#i don't have time to mommy little boys into treating women like the complex human beings we are

[holysaintscathedral]

Cishet men are so intimidated by female sexuality, it's honestly so pathetic and sad. Come to think of it, they're intimidated by ANYTHING remotely womanly or feminine.

[elizabethrobertajones]

Hey Liz, question: why do you think this fandom got so protective of terrible women? Both Mary and Rowena are awful, selfish people with exactly 0 character development, and yet they somehow became precious protect at all cost? Are we so starved of representation? I don't get it. For me it's Jody and Donna all the way.

Heya. Well first of all “the fandom” seems to haaate Mary so you must be thinking of the weird narrow circle of people who actually enjoy her character like me and all the peeps I filtered out in season 12 who weren’t being awful about her to follow and support. >.> Aka “the fandom” if I had to generalise my impression of raw numbers, IS the reason why the people who like Mary are protective of her. Because there’s stuff like spnconfessions posting someone saying “I want Mary and Kelly to be stabbed hundreds of times at the end of the season” which… yiiiikes.

Rowena is more popular in my impression but then she has a charismatic actress who embedded herself in fandom immediately (she liked some of my Rowena meta and spec back in season 10!), and was always presented as a “villain” (although she has NEVER been a big bad of a season, always just along for the ride and almost ALWAYS in chains or captured) so at least it was not like she was living down anyone’s expectations except Crowley. 

ALSO it’s not a competition or an either or. I love Jody, and Donna, and Linda Tran, and Mary, and Rowena and Kelly Kline, and all the other characters who’ve passed over our screen. People probably get bored of me saying this but I *like* the show and its characters and its storylines until they give me strong reasons not to like them, and I don’t approach fictional characters with hostility or unless there’s a very strong personal aversion, a reaction as if I knew them in real life or they represent things FROM my real life. 

Even when they are written to be dark or messed up or bad people, if they’re fleshed out and there’s a good reason or a point to it all in the story, then I like it. I don’t need characters to be good and pure all the time for them to be worth my love, or why the heck would I like the Winchesters, right? 

I’m just trying to say, I think I have a different attitude to these characters than you do, because I see that the show has done some great things with them, including developing them a LOT, and they’re really interesting characters to me. 

I now have 3 fics on my Ao3 which have or are entirely from Mary’s POV because I find her a fascinating mess. I feel like I grew up knowing the mythology about her and only got to meet her as a real human last year, and I loved that she was human and real, as promised in the flashbacks but never given a chance for us to SEE. 

And Rowena is not a character I think anyone needs to DEFEND (except in the sense of omg stop putting her in chains or killing her off when she’s inconvenient) because she’s utterly in control of herself, her image, her goals, and yet she has a vulnerability and a pain to her dark past which makes her interesting. The more we learn about her the more we learn about how she became what she is when we first meet her, and 12x11 for me did some AMAZING stuff with Rowena that finished the process of making her softer and more friendly in that she’d forged a better alliance with the Winchesters and we saw her and Dean utterly vulnerable around each other, which makes for incredible character development. We were only just starting to get a real idea of the woman behind the appearance she makes of herself, but it’s been hinted all along how hard she had to fight to get what she wanted, and how she gravitates towards comfort and being looked after and using her power to get it because of how poorly she was treated? She’s much easier to sum up in a paragraph, while I’ve written pages and pages and pages about Mary in both meta and fic, but that doesn’t mean she’s less developed, she just has a smaller overall legacy in the show as when she comes back it will only be her 4th season to Mary’s overarching importance to *13* seasons.

