#but why is he yelling at Cas and Jack? Because he yells in plural

[redlenai]

I just wanted to have ONE damn episode where the scene starts with Dean just finishing mopping the floor, Cas and Jack sitting but they aren’t touching the floor and then Sam coming into the room with his “So get this”

As Sam explains their new case, Cas and Jack get tense but ask for more info, and when Sam glances to ask Dean what he thinks, all Hell breaks lose when he notices the wet floor, Dean’s angry face

The scene finishes with Sam, Cas and Jack darting away before Dean get’s any chance to yell at them

[flyingcatstiel]

I mean I am so happy Meta's screaming of - "how important Cas is for ending and how crucial he is as God ignores him and how Cas will save the day" - is all coming true. I mean. This episode he picked up a book from the floor. FROM THE FLOOR! As crucial as it gets. He opened boxes. Boxes. Plural. Goosebumps yet? Finally he found the Key. The key. And brothers crying and saying it will always be "you and me" while Cas and Jack sit on the floor and applaud the brothers God Complex. No? :-)

See anon, you get it! Boxes, plural, was the thing that clinched Cas plot importance today. Here’s some other things canon positive destiel metas have said over the years - The less Cas has to do now, the more it builds anticipation for his last moments! The less Cas is on screen, the more important he is! When Cas is never mentioned by Sam and Dean, we are supposed to wonder why and that just enhances Cas importance! We don’t want Cas in filler episodes, we want him in plotty episodes!

And here we are now, three episodes before the series finale and Cas is just a sexy lamp, delivering emotional support and opening boxes. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I thought that Sam was unconscious when the talk about the Key to Death library happened? So the point was that Cas would share this information with Sam, but apparently even that was too much for Cas to handle. 

Because surely that’s how you get viewers rooting for a character, by giving him a wall to prop and supporting characters who actually do plotty thing, like Sam and Jack. And keeping him away from Dean to actually discuss Dean’s feelings and anger. so married And making him watch Dean and Sam brotherly yelling after hearing that Dean would sacrifice the whole world for his personal freedom.

Jokes aside, this episode raised some serious moral questions and I’m not sure if I like how SPN is handling them. The show is famous for it’s protagonist morality but there’s gotta be a line which if crossed, turns your heroes into villains. 

And last bit, to all folks who say that Cas doing nothing now is a very clever way to hype his importance in 15x18 or even finale, remember that metas said the same thing about s10 and s13 finales, remember how relevant Cas was there. TPTB are yanking destiel shippers super hard this season. I have seen this all before, and I didn’t like the ending. 

[coinofstone]

Of Snakes and Symbolism

Recently, MadyMischief voiced an observation about the nature of The Great DeanCas Breakup™ that I hadn’t considered before, and it really slotted something into place for me. Not just about the show, the ending overall, but about the DeanCas relationship specifically. I’ve talked about the fight before, because I think about it... a lot... but Mady pointed something out that I need to discuss further: 

“Jack is the first thing that Cas has ever really put above Dean. When Mary died, Cas instead of being supportive of Dean, actively sought to stop him. I think he feels betrayed twice - Cas didn’t tell them about the snake and that Cas didn’t take his side. That on top of all the other emotional trauma just broke Den. I think in hindsight Dean realizes why Cas put Jack first. But at that moment, Dean reverted back to being John’s child, whose main mission from age 4 to age 38 was to kill the thing that killed Mary. It wasn’t until actually faced with killing Jack that Mary’s influence reasserted itself. That’s why I was so stoked when Dean brought her up with Chuck when refusing to kill Jack. John’s hunting came from seeking vengeance; Mary’s hunting was always to save people.”

Thinking again about the snake - which we all kind of understand to be A Big Fuckin Deal in the DeanCas fight, so I won’t rehash that - I think it’s more symbolic than I had originally picked up on.

The obvious symbolism for the snake is the show itself. 'Ouroborus', which was the episode the snake first appeared in, is the symbol of the snake eating its own tail, the unbroken circle. Sam and Dean have been chasing their own tales for nearly fifteen years now, chasing monsters, averting apocalypses, even reliving the most defining trauma of their lives; losing their mom to a yellow eyed supernatural being. Jack killing the snake, as an act of kindness even though it is an act of destruction, can be directly paralleled with TFW finally breaking the cycle (of the show) by killing God (death of the author, literally). I say ‘killing’ but I expect something more akin to God being neutralized or locked out of our universe, but this is irrelevant here. The fact that the snake was killed by Jack himself using his power, is significant, but my own personal spec is that this will be how the series is resolved: Chuck being defeated by TFW using Jack’s powers. Now, after reflecting on Mady’s observation, I think the entire metaphor could be applied to DeanCas too. The romantic subtext that's been slithering through the series for a fuckin decade, but again, just going around in circles, nothing ever changing and now... that changes. I mean the snake’s death was literally the impetus for the change in their relationship, the thing that kicked off their big fight. And this particular fight truly is waaaaay more husband-y (they are literally fighting over their CHILD) than the previous fights they've had. Even though they’ve been at odds, they are still working together, still communicating in an albeit stilted, pseudo professional capacity, as shown in this clip from 15x01, prior to The Rupture:

The fact that Sam is like, nowhere near this one either, is especially telling. While Dean and Cas do share a more profound bond, (heh) usually when there is any kind of conflict it’s Cas vs Winchesters, plural. But this time, it’s entirely just between those two. And at this point (days before 15X09 airs), we kind of know that Dean doesn’t want to fight anymore. He’s expressed this as well as he can given his character, in everyone’s favorite example, the post-Rupture phone call from Golden Time:

Their usual dynamic is reversed here, as well. They are going through the betrayal/forgiveness cycle again here, but this time something is different. Dean is in the wrong, and as apologetic as his emotionally stunted ass is capable of being while he’s still in pain. Cas is keeping his distance, not because he’s working on some other plot line, but because Dean’s hurt him - though he hasn’t exactly fucked off and disappeared for several episodes with a handwave explanation - we are still seeing him and he is, in fact, still a Winchester - saving people, hunting things. He’s still there, he’s just trying to avoid Dean - which is what makes this scene from Last Call so deliciously tense:

Again, Cas is the one walking away from Dean in this scene, just as he walked out on him after Dean said that hurtful thing to him in The Rupture. Dean, not wanting him to go but not willing or able to do anything to stop him. In this was it way sort of vaguely reminiscent of the fight he had with Sam way back in 1x11, Scarecrow. (Thanks to Margaritte for recalling the episode.) Essentially, they argue while in the Impala, Dean yells something hurtful at Sam, Sam decides he’s done taking Dean’s shit, gets out of the car and walks away, leaving Dean - who very clearly doesn’t want him to go but does not, can not tell him that - behind. Sound familiar? There may be more to it that I’m just not teasing out, as Dean and Sam were fighting about whether or not they should do as their father told them, Dean lashing out at Sam about being a ‘good son’ - whereas Dean and Cas where more or less fighting over... well... parenting a nephilim with a soul deficiency. There’s definitely a cyclical element there that fits, the son in S1 becoming the father in S15. The fact that the scene in 1x11 took place at the Impala, which was their ‘home’ at the time, and 15x03 took place in the bunker, which is.... well, you get the idea. I do find it incredibly interesting that many of these key scenes seem to take place with Dean at ‘home’ in the Bunker; the only reason he’s even there to answer the FBI phone in the Golden Time clip above is because he’s sat in the Bunker moping around in his pajamas while Sam and Eileen are out.

In short, if the underlying theme for S15 is ‘break the cycle’, as suggested by the symbolism of Felix the snake’s death, then there’s reason to believe (hope) that before the end of the series, Dean and Cas will progress their relationship beyond what we’ve seen so far.

[postmodernmulticoloredcloak]

What are your thoughts about how Dean's being treated in the narrative this season? I was excited starting out but so far, I've just been disappointed by how he just seems superfluous to the plot. And I don't understand why the writers seem to be taking shots at him in almost every episode. The Achilles' heel thing, putting responsibility for the rift on his shoulders (while Cas' part is handwaved away), Garth's snub in naming his children, his undisputed claim that Sam is better than him (1)

at everything, Fortuna’s insult…it’s just a lot. Maybe it wouldn’t be so jarring if Dean wasn’t the only character being consistently treated like that. To be fair, it hasn’t been all bad. I’ve liked some of his character development (although I find his new tendency to not voice his dissenting opinion a little worrisome, given his natural intuition) and there have been some awesome scenes like standing up to Chuck. But I just don’t know…(2)

Thank you for this ask! I think it’s an interesting thing to explore. I have been feeling a little iffy about some things this season, too, so I want to use this opportunity to sort through my own thoughts. It’s gonna get long so I’ll put a read more…

Let’s start from the easy part. 15x11: I don’t think that Fortuna was genuine when she made that comment about Dean, and we’re not supposed to take the beach read comment as a reliable perspective. All she does is a sort of test to read them; she lets both Dean and Sam win a match against her at first, as a sort of test but also as a trick to make her opponent confident and make him play again. Except that Dean’s second match is against a very talented player, and he wins not because he’s lucky, but because he’s genuinely skilled. He proves that his skills at pool - a shorthand for his skills in general, which they had been doubting of, wondering whether it was all Chuck - are real. 

