#i got to thinking way too much about the parallels between lucifer and charlies stories and well. here we are

[iicaru2]

“He was a dreamer with fantastical ideas for all of creation...”

“...but he was seen as a troublemaker by the elders of heaven, for they felt his way of thinking was dangerous to the order of their world.”

“Drawn in by her fierce independence, Lucifer found her, and the two rebellious dreamers fell deeply in love.”

“As punishment for their reckless act, Heaven cast Lucifer and his love into the dark pit he had created...”

--

parallels.

[anthurak]

So here’s a few general theories I’ve got on both Eve and Roo, their role in the story, as well as at least one rather bonkers theory on how they/she are connected to Charlie.

Which means to begin with, we’re going to make the entirely logical step to talk about Rosie.

Because as I said in a couple posts after the finale, I think Rosie is actually Eve.

Or rather, as I now think, Rosie is an ASPECT of Eve.

To begin with, just about everything Rosie does with Charlie in Episode 7 to me just kinda SCREAMS ‘I’m actually a mysterious relative/family friend you never knew about.’ From the way she immediately goes massively out of her way to help Charlie, not just with the more overt problem of the impending extermination, but also her more personal relationship problems, not to mention little touches like how she insists on Charlie calling her ‘auntie’. As well as making a number of small references that could very easily be more direct foreshadowing:

Rosie’s whole ‘first husband’ comment could easily be a dig at Adam, plus her being a cannibal would make for a pretty clever callback to the visual joke of Adam eating ribs in the first episode.

We also have Rosie’s talk with Charlie about her problems with Vaggie, which feel especially relevant in light of the reveal that Eve seems to have had some kind of romance with Lucifer and Lilith. Rosie’s comments to Charlie clearly hint that she has her own regrets towards a failed relationship, which if she is Eve could easily hint at whatever went down between her, Lilith and Lucifer. Not to mention, given the CLEAR parallels that Charlie and Vaggie have to Lucifer and Lilith, it would be all too fitting if it turned out that Eve was the one helping to mend their relationship.

There’s also one other visual detail about Rosie… but more on that later.

So how does this tie back to Roo?

Well you know how I said I think Rosie is an aspect or part of Eve?

I think Roo is the OTHER part of Eve.

As in, I think that Roo and Rosie (hey, look at those similar names) are each the two parts of Eve that split apart when she became the ‘Root of All Evil’.

When you get down to it, I think Roo as a character and her role in the story as a whole is to be a subversive exploration of the idea of the scapegoat and Christian ideas/fixation on guilt and penance. Roo might actually BE this big, terrible ‘Root of All Evil’, ‘Embodiment of Sin’, ‘Unfettered Force of Chaos’, ‘Heart of Hell itself’ ultimate big-bad of the show that much of the fandom is assuming…

But only because she/Eve chose this role out of her own guilt and self-loathing. Eve only believes that she’s this terrible, irredeemable person at the root of all the evils of mankind, and has thus chosen to embody that.

And I think in the process of becoming Roo, this being of pure evil, Eve tried (emphasis on tried) to split off all the ‘good’ within her. Which in turn became Rosie. Alternatively, Rosie could have been deliberately split off from Roo to act as her agent, but may have become self-aware enough that she’s trying to stop/save Roo, hence her going out of her way to help Charlie. And of course this would also neatly explain her friendship with Alastor, himself likely also an agent of Roo.

Which in turn is going to be the crux of her conflict with Charlie, and the ultimate villain redemption of the story. Like of course we’re going to find out about Roo’s big, terrible villainous plots to perhaps corrupt humanity or subsume all of Hell or destroy Heaven and how she’s likely the one pulling Alastor’s strings and has maybe had him essentially ‘feeding her’ Overlords to increase her power and how she’s likely the cause of Lilith’s disappearing seven years ago and ending up in Heaven and all kinds of other things our heroes will have to fight against.

Until we get to our big, final confrontation with Roo and both we and Charlie discover that this terrible being of pure evil is in fact this traumatized, grief-stricken woman utterly consumed by guilt and self-loathing. The one person who, more than anyone else, NEEDS the help and redemption that Charlie has spent the whole show trying to offer others.

And also might be Charlie’s other mom.

Yeah, it’s bonkers theory time :D

So back during the rough… twenty to thirty minutes or so between finishing Episode 7 and seeing the post-credits scene in Episode 8, I was VERY sure that Rosie was actually Lilith in disguise (as you can see from this rather amusing post/reblog :D), for basically all the reason I listed above about why Rosie feels like an in-disguise Eve,

But ALSO because of Rosie’s cheek blush-marks that look CURIOUSLY SIMILAR to Charlie’s own. And if you’ve read any of my numerous Rosebird Parents theory posts, you can imagine I immediately latched onto that.

However! This is NOT a theory that Eve is somehow Charlie’s ‘real mom’. That is stupid and I will not hear Lilith slander in this house. Note instead that I said that Eve might be Charlie’s OTHER mom…

Basically I think Charlie has three parents thanks to Lucifer, Lilith and Eve each actually being some variety of functionally intersex due to wacky angel/demon/primordial-human physiology. And the three of them conceived Charlie Gilgamesh-style via Lilith and Eve knocking up Lucifer.

Hey, I want this show to get WEIRD, okay?

Even just speaking generally, we’re already got more or less soft-confirmation that SOMETHING was going on between Eve, Lilith and Lucifer, and that Eve seemed to have specifically left Adam for Lucifer and Lilith. So I’d say it’s not at all a stretch to think that Lilith, Lucifer and Eve will turn out to be a tragic, broken polycule driven apart by each of their baggage and trauma.

Or that a major aspect of the show will end up being about Charlie (with Vaggie’s (and possibly Emily’s…) help) working to get her parents back together.

In fact, I can already imagine what a suitably cute/heartwarming/feelsy reunion Eve could have with Lucifer and Lilith:

Eve, having just been freed from her self-imposed prison/punishment by Charlie, is about to launch into a guilt-and-regret-laden spiel about how she knows how they must hate her and how she doesn’t deserve them…

Only for Lucifer gives Eve a big cute hug.

And then Lilith gives Eve a Big Damn Kiss XD

Simply put, I think it’s pretty clear that Hazbin Hotel is NOT the kind of the show to just go and make a woman the source of all the evil and sin and bad of the world and seemingly the ultimate big bad and NOT examine, interrogate and SUBVERT THE EVERLIVING HELL out of that concept/trope.

[postmodernmulticoloredcloak]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I’m just doing my job, Mr. McKinley.

By suggesting my daughter was a slut?

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

You shut your face right now.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[deanwasalwaysbi]

Castiel - First on his mind - 13x01 - 13x05 - Destiel Canon in Early Season Thirteen

So I’m still not over this.  The confession before the confession. This is the moment that I completely stopped questioning whether Destiel was canon.  At the end of season 12 Dean has just lost everyone but Sam at once. There is not much whiskey spilled for Crowley, and Sam is unwilling to accept the loss of Mary, but neither of those are what Dean is focused on.

Dean prays to god - to chuck - I think for the only for only the second time in the entire series. Dean prays in earnest for the return of Castiel.  He mentions others but he has just lost his mother and yet his first demand is “and now you’re going to bring HIM back. You’re gunna bring them all back.”  

Dean mentions everyone, his family, bobby, even Crowley, but he starts with Castiel.  It parallels Castiel’s first version of the 15x18 deathbed confession in 12x12.  “I love you. I love all of you.”  A mirrored response.

Below the cut for full analysis of Dean’s prayer, grief, and closet themes in the first 1/4 of season 13.

Dean’s prayer goes unanswered and he beats the door up in a visual homage to brokeback mountain (x). It is at this point chronologically that Dean completely loses his shit.  In the car on the way to the pirate stop Dean is unable to say the words out loud. 

 “Let’s see, Crowley’s dead, Kelly’s dead, Cass is... ... Mom’s gone, and apparently the Devil’s kid hit puberty in 30 seconds flat.” 

Sam asks if Cass is really dead and unable to say those words Dean goes stoic as he can and says, “you know he is.” Dean’s upset, very upset, and that grief and anger is not focused on Mary.

Dean gains a tiny instantaneous moment of hope from a demon who then completely smashes it.

After his prayer Dean becomes completely inconsolable, an angry vengeance machine, the killer he used to project himself to be.  The change is supposed to be such a plot point, such a surprise twist, that it is only revealed LATER that it happened.  Such a major plot point that it must be teased and foreshadowed, with Sam asking Dean, “Dude, whatdiyou do to your hand?”  Giving the viewer their third clue that Dean did not have this cut on his hand from the fight with Lucifer and Jack.

Dean spends five full episodes without Castiel after dropping to his knees beside Castiel in 12x23, and in that time we see Dean unravel.  

In 13x01 he no longer cares about secrecy, immediately explaining the situation to the sheriff.  We see him choosing to approach Castiel’s body alone, looking upon him with such deep pain, tenderly wrapping, pausing multiple times to steel himself so he can finish that task.  Sam continues to get more and more concerned for Dean’s mental state.  Dean taking out his anger and rage and grief all on newborn Jack who continues to do nothing wrong and idolizes Dean.  

We see Dean drink himself under the table, rage against Sam and Jack, and actually become suicidal, killing himself in an unnecessary way with a flimsy excuse.  Billie sees it and notes something has changed.  He no longer believes he can win and no longer wants to live.     

At the shifter Psychiatrist, Dean says that Sam is delusional because Sam won’t admit that Mary is dead, “If he admits it then it’s real. If it’s real, then he has to deal with it, and he can’t handle that.”  Yet we repeatedly see Dean trails off unable to say the words that Castiel is dead.  This is not how Dean has reacted to the loss of Sam, John, Mary, Charlie, or any other familial loved one. 

In his loss of Castiel, Dean becomes John in the aftermath of his loss of Mary. Dean becomes the abusive father to Jack that he himself grew up with.  Jack has a moment of self harm and Dean ‘comforts’ Jack by telling him he’ll kill him so he can’t hurt anyone else. 

Jody’s Speech to Patience - In Contrast to Dean’s

In addition to Dean’s grief the writers show Dean struggle with his identity - with whether to stay in the closet.  In the third episode of the season - Patience - Dean tells Patience to deny who she really is. 

“This life, [hunting] there’s no joy in it there’s nothing but pain horror and death. So if you get a chance at normal, you take it.”   

Jody corrects Dean. In disbelief.  “You don’t have to listen to him, to either of them if it’s not what you really want.” Jody then talks about her daughter Claire, her gay daughter Claire.  

“I asked her to stay in line, to fight who she really was ‘cause I thought it would keep her safe. It didn’t work. It never does. ... you try to force it down to make someone else happy, you will only make yourself miserable.”

If that isn’t a blatant acknowledgement of the metaphor I don’t know what is.  This stopped being subtext and became... text.  Jody has dropped Dean clues about overcoming toxic masculinity before. In 12x06 Jody and Dean talked about big feelings, and that conversation was preceded by Dean beings shocked that Jody could be both badass & like chick flicks at the same time.  She’s been teaching him. However, this time was much more directly and specifically about coming out of the closet, about living in a way that is true to yourself.

After the loss of Castiel, the Dean that had developed over 12 years was gone - and he only returns upon the return of Castiel, right in time for tombstone. 

Meanwhile we get Castiel’s side - where he is being tortured by the Empty with his love for Dean and his fear that Dean doesn’t love him in return. 

Everytime Dean can't say Cas is dead I die a little inside.

"...no matter who we lost, whether it was Dad or -- or Bobby or... And I would take the hit."

"...and now Mom and ... and Cas... And I -- I don't know. I don't know."

Dean was in love with Cas. Dean is bisexual. Dean has spent 12 years unwilling to admit it. 

Dean had been repeatedly lit in orange in the car rides, but the second he believes Castiel is alive his face is inexplicably relit in white light.

We then come to the final shots of the episode - where the camera COMPLETELY IGNORES SAM and focuses exclusively on zoom in reaction shots between Dean and Castiel while “It’s never too later to start all over again” plays in this conclusion to a five episode romantic longing and grief arc completely platonic reunion between two dude bros.  

We also see the Orange Light / Dean’s Ongoing Fear of Loss Motif come to it’s climax, the burning of Castiel’s body (13x01), and Castiel’s return (13x05).

I legitimately don’t know what the writers thought they were doing if they WEREN’T explicitly writing a romance story.

It was much later that we learned there was an angle we never got of their reunion, where Dean was cupping Cas's face and neck in his right hand.

But we do get the look on Dean's face in 13x06 when he's able to get his arms around Cas after he's deflected and called Cas 'Pal' again, Gif via @inacatastrophicmind

Bonus - Dean’s stages of grief by @mariethalienne

[whateverthedragonswant]

More proof in the pudding for 15x20 breaking the fourth wall theory

I kind of already discussed this theory on this post here but in going over the last two seasons of GoT to add to this dark!Dany meta I’ve got going, I noticed something that I think is worth taking a look at.

