#crowley's mail

[aydracz]

Shax had a tough time delivering Crowley's mail at The Ineffable Con:

After collecting the Traitor's mail for months,

teaming up with a doppelganger,

interrupting intimate moments,

using threats

and demonic karate skills,

and chasing the Traitor around the entire Moor Hall, while the Traitor was chasing his emotional support angel,

Shax asserted her dominance and delivered the mail

and could finally have some time for herself.

Many thanks to my very own emotional support angels @fuzzywhispersbear and @drimmsydra ❤️ The whole weekend has been an absolute blast!

[mizgnomer]

Fancy camera moves in Good Omens Season 2

- a gifset to make you seasick

[sunderwight]

Thinking about the weird camaraderie that exists between demons but not angels in GO.

Have we ever seen two angels who are actually friends? Or even friendly to one another? We have met angels with a capacity to be friendly in general, but I think the closest we've come to two angels actually getting along would be Gabriel making a point to laugh at Sandalphon's terrible "can't have a war without War" line in S1.

Most scenes between the angels actually seem to have an undercurrent of absolute hostility. Teeth-clenched teamwork. No wonder it took them so long to notice that Aziraphale wasn't on the same page as the rest of them! The rest of them are barely on the same page as one another, either! When Gabriel goes against the majority vote, no one bats an eye at demoting him and wiping his memory. Michael and Uriel immediately begin vying for his job. The only times we've seen angels team up is when they're working together to bully someone else, like when they're trying to intimidate Aziraphale in S1 or going to the aftermath of the bookshop raid in S2.

Saraqael's overall neutrality towards Muriel is the closest we get to two angels in Heaven getting along, and it's more a lack of hostility than any kind of friendliness. At least until Gabriel loses his memories and Muriel shows up to spy on Aziraphale, and Aziraphale decides to be kind to both of them.

Demons, on the other hand, actually seem to form alliances and even friendships among one another. Hastur and Ligur are awful, but Hastur seems genuinely distraught over Ligur's death, not just fearful of suffering the same fate. Shax and Furfur conspire together and even though the 1940's investigation into Crowley's fraternizing doesn't work out for Furfur, it's not due to any double-crossing on Shax's part. Unlike the angels, who stick almost exclusively to making threats until the Metatron decides to try dangling a carrot at the end of the season, demons actually offer rewards to other demons when trying to work together. Beelzebub offers Crowley a promotion if he can bring them Gabriel, Furfur offers to back Shax up politically if she goes for the Duke position opening, and Crowley successfully stalls Hastur in S1 by pretending everything was a test and he's going to be put in charge of a legion as a reward for passing. They're still not great at socializing, but they're significantly ahead of the angels.

Of course, it's a fact that demons are awful to one another (Eric's treatment is really bad, they throw that random demon into holy water just to test it, "it'd be a funny world if demons went around trusting one another", etc) but they still seem more capable of forming friendships than the angels do.

I think that's because Hell cramps and crowds everyone together to try and increase their suffering and hostility, whereas Heaven isolates angels to decrease the odds of questioning or rebellion. Hell's methods are unpleasant, but it still ends up putting demons together, and some of those demons inevitably forge alliances and make friendships. Because as Crowley and Beelzebub demonstrate, demons are still social creatures with the capacity for love and affection, even if it's strongly discouraged and buried under nine million layers of trauma and a cultural mandate against kindness.

Angels are the same, but isolation makes is harder to form connections than overcrowding. Muriel and Jimbriel are both so eager to make friends, but Muriel's spent the past millennia shut in an empty office, and Gabriel has been distanced from his peers both through his position and also through Heaven's culture of fear and surveillance. He only breaks away from it when he finds something that's stronger than "choosing sides" (stronger than the fear of being rejected by Heaven and Falling, in fact strong enough that Falling seems worth it if he gets to be with someone he loves). Both Muriel and Gabriel are only able to start forming connections when they're away from Heaven.