Could skills beat luck? Probably not when luck is the goddess of luck herself, but I wonder whether Fortuna picked Sam as her opponent when stakes got high instead of Dean because she wanted to play against the less skilled of the two. I think that she’s playing them on and also off the pool table, and Dean realizes this when she goes “this one could be interesting”, you can tell from his reaction that he’s like “hey that’s a trick to play with the less skilled one of us” but Sam takes the bait. She also pretends to fall for Sam’s trick of distracting her by making her talk, just to reveal she can win whenever she wants to when the stakes are final. From what we’ve seen of her, I think we can infer that her modus operandi is to make people confident, so they’ll play again, higher the stakes, and then lose, not necessarily against her, just against someone, and lose their luck - she plays first with Dean when she doesn’t know who he is, and I assume it’s a common trick - let the newcomer win to stroke his confidence. (In gambling, the idea is to give players smalls wins to make them gamble more, and lose more.)

So, the narrative doesn’t give us any reason to believe that Dean isn’t right when he says that he is better than Sam at pool, and the point of the “beach read” comment is that he is not a beach read. Fortuna is supposed to be an unreliable narrator at that point, because she’s testing them. In fact, at the end, she rewards them on the ground of being “heroes”, which invalidates her previous statement, be it genuine or not.

Also consider that “sexy but skimmable” i.e. a pretty idiot, is the sort of taunt that Dean has received often in his life. If Fortuna is truly skilled at reading people, then she picks exactly something that has a history for Dean, and also something that has a history for Sam, i.e. that he’s more “interesting” (smart, skilled, whatever) than his brother. Coincidence?

That he’s pretty but otherwise worthless is something Dean has internalized by being told, not necessarily in words, over and over in his life. That reminded me of John’s old hunter friend who was like “didn’t you grow up pretty” and “if your father could see you now”. It took Dean a long time (and with plenty of fallbacks) to realize he’s more than a pretty face who follows orders. On the other hand, that he’s a more interesting “read” to Dean’s “beach read” is something Sam’s always had in his mind (he was the one who questioned the orders while Dean acted as John’s faithful little dog…) and it took him a long time, and some big blows to his own ego, to get out of that mindset.

So I don’t think it’s random that Fortuna goes for, you know, down with Dean and up with Sam, so to speak.

Dean’s statement that Sam is better than him at everything except pool - I read that as a very parental thing. It’s a very parent thing: telling your child that they’re proud of them for surpassing you. It should be the goal of a parent, you know, that your child is a better person than you - and a parent being like, you’ve become more skilled than me at my skills (except this one non-fundamental thing I can still kick your ass at :p) and I am proud of you, is a common trope.

So I read that as a small but very strong Dean-as-Sam’s-parent moment. Recently Sam also mentioned out loud that Dean raised him, so the writing team has not dropped this very important piece of characterization.

15x10. I think that the point is that Garth is Dean’s friend first and foremost. He doesn’t name his kids after his friends plural, he names his kids after the most important people for his friend singular. That’s how I read it at least. It’s weird because Dean hears one twin is named after Sam and assumes the two siblings are named after the two siblings, and the dissonance between his expectation and reality is what makes the humor. Also… Garth and Dean are a “who knows maybe in another life” kind of duo, you know…? They have a chemistry. Garth is Dean’s type, once you go past the appearances, and judging from Garth’s choice in wife, Dean’s pretty much his type too. You don’t name a child after that kind of person in your life.

Also, from a extra-diegetic perspective, Dean’s mirror is Gertie (from the name Gertrude meaning “strong spear/spear of strength”), the girl, because he’s always aligned with the feminine.

15x09. Now, this is the episode I’ve struggled the most with. Not sure if the problem is the episode itself, or the fact that the episode came after a season of the fandom acting a certain way towards Dean and Cas and their conflict, and that colored the episode a certain tint for me.

I’m kind of suspending judgement as I wait to see how the rest of the season goes and how Dean and Cas’ relationship develops, but my fear is that the narrative never really allows Dean to have emotions, so to speak, nor addresses Cas’ side of the issue(s). 15x09 itself is telling of a certain problem - Dean is experiencing certain emotions and going through a certain thing with Cas, but bam something happens that makes him terrified that he’s lost Cas again, and that forces him to scrap what he was going through. I’m not sure I’m explaining myself well here but bear with me.

He doesn’t get to sort through his emotions, he just goes in emergency mode again and the emergency just gives a yank to his emotions. I suppose the intent was “situation makes Dean realize he doesn’t want to lose Cas/he was wrong at making Cas the emotional scapegoat of his anger” but I don’t think it really worked. Dean was grieving and experiencing one of the most severe traumatic things in his life (actually, multiple at the same time). There’s no “right” or “wrong” in his emotions. I’m not saying that grief/trauma gives you a free card to be mean to others but… I mean, it does?? I think we’ve sort of created a culture of yelling “that’s abusive!!” at what are normal human experiences and expect that a person should act “properly” at all times. There’s a refrain of “x experience explains the behavior of y but doesn’t justify it!” which, sure, is valid with certain kinds of behavior, but there’s a whole jumble of normal human experiences in between “good” behavior and unjustifiable behavior.

Maybe I’m just culturally Catholic to the core, but all this pressure on Dean to beg for forgiveness for being harsh to Cas feels… iffy to me.

I guess I see forgiveness a bit differently, too, because I don’t think forgiveness - and especially when and how quickly you get there - is a choice. If Dean wasn’t emotionally ready to forgive Cas and open up emotionally to him again, then making him feel guilty for not being quick enough to get there is not exactly my idea of a healthy process.

Then there’s the “you didn’t stop me”, which, I get the whole thing behind it - Cas’ deepest fear is that Dean doesn’t care if he leaves, Dean’s deepest fear is that Cas is better off if he leaves, so, draaaama~~. But Dean has a history of people leaving him and feeling he can’t (isn’t worth) ask them to stay instead. Sure, it’s good drama. But I’m not sure that the narrative is allowing the space for understanding that Dean needs the emotional security of feeling like he’s worth to ask to stay just like Cas needs the emotional security of feeling like he has a place where he belongs and isn’t just a guest.

Again, I think it would be unfair to draw judgement of a narrative that is ongoing, and I hope that my fears are unfounded and the narrative will address what I wish it addresses! Of course with a little less than half a season still to go, emotional conflicts and character development can’t be wrapped up yet.

Another point you bring up is Dean’s reluctance to express his dissenting opinion. I do not think we have a pattern yet - his acceptance of Sam’s decision not to trap Chuck was intended, I guess, as a moment of growth in the sense that he acknowledged that Sam is a grown adult capable of drawing his judgement and make informed decisions, so he trusts Sam’s judgement and doesn’t drill him with questions. We still have to see how they all react to Jack’s revelation about Billie’s plan, so I would say to wait and see about that. Dean’s face at the end is not a “well this is excellent news” face, nor is Sam’s (who is framed after Jack talks about getting stronger, which is something Sam has a history with). Considering this season brought Lilith back, I’m sure they haven’t forgotten about Sam’s demon blood arc... I do wonder if Dean will avoid getting too confrontational with Cas, though. We’ll see.

Now, you say that he seems “superfluous to the plot”. I would normally say, well of course he’s superfluous to the plot, he’s the protagonist, he’s the one that reacts to the plot that happens around him. But I understand this is not the kind of answer you’re looking for. Honestly, I might be wrong, but I think that the first roughly-half of the season is the Male Part. The second part of the season should be the Female Part. In the first part, Chuck is rampant, Billie’s plan is dormant, Amara is minding her business and not being relevant to the plot, the plot is Sam-heavy, Rowena dies and reverts to playing a game of power, Mary is dead, Eileen is a piece played by Chuck. Now, with Billie’s plan being put in motion (although I don’t believe that’s the endgame or a Good Thing™ in unquestioning terms, but it’s still Death entering the game), I think a new phase should start. Dean confronting Chuck was already a start, and also how they got some support from a female deity that expressed negative opinions about Chuck -- I think that we’ve entered the second part of the season, and things are going to change. I’m looking forward to see what will be Amara’s role in all of this... especially considering that’s inextricably related to Dean’s role.

Feel free to ask for any clarification or addition or argument!!

[caranfindel]

Recap/review 15.03: “The Rupture”

THEN: Ghost/spirits/whatever, blah blah blah. The only thing of note here is that they choose to remind us that Sam is fated to kill Rowena. But I'm sure that doesn't mean anything. There are tons of reasons to include this. Tons.

NOW: We're still in Whatever-this-place-is-called, Kansas. Ghosts/spirits/whatever are still flinging themselves against the barrier. Sam's still in charge of the hunter troops. Expanded Team Free Will is back in the graveyard and they've got a plan that Rowena insists will work. It's a powerful spell that will "patch those holes up" in time for tea. (Rowena is back in a dramatic gown today, but I don't like the casual jacket she's wearing with it.) All she needs is a ghost-free space, which happens to be the mausoleum the gang found in 15.01. No one's thrilled about that. We also see the opening to Hell itself, which is a giant hole in the ground. It doesn't seem to give anyone PTSD, though.