GoT 8x06:

We all remember what happens after this weighted ominous walk of Jon’s.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7XhfGY5pIPg&t=254s

“When I was a girl, my brother told me it was made from a thousand swords of Aegon’s fallen enemies. What do a thousand swords look like in the mind of a little girl who can’t count twenty? I imagined a mountain of swords too high to climb. So many fallen enemies, you could only see the soles of Aegon’s feet.” “This is our reason. It has been from the beginning since you were a little boy with a bastard’s name and I was a little girl who couldn’t count to twenty.” “You are my queen, now and always.” -- this is dialogue meant to call back to the Dany the audience has known since season 1 - this was done in an effort to keep her character sympathetic to the end but it’s problematic since she just torched an entire city that held a million innocent people, and it completely negates the true moral of her story - her brother is mentioned who we haven’t seen since season 1, who by all means is not a good influence or a hero in this story but in this last season, she has started to embrace the Targaryen side of things (that we’ve seen reflected in her wardrobe, I see you Michele Clapton, you brilliant woman, you) - the dialogue even invokes season 1 Jon in that one line, though obviously the focus is not on Jon but Dany herself - Jon who had just been acting as the audience mouthpiece in the jail scene with Tyrion (acting as the writers’ mouthpiece - again breaking the 4th wall), saying “You are my queen, now and always”, something the split audience (the ones who felt betrayed by Dany’s dark turn and still stan her to this day) keep saying - yes “now and always” was a common saying in the North, but this wording is purposeful as is this piece of dialogue for essentially what is Dany’s death scene, the most controversial death to come out of this episode, the end of this series I would even argue

15x20:

We all remember Dean’s monologue that took close to 10 mins to happen as he was “fading pretty quick”, so much so that Sam couldn’t call for help

“There’s a few things that I need you to hear. Come here. Let me look at you. There he is. I am so proud of you, Sam. Do you know that? I’ve always looked up to you. Remember when we were kids, you were so damn smart, you never took any of Dad’s crap. I never knew how you did that. And you’re stronger than me. You always have been. Hey, did I ever tell you that night that, uh, that I came for you when you were at school? You know when Dad hadn’t come back from his hunting trip? The woman in white, that’s right. I must’ve stood outside your dorm for hours because I didn’t know what you would say. I thought you’d tell me to get lost or get dead and I didn’t know what I would’ve done if I didn’t have you. ‘Cause I was so scared. I was scared. ‘Cause when it all came down to it, it was always you and me. It’s always been you and me.” “I can’t do this alone.” “Yes, you can.” “Well, I don’t want to.” “I love you so much. My baby brother.” -- notice anything...familiar? -- this is dialogue meant to call back to season 1, to the original audience that started out with the brothers in season 1, that may not have stuck with the show for all 15 seasons but maybe ducked back in for the finale just to see how the show chose to end the boys’ stories - John is mentioned who is not a good influence nor a hero in the story which the show has gone out of their way to show time and time again, despite 14x13 - this is the result of one of their dad’s old unfinished hunts from season 1 including the “villain” - Dean mentions events of the first episode when John hasn’t come back from an old hunt, when he goes to get Sam from school, the woman in white being their very first MOTW of the show, even the dialogue from that first episode where the lines are reversed and Dean tells Sam he doesn’t want to do it alone - the dialogue is meant to invoke nostalgia of that pilot and that time, that version of the boys’ stories, where it was Winchester only - Dean’s death (outside of Cas’) is one of the most controversial deaths to happen this episode, even this series (though it has a lot of problematic deaths, i.e. Charlie but I mean in the main character arena) - this was done to keep season 1, specifically the pilot, in the viewers’ minds and as a callback to the beginning of the show, the dialogue was very purposeful, it’s also no coincidence that Sam is the focus here and once Dean is finished telling him goodbye essentially, he looks away behind the camera and talks about how he didn’t think today was going to be the day but it is (which adds to the pudding even more, because this is later season Dean talking who did not want to die on a hunt and wanted something different for himself, season 1 Dean always knew he would die young on a hunt) 

And let us not forget this:

Andrew Dabb: “If you thought Game of Thrones was bad, just wait” (x) - this is said in a joking manner but where is it said? Comic Con 2019, the same Comic Con D&D canceled their appearances at & left the cast who did appear to deal with the fallout. This isn’t a man flipping off people and being like “Ha! Crybabies, we’re doing what we want to do and that’s that! Ha!” He said it in a joking manner when he talked about how only 30% of people would be pleased after seeing the finale and Jared joined the conversation. This is the same man who pushed hard along with Bobo Berens for a spinoff that featured women and women of color as well as having proper queer representation but got shut down by the network in the end. The same guy who worked to separate Dean and Sam from their toxic co-dependency and bolstered the found family theme in the narrative, while also taking the baton that Carver started with of Dean and Sam thinking of what they would actually want for their endings, and running with it, developing that even further. 

What did GoT have? 2 final seasons as it were. To be fair, season 7 cannot be considered an alternate ending, it had way too many open endings but here (x) it’s stated that D&D did want to end GoT with season 7 initially before being convinced by the network to go to 8. They wanted to move onto other projects (that never happened because they’re egotistical greedy idiots, but I digress)  and their rush to end the series showed. HBO wanted 10 seasons but they didn’t want to move forward without D&D. GRRM thought at least 13 seasons would be appropriate. 

What did SPN have? 2 finales. 15x19 is not only the finale that closes up the mytharc but also the found family finale. I’m not sure if they knew this ahead of time or found out last second (Misha’s line of “Cas’ ending was supposed to be different but I don’t think we’re supposed to talk about that” still haunts me), but ultimately, that’s how it worked out. 15x19 was for the later season fans, the found family, the mythology fans (meaning Heaven, Hell, angels, nephilim, Lucifer, Jack, etc). That’s why we get the huge montage of characters at the end of the episode, the initials on the table, Dean demanding Cas be brought back in the beginning of the episode and Lucifer’s phone call, Dean and Sam wanting Jack to come back to the bunker but he can’t, Dean and Sam driving off in Baby together with “Running On Empty” playing. 15x20 was the series finale for early season fans, Kripke fans, Winchester-only fans. That’s why there’s no big montage in the beginning of the SERIES FINALE that they had done every season premiere, every season finale, and every mid-season premiere. They didn’t want the found family (yes, including Cas and Jack) in the viewers’ minds. But they couldn’t remove those two characters from the narrative completely (they were too integral later on in the series plus later season fans are watching this too) so they get mentions. This is why the Carry On My Wayward Son twice, Sam married to Blurry Wife and having Dean Jr., the Winchester-only mantle, the MOTW that calls back to one of their big bads (vampires) in season 1 (outside of YED & any demonic forces), why the brothers-only ending. This is why Dean is all ‘Cas who?’, why Eileen disappeared, and why Jack is off shooting a new spot for Architectural Digest. They only wanted Sam and Dean on your minds in 15x20 with the extension of John, Mary, Rufus, Bobby, and Baby with a touch of the Roadhouse in the background. This is also why no pictures of Blurry Wife on the Winchester-only mantle either. This is why Sam’s son was named Dean. This is why after putting on the Party City wig, Sam goes to sit in Baby and cries, thinking of Dean.

I’ve said it before and I will say it again: 15x20.👏 Was.👏 A.👏 Vehicle. It’s no coincidence that W*lker was more heavily promoted during 15x20 than any other time before. That what happens in 15x20 for Sam and Dean (and that Sam is once again the focus after having the story split between the brothers for years before) parallels somewhat to what happens in Jared’s new show and his character. This is the same network that uses its shows to backdoor pilots of spinoffs and other shows time and time again (think Green Arrow and The Canaries, Legacies, etc). It’s also no coincidence that W*lker is in the same time slot as SPN had been in, that they intersperse the use of #SPNFamily and #W*lkerFamily on Twitter, that the C*W SPN twitter account is used to steer followers to their other content, that the C*W YouTube account for SPN no longer has any clips or promos available for that show, almost as if it doesn’t exist. You know why? Simple, they don’t want SPN on your minds anymore. They want you watching W*lker and any other new content they are cooking up and throwing at you. Don’t be surprised if they start heavily promoting another new show (besides their returning ones) during W*lker episodes now. That’s just the name of the game, how it works. They already pushed the audience they wanted from 15x20 to W*lker and now SPN is an officially closed chapter for them. Dabb and the actors had other projects to move onto. In their minds, it’s done...until they try to reboot it in some way in a couple of years. And it will not only feature a younger generation of actors but will have what they consider to be appropriate queer representation as well as POC representation in the new cast. It may be the same Winchester story though changed or a whole new story in that universe. You laugh but watch. It’ll happen. This network is not known for its quality or originality, only for their brand. There’s a reason they keep on showrunners to head up new content if their original source of content works and they become “favorites” (i.e Julie Plec).

Ultimately, GoT was referenced many times on SPN, in dialogue between characters whether it applied or not. GoT was mentioned by the actors when discussing watching it, at cons and in interviews. SPN (and Dabb) was very well aware of GoT and what happened with that show. Not only because it was all over the media everywhere, being a pop culture phenomenon that had HUGE backlash, but also because they were there at the Comic Con where the backlash was felt strongest. To the point where even other people mentioned it in their panels (i.e. Seth Rogen). I’m obviously not in Dabb’s head nor was I on set when they filmed the finale or in the writers’ room with J2 and the writers when they pitched the ending so I don’t know. But isn’t it odd that 8x06 of GoT features a scene that has been confirmed by Kit Harington as breaking the 4th wall to speak to/get the viewers’ attention, make them think, and SPN is a show that has featured that same concept (usually in a comedic fashion) time and time again? And in 15x20 they have Robert Singer make an appearance? And the infamous bridge crew shot, J2 talking to you while still in costume as Sam and Dean from that same shot, and the voiceover “And cut” before it cuts to black? 

I don’t think we’ll ever really get answers. I think any we get will always be complimentary to the network, or “we can’t talk about it”, or “it was always planned that way”. I’m not saying those people are being less than truthful (and seriously, I don’t blame any of them, it’s PR and they need to protect their careers, feed their families, if you speak out on anything in this universe, something really serious or the tiniest thing, you risk ever getting hired again, you will be blacklisted, it’s not right and it’s certainly not fair, but this is the way this particular business works) but something is not adding up (a lot of somethings actually). I think there was definitely a different ending for Cas, possibly even Jack (meaning he might have made at least one appearance). I do think there may have been a different resolution to Destiel and Saileen (unless they truly planned to keep it ambiguous all along). I don’t know if Dean would have had a different ending, I think he might have at one point as suggested by the narrative during Carver’s and Dabb’s eras, but I’m not sure what their “true ending” was going to be regarding him or Sam. To have Sam be the one that died would have been redundant from Swan Song (5x22) so I doubt they would have gone in that direction. I hate to think it but I don’t think we’ll ever really know. As far as death scenes go, Dean’s death in 9x23 was way more meaningful and impactful for me when he tells Sam that he’s proud of them, than what we got in 15x20. No offense to the guys’ acting or to the boys themselves, but the 9x23 scene was more appropriate imho. And that also leads me to believe that Dean’s manner of death may not have been what they planned all along. But until we get answers (which again I don’t think we will), we’ll never truly know for sure.

As for me, this is just more proof in the pudding. I’m not saying Dabb & Co purposely sabotaged 15x20 at all but I wouldn’t be surprised if they kept the reaction to GoT’s finale in mind at a couple of key points while getting these last two episodes shot. 15x19 was our finale, sad to say. 15x20 was the network’s finale, meant to induce nostalgia and callbacks, bringing the boys’ original fans over to Texas to watch a certain ranger do roundhouse kicks. Sad but true. 

[beigejournals]

Season 5 Lucifer

welcome to my unsolicited thoughts about Season 5 of Lucifer.  

as an avid and veteran series binger AND a talker-while-watching-a-movie-or-series-but-does-not-want-to-spoil-anything-for-my-friends type of person, i have finally dedicated a space and found a good way to let all my thoughts out as i watch a movie or series when i am alone when i can’t bother a lot of people because (1) they don’t want to be bothered and (2) i don’t want to spoil things for them.

so here are my thoughts, and of course, SPOILERS AHEAD.

BTW, i LOVED all of Lucifer! but this season was a slow burn for me. 

ep1

drug scene at Lux; is Amenadiel mean now?

so is Lucifer himself in his own hell loop when he became the ruler of hell? his own guilt towards his father? idk (to be frank, i don’t remember the past episodes except for the fact that he is now back in hell)

the premise of the first episode is cute!

side note after the title card: i remember how much i loved the soundtrack for Lucifer!

Maze is still hot.

I love how Maze and Chloe’s relationship developed and how they don’t have to use words to communicate.

Amenadiel’s and the Psychologist’s house HAHAHAHA i love it.

is Charlie Jesus? His mom’s faith in front of Ella is like every mom plus every religious person ever haha

YES. ELLA. YOU. DESERVE. A. GOOD. GUY.

self-improvement is now a meme, huh?

Dan is me.

comment on drug scene: Amenadiel is still the same, haha!

Maze and the card, haha!

how was the guy in the mask face (did i just say mask face?) blurred but in the party, Los Angeles was in perfect accuracy. excuse me.

coming out of the dead: “oh sorry, that’s so gross!” LORDT HAHA

love you, Charlie! hope you don’t feel like you have to perform because your mom expects a lot from you and that’s so ironic because she’s a psychologist!

Dan’s speeches about parenting: i get it tho, parents try to love their child, sometimes, they just don’t know how

also, i think it’s the sister but Chloe’s just a softie

lol Maze is jealous that Chloe got to talk to Lucifer and trying to say that they don’t need Lucifer.

OOF MAZE.

i forgot about what happened with Eve.