I just think it's interesting that demons, despite being supposedly devoid of love, have an advantage in forming relationships compared to angels. Angels are supposed to love, but have far fewer opportunities to actually do so. Demons aren't supposed to love, but they make connections anyway.

[drconstellation]

Obligatory Reminders and Crossing the Lines

Have you been wondering why Shax tries to do a mail delivery to Crowley as he escorts the shop keepers to safety from Aziraphale's Eldritch Ball? It seems a pretty random thing to do at that moment.

SHAX: I brought your mail. CROWLEY: Why? SHAX: It stacks up by the front door. CROWLEY: Keep it for now, not a good time.

It's not the first time Shax has tried to give Crowley his mail. We first see her hand a pile over on the park bench in S2E1, while they have an introductory spy vs. spy catch up, in St James Park.

SHAX: I brought your mail. CROWLEY: Anything interesting? SHAX: Bills, mostly. I don't understand why they won't just deliver them to your car. CROWLEY: Send the bills to Hell's finance office. SHAX: I did. They say they can't accept my signature as your replacement.

Bills, mostly. That aren't being accepted by Hell's finance office, unless Crowley signs them. And they expect to find him in the official residence of Hell's ambassador plenipotentiary to this corner of Earth, in Mayfair.

Next, we see Crowley redefining all that mail as "junk" and discarding it.

uh huh. Lets ignore the conveniently placed disposal unit for the moment...

We need to stop and define what those "bills" actually are. Because they are not actually the financial type of bills. Well, they could be. But this is the GOmens AU, so they have a second meaning as well. Paying your bills is also meeting your duties and obligations to another party, and this is something Crowley is refusing to do right now.

I don't think its as simple as Hell being short staffed and they just haven't got around to doing the change over (I know I suggested the latter recently, sorry) and that's why they aren't recognizing Shax's signature. It's that Hell actually hasn't let Crowley go - he is still "on the books," so to speak, despite all that has been said and done since the Nope-ocalypse. He might call himself a "former demon," and he might call Hell his "former side," but that is definitely NOT how Hell sees it, despite the fact they aren't harassing him or giving him tasks to do.

Actually, that should be haven't been harassing him, because since Gabriel "disappeared," they have been back on his case. The mail is a warning sign, but Lord Beelzebub's summons really should have given you the chills.

Crowley protests that they had a "generalized understanding" that he would be left alone, but Beelzebub declares that "we don't."

Ah. So all is not as it appears. They are just playing nice because they want something (Gabriel) and in reality Crowley's position in relation to Hell really is fragile. Yet outwardly he seems more worried about Aziraphale.

It goes downhill from here. Shax begins to stalk him.

This image of Shax is just delish. The sharp "V" of her her decolletage reminds us of a stork's bill, her avatar animal, and it's stabbing down at the snake on her belt. She might be seeking the Frog Prince who escaped Heaven but she's also got a certain snake in her sights.

Shax can't can't cross the threshold of the bookshop without an invitation from Aziraphale. This plays into the old belief that supernatural creatures such as vampires, demons and faeries can only enter a house if invited in. We also see this extended to the Bentley, once "ownership" is extended to the angel, but the door of the bookshop is the important border here for now.

Then have this threat of war being declared:

War on Aziraphale, not Crowley, as they still consider Crowley to be on Hell's side. They don't see it the way Crowley does as Us and Them, to Shax there is still only Heaven and Hell.

So we come back to the second round of mail delivery:

Crowley is about to escort the human shopkeepers to safety and Shax confronts Crowley right on the threshold with his duties and obligations. He really doesn't want to have that conversation right now, not here and not with Shax. As far as he is concerned, he has no obligations to Hell any more, and he's not taking any notice of their demands in any form, either, so Shax may as well just get out of the way and take the mail with them.

And with that, Crowley crosses the threshold, leading the humans out.

At this point in the story you might be asking what's the big deal about that? Crowley has been going in and out over that doorstep several times a day lately, and has crossed it hundreds of times over the last couple of centuries since the bookshop was built. It's not a barrier to him.

