re going to get her back, even if we have to cast every spell in this book and curse the souls of like a million people to make it happen.

Doesn’t this sound rather familiar? Like from 13x09:

DEAN: You were right, about mom you were right, this whole time we should have been looking for her

SAM: I was just hoping, I didn’t know. And anyway it doesn’t matter, now that we do know.

DEAN: We find her, no matter what it takes.

Which always made me kinda uncomfortable. There is a reason that Billy didn’t want Dean knowing their mum was still alive. Because Billy knows that the Winchesters would break the Universe to bring her back. “House of Cards” she called it. What’s the betting that thanks to Sam and Dean this “house of cards” is going to come tumbling down just as Billy predicted? Because I would put money on it.

At the end of the episode, we realise that Sam and Dean are in exactly the same place as J2. Jamie – the older sister, trying to support and reassure her younger sister, the one who “wants mom back so badly”. Jamie, unlike her sister, is totally focused on completing their task, whereas Jenny has her doubts. Just like Sam and Dean. We know that Dean is back to “We’ll figure it out” and “you and me” even though Sam is NOT on board with this, but like Jenny, Sam will follow Dean into a hornets nest if it means doing what they set out to do and save mum.

The girls mum came back wrong though, a zombie. When Mary was first resurrected she certainly wasn’t what the boys expected either, and now she is lost again, whose to say just what state she will be in when she is finally freed? Perhaps the message for the boys here is to actually let her go? As in, let go of the memory of Mary that they had sat on a pedestal (Dean in particular) and start to accept the woman their mother actually is, and let her do her thing, because otherwise it may kill them all.

And isn’t this moment just a perfect visual representation of the toxic co-dependency that is the Winchester brothers? Stab stab stab. One of them even has a hammer… LOL.

(Yup its another one of my crappy gifs.)

The Sassiest Angel in the Garrison

Oh Cas, I have missed your beautiful face…

(x)

(Dipper agrees with me)

Now I think everyone knows by now that I hate Lucifer. As in, I find the character extremely irritating and just want him off our screens dead and buried, and that Mark P can go annoy some other shows audience. The ONLY thing that makes watching Lucifer remotely bearable for me, is Castiel - wonderful, perfect, funny, grumpy, brilliant Castiel, sassing the fuck out of him. Bearing in mind all their scenes but one took place behind bars, I was as always captivated by Cas and the brilliant genius he is.

So far in season 13, Castiel hasn’t actually spent much time using his powers, his grace, to actually get anything done. What he has done, is be incredibly smart and used that tactician brain of his to talk himself out of any situation. Everything Castiel does has a purpose. He is generally a creature of few words (except when it comes to Dean) and therefore, whenever he does speak, it is usually with a great deal of thought. (There was a brilliant meta on the word “assbutt” and how it is the worst insult he could possibly throw at Lucifer and yet everyone still ridicules him for it. Don’t knock the word assbutt. Cas knew exactly what he was doing!)

And so Cas isn’t just being a sassy little bitch in this episode. He’s being a sassy little bitch with purpose. Lucifer may be powered down, but he still has power. Cas knows this. Cas knows that the best way to get Lucifer activating what little power he has is to make him angry. So what does Cas do? He sass’s him, over and over. Pissing him off until eventually, it works.

“Turns out rage is a good motivator”

Such a badass. Bye bye little Dipper.

This is why you should never underestimate Castiel. He will always get the better of you. He will always come out on top in the end.

“This is me, learning from my mistakes” he says whilst stabbing Lucifer at the end of the episode. I thoroughly enjoyed that moment of course, even if we know already it doesn’t stick. Since Lucifer is alive next episode. *sigh*.

Lucifer has been continuously hinting all episode that he want’s Cas’s grace. It seems possible due to pics from next week, that he may actually get what he seeks.