[[MORE]]

The gang salts the perimeter of the mausoleum while Rowena mixes up her spell, and right away something evil starts banging on the doors. She recites something not-English, her eyes glow purple, and we see the battered barrier glowing purple as well. But then she looks disturbed and the purple glow fades and she gets more and more upset and then collapses. "We're all going to die!" she says.

Title card!

Rowena asks for a drink and then has to clarify that she means "a real drink," and we have a cute wordless conversation where Sam requests Dean's flask, Dean says what, MY flask, Sam says yes, asshole, and Dean says sigh, okay. It's precious.

It is, unfortunately, impossible to screencap, but I'm sure someone will GIF it. In the meanwhile, let's enjoy concerned Winchesters.

Rowena says the spell can't work because the spirits are too wild, too desperate, too angry, and too numerous. No magic on earth can stop "those walls" from falling. Within hours. (Did we really explain the walls? I guess it's the walls between earth and Hell? And why plural?) Dean decides they're going to keep fighting as long as they can. He tells Rowena to make more of those soul collectors, but she says it's pointless. Probably because Sam's wearing the orange jacket, so she doesn't see any reason to prolong the agony. She says she may have been able to shore up the wall if she'd gotten there sooner, but now the wall is too damaged for her to save.

Belphagar leaves, ignoring Dean's "where the Hell are you going!" and Cas goes after him. Dean continues yelling that they're not going to give up, that's not who they are, and Sam silences him with a single hand motion because he knows how I feel about him being Chiefly. Sam crouches next to Rowena and puts a concerned hand on her shoulder and asks if she needs anything because he knows I also love him being soft and concerned.

Who DOESN'T know?

Hey, if you don't want to read some serious Sam fangirling, you're in the wrong place. You should realize this by now.

Belphagar and Cas are out in the cemetery, where no one is bothering them even though something was knocking pretty vigorously on the mausoleum door. Belphagar wanted to look at the giant hole into Hell. "Where it all began."

Meanwhile, Dean's loading up. He's not just going to wait for the world to end, he's going out fighting.

He's angry and backlit, and I love both of those things.

Sam sits next to him and they have a lovely dark conversation where Sam says he's out of ideas but acts like he thinks there still must be something they can do, and Dean says Chuck's "sloppy-ass ghostpocalypse" isn't going to be the last word and acts like he thinks there's nothing they can do but die fighting. And Rowena just sits sad and quiet and alone, paging through the Book of the Damned. I do like that she kept it and uses it in front of the Winchesters. But she says she hasn't found anything useful.

Back outside, Belphagor says the opening in the ground isn't a door or a gate, it's a tear. And he has a plan. "Lilith's Crook" is a horn that Lilith used to control her demons - it can corral all demons and bring them back home. (BTW, nobody reacts to the name Lilith either. It's like seasons three through five never happened.) It's in Lilith's chamber, which is unsealed now that every door in Hell is open. If Belphagor uses it in Hell, all the demons and spirits will be sucked into Hell, and then Rowena can close the door once they're not pushing against it.

Rowena confirms that she has "a spell of my own devising" that she could use to close the door. Well, she said earlier that there were any number of spells she could have tried earlier, so surely this is one of those spells. It's a healing spell - if the opening is a wound, not a door, this will allow it to heal and close up. Sounds reasonable.

It will require perfect timing, and she'll need some strangely easy-to-obtain ingredients (which seems to be a theme this season, doesn't it). And an assistant. "Dibs on Samuel. You're as close to a seasoned witch as we've got in this lot." (!!!)

She also needs someone to hang out at the edge of the hole and toss the figurative "bomb." And it will be dangerous, so Dean naturally decides that's his job. Belphagor drafts Cas to go with him, since he'll need help getting past all the pissed-off demons and ghosts who will be down there. "Yeah, Cas will go," Dean says coldly. "You've been to Hell before." Well, I mean, everyone in this room has been to Hell before (assuming we count Rowena's visit to Limbo as Hell), so. Cas glares at Dean, clearly thinking yes, I harrowed Hell to raise you, and I regret it every day.

Cold and yet HOT.

Hospital. Ketch wakes up just in time to get killed by the demon Ardat, who astutely notes that he's protecting his friends and won't give them up. There's your redemption arc, Arthur Ketch. I hope you enjoyed it. Moving on. (Also, doesn't Ardat look like a cross between Joanna Gaines and Meghan Markle?)

Cemetery. Belphagor asks Cas how he's going to get out of Hell before Rowena seals it up, and makes sure Cas realizes that his buddies don't care that he might not make it out. Cas pushes Belphagor into the hole and jumps in after him.

Mausoleum. A hunter shows up with supplies and Sam gives her directions on what to do "if this goes sideways," even though those directions should probably be "kiss your ass goodbye." Dean gets a text from "Ketch" and responds by laying out their plan and providing their location. Uh oh.

Hell. It's actually mostly empty. Belphagor claims he made Cas come because he just wanted company, and he wants to become best buds with Cas, having wormed his way into the Winchester's hearts. "Sam and Dean are just using you," Cas says. "Don't mistake that for caring about you, because I can assure you, they don't." OH, CAS, YOU WOULD KNOW, WOULDN'T YOU. Cas reminds Belphagor that he's an abomination, and then opens the door to Lilith's chamber, which is being looted by another demon. Belphagor's friendly with the guy, but Cas kills him. Awkward.

The crook is in a box marked up with Enochian symbols, which apparently couldn't be read by any residents of Hell other than Lilith. (Well, we can assume the residents of the cage could read it, but.) Good thing Cas is here! So convenient. The markings are actually a song of praise to Lucifer. Cas reads it, but nothing happens, and Belphagor says "They're verses, Cas. I think they need to be sung." We don't have to listen to Cas sing the whole thing, but we do get Belphagor mocking his angelic voice.

The demon then tells Cas to make his escape, which kind of surprises me - I was sure this set-up wasn't meant to end with Cas surviving. Cas tentatively holds the horn out to Belphagor, but then is flung across the room by none other than Ardat. She expositions for us that Lilith's Crook would have allowed Belphagor to rule Hell. She begins to smack Belphagor down, but Cas attacks, and holds her off long enough for Belphagor to stab her with his angel blade.

Cas asks him if it's true he wants to rule Hell, and he's all, no, I want to rule EVERYTHING. He'll suck the power of all of the souls into him, and he'll become a God. "I don't think so," says Cas, and runs toward him. But Belphagor blows the horn, and the ghosts/spirits/whatevers start flowing back into Hell, and into Belphagor.

Cemetery. Dean approaches the hole and wonders where Ketch is.

Mausoleum. Sam is anxious, and wants to be outside, fighting. Rowena makes him read the book as she prepares the spell. (What is he reading? He's not reading aloud. What's the point? Is he memorizing it?) When they hear Belphagor blow the horn, Rowena announces "it's time." She and Sam hold hands (d'aw) and recite the spell. I guess he was memorizing it after all. The spell bowl begins to glow purple, as does the "bomb" I didn't even realize Dean was holding. Dean tosses it into the hole without even wondering if Cas will make it out. So I guess he's still mad at Cas, if you were wondering.

Hell. Cas finally makes his way to Belphagor and tackles him, stopping the horn. As Cas punches the demon, his sunglasses fall off, and he looks up at Cas with his burned-out eyes and pleads for him to stop. "It's me, Jack." Gotta say, Alex does a good job here of playing someone trying to sound like Jack and not quite succeeding. I was afraid Cas would fall for it, but he doesn't. In fact, this inspires him to do the glowy hand thing and burn Belphagor - and Jack's corpse - to a crisp. Too bad you didn't wait until he sucked up all the souls, Cas.

Topside. Sam calls Dean and learns that something doesn't feel right, and the crack is closing up. Meanwhile, Rowena picks up a knife and plunges it into her own shoulder. As Sam watches in horror, she reaches in and pulls out "my last resurrection sachet - won't need that where I'm going." She tells him the Lilith's Crook plan may have been his only shot, but she still has an option. Because magic can contain anything. Even Hell, as long as she's willing to pay the price.

Horrified/confused Sam. Mmmmm.

She tells him "death is an infinite vessel" but he doesn't get it yet. All she needs for this spell are two ingredients. Sam's all, you have them here? Why didn't you tell us? "Because, dear, the first ingredient is my own still-coursing blood, and the last is my final breath." She'll absorb all the spirits and then throw herself Hell (!!!) and then, when her body eventually rots and the spirits are released, they'll be back in Hell. (So I guess she has to toss the wound-healing spell in there too, somehow, but that's just details.) Sam tries to stop her with the Single Upraised Finger of Reason, but not only does she ignore that finger, she tells Sam he has to be the one to kill her. Y'all, I always love the Single Upraised Finger of Reason.

I would obey this finger.

Topside. Cas made it out of the Hell. Wow, I was worried there for a minute.

Mausoleum. Rowena insists Sam has to be the one to kill her, because the spell requires her "real, permanent demise," and Sam's the only one who can do that. It's in the books. "You know what?" says Sam "Screw the books." YES SAM.