The significance of this boundary line has been highlighted to us in S2. We have Shax actually telling us that she knows she can't cross the "threshold" in S2E3, then she asks again in S2E5 where the boundary line is just before Mr Brown is hauled off into the demon Legion. But its even more than that.

On one level its the line that Crowley has drawn for himself. He's not going back to Hell if he can at all help it, and he's quite resolute about that. It's his side or no one's side, from there on in. He reinforces that when talking to Aziraphale in the Final Fifteen.

On another level, I'm wondering if we could consider this a step on the eponymous Hero's Journey? Crossing the Threshold is one of the early stages of the journey where the hero crosses into danger or the unknown. We're shown things aren't normal outside by the mist and green light. Then he diverts off unexpectedly to Heaven with Muriel. Just throwing it out there to see if its worth exploring a bit further. I'd say we've only got the early stages of the journey in S2, with the remainder to come in S3.

[scoobydoodean]

wait cas was lying about sam’s soul being too damaged?? i thought death also confirmed that? it’s been a while since i’ve watched s6 so maybe i’m not remembering smth?

Some might prefer the description "Cas is being highly misleading". What I mean moreso is that I don't think Cas actually thought returning Sam's soul was the wrong move despite the risks (and it is always spoken of as "risk" not as fact). His motives when he said that were not what they seem. What first made me start thinking about this is that Cas did a 180 in the middle of 6.10. Soulless Sam prayed, demanding Cas's help finding his soul. Cas agreed to help Sam find his soul because he was concerned about him. He said Sam "needed help". Then midway through the episode, Cas changed his mind and started telling Dean that putting Sam's soul back in is a bad idea. Why did he change his mind?

Two crucially important details emerge here in hindsight:

First, when Cas first agreed to help, he did not know that Sam and Dean's plan was to make Crowley return Sam's soul. He also didn't know they had Meg waiting in the wings to help them torture and kill Crowley. After agreeing to help, Cas finds out they're looking for Crowley—his secret business partner—which is a problem for Cas. However, Sam and Dean have no idea where Crowley is in the beginning so it isn't an issue at first. Sam and Dean ask Cas to do a tracking spell and it doesn't work (is that because Crowley covered his tracks well, or is it because Cas didn't really do the spell because he didn't want them to find Crowley?) It's only after Sam and Dean figure out where Crowley is from Samuel and Meg shows up with her demons (Cas asking, "Why are we working with these abominations?" but underneath, knowing Sam and Dean have serious backup!) and they're all ready to leave for Crowley's lair within the hour, that Cas suddenly says he doesn't think Sam's soul should be put back in.

Second, Cas knows Crowley did not get Sam out of The Cage—HE did. To force Sam and Dean to do his bidding, Crowley lied to Sam and Dean and told them he got Sam out of The Cage and he could throw him back in. This is why Sam and Dean assume they can threaten Crowley into getting Sam's soul out of The Cage. Cas knows Crowley can't get Sam's soul out of The Cage and this is a fruitless mission. Which means when he says "maybe we shouldn't do this because Sam's soul shouldn't be returned" he isn't being honest about the reason he doesn't want them to go. Getting Sam's soul is not a thing that's going to happen at the end of this anyway!!!

So Cas starts the episode wanting to help return Sam's soul, but midway through, when The Winchesters and Meg storming Crowley's lair is imminent, Cas starts saying Sam's soul is a "mutilated thing" that shouldn't be put back.

[biracy]

Disclaimer that I've only seen three episodes of this show and idk exactly how all this works exactly but while on call with @mifs yesterday I posed this question, and since we've been unable to gather answers anywhere else they told me to post it. So I will

[lowpolybread]

surprise crowley

[tsyvia48]

My name is Tsyvia and I am a fanfic-aholic. (I’m addicted to fanficahol). I used to just read, but lately I’ve been experimenting with actually writing.