And… UGH. I just rewatched 10x09 recently and it’s SO INTERESTING. I remember all that meta from the time, about Rowena paralleling John, her bad parenting to his, and she comes back now almost as a precursor to Mary, trying the waters with bringing Crowley’s mum back into his life to see how that all goes over, his disappointment, the way she DELIBERATELY manipulates him, makes him need her again, until he casts her out, their back and forth, their conviction to the end that they should have been the one to kill the other… Their revenge story… Crowley just wanting to know WHY she was such a bad parent, Rowena loving another boy but not him as a son, so it’s the utter opposite of “family don’t end in blood” - that their only tie IS their blood and they mutually loathe each other because of it. Because they can’t be rid of each other because of it… I mean it’s the dark mirror to Mary coming back in the sense that Rowena is absolutely unapologetically a bad parent when she returns. That Crowley, softened up by the last couple of seasons, seriously struggles with her return… The Crowley and Rowena stuff in season 10 is actually really interesting, even if some of it is pretty ridiculous in execution, the point of having it there is fascinating, especially when you marathon through and then join it up to season 11. 

None of that is meant to say Rowena is good, or stanning for her is, like, advocating her awful parenting as a pinnacle of goodness. It’s just saying, she’s a terrible person but a fascinating character, and why wouldn’t we enjoy her being fun and evil and unapologetic for that on our screens, just as much as we might like Jody being patient and kind and the sort of gentle, understanding motherly pinnacle of “good” mothers on the show. 

And Mary is WONDERFULLY in the middle of that. I don’t know if people are having issues with her just because they have issues with their own mothers or because of expectations that the show was deliberately subverting that people just didn’t gel with and so came at her all from the wrong angles expecting her to be domestic and to bring peace rather than conflict, but Mary is a *startlingly* good female character on the show, and she exists in the space between Jody, the pinnacle of being a “good” mother, and Rowena, the blatant “bad” mother, but as soon as Mary strays from being the pure saintly victim image that we had for 11 years, even the flashbacks never changing her position as a victim of the narrative despite trying to give her some more personality and just making her spunky on top of being pure, rather than deepening her… 

I mean one of my BFFs who hasn’t been watching the show so much lately really hated the idea of Mary coming back because she sees the boys as too old to be treated as “the boys” and Mary’s purpose to only be to heal and to protect them, and why would the show bring her back to deal with their mommy issues, it’s just too late, too little, how can you ever patch her back into their lives and fix everything? They’re too OLD to deal with their mommy issues.

And that’s literally the antithesis of what season 11 was doing: what it ACKNOWLEDGED was the issue with bringing Mary back, that she can’t be a nurturer, can’t do a fresh start on their issues. Can’t just make it all better by being there and putting band aids on their knees and tucking them into bed. They weren’t raised with that. They can’t RETROACTIVELY get it from her because it’s not age appropriate and they have developed as people.

And for the first time, Mary is allowed to just exist and wander around the Bunker and cut her hair and wear hunter-y clothes instead of that freakin’ nightgown, and UPSET them by not fitting in because there’s the way it feels like she SHOULD have been aka kissing boo boos, and the way they know she CAN’T be that because it’s weird but they still missed out on it, and the way she is how she is for real after only ever having images and dreams and conjured djinn versions or fake Heaven versions or people wearing her face, and so on and so on. Just a real flesh and blood woman who was manipulated literally to heaven and back by outside forces, trying to deal with losing *everything* over and over, and being presented with her weird family of adult sons and attached angel, clearly nursing depression and a total lack of direction and connection… 

I mean people connect with Mary for some pretty obvious reasons about motherhood and loss and depression all of which are represented in her weird situation with metaphorical links to real life feelings. Imagine she had post natal depression about Sam and look at season 12 again and *bam* she’s 100 miles deep and it huuuurts. I haven’t even had a baby let alone this entire analogy but I can see it right there in her story. I don’t need to RELATE directly to find it interesting? And there’s so much more about her beyond this one random thing I just picked up as an example. Imagining being in her shoes and then imagining how Sam and Dean have talked about her and seen her as the casual viewing audience is a STARK way to put her story in contrast to make sense.

Like, if you just allow Mary to be her own person with her own story and motives, there’s so much in there, that you don’t get if you just look at her like she could have been something to Sam and Dean that she wasn’t and immediately write her off as just as bad as Rowena - who is also far more complex than just a bad mother. If it’s these characters not living up to idea motherhood that makes you hate them that’s something you have to get over to see WHY people might like them, for the same reasons people can like flawed messed up non-mother characters. 