Topside. Cas tells Dean he killed Belphagor and the crook was destroyed.

Mausoleum. Sam tries to take the knife from Rowena, but she holds it against her body. "I don't care about anything enough to take my own life. Not you, your brother, not even the world. But I believe in prophecy, I believe in magic, and everything we need to end this is right in our hands." I don't know, Rowena. Those books you're so insistent on believing? They've been known to change. Sam rests the knife against her but he's still fighting it, even though she's shouting "kill me, Samuel!"

Then she clamps a hand on his shoulder and says "I know we've gotten quite fond of each other, haven't we? But will you let the world die? Let your brother die? Just so I can live?" Oh, well, that was the right thing to say, wasn't it? (Also, can we just appreciate Rowena admitting she's quite fond of Sam?)

Topside: Dean yells at Cas. "This was our only shot! What the hell were you thinking?" I like that Dean doesn't even consider that Cas may have had a very good reason for killing a demon.

Mausoleum. Sam says a shaky little "no" and I think he's saying no, I'm not going to kill you but I am so wrong, because he goes in for what looks like a hug but he's actually plunging the knife into her abdomen. He holds her close as he stabs her and then pulls back to look in horror at what he's done. Rowena PUTS HER HAND ON HIS FACE AND SAYS "THAT'S MY BOY" AND SHE'S NOT DEAD YET BUT I AM. Then she pushes the blade in further, because apparently Sam didn't do it hard enough, which brings up an interesting question - what if Sam's stab wasn't fatal? Does any of this still count?

SAAAAAAAAMMMMMMM!!!!!!

Topside. As Rowena walks to the Hell hole, all of the spirits are seen flowing into her wound. I want Sam to hug her again, without a knife (OMG IMAGINE IF SAM HAD TO ACTUALLY PUSH HER INTO THE HOLE) but instead they hang back. She turns and says "goodbye boys," just like her son did, stands at the edge, and then dramatically falls into the hole just before it closes. Sad MacLeod music! (which I rather like)

Goodbye, boys.

Aftermath! Sam's sitting sadly on his bed. Dean comes in wearing a single layer, and it's a henley, and Sam's entire shirt is unbuttoned, so thank you baby Jesus for this bit of comfort we surely need after all that hurt. He asks how Sam is holding up, and Sam doesn't answer that question. He just wipes his eyes and makes a how do you think noise and asks if there's any word from Stevie, who I guess is one of the other hunters. Yeah, and the word is that the town is good, but Ketch is dead. "Bad. Probably demon."

We did it though, man. It's over. God threw one last apocalypse at us, and we beat it.

...

Yep.

What you did. Rowena. You didn't have a choice.

...

I know.

Oh, Sam! His soft sad little "yep," his reaction to Ketch, the way his little face scrunches up when Dean says Rowena's name... And Dean's trying to hard to be supportive.

Oh boys.

Aftermath part 2. Dean's drinking whiskey when Cas comes in and asks how Sam is. Dean's very short with him, and asks why he didn't just follow the plan. Because sure, Belphagor was going to suck up all the power of every soul in Hell and become the worst Big Bad ever, but Dean thinks they just would have figured that out afterward. And Dean has a point, but I don't know if it's the one he thinks he has. Cas didn't know Rowena had a self-sacrificial Plan B in mind. The only information he had was that if Belphegor didn't trap all the spirits in Hell, they'd end up destroying the world. And he killed Belphegor anyway. So yeah, Dean's mad because Rowena is dead, but the issue IMHO isn't that Cas's actions forced Rowena to take extreme measures, it's that they would have destroyed the world had she not been able to do that.

The plan changed, Dean. Something went wrong. You know this. Something always goes wrong.

Yeah, why does that something always seem to be you?

You used to trust me, give me the benefit of the doubt. Now you can barely look at me. My powers are failing and I've tried to talk to you over and over and you just don't want to hear it. You don't care. I'm dead to you. You still blame me for Mary. I don't think there's anything left to say.

Where you going?

Jack's dead. Chuck's gone. You and Sam have each other. I think it's time for me to move on.

Sad Winchester music!

Oh. Wow. That was really cold, Dean. Now you're not trying to be supportive at all.

But we get your angry face, which I adore.

So! There's a lot packed into this episode, isn't there? So many deaths. I was surprised that both Belphegor and Ardat bit it, since I presumed one or both of them would be Big Bads this year. Are we down to just Chuck, then? There's also whatever Billie is cooking up with dead Jack; I guess that could be badness. Ketch is gone, which I'm honestly fine with. The only bad thing about Cas walking out is that it means we're going to have a separate Cas plot again, which I'm not thrilled about. And Rowena. I mean, I love her and will miss her, but I should be gutted, and I'm not. Is it because I know we're saying goodbye to all of them soon anyway? Is it because I've decided this is going to happen? Maybe.

But that's so many deaths for one episode. Is this the endgame? Just killing every supporting character we can think of?

And let me just point out that if any of this plot feels familiar - Rowena recognizes Sam as a witch and has him do a spell, secretly comes up with a world-saving spell that requires her death, and forces Sam to fulfill his prophecy by stabbing her, no matter how hard he protests - if any of this feels the slightest bit familiar, could it be because I ALREADY WROTE IT? Maybe.

(Waves to Robert Berens, who surely reads my LJ.)

Anyway. Please help me stay unspoiled, thanks!

[naruhearts]

14x10: Dean Free Will Winchester, Destiel, TFW, and the Only Win

Originally posted by michaeldean

*trips over feet*

I still have no proper words re: the seamless interconnections of TFW/Dean/Emotional Arc-centric meta that most of the meta community has already yelled and written extensively about since S12. 14x10 was a META EXPLOSION, my friends. I had complete chills!! Yockey’s magnificent soup lent us years of Dean/TFW-characteristic meta narratively realized like some colourful picnic basket of psychology.

I’m sure I missed some awesome stuff considering I haven’t rewatched it yet, but for now, here’s my semi-coherent first-impression thoughts (some of which I copy-pasted from twitter) under the cut!!

On the other hand, if you don’t want to read this massive post, it can be succinctly summarized in one phrase:

Originally posted by @intelligentshipper

Dean is the cage. Man, yes I know, the NARRATIVE WEIGHT AND SYMBOLISM OF DEAN LOCKING HIMSELF UP; Dean’s possibly in “physically rough shape” (translation: emotionally rough shape) inside the cage he built for himself. As the Master of Repression and Locking Up Emotions, this unhealthy psychological mechanism in this case becomes his controlled strength against the core of his trauma and everything Michael represents *points at Dean meta* therein lies the beautiful paradox of the human condition. Dean Humanity Winchester is the poster boy for it. It’s all led to this! Don’t you love when our characters undergo self-translation from unwanted/coerced destiny to chosen role (after Michael manipulated Dean’s freely given “Yes”. And recall the same key theme with Sam occupying the position of Gatekeeper to Hell re: Lucifer trauma in 14x01)? 

x

14x10 in itself offsets the rest of what we’re gonna see characteristically as per TFW’s individual narrative journeys (and Destiel arc; we’ve observed the continuation of Dean and Cas role reversals as per usual, with Mind!Pamela and Father Figure Michael serving as heavy-hitter Casifer-reminiscent exposition). “Nihilism” and “Damaged Goods” paired through subversion, where Dean going on a ‘suicide’ mission via imprisoning himself with Michael isn’t done out of SOLE low self-worth (don’t get me wrong, he still hasn’t fully emancipated himself yet) but mostly 50% low self-worth and 50% martyrdom for his loved ones. Toxic codependency is no longer the basis of Dean’s self-sacrificial choices, but LOVE AND…LOVE. However, Dean still assumes he deserves to imprison himself. Michael capitalizes on Dean’s depressive trauma and low self-worth in that his conditioning since childhood to internalize self-blame for Sam and Cas’ problems - the world’s problems - works in the Archangel’s favour. He both projects Dean’s fears onto Sam and Cas then breeds their self-doubt by framing them as lacking genuine altruistic value to Dean and hitting TFW where it hurts altogether. A double-double coffee of anguish. 

Here we come back to Michael’s overarching role this season as the Harbinger of Truth (as I wrote about when the season first began x x) 

Michael!Dean assumes he knows what people want, and yes, maybe in some respects he does in fact know, but I mentioned that he distorts a person’s sense of “worthiness to be saved” (oh, I wonder where I heard that previously) by exploiting their self-hate/respective mental uncertainty of their wants vs needs.

That’s the GOLD about Michael’s role: he’ll be uncovering an entire interpersonal discourse on the characters figuring out (and using their damn communicative skills to accentuate) what they WANT vs. NEED. Again, clarification of truths. 