GUYS THE MURDERER IS LITERALLY GOING TO ESCAPE.

the amount of projection as defense mechanism in this episode is too much it feels like it’s too on the nose.

but i do love the parallel between what’s happening on Earth and in hell.

the amount of layers in this question either it’s Lucifer’s or his or his sister’s (assuming it is his sister who was behind his murder)

ok apparently it’s not his sister.

me in law school:

sana all kaya kang mahalin na babalik from hell. kilig aq.

also, after all these years, Lucifer’s house has been so clean!!! wala man lang alikabok

if she’ll be fine without him then who tf is that?

ok i read the synopsis for the next couple of episodes. i don’t like spoilers. don’t make the same mistake.

ep2

i’m Ella when it comes to my friends’ special people HAHA

also, i love the slight lean to one side to show us that this is not the real Lucifer.

why does he have to be naked???

it’s so funny for me how they have to reestablish him. LUCIFER NEVER LIES HAHAHAHAHA yes we can remember now after you repeated it 3x.

ALSO WHY IS EVERYTHING TO ON THE NOSE. EVERY SECOND IS A METAPHOR FOR SOMETHING. was it always like this?

Oh Michael. Nice. Was he an archer? We love the American accent.

how can Amenadiel not know that was Michael? GANON KA IDENTICAL SIZ?

we love the unnecessary car chase just to  reinstate the fact that this is a crime show

that slomo with the wings!!!

also everything is so slow with this show!!! idk why but everything feels just a little bit slower (or maybe i just want lucifer and chloe to be together? idk)

gwapo ni lucifer nung nagmomol sila ni Maze pls

cringe ng elevator scene

ykw. i think it’s because i like the lucifer character that’s why i’m impatient. he hasn’t been appearing the way i want him to.

see. you don’t have to remind me so much about the show because i know he was supposed to say “what is it that you truly desire” not fear. I FEEL LIKE THIS SEASON IS DUMBING THE PEOPLE WHO LOVED THE SHOW FOR SO LONG. okay sige.

either she knows it’s not him or SHE’S REALLY THAT NICE AND POWERFUL OF A HUMAN BEING.

oh i’ve been questioning whether they had sex already and this episode answered my question

CRINGE coffee scene: the spoon???

random question: are angels virgins? so is Michael a virgin?

what kind of a person would just go deep on someone else’s pocket just because they ran out of money?

knew it Maze won’t do Chloe dirty like that!

thanks Chloe. u know better than that. (full disclosure: I THOUGHT SHE WAS ACTING BADLY APPARENTLY A GOOD ACTOR CAN ACT BADLY TO PROVE A POINT?)

literally just liked it and now there’s a new secret that was said too soon.

God baka naman pwede mo ko gawing Chloe Decker char.

AH so interesting. Lucifer = Desire. Michael = Fear. Too on the nose again but that time, i needed the guidance because i am a dumbass.

God ain’t raising his children right!

ep3

yes explain everything to me it’s literally not like we have been binging this show for 2 hours straight

see, the Lucifer character is really endearing. i’m enjoying myself again hahaha. (well, i guess Lucifer when he’s with Chloe?)

can i just say that Tom Ellis was born for that role. he fits is so well that him acting as his own twin doesn’t sit well with me.

i just feel like this show was written by a psychologist who liked watching murder shows.

it’s Lucifer, Chloe!!! siya yon.

ep4

love Lucifer-Chloe tandem!

we love how the actors can sing and the show gives them a chance...

one thought: is everyone going to play a double of who they are?

also is Maze the daughter of Lucifer?

i love how they’re transcending mediums, reminds me of Community with their random episodes.

there you go, Chloe’s doing the double acting too.

Now it’s Linda. (so maybe this is the episode i was asking about earlier).

Now it’s Ella.

omg is this why i loved fleabag, it took forever for the Priest and Fleabag to finally do it? no. i just love the Priest.

Charlotte’s back! and the distance from the table shows how not okay they are. okay.

green screen while driving i love it.

now, Daniel!

we love gender fluidity? i guess. i’m not sure how you call it but i appreciate.

Lilith’s dress for the second song. OMG.

there again to make us dumb. after we just watched the whole thing happen, they retell the whole story again. damn. they think we dumb.

literally this season is making every girl kiss Chloe.

why did she blow the ring? was that her life?

what’s that song in the end?

OH that was the reason why she was retelling everything.

damn celestial beings are the worst parents.

ep5

i wanna be Dr. Linda Martin please.

i appreciate Lucifer wearing the bracelet until now. (but i expected nothing less)

i’ve always loved how people reacted to Amenadiel. he always seemed nerdy but these are times where he truly shine and im so happy.

i forgot.  i think i was showering that time that Michael and Lucifer fought and theyre hella dumb. ok lets go toxic masculinity mixed with daddy issues.

i know they’re too on the nose ABOUT EVERYTHING but i do like the debate about free will and predestination

honestly i don’t know what’s Chloe’s issue is with being made by God probably just because i’m lazy and i just want to lay everything in His hands but coming from a very atheistic perspective where she comes from i kinda get it. i guess my only reasoning why i’m okay with God’s reason is with her is because of my fear of the unknown; my current fear with not knowing my true purpose. at least she got hers! what is she complaining about?

oh i get it now, but that’s why there’s free will Chloe (or idk, idk how God works; there’s currently no electricity in my house rn. i don’t get how that works even if we pay for our electricity all the time, how am I suppose to know God’s plans?)

but aren’t well created for something else? looking at a selfish perspective, maybe He created all of us just because He wanted to.

wow. literally when the nun kissed Amenadiel, the lights in our house opened up. if that ain’t God. idk who that is.

wow that’s so interesting.

“There are no shortcuts.” 🥺

he exposed himself i’m interested. what if i were the one to whom that was exposed to... how would i react?

another sample of them explaining to us WHAT WE ALREADY CAN INFER FROM THE SHOW (the conversation actually continues to dumb it down for the audience) but i get it. it’s religion and fiction built together.

oh i just cringed i almost vomited with this 

also can i just share these. these are the funniest thing Chloe said on the show.

ep6

OOF what a horrifying way to start the episode (after the beach fiasco)

they’re holding us. that’s so adorable!!!

ugh. im still cringing.

yes jowa for ella yes pls. ELLA YOU SAID YOU WANT A NICE GUY!!! HE’S THERE!!! i’ll take him if you won’t!

Chloe if you don’t want Lucifer, i’ll take him too!

can i say how proud i am of Chloe and Dan’s relationship. it’s very healthy for what they are. add Lucifer and Dan to that too! we love men.

also the women in this show have bad taste in men. (except for who Linda married, i guess)

we love the seasonal girl’s night!

that whole charlie thing being amused by lucifer’s devil face is the best bit

was it Michael calling? and oh noooo ;(

FUCKEN MICHAEL

ngl i could have waited for another season for them to have sex on season 6 episode 6 but sure have it at season 5.

ep7

we love a person who wakes up and is not pretty. princess anna who? (i mean she is wearing full on make up, but we’re okay with that snore)

Deckerstar!! they made a word for it

our mojo??? does it only work on lucifer or does it work when she does it to others as well, we shall find out.

oh no! Lucifer’s isn’t working at all HAHAHAHA

it’s currently 2:19 AM. i am tired and sleepy.

Dan talking to Charlotte 🥺🥺🥺🥺

Fucking Michael

oh he emphasized archangel Michael. with my limited knowledge being raised Catholic, i was going to ask earlier if he was an archer because he had crooked shoulders. AND I JUST CHECKED. ARCHANGEL MEANS HIGH RANKING ANGEL NOT AN ANGEL WHO’S A FUCKING ARCHER. me being raised Cathlolic means nothing. HAHAHH

now i’m realizing if i see an angel, maybe i won’t be in the situation where i’ll see Amenadiel but Michael

NO NO NO AMENADIEL

i love this HAHAHAHAHA

knew it. called it! worked on lucifer ONLY. HOW CAN TWO PEOPLE BE THAT MADE FOR EACH OTHER. LORD BAKA NAMAN.

i’m ella shipping them.

THEYRE SPEAKING TAGALOG HHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH and HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH

what song was that? “When it hurts, just to breathe” same

The Shining reference no thank you pls

NAAAH i really can’t do horror things especially not with things i truly fear and when i don’t have a curtain on. No thanks.

14:54 and i’m watching again open the lights bro, it’s easier to find clues that way   also i do get that they’re closing it to ensure that the killer is not there but theyre also moving like the killer is not there anyway so better open up the lights! tho i really know nothing about crime solving (i just typed crime solving instead of solving crimes didn’t i)

we stan ella’s healthy relationship!!!

can i just say there was a time where i can’t even say serial killer out loud so this is really hard for me to watch alone

i know that he’s vulnerable around the detective. BUT SHE SAID HE CHOSE TO BE SO BY NOW HE SHOULDN’T BE AFFECTED BY WHAT HE DID.

Fucken Michael.

ep8

how attractive can you be that even in slow motion, you look great.

oh apparently he did not die.

ALSO OO NGA CHLOE. US2 MO SIYA MAMATAY TEH.

CHLOE THE OVERTHINKER but i get it. BUT STILL.

you know that montage of people just studying and it’s now happening to chloe trying to solve a crime. that’s my cinematography goal HAHAHA. it’s been awhile since i’ve been invested in studying like that.

Lucifer can be just so immature some times

is KillShare based off of SkillShare?

also i’m thinking that Chloe was either taken by Michael or Dan or the SK.

that ring of Lucifer on Maze is probably the longest ring someone has waited for.

i love Maze’s eye make up! ALL THE TIME!

if the lady here is not detective and they’re relieved. that’s just fucked up, man. they were slightly relieved. that’s good acting HAHAHAHAHA.

I’M JUST PRAYING TO GOD THAT PETE REALLY IS A GOOD GUY AND NOT THE SERIAL KILLER COZ I CAN’T HATE THAT GUY PLEASE. the key and the research!!! WTF. stop trying to be smart, show!!!

his mojo is back, does that mean Chloe is gone? 😢

OH AFTER THE TAPES, I THINK IT IS THE BOYFRIEND. DAMN SHE’S REALLY INTO BAD MEN, ISN’T SHE?

I’M SO SCARED. THE SUSPENSE IS KILLING ME.

THE FLOWERS ARE FRIGGIN KILLING ME.

kamukha niya pa si Penn Badgley, nice.

DOES HE GENUINELY LIKE HER OR IS THE KISS TO THROW HER OFF GUARD.

AH NO. i think he genuinely likes her. except that she... you know found that he’s a fucking murderer

HAHAHA PETE

right??? why does this show have to say everything out loud like don’t already know.

oh he just used her but then he liked her. idk. the way he speaks too, so nonchalant.

preach, ELLA!!!! shout out to those who had crappy childhoods and are not serial killers! that’s the bare minimum i guess.

go, Ella!!! know your worth!

lol made me love Pete, he’s funny.

ok my assumptions were right-ish.

HAHAHA, his american accent.

his choosing to be bot vulnerable around her anymore, Michael, i think is a way of him staying alive for Chloe but ofc Chloe will think that Lucifer would rather have his vulnerability than to be with her.

baka di lang love language ni Lucifer words of affirmation, okay! HE SAVED HER LIFE SO MANY TIMES AND NOW SHE’S DOUBTING BECAUSE HE HASN’T SAID I LOVE YOU YET??? SIZ. HE LITERALLY LEFT HELL FOR YOU.

MICHAEL STOP. Michael the shit stirrer. we all have that one friend.

awa me kay Maze. she’s like a lost dog throughout the show.

does Michael want to be God?

skipped thru the speech. cringe.

what’s Amenadiel’s problem with his child having a normal cold? what’s wrong if he’s a mere mortal?

WHY IS EVERYONE IN THIS SHO’W SO INSECURE. i get so annoyed every time Chloe’s mad that Lucifer doesn’t get what he wants

it’s just that i resonate with Lucifer. it’s hard for me to say i love you and now i think Amenadiel stopped time.

oh. i thought Amenadiel’s fears about Charlie being mortal was superficial, i just realized that he was afraid that his child was going to die. but, he can take him to heaven like what he did with Charlotte, right?

oh Michael.

MAZE! MICHAEL IS A PATHOLOGICAL LIAR!!!! you’re fine! i don’t have a soul either.

celestial beings and their daddy issues and inability to communicate with one another and the desire to fight it out as if that’s the solution

HOTTEST BROTHERS EVER DAMN.

itong si God ngayon lang magpapakita anuna siz.

WHY ISN’T HE PLAYED BY MORGAN FREEMAN BUT OK.

CLIFFHANGER!!! IM MAD.

ep 8 should have been called blueballz tbh

[mittensmorgul]

I love Eileen. And I love Saileen. I love that they introduced a character with a disability and made Sam happy But I agree with a lot of what you say about Saileen. They’re NOT canon. Yeah, they very well could be. But as of now, they aren’t. They seem more like a “will they/won’t they” relationship rather than a real established relationship. And with everything with Chuck and his control over her... idk. I love hearing what ppl think about it but they need to let you have your opinions

Thank you for this, seriously. I just feel like I’ve been pressured into seeing it differently. And I’m sorry for that, honestly! I wish I could see it as a purely cute, happy, no complications relationship. I wish I could see the parallels to destiel as direct mirrors instead of “spot the difference” mirrors.

I love Eileen as a character, and have seen potential for her to have a relationship with Sam since 11.11. It seemed like the show was seriously considering that in 12.17. And then the show proved they weren’t... Yes I was fully on board the “she can’t actually be dead because that was stupid and terrible” train back then. I was for a good long while afterward. (lol read my fic Winchester 275, with fun happy saileen!) But eventually, when it becomes obvious that the characters have moved on, we have to move on and see reality, too.