Today I posted the final chapter of my second-ever human AU. There’s pining. There’s love. There’s a museum and references to David Bowie. There are explicit sexy times.

[i-make-fun-of-spn-characters]

thoughts on crobby? crowly/bobby in case you dont know

[suzypfonne]

Headcanon that Aziraphale founded the Royal Mail in 1660 just so he could communicate more directly with Crowley.

[aydracz]

Crowley's mail for The Ineffable Con

Here's a detail of Crowley's mail that Shax was handing out to The Ineffable Con participants as a gift.

Making these brought me immense joy because it felt like giving back to the fandom, which is full of amazing people whose creations I enjoy every day. So these are for all of you, my dears!

And there was a little surprise in each of them

Some of the letters are still up for grabs at the Bandstand in Battersea Park in London together with some amazing art by @drimmsydra and @fuzzywhispersbear! (See details in the previous post.)

Aubrey Thyme's sign was created by @onlylurkingreadingstuff and used with their permission.

[queeroldweapon]

I haven't done collage in months, I scraped the rust off this weekend and did a Good Omens inspired postcard

[amphata]

Can we talk about what happened to Crowley when he got literally sucked into the ground in Edinburgh?

Can we please talk about what happened to Crowley when he got literally sucked into the ground in Edinburgh?

and why are we so chill about it

[fuckyeahgoodomensfanfic]

Good Omens Fic Rec: You’ve Got Mail

Aziraphale and Crowley are hereditary enemies, rival book shop owners engaged in corporate warfare. They are also pen pals that are perfect for one another. They don’t know about that bit though.

Length: 68,184 Words

AO3 Rating: Teen and Up

Best for: Safe in Public, Human AU, Enemies to Lovers

Triggers: None

Read it here, fic by SouthDrarryReturned

*Minor Spoilers* This is a You've Got Mail but Good Omens remake. I've never seen You've Got Mail, and I'm not planning to, but if you told me this was a completely original human AU for Aziraphale and Crowley, I would have absolutely believed it! Tons of fun, lots of adventure, and I'm a sucker for pen pals.

So if you also don't know the plot of the movie, here's the summary for this fic. Crowley is the heir to a massive book retailer, and he is opening a new store right down the road from Aziraphale's cozy and struggling bookshop. They meet and sparks are already igniting, but once Aziraphale learns who Crowley is, it's all-out war, with plenty of misunderstandings and accusations flying. At least at the end of the day, Aziraphale has the comfort of a new email from his dear pen pal Anthony. You get the picture.

I love how this very much feels like its own thing, but still follows a very cinematic storyline. I don't know how close of a remake it is, but I'm assuming it veers off from the movie, at least with its Hastur and Ligur scenes, but possibly others as well. It gets a little action movie in the middle of its rom-com, but I found it pretty fun. Full of clumsy and awkward Crowley, which is always a good time. Their emails are definitely a highlight, I like their more formal tone and how instantly they fall for each other through that medium. I will never tire of their chemistry! Completely safe in public, and I think it's a great low-stakes casual read!

Read it here, fic by SouthDrarryReturned

[scoobydoodean]

ok so I deeply love and respect your thoughts on supernatural because the majority of them line up with what I've been thinking for years but you said something the other day that I keep turning over in my brain and it was something along the lines of carver liking dean more than sam - I know you're in the middle of rewatching s4 but I would love to hear you expound on that (if you have time) because I remember being in the fandom while carvernatural was airing and it was pretty much when the deangirl exodus started. in fact I think people tore into him worse than dabb even 😭

feel free to hold onto this until later when you start the carver seasons if you wish :)

<3 I'll go ahead and answer this one, because it's more of a "broad strokes" thing for me, and I've been rewatching very slowly (on purpose) so that could be a very long wait.

This is so funny because I can just picture Sam fans reading it and turning red and their blood boiling with the fire of a thousand suns but the TL;DR is that season 8-11 (Carver era) broad strokes to me are:

Sam sucks and is a worse brother and person than Dean.