In 14x10, we were largely reminded of Michael and his intrinsic link to S14′s themes and TFW (copy-pasted from my 14x01 review meta; meta builds and builds on itself!):

WHAT DO YOU WANT, A New Beginning (a New World Order, a Better World in Michael’s case reminiscent of S6/7 like I expected. Michael is the absolute antithetical figure to Dean Humanity Winchester, who is blinded by authoritarianism), Love Is Weakness (Love is also STRENGTH, and different kinds of love exist, where we see more singular vs plural dialogue e.g. Cas’ “You have me. You have all of us”) and Family Is Unity.The fact that Michael is the one asking people what they want, specifically directing it to Anael the Destiel/Cas mirror (which she was in 13x13), bodes VERY well for me. He’s going to hold a key overarching position in the clarification of truths and Want Vs Need for TFW with significant flavours of past Eldritch Expositional Big Bads like Amara. Anael is feeling a lack of kinship. She desires belonging. A home. And it’s all very human of her. Because of this emotionality, Anael has FALLEN.

What is your truth? Confront your truth. Accept what you see in the mirror (like I was saying the other day) and glue that broken reflection back together into something empowering. Honest. Genuine. Self-actualizing. And considering Dean is imprisoned within his own body (confinement/imprisonment was again tangible across the episode both plot, visual, and characteristic-wise where TFW, impacted by Dean the Heart Hero’s absence, left a gloomy sense of detachment, helplessness, expendability, and failure internalization) and considering Dean is no doubt hearing Michael reiterate this main thematic question has me buzzing with the joys of self-introspection!!

What do you want, Dean Winchester? What do you want, Cas? What does everyone want?

**Michael additionally gauges the purity of potential recruits for his Supermonster army via hunger. What are you hungry for? What do you crave? Seemingly calls back to S5 Famine and the emptiness derived from losing something alongside experiencing trauma. And when Michael offers you the misleading opportunity, will you take it? Are you worthy? Michael distorts worthiness (Dean’s worthiness; indeed, Dean fills the episode’s negative spaces) by exploiting self-hate. Cas enhances (Dean’s) worthiness by providing freedom.

The “turning point” between Dean and Cas in 12 may actually be Dean saying goodbye (then perhaps finding out about Cas’ deal; we shall see). This could call back to 11x23, where Dean was also surrounded by his family pre-sacrifice. Dean thinking he needs to “die” - to lock himself up - in order for them to win may segue into TFW “wishing” things were different, thus somehow inducing John’s return (and possibly Chuck’s re: Daddy Issues) in 14x13.

Dean wasn’t left alone at the end of the episode. His family - Sam and Cas - were there with him as the wonderful antithesis re: Michael isolating Dean. Separating family ends up unifying family, BUT like I said above, he was still able to hit them where it hurt. Michael the Manipulator used words to twist their thoughts into self-doubt - sow self-discord, yet TFW worked as a unit to strike back. Lessons learned: stronger together, weaker apart.

x

Sam and Cas occupying the dark Empty-parallel space in Dean’s mind. His MIND was an EXPOSÉ. ALL THE TRAUMA, and it’s incredibly significant that we observed Cas scanning Dean’s traumatic memories (obviously he’s an angel, but the meta undercurrents of this killed me). Cas has now actually seen/felt/heard Dean’s trauma, anguish, and long-running depression instead of Dean using his words to tell him about such trauma; it’s ingenious storytelling, not to mention Sam introspecting over Dean’s own trauma in order to find him was SUPER uplifting and META ironic --> Finding Dean involves happiness. Most importantly, Cas was witness to Dean’s low self-worth, negative self-process, failure internalization, and fear of the future without blinking, yet he also displayed total worry, compassion, and barely concealed panic - as if he couldn’t bear to think about the multilayered traumatic prison that Michael trapped Dean within. Sam said “Dean is strong.” Cas replies that Dean is “more than strong.” To Cas, Dean’s strength of mind, body, and soul shines, and this is why he’s in love with this man - his charge. He loves him in the face of his trauma and past mistakes. Once I have time, I should discuss the memories we heard, but of course they involve his time in Hell (and his S3 mirror telling him he will become a demon. Moc/Demon!Dean callbacks). 

CAS: So much. So much trauma in Dean’s mind. There’s so many scars.

SAM: Well yeah. Dean’s been through a lot, but he’s strong.

CAS: Sam...you’ve both been through a lot, and Dean is more than strong [...] Because Michael has Dean trapped away - drowning - I have to wade through Dean’s most terrible memories.

SAM: Would Michael bury Dean in trauma? Michael said it himself. The reason he left Dean in the first place was because Dean was fighting back so hard. 

CAS: So if Michael wanted to keep Dean placated--

SAM: Dean thrives on trauma. He’s had to his whole life. It keeps him alert -- keeps him ready. But if I wanted to distract Dean, I’d give him something he’s never had before.

CAS: Contentment. 

x

(**Sam’s right, but he’s also wrong. Dean “thrived” on trauma because he had to as the consequence of a misguided John-imbued childhood, where he mostly skipped over the innocent era of being a healthily developing child and became an adult overnight: father, mother, and brother rolled into one. A good little soldier, and he created various masks of performativity in response to trauma. Multiple tiny seeds of self-doubt grew into worthless that then bred emotional misarticulation, repression, and psychological instability. x)

14x10 majorly ties into SPN’s season-long storytelling commentary on TFW’s perception of Happiness and the overarching themes of Happiness vs Sadness. Cas stated to Jack how The Life™ rarely gives oneself happiness last episode. Ultimately, can you believe Dean’s accrued trauma has been textualized like this?! 

Michael knows that Dean has never been happy. 

Dean never lets himself have what he wants to have nor be who he wants to be. He is entrapped by fearing real happiness, and his trauma holds him back from achieving what he wants - continues to make him believe that he doesn’t deserve to be content.

And Dean certainly wants Cas. He is fully cognizant and self-aware of this fact. Narratively reconsolidated in musical exposition by the Marshall Tucker Band’s “Searchin’ for a Rainbow”, Dean searches for the rainbow endlessly, but he’s uncertain…afraid of the wind’s flow (and his internalization of low self-worth remains –> he believes “all good things come to an end”. Temporary contentment, where he’s undeserving of such good things as epitomized by real estate woman who wants to infringe on Dean’s property/dream; ‘sell it out’ literally and figuratively).

Either Dean will find his pot of gold waiting for him, or he won’t, and this is the underlying star-crossed literary beauty of the D/C narrative.

Dean’s sick of pretending. He WANTS the wind to show him the way, but we must remember that, in an episode rich with the concept of authorial authority - writing your own fate and ever-glaring Free Will - he NEEDS to blow the wind himself. If he just allows himself to believe that he can have true happiness, then he will.

*I SCREAM, YOU SCREAM, WE ALL SCREAM FOR META-INTROSPECTION!* 

Michael’s “I Am You” —> Dean knows he is Michael - the reflection who embodies all the dark parts of himself, just like Dark!Kaia underlined - but he also knows he isn’t Michael, and Dean will use it to his advantage. Dean has what Michael lacks: FAMILY. x

“EVEN GOD CAN DIE.” This cracks open so many parental absenteeism eggs. Cas’ conversation with Michael over Chuck, the ultimate deadbeat absent father figure, was simply an outlet for Michael to attribute his self-righteously immoral actions to his fatherly abandonment. Bitterness. And Cas, more humanized than ever, is aware of Michael’s shortcoming: “confusing loyalty and compassion with weakness”, thus these perceived “weaknesses” are foils to Michael’s preference for isolation, solitude, mercilessness, betrayal, and hatred.

 MICHAEL: Playing nursemaid to a nephilim. Nothing like the Castiel I knew. He would’ve never been so...anemic. 

Loyalty and compassion are human traits - despised by most angels such as Naomi and Ishim; belittled by Michael - that Cas recognizes and practices. *human!Cas feelings* He has evolved, and as I said in my 14x01 Cas meta: 

Earth [is] the true home of Cas the Fish, which bridges his intrinsically human emotionality/disposition as an ex-Angel of The Lord to his sense of belonging. Growing legs to replace fins. Evolution of character. And Dean Winchester, right from their point of contact in Perdition, was the driving spark for his evolution.

“It’s all you,” Dean says to his reflection in the mirror, a repeated mantra, as Michael tries to break out of Dean’s mind, bringing my pre-14x01 meta of MIRRORS to light!! Dean confronted the reflection of himself that he has always hated, where the deep-seated worthlessness that he must eliminate is buried with Michael -- the narrative embodiment of Dean’s toxic shackles: predeterminism, Brodependency, parental absenteeism, repression, toxic misemotionality, and blunt tool expendability as his father’s hammer and society’s hammer. I adore Dean’s consistent self-awareness over the seasons as he learns to differentiate what he can and cannot control. And Michael is jailed inside a FRIDGE *light bulb explodes* It’s time to achieve self-actualization. Sure progress.

DEAN’S “ROCKY’S BAR” EASTER EGGS, MIND!PAMELA BARNES AND DESTIEL

Rocky’s Bar (Rocky & Bullwinkle & Friends!!) was an EASTER EGG meta dream set by Wanek, with thematic colours of blue (depression, loneliness, and isolation -- blue is immediately evoked as soon as Dean starts gaining self-awareness of his past trauma-laden life and remembers the real Pamela), dim reds and somber yellows. GOOD STUFF!!