But after the show made her return a direct tool of manipulation by Chuck, and after she herself has expressed that because of that, BECAUSE Chuck’s interference in “writing Saileen” into the show as a romantic plot, when she questions what is real, she’s talking specifically about her relationship with Sam. If that wasn’t the case, if Chuck’s plot for her had been about ANYTHING else, I wouldn’t have so much difficulty with the state of Sam and Eileen’s relationship now. But Chuck specifically brought her back to romance Sam.

When Eileen says she doesn’t know what’s real, she specifically means between her and Sam. Between 15.06 and 15.09, Sam repeatedly denied they were like that (when Dean teased and then talked seriously to him about their obviously developing relationship based on what he’d seen of their interactions, and lampshaded by Dean himself as him viewing their interactions through the lens of his own personal issues he was struggling with at the time, having literally projected his own feelings onto their relationship). And I understand the desire to see Sam happy, to see him find a relationship like this. But I will always want that relationship for him to be real, of his own choosing, and with someone who can freely consent to it. And I want the same for Eileen, too. 

I’m doing my level best to look critically at what Chuck wants, at the plots and situations that he specifically engineers, and asking myself why. He’s been Gabriel-level manipulative/trickstery, Lucifer-level “smashing his own toys,” and Michael-level “monster apocalypse ftw,” and Raphael level “it just needs to be over.” I just watched Mystery Spot on the TNT loop, so maybe that’s why I’ve got Gabriel on the mind here, but I’m betting this week’s episode will have some heavy Gabriel style callbacks. What is the truth? What’s their own choices and what have they been “tricked” into believing was their only choice?

As long as Eileen feels that she had no choice in anything that happened between her and Sam, I’m gonna be eternally grateful that Sam had his foot on the brakes regarding their interactions to the point they learned of Chuck’s manipulation. Because it could’ve gone a hell of a lot worse if Sam had jumped into a romance with her, you know? Imagine if he had taken her up on her proposition in 15.07, only to have her doubt if it was even her choice after the fact? That would’ve been so, so much worse. For both of them.

The narrative has at least left them with POTENTIAL. Eileen could reexamine her whole relationship with Sam and decide she really does have feelings for him that are her own, completely untainted by Chuck’s interference. But I really need that to be her freely-made choice. Sam could welcome her back with open arms, ready to proceed with a relationship on their own terms, to build something real between them. If they’d consummated the relationship while Eileen was being controlled/used by Chuck, it wouldn’t even be a potential. Or maybe it would, but there would’ve always been that specter of what had happened to her hanging over the relationship, leaving them both to question if it was actually real or only based on what Chuck had pushed them into, you know? For however cute the potential of their relationship is or could be, it’s not founded in their own free will.

I completely understand why some people refuse to question Eileen’s feelings for Sam, rather than just questioning which of her actions are “real.” If Eileen hadn’t specifically been brought back for a “romance plot” with Sam, I don’t know if she would’ve doubted her feelings for him, either. They did have a history of friendship, at the very least, before Chuck’s incredibly specific plan for her unfolded in s15. We WANT good things for Sam, we want him to be happy, to find someone to love and be loved by in the way he really deserves, and has wanted for a very long time, but heck I can’t stop hearing Charlie’s voice in 8.20 here:

Sorry you have zero luck with the ladies

I need for any relationship that Sam chooses for himself to defy that statement, not to be burdened by Chuck’s incessant campaign of destroying Sam’s love life  over and over again for his own personal entertainment. He uses Sam’s hope as a weapon against him, just like we saw in 15.09. Two of Sam’s biggest character arcs for the entire series have involved his perception/understanding of reality, and hope vs hopelessness. That is, what gives Sam hope, and what strips it from him. It’s been a key metric for him in every season, and it directly affects the choices he’s willing to make, and possibly more importantly, what he’s personally willing to sacrifice.

At this moment, I’m watching Jus In Bello, and this is... exactly the plot of this entire episode. This is Sam’t plot through all of Kripke Era, throughout Chuck’s original apocalypse arc. This was Ruby’s entire purpose in the narrative: romance Sam to manipulate him into Doing The Thing. In 3.12, it’s framed around Sam’s hope vs hopelessness against the army of demons surrounding them. It’s framed as “not having a choice,” and then working together to “find another way.” Only for Ruby to show up at the end of the episode after they think they’ve succeeded, to inform them that because of their choice, everyone they’d been trying to save was now dead. And it was STILL a manipulation on a bigger level of the narrative that won’t be proven out until the end of s4 and Ruby’s Grand Reveal moment as Lucifer rises.

THIS IS A BIG ISSUE FOR SAM, and dismissing it all for the sake of smushing his face together with Eileen’s is... at the very least, a wee bit problematic. 

Obviously, Ruby was conscious of this deception from the start. She was planted with the knowledge of what she had to accomplish, and willingly participated in Sam’s manipulation. Eileen... wasn’t complicit in ANY of the manipulation, at least not consciously. I’m not attempting to frame Eileen as evil here, but just as much a victim of Chuck’s plotting as Sam was.

If Eileen didn’t feel this way herself, if she didn’t directly question and doubt her own feelings for Sam, she wouldn’t have left. She left for HERSELF. I can’t even imagine being in her position here, you know? Saved from the torment of Hell, given a tiny bit of hope for the future (still with the question of whether her soul was still doomed to Hell when she eventually died again, or whether she got a clean slate and could enter Heaven eventually, LITERALLY ALSO BECAUSE OF CHUCK). Only to discover that her second chance had been provided by Chuck because he cavalierly intended to use her AGAIN, not for her own sake, but to drive Sam’s “plot.” Romance-loss-manpain-angst-hopelessness-”Butch and Sundance” lather rinse repeat. That’s Chuck’s plot, and in leaving, whether she sees that bigger picture or not, Eileen has chosen not to participate in it. Not to let herself be used by that plot.

Eileen had her agency stolen from her by Chuck’s BMoL storyline, and she spent three years in Hell because of it. At this point in the story, leaving to regain that lost agency was the best thing she could’ve done FOR HERSELF. And Sam, of all people, who had his agency stolen from him when he was 6 months old and fed demon blood, can understand that.

If Sam and Eileen are meant to be, they BOTH need to come to that decision for reasons other than “Chuck wants to hurt us with each other for plot reasons.” And as important as Eileen as a character is for representation, she’s also elevated herself to another important level in the narrative: She chose HERSELF. She chose her own life and freedom. She chose to walk out of the story and refused to be used by it.

If Eileen comes back to the story again, it will truly be because she CHOSE it for herself. Her entire life up to 11.11 had been the same sort of “revenge narrative” that the Winchesters had endured. She got her win, and then was faced with the question (posed to her by Sam) of what she was going to do next. When we next see her, in 12.17, we see that she has apparently continued her life as a hunter. She’s drawn into helping with an “all hands on deck” situation, in finding Dagon and Kelly Kline, and then her involvement in that hunt directly leads to her death in the most awful and ableist way possible-- literally hunted down by Chuck’s “big bad threat” of the season, to drive Sam and Dean into Chuck’s ever-narrowing maze of choices leading up to their confrontation with Lucifer in 12.23 (and Cas’s death by Lucifer’s hand, and everything that followed... including Dean’s formal complaint of a prayer to Chuck himself in 13.01. I mean, given Chuck’s favored story, he must’ve been wringing his hands with glee at Dean’s hopeless suffering in early s13, you know?). 

I need to go back to Sam’s experiences with the BMoL himself. In Sam’s ongoing, lifelong issues that I’ve been tagging as “Sam vs Reality” for years now, the weapon of torture that Toni Bevell used to manipulate Sam... was specifically a fake/drug-and-torture induced romance plot. After 12.02 aired, please recall the abject horror of the entire fandom over the rape by deception plotline between Sam and Toni-- after spending the entire hellatus wondering if Toni was being set up with a “love at first stab” redemption arc in much the same way Cas had in s4. For folks that hadn’t been in the fandom during the post-s11 hellatus, this seemed to be a serious potential, until 12.02 burned that notion to the ground. Eileen’s suspicious return to the narrative in s15 rang alarm bells in my head for this exact reason.

I need people to understand why I feel so viscerally uncomfortable with Sam and Eileen’s relationship as it stands in s15. Everyone has the absolute right to find their relationship cute, or truly romantic, or to hope that they are endgame together. But I also think I have the absolute right to feel wary of it, considering all of this ^^. 

Plus, to me, all of this *IS* the interesting character stuff we’ve all been here for all these years. We’re all giddily engaging with Dean’s long-standing issues with anger, abandonment, fear, self-worth, and identity coming to fruition in s15. Even the most die-hard destiel shippers haven’t ignored the deep underlying character arcs of both Dean AND Cas as their relationship is finally being defined, clarified, and hopefully resolved in the narrative. Do we not owe at LEAST that much to Sam, and his character’s underlying issues? Because I think that’s what the narrative is pushing us to examine here.

And as you said, I also see it as a potential relationship. Yes, one with a LOT of potential based on their chemistry. As things stand after 15.09, there’s every reason to think that Eileen could come back, could accept the offer Sam made with that kiss. I saw it as him laying a potential foundation, his way of saying “maybe it wasn’t real up to this point, but we could choose it if that’s what you wanted, too.” I also see it as up to Eileen herself if she can lay that baggage down and begin building a relationship based on mutual choice, understanding, respect, affection, and potentially love and romance. If Eileen is Sam’s endgame love interest, to me it would necessitate their choice to give a future together a shot. It would be a beautiful new beginning in life, for both of them, rather than the culmination of more than a decade of emotional relationship issues that Dean and Cas are facing, you know? There is a difference, and equating the relationships on a surface level is fine, but the presumption that we’re supposed to just accept that the two relationships are equal in terms of underlying emotional context is... at least a little disturbing to me, because ^^^^^^.

Heck, I think I’ve officially emotionally wrung myself out typing about all of this again, but I appreciate having the space to actually work through my own feelings about all of this, too.

[elizabethrobertajones]

Hey I was very confused why there was such a heavy parallel in the latest ep bw Cas-Dean fight in s11 and Cas-Sam fight. Like literally all the moves were same. The style and everything.

http://princesscas.tumblr.com/post/183463115250 

Hiya :D This makes a lot of sense to me because it’s part of the Endless Crypt Scenes Recursion. The fact that TJW did not direct this and it was Phil instead also feels significant to me because thus far the most blatant parallels in the staging have ALL been done by the same director, even with a parallel back in his earlier work on Dark Angel with Jensen, shooting an almost identical scene to this one. The fact that this visual language is being repeated by another director is very significant to me to showing the show understands the language that TJW has been talking in and that other parts of the show can repeat it and utilise it within their own storytelling. 

My crypt scenes tag contains many very long posts explaining the recursions, listing every instance I can think of including platonic or failed subversions, and the parallel to the Swan Song set of conditions and how the two aren’t alike though a scene can look like either on the surface when being done as a less elaborate mirror and just having a quick mind control/possession thing thrown into the story. 

In this case it fits the pattern in a very interesting way - between Sam and Cas we have a very classic Swan Song reversal in 11x14, with Cas holding back Lucifer to stop him killing Sam while possessed, which was excellent, and also is very firmly brotherly love territory. And this again mirrors the staging of the classic “reverse crypt scene” we had been expecting for a while as a fandom since Dean took the Mark of Cain, but covers different emotional territory. Cas makes his plea to Dean very personally about having to watch him murder the world, then when Dean has beaten him in the fight, is emotionally defeated and begging from that same position. With Sam he is clear-headed and can list off multiple reasons he understands Sam has been controlled like this, his own experiences of similar, and then gives Sam MULTIPLE family-based reasons to stop, and like the man remembering his daughter through his cellphone earlier, saying “Jack” is what breaks through to Sam and so the connection is broken not even by Cas and his personal bond with Sam as an intense interpersonal connection, but by the whole enchilada of their connection, personal similarities, empathy, etc, and their family, their collective parenthood of Jack, everything. 

Like, if Cas had been like that in 10x22, he’d have been lying on his back wrestling with Dean instead of feebly clinging to his arm, saying, like, “Listen, Dean, we’ve all been through a lot and I remember when I was controlled by Naomi and being made to beat you up and it really sucked but I understand what it’s like to become consumed by violence, after all I too was driven crazy by all those leviathans when I was Godstiel and I know how hard it can be but please think about how much you have to live for, not just for me but also for Sam and think about how Charlie would feel you doing all this in her name, and - “

I don’t remember the scene like that :P 

It’s important when we’re getting parallels and comparisons in the story to really think about what they’re saying and how they’re set up and what their context is, because it’s not always like for like and saying oh if Dean did this to Cas then Sam doing the same means that they both had the same moment… There were so many external factors, from how lost Sam was from being himself vs how Dean was an amplified rage version of Dean still on his same operating system even if it was messed up to hell with all the darkness, so his motives and relationships remained in a Dean range, while Sam was just attacking Cas mindlessly as far as any reason SAM would have for doing it.  He doesn’t even have a narrative feud with Cas, even in quiet implications of, for example, jealousy of his connection to Jack or something. He and Cas are 100% chill at the moment and therefore there’s no REASON they’d fight and it would be personal. Whereas with Dean n Cas, Dean’s entire feeling of trust and connection in his family had been shattered and he was feeling Cas was implicated in Sam’s scheme that got Charlie killed too, even if we saw the story itself bend in knots to avoid getting a drop of blood on Cas’s hands. That wasn’t Dean’s perspective, and he was killing so many people he was building up a huge bloodlust feeding the Mark, hence his extremely violent and personal response. 