Sam spends the first two seasons of Carver's run thinking he's a better person than Dean anyway and then the second two knowing he sucks, deciding to embrace his moral flexibility to keep Dean alive no matter the cost, and trying to mend things.

Dean is circled by many potential suitors who also in a sense represent Sam replacements because Sam sucks: Benny, Cas, Crowley, and Amara.

Dean knows that Sam sucks and part of him wants to get tf away from him very badly but another part of him feels guilty for wanting that. Family is suffering. Family is a chain around your neck keeping you tied to them via guilt. (Demon Dean represents the desire for escape, as does Amara).

Everybody wants to be with Dean, be Dean, and/or be loved by Dean. Dean is love. Dean is the world. Dean is the reason for existing. Everybody is lovesick about him. Sam is just there.

Sam needs to stop blaming Dean for so many things and learn to own his own choices.

That was fun to write down.

Longer commentary/explanation below the cut.

Season 8 (Carver's first season) literally begins with a Sam character assassination. It begins with us learning that Sam knowingly left Kevin to spend the rest of his life kidnapped and tortured without even telling a soul what happened to him. Not only did he abandon Dean and Cas as well but he didn't even look for them, and refuses to give a satisfying answer as to why.

Season 8 Sam's abandonment as distinct from previous behavior

I have had people this year who I love and respect tell me they don't view this as a character assassination and say they believe this is in character for Sam. I simply do not agree with that. I talk about this as it relates to Kevin here.

Sam has displayed selfishness and a big ego at many points in the series up to season 8. He's told a lot of lies (sometimes to the point of gaslighting), he's gone behind Dean's back to do things that affect Dean's life, he's taken traumatic experiences Dean opened up to him about and ultimately harmed Dean with them, he's shown resentments and anger, he's displayed jealousy, he's displayed a sense of superiority. He has never abandoned his brother to die without even trying. The Sam of season 3 would eviscerate season 8 Sam for this.

Sometimes Sam says and does things he shouldn't, but his crimes do not include "abandoning Dean to die without even looking for him" up to season 8. Many of his crimes happen at least partly because he really really doesn't want Dean to die or is desperate to save his life. He lets go of his anger at John and returns to make sure Dean is safe in 1.11. He refuses to give up and finds a way to save Dean in 1.12. In 1.22, he's willing to put John's life at risk for revenge, but in 2.01 he gets into an outright screaming match with John in the hospital under the belief that John's prioritizing the demon over Dean. Sam spends all of season 3 raging and angst-ing about not being able to save Dean to the point of considering and doing some shady as hell things/abandoning some of his more stalwart moral stances (3.05, 3.11, 3.15, 3.16). Dean's death and later, the desire to secure his safety/future, is one of the catalysts for Sam's descent into drinking demon blood (3.09, 3.16, 4.04, 4.09, 4.12). When he dies in "Swan Song", he urges Dean to pursue a normal, safe, life because he knows that at that point in time, Dean wants to get out but has always felt trapped (2.09, 2.10, 2.20, 3.01, 4.12, 4.16). Even Soulless Sam (who isn't the same as regular Sam) tried to look for Dean in 6.09 "Clap Your Hands If You Believe"—it was simply that when leads for the night dried up, he hooked up with someone because he had nothing more to go on and in soulless Sam's head that was the reasonable thing to do. But soulless Sam also certainly isn't representative of the real Sam—the fact that he doesn't care as much is supposed to point us to differences between him and regular Sam. Season 8 opens with Sam abandoning Dean in a context that makes him arguably worse than his soulless self.

(I talk about why Sam actually abandons everyone in season 8 in a very long post here).