I mean Mary in season 12 functionally has a similar arc/intro to the story as JACK does, the same conflict about finding themselves in this world, the same drive to make it right, and Mary’s dealing with the PAST she’s fucked up, and Jack’s dealing with immediate present fuck ups and the weight of expectations of his FUTURE fuck ups that everyone wants him to do this that and the other… But Jack immediately got a ton of adoring fans and I would say fandom seems to lean pro-Jack, while it’s generally anti-Mary, despite the fact they have had very similar, parallel struggles to integrating into the world and dealing with expectations/problems.

But Jack is a cute as a button baby son for the fandom who can be easily forgiven for everything, and Mary is its flawed, messy mother. And you clearly seem to have the same knee jerk reaction that Good Mothers are characters to be rewarded and loved for their kindness and strength and flaws in acceptable amounts that do not harm their ability to parent well and be supportive and present. And Bad Mothers apparently can’t even be enjoyed as an interesting villain-but-not-bad-guy like Rowena who is out for herself unapologetically - a confidence trait that people CAN and should admire in obviously less “murder a bunch of people because they’re in the way” quantities to aspire to if they need a just a pinch of Rowena in their lives. And Mary who was a VICTIM in the narrative until 12x01, I have to repeat, and on earning her narrative freedom, aka not doomed by Heaven, and seen only through Sam and Dean’s eyes but allowed to be herself, abruptly goes in others’ eyes from sweet mother mary to being utterly ruined and the worst character. Because she couldn’t parent her ADULT sons while *grieving* her baby sons and husband, who not only is dead but she has to come to terms with what her death, her fuck up, did to him and did to her sons.

Season 12 HAS to be viewed through Mary’s POV when the episodes are about her, and she HAS to be given full compassion as a POV important character like you would do for Sam and Cas and Dean and now Jack, and Jody and/or Donna when they’re on screen, or Claire and Alex in their episodes. I mean 9x19 is from Alex and Jody’s POV. There are a couple of Winchester scenes but the emotional storytelling is ALL on Alex and Jody, to the point of them having all the opening and closing scenes, while Sam and Dean appear like outsiders to them. This same thing is used on Mary a few times - making us look at Sam and Dean from her eyes. 

12x03, also by Berens - because he’s amazing at this sort of thing - makes us look at them this way. It sets up how Sam and Dean *are* to Mary with the horrifying baby in the crib and the little ghost boy. Her lost children. And Sam and Dean blanking her out of working the case by accident because they’re so much more efficient with modern tech. Letting her solve it with old fashioned tech and application of heart. We see Mary’s entire process in this episode that leads to her leaving. It’s *beautiful*. Please go watch that episode from Mary’s POV.

(And enjoy Rowena being an unapologetic badass in the background :P) 

I am literally begging if you don’t understand and hate Mary in season 12 to try it again from her POV and be less precious about Sam and Dean and how much value she has determined only by how well she mothers them. 

I mean dammit I’m just gonna rec my own fic I wrote after 12x14 because I think it explains how I view Mary sympathetically and as a complex character without apologising for or defending her, just caring about her story and trying to understand her, more effectively than any meta I could write.

http://archiveofourown.org/works/10143074

But also just rewatch 12x01, 12x03, 12x06, 12x09, 12x14, 12x21 and 12x22 from Mary’s POV, even just her important scenes. Pause the episodes after she does stuff you struggle with and ask yourself how SHE would feel based on HER history if you’re having trouble getting into it. Remember how she saw Dean and Sam in 12x03 in the metaphors of the cursed burnt out baby boy and the lil ghost child because that DIRECTLY links to 12x22′s dream sequence. You’re going to see her suicidal, lost, confused, desperate to fix the mess she made… And ultimately in 12x23 she is vindicated for her deal with the AU being based on it NOT happening, and she’s the point from which it all came. Remember 4x03 Mary at that point, how she was an innocent victim as much as anyone else, being funneled into being “John and Mary, husband and wife” JUST because Heaven wanted it. How she’d already been raised as a hunter by her strict father and wanted to be FREE. How she has been un-free, how even her idea of freedom was all a manipulation by both heaven and hell, that she was a baby factory for the both of them. That her deal was for that freedom, but as poisoned as everything else that ever happened and her death in 1x01 is the punishment for trying to be free.