So what this new Sam n Cas parallel gives us is a hugely important emotional moment, because everything Cas says of course is valid and important, but it shows us the level to which his relationship with Sam is a broad and all-encompassing family love built of many factors and shared connections and how they do have a hugely important personal bond they’ve expressed to each other on several occasions about their own mistakes and losses and over-reaching etc. It’s like, in no way is what Sam and Cas have NOT immense and worth calling a very important family love and important connection for the both of them to have. But it also shines a light on what was different about Dean and Cas - that even in this episode their relationship was snarky and bitchy in pure fondness and adoration but you know, hidden behind a huge eye roll each. And their fight in 10x22 was entirely personal and emotional and on such a deep level that in many ways there were no words, but the words Cas did say were practically a marriage declaration which Dean then rejected, and after that Cas had nothing else to give or say because it felt clear he’d given his ALL to Dean. The intense emotion of that scene had a great deal more of the fight and it was serious, in a main plot episode, in the heart of their home, and vicious and horrible in the same way that OG Cas in 14x13 attacking Dean had been vicious and horrible and just, merciless, as a contrast to what you’d want them to be with each other… A lot of the fight was to make us wince in horror and pain at seeing Dean attack Cas like that, while watching “Justin” with his hair and his glasses and his Mr Rogers sweater tackling Cas across a cutsey milkshake bar was HILARIOUS on a visual level and only when “Justin” got hold of Cas’s blade did it even get scary rather than making us giggle like everything else that asshole did. :’) 

So… yeah. Vital data for my horrifying graph of this thing, but the parallel isn’t “meaningful” in a way of actually saying anything romantic about Sam n Cas or devaluing the romance of what Dean n Cas have. It was all good fun :D

[nerdylittleshit]

Thoughts about Spn 14x03

SPOILERS AHEAD! BEWARE!

Soooooooooooooooo, another great episode. This week I think the balance between character focus and plot was more equal, after two very character driven episode. Though I do like the slow development of the plot so far. There are two minor things I want to complain about: first I wished we would have seen more of the Wayward Girls, aka Claire, Patience and Alex, instead of just mentioning them. Second: CAS AND JODY STILL HAVEN’T MET! How is that even possible? But maybe we should be careful for what we wish for, because we demanded for years for Cas and Charlie to meet and when they finally did Charlie died an episode later.

Anyway. There is a lot to unpack again, so as always, let’s take a closer look.

Angry AF

Hey, I didn't mean…  I didn't mean to be a dick.

So let’s start with the man of the hour: Dean. Oh how we missed you and your snark (btw I love Sam’s beard and so does Jody, and that is really all that matters). There is a whole lot of unanswered question concerning Michael and the episode doesn’t even try to answer them, because as for now they are not important. Important is Dean and what Michael did to him. Dean is, as other Kaia noted, scared, but to him fear translates into anger, because that is the only way he has learned to deal with it. He acts like a man possessed (oh the irony), and wants to skip to the end of the story where he kills Michael. Which is such an interesting meta commentary, because the show tells us that it will take some time until we get some answers, that both Dean and the audience have to muddle through what this possession made of him, until we get the big showdown. This is really just the start, and we can’t skip ahead to the end. And this makes me think we might get entire season that is more interested in its characters than the plot, than instead of the multiple story arcs we had in prior season we really just get one big story this season and that it takes some time to tell it. Which makes me really excited.

The most interesting part to me was Dean’s confrontation with the other Kaia. She noted the similarities between Dean and Michael, how they both run on threats and violence. And the episode before already asked us the question if the connection between angel and vessel isn’t just the bloodline, but a similarity in character as well. 14x02 left it open for interpretation if it was Nick who had killed his family, if he might have been a monster even before Lucifer made him one. This week we saw how very alike Dean and Michael are, at least from Kaia and other Kaia’s perspective. Kaia experienced Dean as a violent man, as someone she was afraid of. We do know that while Dean has a dark side that there is more to him, we do get the full picture, whereas Kaia only saw a glimpse. Is it possible than that (arch)angels feed on the worst version of their vessels? Or simply bring out the features similar to them? Michael and Lucifer then, sinister creatures, fed on both Nick and Michael’s dark side, whereas Cas, the angel with too much heart, was influenced by Jimmy’s kindness and his wish to do the right thing? I always found the relationship between vessels and angels very interesting and it seems this season will give us a few new insides on it.

The other thing that has changed is of course Dean’s home, the bunker. Naturally Dean will need some time to get used to all the people there, and that they see Sam as their leader. In contrast to that the scene where Dean commanded Cas to get in his head seemed almost intimate, just the core three of them. And speaking of Cas, it seemed to me that there was some sort of distance between Dean and Cas, despite Dean allowing Cas to get in his head. There was no reunion hug (Jack got one), and Dean was very quick to agree that Cas should look after Lora. It was like Dean tried to put some walls up, but then he did the same thing around Sam, so it might not be specific related to Cas. I’m curious to see how their next interaction will be.

There is also still the mystery of the spear, what it is exactly and why it could hurt Michael (and possibly kill him). Do Archangels exist in every universe and could that been an Archangel weapon? How did other Kaia got it? And what is her plan/motivation?

Also, the modified vampires knew that Dean was Dean again, and no longer Michael, so can monsters sense angels? (Was that mentioned at some point?)

We end the episode with Dean once again drowning in guilt, thinking it is his fault alone that Michael got the chance to hurt people. Guilty Dean is known for not always making the best choices, so we have to wait to see where this gets us.

Wayward AF

I just feel like I sort of already lost before I ever began.

As I mentioned before I wish we would have seen more of the Wayward Girls, because I love their interactions, both with Jody and each other, but I take what I can get. The Wayward story is now intervened with the Michael story through other Kaia and her weapon. I don’t think that was the original plan for Wayward Sisters, as they probably would have a myth-arc independent from Supernatural, but this way it means we are definitely going to see them again, and they will (hopefully) play a bigger role this season. And Jody and Cas might actually meet, though it seemed on the phone like they do know each other (though it is possible they only know each through phone conversations, because I do hope they didn’t had their first meeting off camera already).

One of the big things we can take away from this episode is that Dreamhunter has been confirmed canon. I think Bobo confirmed after 13x10 that Dreamhunter is definitely a thing, but still it is good it is canon now, especially as it wasn’t necessary for the plot to make them romantic. Claire’s guilt over Kaia could be still as intense without her having romantic feelings, but they still went there. Which I will use to talk briefly about Destiel, because we can’t talk about the one without the other. Or we could have if Wayward Sisters would have become its own show, because then Dreamhunter would have no longer be related to Destiel, as they would have both appeared on separate shows. And sure the CW has a thing for spin-offs or shows that share the same universe (Arrowverse) but those shows usually don’t parallel each other. But unfortunately Wayward Sisters isn’t its own show, but for now part of Supernatural, and because of that Dreamhunter do mirror Destiel. And Bobo knows that because he put in those parallels deliberate in 13x10, and Dabb knows it as well, so I take that as a win on the Destiel front.

I liked that we got to know other Kaia a bit better. She is not a monster, and she might even become an ally to the Winchesters and their fight against Michael. I wonder though why she wanted to kill Claire. She confirms that she and our Kaia were connected, because they were both Dreamwalkers. Does that mean she was aware of what our Kaia felt for Claire? And if so, why would she kill Claire? What is her goal? There are too many questions surrounding her character for her not to come back, and I do hope we will see Claire again and her reaction to other Kaia.

And lastly, that quote of Jody I put up there: in show Jody talks about her grief about losing Kaia before she even got to know her, but from outside this is Bobo talking about losing his show before it even started, about the characters he loves so much, and the meaningful stories they were meant to tell us. Those lines and Kim acting them so brilliantly was a huge F*ck You towards the CW, showing us the kind of depth Wayward Sisters could have had, and making me longing for this show even more. I hope they shove in as much of Wayward Sisters into the show as they can, but I’m still very bitter about everything we could have had and that we don’t get to see.

Nougat AF

Well what you did today, you just made me so proud.

Awwwwwwwwwwwwww Jack (that is just my usual reaction whenever I see him). Seems like he didn’t listen at all when Cas told him last episode to find value in his own, but never mind, this week’s case will do the trick. Obviously Lora functioned as a Jack mirror in a not that subtle way. She ran away from home, because she was sick of being treated as a child, the same way Jack planed to leave, because of how Sam, Dean and Cas have treated him. So far the mirror works. But then Lora met a witch, a witch that was at first kind, but then she locked her up, and started to steal her youth, which then resulted in Lora’s (temporally) death. We know that Sam, Dean and Cas have been kind to Jack, have fed him, and also currently locked him up for his own safety. And in the end Jack starts to wither away in some way, the way Lora did. But it wouldn’t make a lot of sense if Sam, Dean and Cas would be the witch in this story, so who is? Someone we already met or someone in the future? Why is Jack’s health deteriorating? Is it a result of the spell the witch used on Lora? Does it have other origins? And how can we help him? Just after jack realized that he can help other people without his powers, that there are many ways to be useful, after Cas offered him a hunting trip. I can’t deal with Jack being sick, he is my sweet Nougat child.

Some other things:

Speaking of Jack, he referred to Cas as one of his dads, contracting the statement from last week that Kelly’s family is the only real family he has left. But also, from Lora’s perspective, who doesn’t know who or what Jack is and his relationship to the Winchesters, this sounds like Jack has two gay dads… which you know is actually true.

I love that the show didn’t forget about Sam’s weird obsession with serial killers.

They have a bottom drawer marked “gross stuff”. Of course they have.

Obviously Posh Spice is Michael’s favourite Spice Girl.

[dustydreamsanddirtyscars]

13x20 “Unfinished Business” Mirror Mirror on the Wall, May We Get a Doppelgänger Story After All? - A Dean Heavy “Review” of 13x20 “Unfinished Business”

As the title of this meta/spec already states this episode analysis for lack of a better word will focus on Dean most since him and his arc have always been what interested me most about SPN and lately kind of truly has become the only reason I still watch the show. I will however later on in this piece also talk about the other characters and bits of the episode that stood out to me. But forefront with this piece definitely definitely is Dean.

And to talk a bit more about him and his role within the latest episode I decided to go with the bit captured as the gifset above, because to me Dean’s drinking this episode served as a visual cue not just for the entirety of his mindset within the episode, but more general too and how it may contribute to what lies ahead for him.

We have seen Dean’s drinking become a bit more frequent again the past few episodes, but it has been quite a while if memory serves right that we have seen Dean drink from the flask as earlier in the episode.

In fact, I think the last time Dean had drunk from it on screen was at the beginning of the season during the “therapy session”. To me that actually nicely closes a cycle, because to me it seems that Dean’s depression and absolute readiness to lay his head to rest is at an all time high again after it had subsided slightly after Cas returned. Nothing drove Dean’s tiredness and his wish for things to just be “over soon” home like the ending scene.

If this episode cemented one thing for me, it is that Dean is tired, he is done and he knows that something is coming for him. And not just due to Billie’s ominous words. To me it seems Dean knows more than he lets on and that he has a plan, because to me the whole framing of Dean this episode especially called back to S5 when Dean was about to say yes to Michael. Now, I don’t suggest that that is happening now (could also be Dean’s wound from the AU indeed is causing more issues or he made some other deal or just knows he’ll sacrifice himself no matter what, because he is tired and yes, tired Dean seemed all episode, tired and done), but it certainly could fit with other parts of the episode that served as major Dean mirrors imo this episode.

One of the big Dean mirrors imo was Kevin Tran (btw I think this episode marked Osric’s best SPN performance to date - really he deserves some standing ovations for this). Because while Dean on the surface looks more “put together” and he hides it behind a mask and stance of “annoyance” and “gruffness”, to me the way we see Kevin here is actually how it looks within Dean as well. And Kevin’s entire speech about never having believed in anything until the end of the world happened and everyone around him started to die. And then God chosing him and he not even being able to fathom what that means and how he had hoped that Michael would save the world, but ended up doing the opposite. All of that to me aligns very well with Dean’s own story too. We know that Dean has always struggled with having faith or believing that “good things do happen” and just like Kevin him and his brother experienced that everyone around them dies. And then just in S11 God again chose Dean, told him the world would be save in his and his brother’s hands (even if he left), because Dean is the firewall between light and darkness and Dean too wondered “what the hell that would even mean”. So yeah, to me their struggles here line up perfectly and to me it might hint at Dean making a deal (maybe with Michael or with someone/something else) in which he would offer himself up (compare that also to Jack’s “What’s the point if I can’t keep them safe?”) for the safety of his loved ones and the world. And especially this piece of dialogue here where Kevin is framed as a christ figure with the cross in the back felt ominously close to how the season may end...

That even if the Winchesters may win some at the end, they may lose more [as a brief side note here: tbh I was so angry about Dabb having the audacity to now use this rework of what should have been Crowley’s last words and that were so important to Mark Sheppard and cut them in the end only to bring them back now in reversal, because really to me it shows a lot about what kind of people the people are that are currently running the show, I find it disgusting, but anywho...]