Cas has blood on his collar, which he doesn’t have at the end of 13x12. So is Cas about to become human again? Or at least graceless? It’s possible. @tinkdw​ wrote this post about it (yes I stole her screencap). We were discussing this in our group chat yesterday and thanks to the themes that would come from another human!Cas story I can certainly get behind it, even if I hate the idea that it isn’t his choice yet again. This time, having Lucifer steal his grace seems worse than the first time. But as I mentioned above, Castiel has already shown several times this season that his grace is in no way where his strengths lie. I just hope that it is still his choice in the end to give it up, or not regain it, however that story may pan out.

But yeah maybe prepare ourselves for a human Cas whose grace was stolen by Lucifer plot? I mean if it doesn’t happen great, but if it does... don’t say we didn’t warn ya okay? I know how sensitive we all get about Cas stuff - this is literally the first any of us had thought of this. Besides, he’ll still be amazing even if Lucifer does take his grace, He’ll get in a few more stabs before the end. No doubt.

Other Awesome Stuff

The “fifth base” scene. Yeah this was certainly risqué of Yokey. I was screaming about this to Tink in the chatty bubbles, trust a gay writer to throw in a gay joke aimed at our currently in the closet bisexual lead character and have him act all awkward like he doesn’t know what it is… *glances at Sam* What? Nope, I’ve never… There’s NO SUCH THING AS FIFTH BASE. Sure Jan. Just as I scoff at the idea of Dean not knowing basic French, the idea that Dean DOESN’T know what fifth base is, is absurd. These are purposely input into this episode to raise our eyebrows and DOUBT them.

Baring in mind the way Rowena asks that question “Did THEY get to fifth base?” not “Did YOU get to fifth base” strongly implies actually that Rowena was asking if Dean was pegged. Let’s get that clear. Once again, we have a bottom!dean joke in the subtext of the show. (At some point we need to round up EVERY reference to Dean’s ass and compare it to the other characters just to make this point.)

Oh gosh I haven’t even got to “What’s by is by” yet. The top result in google for this supposed saying is a destiel fanfic written as coda for this episode. There is NOTHING else. It doesn’t exist. What is Yokey playing at exactly? Bygones be bygones maybe? But she had to say it like that? After a reference to anal? To DEAN? Yeah I know everyone is probably already yelling about this on tumblr but still. This is a very huge WTF from me to Yokey that he would ever think we WOULDN’T pick up on this. He did it on purpose. It has a reason, just like everything else. The reason being “Dean is Bi”.

......

(x)

The final scene with Rowena is spectacular. It’s also oddly erotic but maybe that’s just me. Rowena is finally unbound, powerful, free, and probably quite deadly. Here’s hoping she raises a hell of a storm. I have always loved Rowena’s character so for me this idea of her being “unbound” and basically immortal is really interesting. I just hope this paves the way to her helping the Winchesters defeat the big bads to come. Because I see her becoming more of an ally as time goes by. I hope she continues to have a big part to play in the story, and after this final scene I am practically sure she will. 

....

Castiel speaking about Jack like he’s a proud parent gives me life. He truly loves the kid. It’s beautiful.

....

Why does Lucifer attract so many dick jokes nowadays? I’m actually almost getting tired of them. For shits and giggles I’m gonna accept it at face value that Lucifer, unlike Crowley, is not well endowed. It makes sense. The tantrums, the violence. Little man syndrome. Pfft.

I’m also going to take it at face value that Cas is most likely huge. Yeah, that smirk is telling.

We all know he’s a big boy. ;-)

.... 

Hats off to Brenda. The biggest star of the episode. Never failed to make me laugh every time I watched.

You go Brenda. You were awesome.

Overall

Solid episode with lots of great moments. Now all I need is Cas to find the boys and get really pissy with them when he realises they didn’t ONCE figure out that Colonel Sanders was impersonating him. I mean sure, Dean has super low self esteem and was clearly grumpy with Cas at the start of the episode for only really checking in with Sam, not coming home after taking off, clearly CHOOSING the road over being at home with HIM... But that doesn’t excuse him being blind to Asmodeus’s impersonation. Bring on next week. I hope Dean grovels.