Remember that bringing her back sets her free but also takes away *everything* from her, including Sam and Dean, and leaves her with only her identity as a hunter to fall back on. And then they take away that too. 

Remember that Mary is as messed up as her boys, who we LOVE for being messed up, complicated human beings, and that her goodness as a mother is just one aspect of her character, but not the defining one we’re supposed to like her for.

Remember that all the images of Mary we see between season 2-6 are manipulations and lies and extrapolations in 2x20 of how DEAN feels about what Mary is/what he WANTED her to be, and the only real Mary we saw that whole time was the one in 1x09, who was as defensive of her boys as she was in season 12, and whose only real words were to APOLOGISE to Sam for what she’s done, a character arc she can’t pick up again from her POV until SEASON 12, even if it’s been thrice resolved for Sam. That her dying thoughts were knowing she’d doomed Sam. That she only understood her deal when it was too late and she was pinned to the ceiling. 

Remember that the reason she seems to be a bad mother in the story in season 12 is because they WANTED her to be that way, because they’re FREEING her of the image of what she was for 12 long years. They’re turning her into a real character. That it’s a calculated breakdown and DEVELOPMENT of her character beyond being a 1 dimensional saintly dead mother, whose fleshed out backstory made her more and more a tragic victim of circumstance and took away all her agency, her memories, and the last time we see her in 5x13 she is parroting the “angels are watching over you” line in a way that gives you the sickest dread of dramatic irony, as in that context it is about how her sons are about to DIE for this if the angels get their way. She’s helpless. She’s the buttmonkey of the apocalypse. 

Whatever else you feel about season 12 and Dabb and all, there was a huge effort from all the writers who touched her story - ALL of them - to free her and take this weight from her, to tie her into the current arc while respecting how the past would CRUSH her. And they DID crush her. And within that crushing, when exactly was she, the most emotionally scarred and messed up Winchester on the playing field that year, supposed to be a good mother to Sam and Dean when that definition seems to include selfless sacrifice and giving more of yourself? She thought that’s what she was doing with the BMoL, and it destroyed her all over again. It literally carved her out and left her empty. More people got hurt because she tried to do something to make it right. And she lost herself in the process. It’s not a subtle metaphor. Or how it was resolved with honesty and bringing the family back together. 

… You can probably tell we got an esspresso maker for Christmas by the length of this reply. Just… Argh, no. Mary is one of the most fascinating female characters and fuck the idea she has to be a good mum to be a good character or that we can only like the most pure characters. If she had been a good mum in season 12 she would have been PAINFULLY boring and flat and under-used. What would you have DONE with her? installed her in the Bunker to do nothing more than provide comfort at the start and end of each episode, and sometimes come along on safe easy hunts? Need to be rescued in all the dramatic moments because she couldn’t fuck up and cause something herself ever? She can be rescued NOW because she fucked up enough last season it’s a different aspect of her character to be in this position. Which she kinda got herself into by PUNCHING LUCIFER IN THE FACE. 

And if you can see Mary how I see her, then suddenly all her heart and kindness is there, she’s wonderful, she’s complex, she’s just fundamentally broken and messed up and had her own issues with Sam and Dean that came from this, that were explored and addressed FROM HER POINT OF VIEW, and helped her from HER OWN PERSPECTIVE to overcome the first hurdle of being reintegrated into the story. 

Just… give her a chance to be human. Everything you say you can’t see in her is right there when you do.