And even though I still don’t think Michael!Dean is truly what will end up being the case I have to admit if they wanted to with the Kevin parallel (And as captured above the amount of halo shots with Dean this episode, the above is just one of many would fit to that - the shot actually also reminded of this one

in 9x21 “King of the Damned” where Dean also “sidelined” Sam to keep him save. So while last episode didn’t give me any feelings on Dean being back to MoC!Dean ways, this decision of his felt ominous and foreboding - I personally think in the end Dean will either yield the archangel blade or the Lance of Michael or will die/be wounded by one of those) this episode to me they laid enough groundwork to assume that maybe Dean has already “made contact” with Michael and agreed to something and offering himself up. Because it may not be about dying as Kevin told Jack, but about breaking a person enough for them to give themselves up due to the guilt they may feel (”You don’t know the things I have done” is a line that Demon!Dean for example used just like Kevin) and the lack of options they see for themselves to go on. And while Kevin dies here not for the greater good, but because he is at the end of his rope, I could see something similar happen with Dean only that it would be more of an action for the greater good (and btw the toy soldier in the AU to me also called back perfectly not just to the one stuck in the ashtray of the Impala, but to Dean himself, who was always reffered to as “a good little soldier”, a “blunt instrument” - really the writing in this regard and how it diminishes Dean as a person, but treats him like an object goes a long way back and fits to the whole vessel theme).

So Kevin’s death here rather rings some alarm bells of how bad it is going to get in the last 3 episodes. [as another brief side note here, I felt it rather unnescessary of them to show Jack’s wings here, because well, we have already known he has them for a while, this just seemed a little “hello causal viewer just so you KNOW” and well, I dislike things of that kind so... Plus: Can’t also say I love that they now also turned Mary’s words to Dean into a new thing here with an angel now watching over Mary (more on her a bit later as well). Seriosuly, yawnnnn, I don’t need that. It isn’t sweet or touching but just ughhh to me, but then again I am just not a fan of Dabb’s showrunning, so...]   And the other Dean mirrors in the episode didn’t make that feeling go away at all, but rather strengthened that bad stuff lies ahead. Because to me the other huge Dean mirror was Gabriel/Loki.

I had talked about the aspect of doppelgängers and the two halves of each person a lot before during the MoC arc and especially in relation to Dean’s arc in comparison to Charlie and Dark!Charlie and it seems to me that entire thread the show revisited with Gabriel going after his “alter ego” Loki. We basically got another doppelgänger story here in which someone has to face a side of “himself” he may not like as Gabriel told Dean about in this moment.

and well, I personally have always headcanoned and hoped the show would go this route with Dean after the mark was removed, because to me Dean was left “in pieces” after that and still isn’t whole again (which is why I always liked the idea of story where Dean puts himself back together again in a similar fashion as Sam did in S6 as I talked about also in one the last asks I replied to). Now, what to me made the Gabriel/Loki thing a possible Dean mirror or rather piece of foreshadowing is (and yeah it might be a bit farfetched, but hey this is spec and it is mean to just throw ideas around) how one could argue Michael or Lucifer are “doppelgängers” of the Winchesters, because they serve as counterparts as vessels so to speak. Looking at Gabriel’s “witness protection”-stunt and the way he points at Dean here. Of course it is meant as “you are right”, but to me this episode just heavily suggested that maybe we’ll get some sort of Dean in “witness protection” as well of some sort. Because why the hell put so much time into exploring this whole deal with Gabriel so late in the season if not to use it in some fashion (okay, of course it could be they don’t do anything further with it lol it is Dabb after all, and so far it also seems the wound was the same thing - both would be a shame if not further used imo)?

So to me there exists potential in a possible doppelgänger!Dean arc at the end of the season, because, well... didn’t anybody else think Loki’s clothing seemed awfully fitting to those we saw from BTS pics of Jensen?

Just era wise... It’s very little to go on, but I could imagine some sort of scenario in which Dean does something really dangerous in order to save the world so that he would need such “protection” (Hell, who says that Dean didn’t strike a deal with the trickster if not Michael or some other powerful being?) and hence the Non!Dean pictures? Even the trickster’s entire conversation with Dean and how he granted Gabriel this protection (if walking away from his family to me would absolutely align and fit with Dean “preparing” Sam for him to not be around for much longer and maybe not due to death, but something else) would fit into Dean’s arc.

In this regard I also found Gabriel’s tale about how he met Loki rather interesting as to me it felt also a fitting parallel to Michael in the cage. Gabriel said he had stumbled upon Loki bound in a cave while hiking the fjords while a snake spewed venom into Loki’s eyes. If you ask me you could also read this as Michael trapped in the cage where he was driven insane by Lucifer (commonly depicted as also the snake). So what if Dean saved Michael from the cage somehow just like Gabriel saved Loki? What if he owed Dean one and they made a deal? In any case to me this whole set up of facing up against yourself or “someone who wears your face”, your alter ego, dark side, shadow self, however you want to call it, could also nicely lead into a Michael against Michael scenario with all of the text and subtext in this episode...

And last but not least in relation to Dean’s talk with the trickster, something that stood out to me again was the topic of “John Winchster”.

It’s not the first time he came up this season and I have always said that Dean would need another “good bye” to truly let his father’s ghost rest (though what are the chances for that to happen with Heaven going out of business - though I suppose they’ll use Jack to power up Heaven again - unless the allusions and revisit of Crowley’s words were meant to put Jack as new Ruler of Hell, which I doubt).

So... I said this before, but I truly think that by the end of this season we will get a JDM scene of some sort - even if it just lasts for 10 seconds. Maybe it’ll be tied to Dean dying/close to dying or being in the veil or tied to Mary possibly dying and seeing him again or just simply due to all ghosts/souls crashing to Earth with Heaven falling lol. Which brings me to the other bits and characters of the episode that I want to briefly write about, I’ll do that behind the cut. But I have to say it seems whatever will happen with Dean, I get the feeling it will be heavy - sad thing is they could have built all of it up better over the whole season - maybe then I actually would have liked at least some of it lol, but yeah... I hope against hope for good things for Dean!Girls. What are the odds though...

Anyway, on to the rest with a few cliffnotes on other parts of the episode I liked/disliked/that stood out to me:

First and foremost I need to briefly mention Mary here and her whole regret/pain/guilt thing. I mean, it’s nice to know she finally realized she made mistakes, but sadly the show ruined her character so much for me that these scenes here where she was all “motherly” just enraged me, because really after this here

I wanted to scream: You didn’t lose any boys, you fucking abandoned them for a whole season!!! So yeah, not a fan of the Mary scenes at all, they felt cheap to me.

Something else I also greatly disliked was the tone shift in the episode between the worlds. I get that they wanted to be a bit Tarantino with everything Gabriel, but really to me this stuff doesn’t work. Not anymore. It just feels like SPN is a parody of itself at those times. And it’s a shame because I actually really loved Richard Speight’s acting as Loki/Gabriel. His anger, etc. was spot on. Though really, him suffering for 8 years... Please, compare that to Dean and 40 years in Hell or Sam with almost 120 years in the cage. Suck it up, Gabriel! ;P

And last but not least for a shot I really liked lol, because, well, Sam and Dean are literally Gabriel’s wings uhm wingmen here. ;)

Other than that I liked the episode. But probably only because of the focus I read into it in regards to Dean which may not end up being anything at all lol. But yeah, Jensen’s acting/my worry about Dean surely carried me through this episode.

[awed-frog]

The specs and fics are high on that rn but do you really think we'll get any grieving Cs-dean story? We know in the beginning he'll mention Cas but simply alongside Mary and Crowley. Afterwards? Im sure Sam will say something to Dean once avour Cas but hiS focus will be about Mary who he believes is still alive, jody wont say anything about Cas she doesnt know about him, and dean we know him wont be bringing him up. Maybe Jack will - and I hate the Jack storyline lol haha

Hey there - sorry if I’m answering so late, I’m almost done with the week from hell and finally have some time to catch up on things.

Off the top of my head -

1) Dean will grieve for Cas, because we’ve seen him doing so before - we’ve seen him become a useless drunk as far back as S7, and, more recently, we’ve seen him obsess over Cas’ safety when that whole Lucifer thing was going down (this was particularly obvious because Sam was written - wrongly, imo - as someone who couldn’t care less).

2) On the other hand, SPN doesn’t have a good track record for mentioning dead people, which I always found frustrating and not very believable - especially if we consider Sam and Dean have the advantage of knowing for sure what happens after death. And, whatever, so at the very beginning you drink or sob or punch the walls, but after a while it’s simply human to talk about people you lost (“What do you think Bobby would make of all this?”) and the fact they never go there - the fact neither Sam nor Dean ever wondered what Charlie’s Heaven looks like, the fact John was never mentioned despite Mary’s magical return - that annoys me to no end. So I won’t hold my breath waiting for them to change just because it’s Cas; on the contrary, I expect the usual thing - Dean in full I don’t care, leave me alone mode, Sam seemingly not giving a shit, and neither of them mentioning Cas at all (but let’s all check for what beer they drink, because that’s likely to be relevant). 

3) Another thing is that, because of that bullshit the relationship between Dean and Cas is deeper than the relationship between Sam and Cas but we won’t tell you why wink wink nudge nudge, there’s usually a big difference in how Sam and Dean react to Cas being in danger (or, in this case, dead). Now, if this was a normal show and the fact Dean is in love with Cas was out in the open, the story could be told much, much better - because Dean would be able to be a mess around Sam and Sam would be allowed to grieve openly for someone who is his best (and almost only) friend and with whom he has a deep emotional connection. Instead, the show traditionally uses the contrast between Dean’s and Sam’s reactions to suggest that they don’t care in the same way (but why??? who knows??!!!??), and the result is that Dean frets and drinks and is generally annoyed at the world, while Sam acts like nothing’s wrong and doesn’t give a fuck about anything that’s not some final victory (we saw this for bloody weeks during S11, and I hated it).  

4) Also: Dean is not used to lean on other people, and he’s certainly not used to lean on Sam. Losing Cas will surely shatter him from the inside out for a variety of reasons (even if you discard the romantic element, well, Dean’s stated several times that Cas’ family, and since he feels responsible for everything, he will feel it’s his fault Cas died - which, technically, is sort of true), but Dean doesn’t have anyone to talk to. Sam’s primary focus will be Jack, not ensuring that Dean doesn’t fall apart (because, again, Sam’s being written in a shittier and shittier way imo), and Dean wouldn’t want to talk to him, anyway - parents generally avoid distressing their kids with their own problems. The obvious solution here is Jody, but, then again, the obvious solution used to be Charlie back in the day, and even Crowley, and Benny, so I’m not expecting a lot of opening up there. I wonder if and how Claire will be involved in all this, but, again - if I had to bet, I’d say Dean will likely find his emotional outlet with a stranger, either directly (as per the now infamous church confession) or indirectly (and yay for the mirror-a-palooza thing we see in every episode as victims of monsters mysteriously say exactly what Dean is currently thinking but is too straight to say out loud).

So, well - yes, I think Dean will grieve for Cas, but I’m definitely not expecting tearful confessions or a complete breakdown or Sam being overly supportive or anything like that. At this point, it seems like Sam and Dean will give Cas a hunter’s funeral (which, in my opinion, is a stupid idea, but whatever), say some bullshit thing about how he was family, and then immediately start fighting over Jack, and then - who knows. Sam’s goal will be to open up the passage into the other world again, so he’ll be looking forward to working with Jack, while Dean will be his usual grumpy self because reasons. And, of course, as we’re facing this incredibly important thing - finding a way to go back for Mary, kill Lucifer, and save the world from a Nephilim, some kid will be mauled by a werewolf and So, get this or I got cabin fever or We might as well help people and the quest to find Mary (not to mention time to grieve for Cas - and even Crowley) will have to compromise with the show’s need to remain exactly the same, or else.

(As for Jack - I’m not overly excited about him, tbh. We had the ‘exceptional kid’ storyline, like, three times already, and they never made use of it in any way that made sense. Also - if I had to guess, I’d say Jack will imprint on Sam in the same way Amara imprinted on Dean, because parallels and also Jack is Lucifer’s kid, after all, but for some reason Jack won’t kiss Sam and won’t walk into the sunset with a chorus of Girl, you’ll be a woman soon, you’ll need a man and yay for heteronormativity.) 

[mittensmorgul]

8.14, Trial and Error.

Or, a concise jaunt through Dabb's pet themes that will carry us into s15.

With Dean finally finding a home in the bunker, the family themes really begin to kick in. Not only the stuff tied to their personal legacies, but also Dean's... veneration (not exactly the right word, but close enough) of Mary's memory. In an episode where we begin by finding a family that made not one, but THREE demon deals-- (which I already detailed in regard to Dabb's pet themes in this post a couple years ago: https://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/169622891355/im-watching-814-again-and-its-like-a-concise), with the final deal made by Ellie had been to heal her mother of Parkinson's disease, with the worst bit being that Ellie had NO IDEA about the 10 year clock that set on her life before the hellhounds would show up to drag her to Hell.

So we have mother themes already, in an episode where Dean set Mary's picture on his desk in his room when he arranged his room just so.

I mentioned in the last few episode writeups in this series that I wanted people to remember Sam and Dean's respective mindsets going forward, because this is where that all gets torn up. So we're officially back on the job, getting down to the business of closing up Hell forever. Which again, as I've said, seems like a really good idea on the surface. What could possibly go wrong, messing with the Natural Order in such a drastic fashion? I mean, we're just trying to lock up all the evil, right? Gotta keep people safe, and without demons harassing people on Earth, people will be safe... in theory...