@intelligentshipper​ wrote/gathered superb colour meta on this consistent palette of Self + Depression this season - RED || BLUE & YELLOW || I’ve also briefly touched upon the recurring hues that we saw in another hardcore meta episode: Scoobynatural 13x16.

Hello bisexual colours (pink, purple, blue in this setting; observe the metaphor of this very moment - Repressive Toxic Past/Paternal Figure Michael wrestling for dominance over Dean. We live in a meta world.)

Without sounding redundant, here’s the list of Easter Eggs by sasquatchandleatherjackets/mittensmorgul. 14x10 bursts with so much symbolism that it warrants >2 rewatches!

SEARCHIN’ FOR A RAINBOW by the Marshall Tucker Band playing in Dean’s bar (see above):

I rode into town today In my mind, I said 'Lord I'd like to stay' Something in me said boy, move on Don't know what it is the good lord bred it in my bones

And I'm searchin for a rainbow, and if the wind ever shows me where to go, you'd be waiting at the end and I know, I'd see the hill with that pot of gold.

This old mount I'm ridin', she's gettin' kinda' tired But in my heart she knows there's this one desire She's gonna' take me to the end of our road

One of my favourites: the Daphne Loves Fred carved on the bar counter!! Fred, who represented Dean’s healthy masculinity -- was loved by Daphne, the dual counterpart of Dean’s non-repression: the side of him that adores wearing pink nightgown dresses, pink satin panties, vegetable water, romcoms and romance novels...the side of him that adores and embodies everything defined as “feminine” within a heternormative patriarchy. Reiterating past meta, Daphne also symbolized the traditional poster woman he should be attracted to, but never truly obtains for himself. Why? Because his true desires break tradition, and Dean’s subconscious knows this. They break his harrowing past of repression and psychological toxicity. They throw away what John Winchester wanted for him. x

 And in this--

FB = Winchester “Family Business” = Jensen’s Family Business Beer Co, with FOX RYE and (phallic-shaped) COSMIC COWBOY as FBBC drinks (and the latter evoking 13x06 Space Cowboy and Cowboy!Cas. This episode, guys. WOW.) 

Moving onto Michael’s subtextually telling construct of Pamela Barnes --

x

Mind!Pamela, well, she blew MY mind! @thetwistedwillow already describes amazing crucial points here. And let me provide commentary on the riveting and pertinent subtextual D/C double whammy of their office scene together:

DEAN: How come you always have a boyfriend?

PAMELA: How come you only want what you can’t have? You don’t want me -- you just like to flirt. Besides, I’m a psychic, so I kinda know.

DEAN: All right.

Mind!Pamela asking Dean why he only wants what he can’t have, linked to Pamela having a boyfriend, establishes romantic connotations. Pamela was D/C exposition.

There’s truth in jokes. Pamela's lines to Dean could be construed as genuine interest, but Yockey actually shot that down via Pamela confirming that the flirting is just for fun, with Dean not actually wanting her, and it nudges at the Destiel context. To me, if you move this outside the D/C context, it would make no sense, because the real Pamela did kiss Dean. They had a passing attraction to each other. Why not have them kiss again, then? Well, Pamela encapsulated both Dean’s subconscious psyche and Michael’s mouthpiece. And by Freudian design, both Dean and Michael know who he truly wants. 

Cas is once again ensconced in the negative spaces.

Keeping in mind that Michael has seen Dean’s memories and feelings via possessing him, Michael’s construct of Pamela in the bar setting was, in certain respects, his unsaid Empty-parallel statement: “I know who you love - what you fear.”

Dean wants what he can’t have. He still thinks he doesn’t deserve Cas, and indeed, in his heart of hearts - in the deepest crevices of his being - Michael knows (like most Expositional Eldritch Villains do e.g. S11 Amara) who he loves and what he fears (manipulating Dean’s fears into snake-tongued attacks on Sam and Cas; those statements aren’t true, but human beings are contradictory, and Dean thinking such things about them long ago can still plant self-doubt today, but TFW are strong, and it’s all about conquering negative self-process to come out on the other side unscathed. I mean oh boy, we thought Lucifer was the prime expert on manipulation. Michael’s just as bad as his brother, if not worse.)

Dean is in love with the angel “who gripped you tight and raised you from perdition” (spot-on impersonation by Jensen) and Michael knowing the exact words then punches me in the feels because it’s a profound line...the iconic line verbalized by Cas to Dean in 4x10 Lazarus Rising that offset their love story later on. It’s the prime beginning.

x

To me, Michael hereby implies that he saw Dean’s memory of the first time he set his eyes upon Cas, and that it’s a highly valued memory which caused Michael to taunt it in the first place.

Like others have already pointed out as well, Dean’s memory of Pamela shows True!Form Cas blinding her in 4x01, and that certain memory, on an intriguing note, successfully breaks Dean out of the dream construct.

Since I don’t want to subject my readers to longer rambling, more of my meta on Pamela Barnes, Destiel, and the 13x06 Tombstone M/F Destiel-coded cowboy cutouts in Dean’s Mind Bar can be found here (with some repeated points that you’ve read throughout this post): http://naruhearts.tumblr.com/post/182144879031/14x10-destiel-cowboys-and-pamela-barnes

- - - - 

TL;DR sign me up for the necessary pain!! All the TFW storytelling threads of the last few seasons consistently pushing SPN’s primary themes of Family, Unity, Love and…Love, New Beginnings, Self-Actualization and, of course, mental/emotional CATHARSIS from the old toxic past, will come together. 

On another Destiel-adjacent note: Dean and Cas, their narratives running parallel to each other like they always have (especially since S12), are making the toughest, selfless, and sacrificial choices to save their loved ones (via Michael and Empty) and achieve the greatest win of all: living, hoping, and trusting interdependently.

And then Sam -- additionally making an impossible non-toxic codependent decision that I definitely believe is him giving Dean the go-ahead for self-imprisonment -- will encounter John in Endverse-adjacent AU!AU. *rubs hands together* CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT AHEAD.

DEAN’S CAGE/SARCOPHAGUS, 14x11 PROMO, AND FREE WILL

(Screenshot by me from my TV lol)

Obviously we saw very little of 14x11. But I saw enough to flail over it!! 

Dean built a coffin - a sarcophagus for himself. A Pandora’s Box, as coined by @thetwistedwillow who also screamed with me in terms of the heartbreaking circular narrative of Dean’s S14 ‘burial’: simultaneously punishing himself and protecting the world from his failures --> the dual subtext of Dean’s return to ashes that naturally leads to resurrection. Lazarus Rising to Lazarus Dying. 

x

Aka Dean imprisoning himself via isolation on his own free will and ultimately subverting Michael’s efforts to imprison Dean via coercion and possession.

I can’t even believe the sheer metaphorical symbolism of this!! CLOSET!BOX. Seriously. Again, years of Dean meta (and queer Dean meta) roped together in an angsty paradoxical basket by Yockey and co.

For Dean to emancipate himself—and save his loved ones + the world—he’s gotta imprison himself with the current source of his trauma (Michael) as well as deconstruct and deal with all the other remaining trauma he bottled up. Lazarus will rise again.

As Billie says, every single one of Dean’s endgame deaths were rewritten (this textualized TFW as the harbingers of their own destiny, where Dean himself “broke enough rules” to get his endgames rewritten!! I can’t tell you enough how gorgeous that is.), and they all end the same way, with Michael breaking free and using Dean to burn the world to the ground...EXCEPT FOR ONE.

(I had to) x

x

Guys, I’m burning with curiosity!! What endgame did Dean see? Utter shock was written across his face -- an intense disbelief and surprised demeanor, topped off with what seemed like tears in his eyes -- that gave me pause. 

DEAN: What am I supposed to do with this?

BILLIE: That’s up to you.

That’s up to you --> Anubis said: Death, the reapers, and even God have no say. All the rules? All the cosmic constraints? They’re just useless in itself. They pass away. There are no rules. TFW “broke the rules” over and over and over again because they can.

A person’s choices in life dictate their fate.

“It’s about the journey, not the destination.”

In 4x03 In The Beginning (this title, y’all - authors and stories!!), no matter what Dean did to try and kill Azazel so that the subsequent murders of Mary’s parents, John, and the penultimate deal to resurrect John at poor Sammy’s expense are avoided, Dean realized that he could not alter Mary’s choices. Azazel still ended up poisoning Sam with demon blood. He couldn't influence her endgame because she wrote it herself in conjunction with external parties Cupid and Heaven (huh, forced free will paradox). At the same time, Mary’s journey invokes the key subverted difference of the Dean/Cas vs Mary/John parallel narrative which is fundamentally important to remember -- Free Will vs Destiny. Chosen Love vs Fated Love. Mary freely operated on fate’s influence, while Dean and Cas’ first meeting proliferated into a love story no one has ever foreseen, where they both defied subservient expectations and destiny fulfillment. 

From the first point of contact, Dean and Cas seared their influence upon the other in the form of a profound brand. 

x

Dean and Cas can make their own choices -- and have done so -- outside of predetermined plans for them. Dean and Cas’ love in itself blossomed out of free choice. Through rough seas, high tides, bright beaches, and hellfire, their love proved impervious. It was impervious to Heaven, Hell, reapers, and any supernatural force we’ve observed that tried to split them apart over the course of the show.