Season 8 and 9 more broadly

So Carver has Sam abandon Dean to die without even trying. Then he has Sam refuse to give any kind of actually reasonable explanation that makes sense to anyone who was paying attention. Then he has Sam say that he's going to leave the life and Dean needs to get over it and accept that Sam's new life will not include contact with Dean (just like his life at Stanford didn't). While saying he's going to leave, he still wants to exert control over Dean's relationships and leverages the threat of leaving (as if he were going to stay) to get Dean to shut up about Sam abandoning him and then again to try and get Dean to cut ties with Benny. He wants to kill Benny before knowing a single thing about him. He assigns someone (Martin) who he knows is mentally unstable and has a more black and white perception of monsters to track Benny and gets Martin killed. He watches Martin knock Dean unconscious and chain him up in a room and doesn't stop it because he wants Benny dead that bad, but then has the audacity to act as if Dean sending him a fake text is worse than Sam literally chaining him up in a room to prevent Sam from killing an innocent person (someone Sam would normally—btw—defend based on episodes like 2.03 and 4.04 or even a few episodes ago with Kate in "Bitten"). He tells Amelia he wants to fight for their relationship then the moment Dan says they should leave the choice to Amelia, he leaves so that it becomes his choice, and then he returns for one episode just to be a homewrecker. He insists on doing The Trials while promising to survive them and giving a big speech about how he's going to save Dean from his own suicidal ideation and then drops the promise as if it never existed two episodes later. Sam loses confidence in himself to complete The Trials and then acts like Dean is the one who doesn't believe in him because Dean is caring for him and insisting he rest and this is an unforgivable offense. At the end of the season, he basically says he's going to commit suicide because Dean has friends besides him. He acts as if he deserves to be Dean's most trusted confidant after an entire season of him being an absolutely fucking terrible brother and acts like Dean is just a big meanie whose feelings are irrational.

After all of this, he has the audacity, in season 9, to suggest that Dean is a bad person who can't stand the thought of being alone. He tells Dean he's the worst person ever and they can only be work partners from now on because Dean is so so bad and evil for stopping him from committing suicide and then not telling him about Gadreel. At the end of the season he admits this was a lie. He just wanted to punish Dean (9.23).

I can see how—if you were watching live at the time (I started watching when season 11 was airing) you'd lose hope. You'd quit the show over all of this, because it seems to go on forever. It's like torture. I would drop kick season 8 Sam into a pit full of lava without hesitation so I get it. If I believed that Carver was actually saying "Yes so true Dean is The Worst™️ and Sam is morally superior <3" for two seasons straight I'd quit the show too. But that isn't what he's saying. We're supposed to read between the lines and realize how unbelievably full of shit Sam is—how deeply selfish and hypocritical he's being. How yes—Dean has made mistakes—but Sam is NOT a better person than him and has gotten away with some absolutely rancid garbage. And season 10 and 11 go on to beat you over the head with it if you didn't get it the first time.

Season 10 and 11

Season 10 opens with this dialogue from a demon:

I heard the rumors. I said "no, that can't be." A Winchester, one of us? But it's true, isn't it? Whatever soul you had; whatever boy scout code you cuddled up to at night; it's all gone. Leaving what? Look at you!

We're meant to think she's talking about Dean who just woke up with black eyes, but then the camera cuts to Sam torturing her, demanding to know where Dean is.

In 10.03, we learn that Sam talked a man (Lester) into selling his soul so he could use him as bait. Demon Dean ends up being assigned to fulfill Lester's deal (to kill his wife for cheating on him). Dean immediately clocks Lester as having cheated on her first and kills Lester for being an insufferable hypocrite... and while he's doing it, I'm pretty sure he's also thinking of Sam's flaming hypocrisy.

SAM: I never meant— DEMON DEAN: Who cares what you meant?! That line that we thought was so clear between us and the things that we hunted, ain’t so clear is it? Wow. You might actually be worse than me! I mean, you took a guy at his lowest, used him, and it cost him his life and his soul. Nice work.

NOTE: 10.03 also recalls 4.21—an episode Sam fans have always tended to emphasize as a "Dean crime" episode where Dean risks Sam's death to force a detox. Sam does the reverse—pumping Dean full of human blood here in 10.03 and explicitly risking his death.