Well, one problem with this is the COST of doing the thing... I mean how many things with OBJECTIVELY GOOD AND WHOLESOME conclusions also end with the person doing the thing, in Kevin's loose translation from the tablet:

KEVIN And it's just a few words of Enochian, but... [KEVIN gives a piece of paper to DEAN.] DEAN Oh, here we go. KEVIN ...the spell has to be spoken after you finish each of the three trials. SAM T-trials like, uh, like "Law & Order"? DEAN hands SAM the piece of paper, SAM grabs it out of his hand. KEVIN More like Hercules. The tablet says, "Whosoever chooses to undertake these tasks should fear not danger, nor death, nor..." A word I think means getting your spine ripped out through your mouth for all eternity. DEAN Good times. KEVIN Basically, God built a series of tests, and when you've done all three, you can slam the gates. SAM So, what – God wants us to take the SATs? KEVIN I-I guess. Uh, he works in mysterious ways. DEAN Yeah, mysterious, douche-y ways. All right. Where do we start?

And hoooboy... first off, does God actually want you do complete these trials? Or are they simply a CHOICE that is POSSIBLE to make, even if it might actually be a very, very bad choice? I mean, God also technically gave the angels a choice between "watching over humanity and creation and serving as the guardians of the world" and "starting the apocalypse and burning it all down." And a horrifyingly large number of the angels really believed the apocalypse was what God wanted them to do... (and the AU angels demonstrated that God... didn't actually care one way or the other what they chose, because it wasn't some sort of test  they could pass or fail, they'd just have to live with the consequences of their choices... even if those consequences were MISErABLE for EVERYONE). Just as we will see with Cas's choice to help do the EXACT SAME THING to Heaven under Metatron's guidance by the end of 8.23, and what the horrific consequences of that apparently well-intentioned choice. Did God want them to do that, as well? To shut the gates of Heaven? And look what happened with THAT one? Metatron performed that spell, and was therefore the only angel who did not fall as a result. He effectively left himself in charge of Heaven, the only one able to control the doors in and out. So what would've happened to Sam if he'd completed the spell to close the gates to Hell? And can we all shudder at the parallel here for a moment and once again be grateful Dean stopped him from finishing that?

Good.

Plus there's that other consequence of performing the trials... the whole "getting your spine ripped out through your mouth for all eternity." Which makes it seem pretty clear, despite Sam's insistence that he wants to survive completing the trials, like there is a zero percent chance of actually being able to survive completing the trials, you know? No matter how you slice it, that seems like... a nonsurvivable situation... And yet, it's one of Sam's arguments to Dean at the end of the episode when he decides to complete the trials instead of finding another hellhound for Dean to kill...

DEAN Sam, I didn't pass the test. SAM But I did... And I'm doing the rest of them. DEAN My ass you are! SAM I'm closing the gates. It's a suicide mission for you. DEAN Sam... SAM I want to slam hell shut, too, okay? But I want to survive it. I want to live, and so should you. You have friends up here, family. I mean, hell, you even got your own room now. You were right, okay? I see light at the end of this tunnel. And I'm sorry you don't – I am. But it's there. And if you come with me, I can take you to it. DEAN Sam, be smart. SAM I AM smart, and so are you. You're not a grunt, Dean. You're a genius – when it comes to lore, to – you're the best damn hunter I have ever seen – better than me, better than dad. I believe in you, Dean. So, please – please believe in me, too.

But Dean... He saw it clearly from the start:

DEAN Because of the three trials crap – God's little obstacle course. We've been down roads like this before, man – with Yellow-Eyes, Lucifer, Dick friggin' Roman. We both know where this ends – one of us dies... Or worse. SAM So, what – you just up and decided it's gonna be you? DEAN I'm a grunt, Sam. You're not. You've always been the brains of this operation. SAM Dean— DEAN And you told me yourself that you see a way out. You see a light at the end of this ugly-ass tunnel. I don't. But I tell you what I do know – it's that I'm gonna die with a gun in my hand. 'Cause that's what I have waiting for me – that's all I have waiting for me. I want you to get out. I want you to have a life – become a man of Letters, whatever. You, with a wife and kids and – and – and grandkids, living till you're fat and bald and chugging Viagra – that is my perfect ending, and it's the only one that I'm gonna get. So I'm gonna do these trials. I'm gonna do them alone – end of story. You're staying here. I'm going out there. If landshark comes knocking, you call me. If you try to follow me, I'm gonna put a bullet in your damn leg.

BUT THIS DOES NOT MEAN DEAN'S ON A SELF-DESTRUCTIVE PATH HERE. We have repeatedly been shown that in s8-- but especially since Cas got out of Purgatory-- that Dean is kind of the opposite of self-destructive and nihilistic. He's REALISTIC. versus Sam's fantasy of idealistic. Dean doesn't see it as a "suicide mission," and he's anything but suicidal. That's obvious from the last few episode. He ENJOYS his life, he's THRILLED about having found the bunker, having his own room, this incredible legacy (how many people does he tell "yeah, we're legacies" to over this period? It's hilarious how proud and happy he is about this), not to mention his relative "lightness" since processing through what he went through in Purgatory. He's not self-destructive, he's just accepted his life and is realistic about it. He takes pleasure where he can find it, he's spending a lot less time denying the things that make him happy (like LARPing with Charlie or making him and Sam some really good food or even decorating his own room at the bunker). He's just accepted the fact that he doesn't even WANT a different life. He LIKES his life hunting, and is realistic about how he'll meet his end as long as he continues hunting.

But this is in stark contrast to Sam. Sam hears Dean's lil speech about dying with a gun in his hand and he sees it as hopelessness or resignation, when to Dean, it is not that at all. BUT IT WOULD BE TO *SAM*. And Sam really has difficulty processing Dean's emotions and desires through his own personal sympathy filter, because they just do not compute to Sam. What to Dean equals "comfortable acceptance of reality and the life he chooses because it makes him happy," to Sam sounds like "I'm willing to die because my life is otherwise meaningless." And it really misses the whole entire point.

But what SAM has always wanted for HIMSELF was that perfect life Dean described to him EXACTLY there. Normal family, normal life, living to old age and never having to hunt again. To Dean, that sounds like TORTURE. But in Dean's mind, Sam COULD have that life without Dean, without Dean dragging him back into the life like he literally did in 8.01, which Sam had been RESENTFUL AS FUCK over. He WANTED to hold on to that normal life! He was able to do it for a year, and even after Dean came back from Purgatory, Sam did not want to go back to hunting. Even when he DID reluctantly get back into hunting, it was filled with "you wanted me in the game, so I'm in the game," and repeated reminders that as soon as they found Kevin, and then when they found him it shifted to as soon as they closed the gates of Hell, that he would be retiring from hunting for good. REPEATED. REMINDERS.

Dean doesn't want out of the life AT ALL. He THRIVES on it. He doesn't know how to be anyone else, and doesn't want to try to be... but he's also not running toward the nearest cliff, you know? And as we go through this season, we'll watch Sam's attitude in reaction to the suffering the trials put him through, and watch him come to grips with the reality that there is no surviving these trials, no matter how much power of positive thinking he applies. But hooooBOY he's gonna keep trying to win here...

Let's also take a moment to reflect on just how... mistaken... the Winchesters' instincts can be regarding their plans. Because I think this has bearing on their entire choice to undertake the trials, as well. They go to the ranch knowing at least one person there made a deal. They BELIEVED it was primarily a deal to make themselves rich, but then the first hellhound victim dies, and they learn that he'd sold his soul for 10 years of love with his wife, who reverts to a state of confusion and can't even remember why she'd fallen in love with her husband in the first place. And... ew. So Sam quickly realizes that at least one more person sold their soul at that ranch, and begins suspecting the three happily wealthy (if socially stunted) members of the family. They don't at ALL suspect it's the quiet, nice youngest sister who lives a "normal" life after her family became inordinately wealthy. She sold her soul hoping that wealth would solve all her family's interpersonal arguments, but instead it just made them worse. But the surprise was the final soul-deal-- Ellie, who literally worked in shit all day in the barns because she loved the animals and loved her work, even if she didn't care for her employers. She sold her soul to save her mother's life. Entirely altruistic, if misguided.

After all this s8 nonsense, which is in turn s13 and s14 nonsense regarding the choices they all make re: possession by Michael, going to the AU to save Mary and Jack, Cas going to Heaven and making his deal with the Empty, whatever Dean was doing with the Drama Coffin, and whatever Jack's personal trials will entail after he returns from the empty in s15... well... what are we willing to trade for the people we love? Even when that's put up against the framework of potentially saving the universe?

Because let's remember again what Ellie traded her soul for... to save her mother. And wasn't this the exact offer Chuck made Dean in 14.20. Do the terrible thing, end your own life, but it will save your mother. And in the face of that choice, Dean refused.

[mittensmorgul]

I know these both happened in Buckleming episodes, and this is our second reference to the idea that there are no women in the Apocalypse world. Or am I reading too much into Kevin's "hot women" and that other guy's "haven't seen a woman in a long time" lines?

Nope, I’m thinking there are very, very few women in that world. In 3.02, when Mary tells the guy that she’s a hunter:

HUNTER: I ain’t never met a female Hunter. Not many women, period, since the wars began.

So it seems logical that for a kid who grew up in that world would have an entirely different set of priorities than one that grew up in the regular world.

In 12.23, when Cas is describing that AU to Sam and Dean:

CASTIEL: As I said, it's– it's Earth. But this Earth is locked in eternal war between Heaven and Hell. There are armies of angels fighting hoards of demons, and the few humans that remain are caught in between.

“The few humans that remain...” are going to have raised in a war zone. I mean, as the Prophet, it’s likely Kevin Tran has been raised entirely by angels for his own protection from demons and even other humans who’d be suspicious of any human with a connection with angels.

I have another anon asking several questions in the same vein, so I’m gonna append it here for easy reference purposes :P

okay but do we know WHY women are like... rare or whatever is going on in the AU world? Is there a reason?? or is it spn's excuse for inventing a whole 2nd world and having no female characters over there either??

I love this, I tried to answer the how above, so where’s some thoughts on the why. :)

As I said to the other anon, we’ve known that humans in general are in short supply in the AU. Fascinating how they’ve paralleled it to a near-identical situation in “our world’s” Heaven with the angels going extinct, since that was also a major plot point in this episode.

The angels were trying to capture Cas because they believed they could use him as either bait to lure Jack in, or that after they apprehended Jack, they could use Cas to convince Jack to help them replenish their ranks.

One thing I’ve thought may be Jack’s eventual endgame is that he’d voluntarily choose to go to the AU, and everything I’ve seen so far this season is leading me to believe that’s a distinct possibility. Jack’s whole deal since he gave Cas that vision in 12.19 was to bring “paradise” to Earth.

Now in the AU, Michael and Kevin referred to the SPN ‘verse AS PARADISE. And they both intended to come through the portal because they HAD the apocalypse in the AU, and then failed to end up with the promised paradise... Michael did kill Lucifer, and God’s still gone. There was no reward except more war.

Well, what if Jack’s purpose is to bring paradise to that world apparently forsaken by God? Where Michael considers himself the ranking deity? Where humanity has suffered nearly to the brink of extinction and all that natural wonder has just turned to dust? What if Jack’s power could bring life and hope back to that world that’s completely devoid of it now? What if that’s why his power even opened a rift into that world in the first place?

The same way the angels want to use Jack’s power to generate more angels and repopulate Heaven, and Asmodeus wants to use Jack’s powers to unleash the worst of Hell on the world to begin the sort of war in the regular SPN ‘verse that destroyed the planet in the AU, what if Jack CHOSE to end all that fighting and suffering in the AU? I mean... THEEEEMES.

So yeah, I think the lack of women in the AU is important for this fact.

That’s the watsonian perspective. Now on to the doylist perspective, because you can’t mix these perspectives and come up with rational thoughts:

I’m honestly RELIEVED there aren’t more women in the AU. I want characters like Eileen and Charlie back, but I want OUR Eileen and Charlie back, you know? I really don’t want entirely different AU versions of them.

The fact that Ketch is alive, and Rowena is also alive, means there’s an excellent chance that Charlie is ALSO alive. And the fact that Ketch was also responsible for Eileen’s death, and his return brings her death specifically up for the same sort of potential for resurrection...

I mean, narratively, all of Ketch’s actions are now up for critical review. That’s how these sorts of things work within a story’s structure.

We know Ketch had somehow compelled Rowena (a witch, whom we know he hunts for funsies, but is willing to let her live specifically because she has this particular power... so he lets her live for selfish reasons, even though he’s still on the “all monsters must die” bandwagon, and seems to have found a kindred spirit (or at the very least an employer with goals he can appreciate) in Asmodeus.

Honestly, I’m thinking of Ketch and Asmodeus as the characters Dabb told Bucklemming to focus on this season so they’d largely be able to just fuck with them however they wanted, because we’re SUPPOSED to hate these characters anyway. Like the rest of the writers are handling all the “good stuff” of the season, and Dabb’s just found a way to keep the dreadful duo going in their own little circle.

I’m just talking to Lizbob about this, and she’s agreed, suggesting Dabb just gave them this little playpen with a few toys in it that if they break them, it’s not gonna break the larger narrative. She mentioned she’s annoyed that Mary seems to have got caught up in that playpen, so the fact Mary wasn’t in this episode at all is actually a relief.

Dabb might be stuck with Bucklemming in the writer’s room, but I honestly do think he’s found the best possible way to keep their nonsense contained. Does that make sense? I hope so. Because regardless of the wtf-ery of the details, and the atrociousness of the whole Asmodeus thing, they at least managed to stick to the overarching themes. For bucklemming, that’s a feat in itself.