Attempting to constrain (Love and...) love, the greatest and most powerful force in the universe, is impossible.

The Second Law of Thermodynamics: chaos in the universe, which is the ultimate isolated system, only increases and never decreases.

Cosmic constraints all boil down to, well, nothing. We write our own fates. Michael failed to understand this concept. Destiel/TFW weren’t “defying” rules but acting as human beings with inherent agency the whole time. They are the authors and actors of their lives. Heaven/Hell despised humanity’s free will, when God’s miracle was truly his “mistake”: his draft worlds and giving humans free will. The flawed drafts = the universe becoming increasingly more chaotic.

It’s futile to enforce constraints, labels, and norms. Dean is absolutely narratively framed as the prime Death. The death one encounters depends on one’s choices.

In sum, Dean must LET IT GO. Do what you want to do, not what you need to do, though they go hand-in-hand. Drawing upon the last few seasons pertaining to baptism of the Self and interpersonal relationships, this includes communication, transparency, and quality time together.

x

As I’ve said here regarding 14x07 and Jack’s mirror role: 

We had these wonderfully poignant moments pushing back Dean’s performance: exposing the core of his heart wrapped up in the walls of trauma, guilt, and crippled self-process. Dean sees his Free Self, who is waiting…encouraging him to let go and live life to the fullest.

His Free Self is starting to break the water’s surface — has been doing so this entire cathartic S14 narrative of looking in the mirror (actively hammered down in 14x04/5/6).

Dean’s realizing that yes, life may not be all these big, amazing moments. There’s numerous valleys of pain, horror and death. But there’s also numerous rivers of optimism and joy (hello to the river they visited in this episode. It pretty much re-consolidated SPN’s Rebirth/New Beginning themes carrying over from S12: a baptism of the self and interpersonal relations). Family and friendship. Faith and love. He simply needs to cast his line, catch the fish Cas, and pull it out of water for good aka make the dreams, wants, and desires reality.

As @thetwistedwillow pointed out, Dean’s initial offer to head out to a potential hookup bar was a foil for Jack the Non-Performative mirror of Dean: the wingman move winking at the old (DYING) remnants of his John-polished performativity and calling back to Dean bringing newly minted Cas to the brothel in Free to Be You and Me, in that the night took an unexpectedly not-salacious but sentimental turn. That night, Dean hasn’t laughed so hard in years, even with his own brother.

8 years later, Jack knew what Dean’s heart truly wanted. He felt it. Jack rejected the hookup offer precisely because — just last episode — he perceived Dean’s natural tune. It was casual sex, shacking up, and adios (yes postmodernmulticolouredcloak) no longer. It was romance and courting before dating, which involved emotional exploration and ding ding ding, spending time together (also both on the familial and romantic levels -> BEING THERE with Dean: the key gesture conveying that he deeply matters to you, and you matter to him). Jack wanted the same thing, too.

It all comes full circle. Free to be you and me indeed, since Dean’s almost free of John’s ghost, as a father, brother, and husband. We’ll be here to witness his complete emancipation.

14x10 textualized Free Will and the neverending stories of neverending stories of neverending stories: we can do what we want by formulating our own rules, and each individual has a moral compass influenced by their differing experiences.

Whatever Dean’s seen -- we don’t know what he saw, and we may not EVER know, and it’s literally pure conjecture at this point, but for the sake of meta speculation...legitimate HAPPINESS? His dream bar epitomized in real life but even better, where the realism of it involves not having to sell out ANYTHING nor sell out HIMSELF? Retirement? Dying from old age? Marrying Cas? The ACTUAL beach, toes in the sand, umbrella drinks, with matching Hawaiian shirts? General BAD things leading to good things? Yes, this is Supernatural, and as Cas put it in 14x09: no one can experience permanent happiness in The Life™ , but recall subversion. Death preceding Life - the natural cycle - persists. Dabb & Co have created an SPN narrative plethora of New Beginning cyclism for a while now, so of course I have no doubt that a positive endgame is in the cards -- whatever Dean’s read has stimulated Dean’s motives to build his sarcophagus. He thinks he has an idea of what to do to get to this endgame or (what I expect/hope is) Happy Death?

Heck, in the 14x10 context of Author God, writing drafts, and reaper books -- what if his ending is: 

TA-DA!

It’s up to Dean to write his own ending. He has a blank slate as Author of his life.

The possibility of this blank slate ending as a win at first glance seems to entail the worst kind of choice -- since we all know repressing your trauma and emotions aka locking yourself up breeds maladaptive unhealthiness in the long run -- but it’s an absolutely necessary choice. The final countdown before self-actualization.

I kept saying it last season and I’ll say it again --

Dean Depressed Winchester must “die” so that Dean Self-Actualized Winchester can live. Dean building Pandora’s Box - CLOSET!BOX - for himself is LITERALLY an amalgamation of ‘Deal with your Trauma & Self’.

He should open the closet of happiness, embody self-acceptance, and go after what makes him happy -- what makes him psychologically wholesome, for Cas himself, Dean’s narrative half, tells the truth of his root fears: 

x

Dean does deserve to be saved. He deserves happiness in all of its variant forms -- the eclectic rainbow of beach vacations, retirement, Rocky’s Bar, finding romantic love -- and he must try to believe it himself. His closet!box is the catalytic literal/metaphorical object for this chief realization. 

And to emphasize how important the burial is regarding Dean’s psychological progression, ta-da, my 13x20 Dean meta still applies today, primary themes carried over into S14 by Dabb & Co:

And what are Dean’s WINS (plural) by dying? Saving people instead of losing people–saving Mary, Jack, Sam, and Cas. Saving the world. Reuniting his family unit. Interacting instead of performing. OUTING INSTEAD OF HIDING. HIGH DEPRESSIONLESS SELF-WORTH INSTEAD OF LOW DEPRESSIVE SELF-WORTH.

Better yet, Dean will undergo character development in relation to his loved ones (and Cas). With high self-worth, Dean’s capable of learning how to value HIMSELF independently. In turn, without personal obstacles he’ll learn how to sustain HEALTHY interdependent relationships and COMMUNICATION as well as learn how to WHOLLY GIVE HIMSELF to others (Cas).

Tell Cas he’s not expendable, Dean. Disclose the real reason YOU “needed him back”. Expose your feelings, choose Want over Need, and push away your rejection fears! Cas loves you dearly—let him know that his love for you is reciprocated. Nothing but good things ahead!!

And that’s the mystery of life: to live is to die. To die is to live. By “dying”, Dean saves his loved ones. He saves the world. He saves Cas, his romance-coded (sub)textual lover, Jack his son, and Sam his brother -- his family.

He saves himself. 

His mind, his rules.

And Dean doesn’t know FOR SURE if this burial choice will lead to a win -- neither do we know if he’ll go through with it until 14x11 airs -- but that’s AGENCY, my friends. It’s the meat of particular Time Travel Is Bad tropes: if we know our ending, life loses meaning. The choices we make to get there loses value. Humanity loses unpredictability. Ergo the journey through life - the POINT of living - is about executing choices and taking chances.

"If nothing we do matters, then all that matters is what we do." - Camus, Absurdism 

The biggest reminder governing my SPN viewing as it had last season:

[tinkdw]

hi I don’t know if it’s just me, but does it feel like d/c’s relationship has been kind of stagnant for the past few seasons...? i just don’t sense much development but it could all be in my head. maybe it’s bc cas can’t be in every episode so it feels like he has a very set role

The TL;DR version is: WE, the audience, know they love each other romantically. THEY are written as thinking they can’t have each other (he doesn’t love me that way / I’m only needed not wanted / everything I touch turns bad / I’ve done nothing but screw up his life / I’m poison). 

Cue audience frustration

Why?

Dean/Cas as romantic since mid season 11 has been growing at an alarmingly massive rate but it has grown as a love story core to the plot, not as a bunch of wink wink nudge nudge moments as it had been many times previously.

It’s not a JOKE anymore it’s CORE TO THE PLOT.

So yeah, we haven’t had so many moments like Thelma and Louise or lip licking  or boner scenes but we’ve had Cas literally tell Dean he’s in love with him then telling the rest of the family that he loves them, surrounded by a bunch of peripheral characters prior to this in s12 doing their own rendition of singular v plural (like Magda’s mom “she did this to me, she did this to us” etc) then finally in season 13 this came back again with Jack’s reminder of this moment in the finale just as Dean is with Cas and saying yes to Michael to save the others and the world just as Cas originally helped him avoid. Of all the ironies amiright.

Because in between this we had the Empty literally telling Cas he knows who he loves and that there’s nothing for him there and Dean running around for 3 years yelling “what about CAS?!” at every opportunity.