Sam gets Suzie killed in "The Werther Project" while searching for The Book of the Damned.

SAM I’m sorry, okay? I’m so sorry. SUZIE Lot of good “sorry” does me. Look at me. Look….at….me. [She points to her corpse.] There she is. The first casualty of your misguided mission. But what’s another human life to you? Anything’s worth it, as long as you two make it out alive. And how’s that search going? Any closer to a cure? SAM This isn’t real. You’re not real. SUZIE You think Dean’s the wild card, the loose cannon. But don’t you see? Making deals with witches, opening Pandora’s box down there? You’re the reckless one. You’ll do anything to keep clinging to that doomed brother of yours. How many more will die, Sammy? You know it. You have to be stopped. And the only one who can stop you is you!

A few episodes later, Sam orders Oskar's death for a spell to remove the Mark of Cain. I've seen hilarious posts before about how he had no choice but to do this because MoC Dean is so scawy and bad but that quite explicitly is not his motivation. They could have done so many other things. Throw him into space. Bury him in a really deep hole. Put him in something like The Cage. But Sam didn't like any of those options, because all of them meant being without his brother, and he's realized he doesn't want to be without him no matter the cost (10.18).

SAM So, awhile back, we had a chance to, um…close the gates of Hell. And in order to do that, I would’ve had to die. And, I was okay with that, and I am okay with that, but Dean was not. And so, he uh… CHARLIE He saved you. SAM Yeah, he saved me. CHARLIE And let me guess, in doing so, he did something you didn’t want, and that pissed you off. And you said something that hurt him? SAM Yeah, that sounds about right. [...] SAM You know, when Dean came to get me at school, I-I told myself… one last job, you know? One more job. And then when – when I, um…. When I lost Jess, I, again, told myself one more job. There’s always one more job, you know? And one more job, and one more job, and then I was gonna go back to law and – and to my life. CHARLIE You were the Dread Pirate Roberts of hunting. SAM Yeah. I guess I really understand now that….this is my life. I love it. But I can’t do it without my brother. I don’t want to do it without my brother. And if he’s gone, then I don’t…. CHARLIE I got it. I-I do.

This all culminates in 10.23, where a very mentally unstable MoC Dean attempts to reason with Sam about them both being evil and needing to take themselves out:

DEAN: Remember when we were in that church, making Crowley human, about to close the Gates of Hell? Well, you sure as hell were ready to die for the greater good then. SAM: Yeah, and, Dean, you pulled me back. DEAN: And I was wrong. You were right, Sam. You knew that this world would be better without us in it. SAM: No, no, no, wait a second. You're twisting my words here, Dean. DEAN: Why? Because we -- we track evil and kill it? The family business? Is that it? Look at the tape, Sam. Evil tracks us. And it nukes everything in our vicinity -- our family, our friends. It's time we put a proper name to what we really are and we deal with it. SAM: Wait a second. We are not evil. Listen... We're far from perfect, but we are good. That thing on your arm is evil, but not you, not me. DEAN: I let Rudy die. How was that not evil? I know what I am, Sam. But who were you when you --when you drove that man to sell his soul... Or when you bullied Charlie into getting herself killed? And to what end? A-a good end? A just end? To remove the Mark no matter what the consequences? Sam, how is that not evil? I have this thing on my arm, and you're willing to let the Darkness into the world. SAM: You were also willing to summon death to make sure you could never do any more harm. You summoned me because you knew I would do anything to protect you. That's not evil, Dean. That's not an evil man. That is a good man crying to be heard, searching for... some other way.

Dean is saying a lot of shady shit here, but some of what he's saying... isn't wrong?

Sam is willing to let The Darkness destroy the world, and he does, and then standing in the aftermath of a town being destroyed by the force he unleashed, Sam says:

SAM: I unleashed a force on this world that could destroy it . . . to save you. DEAN: And I told you not to. SAM: And I'd do it again. In a second, I would do it again.