It couldn’t be clearer that Dean’s mourning for Cas was different to Sam’s. That Dean’s grief is what caused Jack to reach through the veil and wake Cas up. Insert gif of “gay love pierces the veil and saves the day”. Cos I mean JEEZ. Plus this reminds us again of how Amara had to reach through Cas’ heart to get to Dean at the end of season 11 even though they were apparently “bound” but ahem no, she had to work through Cas to get to Dean because Dean’s chosen bond with Cas was way stronger than the forced bond with her. She couldn’t contact him until he was thinking about Cas and she hovered her hand over his heart to feel the link then she was able to speak to him. TWICE. Like… this is all canon and it doesn’t really come across as platonic you know? All this heart symbolism and it being clear that something here is deep and meaningful, meanwhile Dean is going through his personal arc of accepting who he really is and a huge amount of that is stuff like ahem, riding Larry, and a whole bunch of stuff over 13 years leading us to see him as bisexual and at the same time he happens to have deep and meaningful and different feelings towards one dude in particular who tells him he loves him then Dean goes and makes him a mixtape and is so friggin awkward like a teenager with a crush who at the same time is not sure what he can and can’t have, is going through a whole personal arc of self worth and acceptance where he’s flitting between letting himself have what he wants but then also holding back so he gives him the friggin mixtape but is also like “buddy” “pal” cough um, I mean, uh, here have this tape I made you and let me look after you here’s a beer though you don’t need one, do you need a back rub? I mean, uhh.… ok this is all a massive coincidence right? Pfffft.

Meanwhile it couldn’t be clearer that Cas thinks Dean is not in love with him, that he feels rejected romantically and this is the basis for all of their interactions in season 13. Dean being all “oh I was grieving and nearly died myself until you came back but then I immediately went “welcome home pal” and suppressed the CRAP out of all those feelings and then went on to tell you you were brought back cos we needed you back which is such horse shit everyone was screaming at their tv “NO THE ONLY PERSON WHO NEEDED HIM BACK WAS YOU DEAN AND YOU DONT NEED HIM, YOU WANT HIM! IT’S NOT THE SAME!”. The only reason Jack at that point needed Cas back was because Dean was being such a dick to him because of what he did to Cas. Like… ain’t no sub to that text. Again that’s all canon.

We then had Sam’s “we need you, I need you” to Gabriel which was clearly NOT ROMANTIC but emphasised both the fact that Cas thinks Dean’s “I need you” was not romantic and therefore feels rejected AND the plural/singular thing.

We have Tombstone where Dean’s been a mess for 5 episodes then Cas comes back and he’s BEAMING. But to Cas nothing has changed, he doesn’t know Dean was a mess, to him Dean’s just being Dean but we the audience see the huge change. This then builds all season up to Dean’s BS “we needed you back” no chickflick moments totally suppressing the truth comment to Cas so Cas has no idea of what really happened and how it all hinges on Dean’s feelings for him.

We have the Donatello thing where the reason Cas goes full on triggered and ends up doing what he does is because he hurt Dean. When he hurt Sam it was like oh bad times but whatever lets just tie him up and ask him questions.

Hurting Dean though?

x 

Like… sure of course it’s all still subtext and if they really wanted to they could chicken out because noone has said “I love you” in a direct and open manner to the other without the other thinking it’s not really what they mean or rejecting the crap out of it because they don’t think they’re worthy and causing them to feel rejected but it would make no real narrative sense at this point other than as massive queerbaiting and storybaiting because they’ve built them now so far in the context of the plot as intrinsic to each other and to the plot itself as romantic now.

Like, what is the point of all this if not to lead here you know? You just wouldn’t bother making it romantic in the first place. You just wouldn’t bother building the plural v singular and need v want and perceived rejection over the course of 2.5 YEARS if not to go somewhere with it all when it all points to the same conclusion?

I think a big problem rn in the narrative and fandom is that both of them feels the other has in the past or is currently romantically rejecting them. Their feelings are stalled and suppressed which makes us watching it feel it is stalled / suppressed even though it’s built into the narrative more than ever.

WE, the audience, know they love each other romantically. 

THEY think they can’t have each other so act accordingly awkward around each other instead of flirty / like they think it could happen so it comes across on screen like they’re not interested in each other even though at every opportunity around it we are being continuously told they are.

Cue audience frustration.

^ That’s the point we are at now ^ 

THEY think the other isn’t in love with them in return and that there’s nothing for them there (Cas) or that they don’t deserve that love (Dean) or a mix of the two plus a whole bunch of “he’s confused and doesn’t know what he wants we’re better off as friends anyway and everyone I touch / love ends up dead and if we ever did get to a point where our lives weren’t this apocalyptical mess and he still felt the same way maybe then when we’re on the beach sipping beers in matching Hawaiian shirts then I could entertain the thought of us together and offer to put lotion on his back and go from there but at this point it would just end badly and I don’t think I could lose him again after getting together it would just hurt even more and I can’t do that to either of us”.

Remember in season 9 when Cas was human and they were at a point of literally flirting so much Sam was like WTF

But then Cas had to become an Angel again to do his duty, to help Heaven, save Sam etc and Dean was like dude what why did you do that are you ok with that and Cas didn’t answer at all except to say he had to do it. Like, they literally built in that episode what would happen if they were actually allowed to do what they wanted for once, which was whatever the hell was coming after all this flirtation ^, it was a massive exposition of what Cas wanted instead of what he thought he needed to do to be useful. It was “hey look this is what Cas wants but he is stopping himself from having it but remember this and bear with until he gets to the point he can allow himself to have it”.

Which is again exactly what Dean’s Hawaiian shirt speech was in 13x23!

=>These are exposition of what they want right before forcing them to reject it in order to be useful to save others. Exposing their desires to make it even more heartbreaking when they reject it out of their selfless desire to help others. 

BECAUSE THIS IS WHAT HEROES DO.

You can’t really build a hero without first showing what they want so it is even stronger when they suppress that in order to help others. I mean, you could but it would be pretty hollow, showing what they want and then not allowing them to have it until their happy ending is kind of how you build the tragic hero story, otherwise it’s kinda like meh what’s the alternative? Give the audience the alternative, what they want, then take it away from them due to their selfless desire to help others, that’s what makes a real hero story. Then give them their happy ending and the audience will have wanted it for so long for them they’ll love you for it.

Like - SPN fandom is mostly a bunch of people yelling “why can’t they just be happy?! Give Sam a dog! Let him have friends! Let Dean cook and have his Dean cave! Let Cas feel loved!” That’s because it’s been so well built this way to make us want this for them and them not having it for years. 

Make the audience want something then hold it back - lesson 101 of building their engagement with the story.

TL;DR since mid season 11 they’ve given us so much Dean/Cas as romantic that the GA have started noticing, it’s a serious topic in interviews eg Dean and Sam’s reactions to Cas’ death and more and more people are seeing it as romantic (even the anti Destiel people are foaming at the mouth and yelling at TPTB because they can’t deny it in the text of the show anymore), whilst also building it that the characters themselves think it’s NOT romantic or that they just can’t have it and I think that’s where this perception that it isn’t comes from - the characters own perception that they can’t have it.

But the narrative is showing us it bloody well is romantic AF but the characters are suppressing it, so buckle up for when they realise they might be able to actually have it.

[tinkdw]

Destiel fans still mad cause Megstiel is canon and Destiel never will be. Lmao

Lmao no ones mad, everyone I know has never been so happy and excited because it’s clearly building to canon Destiel, unless you totally missed the progression of:

- all of seasons 4-12 until “used every opportunity including his own eps and spin offs to frame Dean and Cas as romantic” Dabb started rolling up his sleeves like ok let’s ramp this thing up bitches!

- Dean: Bickering over how much I can’t deal with you putting yourself in danger. I can’t deal if you die. Sam even ribbing him for it, “you’re gonna storm in riiiiiight now ;)“

- Dean is canonically Cas’ weakness. Dean will canonically not put Cas in danger and chooses to put himself in danger instead. There’s a canon reason why Cas has held back for a decade, Angels were forced to made a sacred oath not to have a romantic relationship with a human, this just in right after Cas is called a “dutybound dullard” by another Angel, wow what a coincidence!

- Dean the very next episode with Cas in: Fuck this is exactly what I was worried about! You’re lying there dying and telling me “I love you” what am I supposed to do now?! Fuck ok he’s ok… I’ll give him a mixtape, you know, the 1st lesson in cinema school of “how to tell someone without words you love them”

- Spends all season worrying that Cas is putting himself in danger and he can’t deal with him dying

- Cas dies and Dean can’t deal with him dying, DUH. This ain’t a shocker. He is canonically suicidal until Cas comes back thanks to Jack honing in on Dean’s gut wrenching painful yelling at Sam that he can’t get past Cas’ death, Jack literally using Dean’s love for Cas to reach through the veil to save him… this is canon.

Coupled with hint upon hint that “what’s bi is bi”, Cas loves someone back on earth but thinks there’s nothing for him there because it’s an UNREQUITED LOVE TROPE until they both get their heads out of their asses and tell each other properly instead of hiding behind ambiguity of plurals or mixtapes.

But you know, yeah, we are the ones who are mad, not the idiotic anti anons who are ignoring actual canon and being assholes in someone’s inbox.

Bruh I think you’re the one who is mad and it’s a bit sad tbh. Get with the program or pipe down. What do you think all this is FOR exactly? Or do you just ignore it?

Thanks for the laugh though :)