Thousands of people are dying and Sam says he would do it again. This post about Sam's actions versus Dean stopping Sam from closing the gates of hell is highly relevant.

Season 11 continues with Sam taking a little more responsibility for his own decisions, while praying for Dean to live (11.02):

SAM: So . . . I know it's been a long time, but . . . Dean and I, we've -- we've been through a lot of bad. But this is different. This is my fault, and I don't know how to fix it. And if I have to die, I've made my peace with that, but . . . Please. Dean deserves better. Dean deserves a life. There are people out there, good people, who are going to suffer because of me, and I am not asking you to clean up my mess. Hell, I don't even know if you're out there, but . . . If you are . . . And if you can hear me, I, um . . . We need your help, God. We need to know there's hope. We need a sign.

And then there's the VERY long-awaited apology:

SAM When I was with Lucifer, he, um... He showed me things. It was like a highlight reel of my biggest failures. DEAN Yeah, he was messing with you. That's what he does. SAM Give me a sec. I should've looked for you. When you were in Purgatory, I... I should've turned over every stone.

Family (Sam) as chains

While all of this is happening, we also have Benny and Cas and Crowley and Amara.

Benny is contrast—someone whose goodness and selfless loyalty only makes Sam's horrible flaws stand out more sharply in season 8. Under the influence of the specter, Dean says, "Benny has been more of a brother to me this past year than you have ever been" and Sam can't stand it. It haunts him so bad he tries to kill Benny, and can't get over it even after the end of the season when Benny is fucking dead. He is unable to accept that the contrast between himself and Benny is his own fault.

Crowley and Dean's flirtations begin in season 9, as Sam suffocates Dean, and at the end of the season, Crowley has literally convinced Dean to run away with him. In 10.01, there is a delightful phone call where Crowley rubs it in Sam's face that Dean is with HIM:

SAM I don't know how you did this, what kind of... Black-magic stunt you pulled, but hear me --I will save my brother or die trying. CROWLEY You know what tickles me about all this? It's what's really eating you up. You don't care that he's a demon. Heck, you've been a demon. We've all been demons. No, it's that he's with me and he's having the time of his life. You can't stand the fact that he's mine. SAM He's not your pet. CROWLEY My pet? He's my best friend, my partner in crime. They'll write songs about us, graphic novels. “The Misadventures of Growley and Squirrel." Dean Winchester completes me, and that's what makes you lose your chickens.

It's this cruel callback to Sam's jealousy of Benny and Cas in season 8—how Crowley convinced Dean to finally ditch his smothering, controlling brat of little brother who can't stand him having friends, and now Dean is having the time of his life howling at the moon. The problem is, Dean also feels a little bit like maybe Crowley wants to control him too, and that isn't working for him.

Amara in season 11 goes on to further speak on terrible brothers who think they're better than you, who leave you betrayed and diminished, who abandon you. She's raging against the concept of family as chains—she wants revenge... but all the while she's in pain because she still loves her brother. Amara's attraction to Dean is based on that commonality—what she feels is a shared experience and how she wants to cut the last remaining pieces of love she feels for her brother away so she can finally be free of the pain of him—and she doesn't care if she destroys everything—including herself—in the process. (See: Dean slowly losing his identity through the MoC arc). Sam and Dean's relationship is in rehab over this whole season though, and so Dean's role ends up being to convince Amara not to destroy herself—to instead do what Sam and Dean have done and make up and work on improving their relationship.

[mynikontripod]

Welcome to my blog!

I’m Nikon, a three legged black cat! I used to live outside in the streets, but was rescued after I was in an accident! The nice people that found me saved me, but my leg had to be amputated. My person adopted me when I was about a year old in October of 2022, and now I live with them and our family of people and cats!

My person might post my family as well, but you know you’re here for me, right? Right!! I guess it’s okay if you want to support them, too…

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