[dustydreamsanddirtyscars]

Things about 13x08 “The Scorpion and the Frog”

Alright, since I am awfully late with watching the episode and I don’t think anyone really needs a ton of my rambles on my live watch, I figured - also since I didn’t find much noteworthy to meta or talk about while watching - I’d just make one bigger “impression” post on the episode.

Overall, I have to say - while this wasn’t one of the best episodes ever written - I did not mind the episode. I can’t say I adored it or liked it massively, but I certainly didn’t dislike it as I did with the previous two. I actually found the episode entertaining somewhat. The pacing was alright and I did enjoy the characters introduced in the episode - even though they felt too close to certain other beloved already deceased characters, which kind of left a bad aftertaste imo. In general though and despite it’s silliness, I think the episode worked as a true one off and filler (and I usually tend to say fillers don’t exist, but with this one to me it truly felt like filler - and yes, despite the fact some of the big themes were worked into the episode - but I’ll go into that in a bit).

Alright, here are some aspects I feel like commenting on a bit more.

First of all there is the title - one I think worked pretty well in relation to the context of the episode, because the fable the title is inspired by, I suppose, is explored directly within the episode by the characters and all their “deal making with the natural enemy” that like Dean said right in the beginning usually never works out for them. And of course we saw that ending up being the case with Alice (though in the end she was freed), but most of all Barthamus (who I did enjoy - he was kind of cross between Balthazar and Crowley to me - though tbh seeing him just made me miss Crowley so much more than anything else) and Luthor Shrike as well. More than how the title related to the episode’s arc however it is important to see it in relation to the overarching theme of the season of “nature vs. nurture” especially considering it was the lead up episode to the mid season finale which features Jack heavily, who is the main character through with the whole “fighting against your ~nature”-theme is explored by. If the fable is anything to go by and it’s dark moral then it would allude to Jack going dark side (even though he has been taught and socialized differently) as this is simply part of his “nature” as Lucifer’s son. In this regard it feels also noteworthy that Aesop (which Dean has read) wrote a similar tale about a “Farmer and a viper” where a farmer finds a snake freezing to death and takes pity on it and warms it in his coat - revitalized by that the snake ends up biting the farmer and kills him), which feels even more fitting in relation to SPN lore and how Lucifer is seen as the “serpent”.

Then there is the whole talk on Solomon and him keeping tabs on the Queen of Sheba, which reminded me that earlier this season we had a scene featuring the “Song of Solomon”, which makes interesting, if Solomon ends up popping up a third time this season I’‘d call it a pattern and it’s probably interesing to di into all of that history a bit further.

As for the episode’s characters. I actually liked Grab, he was a kind of “one off”-demon - he wasn’t plain stupid or over the top cringeworthy evil like demons (and angels as well tbh) have been portrayed a lot on SPN the past seasons. I wouldn’t have needed to see him again as a character, but he was enjoyable for the time of the episode. I also liked Barthamus and how the actor played him, but in general to me just no one can in any way replace Mark Sheppard and Crowley so that’s that. And lastly there’s Alice. She was alright (the actress did an okay job), though tbh, to me she felt too much like a clichè and too much like Charlie 3.0 (seriously, they even had to give her a line featuring “Charlie”? Sorry, but… meeeh, I’m not a fan). Hell, they even sent her off with a bus scene and her showing the “victory”-sign. I mean…. how much more blatant can you be?

Now let’s move on to Luthor Shrike. I personally felt reminded of Magnus/Cuthbert Sinclair a bit with his collection of artifacts and such (forever disappointed they never picked Magnus as a big bad, that guy would have worked as that imo). Especially as he was described as “doing anything and everything to add to his collection”. Tbh though I did find him a bit stupid tbh. I fully believe he has his entrance video trapped (he just seemed like that kind of guy) so he must have seen Sam walking in an out of the devil’s trap and then when he hands Sam a shot of gin he hadn’t mixed holy water into that to test him? Seriously? That just seems to me awfully stupid for a 200 year old immortal being. Which brings me to the other character I had to think of aside from Magnus with how he lived secludedly: Cain. Like Cain, Luthor also seems to have drawn away from socitey after losing a loved one. And yes, of course the parallel to John giving his life for Dean and Dean then later dying was prettyy apparent, but I suppose it was alos meant as a possible moment of foreshadowing for Lucifer and Jack’s story. Will Lucifer in the end maybe sacrifice himself to save his son? While I really don’t need or want a Lucifer redemption arc, I’d take it if that meant we’d finally be rid of that character lol. In visuals also to me Luthor was aligned with Cain who was also immortal and got stabbed by the demon killing knife and then later died like Magnus by beheading.

And last but not least on to the Winchesters. I have to admit if Jensen wasn’t as good as an actor as he is the “compass hand thing” as well as the “paw thing” would not have worked. They were silly yes and once more Dean was used as comic relief, but Jensen delivered it. So I didn’t mind those a lot. What made me a bit moody was when the “Nerve damage”-scene rolled around, because it captured so much with nothing much said, but only “I lived off of that stuff when I was a kid, What is it like 10 times the legal amount of caffeine?”. Yeah, nice callback there to how Dean never was a child from 4 onwards and literally ran on coffeine to make it through. Like… how is that not yet another example of how friggin awful Dean’s life was and how much he had to shoulder at a way too young age? Aside from that I found it rather interesting that Grab called Dean a “hand puppet” - of course that as due to the spell he had cast on him, but I can’t help but rather think of that comment in a much broader sense with Dean as a vessel - yes, I am still stupidly hoping that someday Dean as Michael’s vessel will be rendered of import by the narrative again. Silly me…

And now truly lastly, the ending scene with the burning of Bart’s bones and the spell and how slow the Winchesters were there and how Bart just stands watching in slow mo almost when Alice patiently picks up the lighter after he just said he is sooooo quick was just… eye roll worthy imo. Also, lol, Bart saying Sam is the smart one? Apparently not when it comes to keep something from burning. ;P I mean, come on Sam, you blew on that? Really??? Bahaha.

Anyway… So yeah, that’s kind of all I have to say. Not much stuff for meta, but a few very pretty eye candy moments, so maybe I’ll try some editing. Anyway overall verdict: Alrightish irrelevant episode. Score: 6 out of 10.

[elizabethrobertajones]

This or That - SPN

I was tagged by @bluestar86 and then ignored it for 3 days because I suck at doing these things >.> 

I’m going to tag @shardspoon @destiel4life67 @fangirlingtodeath513 and @teenwolf45537 for always being in my notifications ;)

1. demon!dean or soulless!sam?

Demon!Dean!! And not because I love Dean more but we got probably exactly enough Soulless!Sam... We had some build up like oh no something is wrong, and we had the goofy cracky episode about it, and then it turned serious and got resolved in one of The Best Episodes Of The Show Ever so all in all I am completely content and happy there. 

And then demon!Dean was only 3 episodes and the Mark of Cain stuff either side was so LONG and honestly the crack spec in the start of season 10 that Dean would get killed a come back as a demon like multiple times would have improved season 10 so much. You get crack episodes where it’s like oh shit I’m a demon. You get episodes where they use demon!Dean to get shit done. You get the inevitable time when it’s too much of a mess and Something Has To Be Done. I mean the 3 episodes packed in a lot but there are gaps and I think season 10 suffers a LOT from all sorts of random plot jerking around things, like not wanting Dean to be a deomon in the 200th episode just so they could have a musical, etc.

2. balthazar or gabriel?

I don’t really have a preference because I like Gabriel better in canon maybe but there’s SO much fanon about him it even ended up in 9x18 and it takes a serious meta workout to reconcile it all... Balthazar had a much smaller part (although I guess about the same no. of episodes) and at least in the fan fic I read, rarely shows up except to do exactly what he did in canon, basically :P I think he’s much more fun without it being really complicated but Gabriel is far more interesting. Since I’m lazy I’ll pick Balthazar for being fairly low energy to enjoy and of the 2 of them with nearly identical deaths his was way more glamorous to Gabriel’s over-dramatic :P

3. cas’ blue tie or striped tie?

1: I agree with Saz that tbh “no tie” was the best, but I think the classic tie is better. It had a lot more of Cas’s rebellious, scruffy personality in it. I associate it with him being windswept and angry, which are my 2 favourite Cas traits.

4. season 5 or season 12?

Season 5, because it’s just so epic and unlike anything the show has ever done before or since. I do get the old Kripke nostalgia even if I actually prefer pretty much every season since’s emotional arcs and characterisation much more. There’s still something electric about it for all its problems.

5. the colt or the angel blade?

There isn’t really a “the” angel blade... I mean I think the flippy flippy thing is awesome, whoever is doing it, but the Colt has style and history and fires in slo mo and is a one of the kind thing the show was practically built around... It has way more personality, so it’s not really a contest to me. I mean if it was “Dean shooting the Colt in slo mo or Cas doing the flippy flippy thing before he’s about to fuck something up” it would be a much harder question. :D

6. spn verse or au?

Canonverse aaaall the way. 

7. “mystery spot” or “free to be you and me”?

What sort of questions are these?? :P Do you prefer Sam angst or Sam angst with a side of Destiel bonding? I mean it’s not really a choice but are we supposed to get deep with Carver’s writing of some of his more iconic original episodes or what? :D I don’t think these episodes compare in other ways because they’re 10/10 for completely different reasons like crack or plot or character stuff or concept, none of which the other can remotely compare to even when it’s got its own 10/10s. Like the only common thread is the flower boxes in the diner are in the motel room when Cas is getting up in Dean’s personal space. 

Am I in too deep in the meta of this show.

8. jimmy novak or emmanuel?

Jimmy! He’s his own character and we probably need to take a moment to remember him every other time we talk about Cas or Claire so he’s so important even if his role is just the one episode and a few lines in Heaven. I really love everything about him in The Rapture. Also, these are weirdly biased Carver questions so I’m just going to lol that he has the same job and wife as the fake backstory Gabriel pretended to have in Mystery Spot when they confronted him. I have a mental venn diagram for weird little Carver tropes and it *cracks me up*.

Emmanuel is interesting but I don’t see a lot of “variations” of the characters as their own distinct people in the way they often get depicted as unique versions. Like I get separating them out for distinctions of who you’re talking about, but Emmanuel was just Cas with memory loss and his “Emmanuel” identity had very little development or exploration - we really just knew how Daphne found him and how he picked his name and some other little tiny details like his sweater or house... All the rest including healing people and all the stuff between him and Dean was ABOUT and FOR the fact he was Cas and ties into Cas’s characterisation anyway so... I don’t see any need to separate him out except for being clear about what I’m talking about :P 

9. favorite hair: sam’s, dean’s or cas’?

DEAN. It looks so fluffable. And soft. And then spiky and ready for a fight. Dean is his hair. His hair is Dean. Please pat him on the head someone. Or grip his hair really tight and pull it. Hee.

10. “i lost my shoe” or “you have a guinea pig? where?”

“I lost my shoe” is a CLASSIC kind of line that gets put on mugs and bumper stickers and shit. How can I not say it??

11. abbadon or ketch?

Abaddon because she’s terrifying and sexy and deserved to take over Hell and get a whole season as the big bad/Queen of Hell and I am still disappointed. Ketch was fun and all but he was in and out and did exactly what he needed to do in the story. Abaddon just got TEASED to us and then they murdered her awfully instead of letting her be awesome. I’m always going to be frustrated they brought her back and never worked out what to do with her.

12. lucifer or michael?

Michael absolutely any time ever. He’s legit scary and the big bad of the show. Lucifer is a joke and even in season 5 when he’s scary he’s not AS scary or important as Michael. Like yeah he’s the devil or whatever, but it’s all branding. Look at him. It’s all paper thin because he’s the Worst Sam parallel but it’s just like, so what if he was actually a monster with all the expected murdery-ness - Michael’s the Worst Dean parallel and taking THAT bundle of anxiety about what Dean might be and turning it into an enemy is horrifying. 

13. benny or charlie?

Long live the Queen :(

[awed-frog]

The latest chapter of your fic made me think how do you think the show will deal with Crowleys death? From my side I think they'll make Sam and Dean either literally or metaphorically raise their glasses to him

Hi! Well - I think that’s a good guess, but I’m not sure if and when it’ll happen.

See, one of the problems with Crowley’s death is that it was overshadowed, to both audience and characters, by Cas’ death and Mary’s disappearance. If S13 starts exactly where S12 finished, I’m betting Crowley won’t be on anyone’s mind - Dean will be too distraught by Cas’ death to function, and Sam will be Sam - repressing his own feelings and grief and worry about his mother because Jack Kline is about to possibly destroy the world, and Dean’s in no shape to stop him. So, you know - I think that the realization of what Crowley did, and the consequences of those actions, will take a little time to surface - if they do at all.

Because another problem here is that no one will actually miss Crowley at all - except for Dean. 

If you’re reading my fic, I assume you know why I think their relationship was so interesting and significant, so I won’t get into that, but it’s a fact that Dean was the only one who got to see Crowley for who he truly was (also the only one who understands what being turned into a demon is like, because it basically happened to him twice), and therefore he’ll be the only one to feel anything other than relief. And what worries me there is that the show doesn’t have a, uhm, stellar record of allowing Dean to come clean about things he can’t, or won’t, tell Sam about - we’ve seen he’s come to rely on Cas for this, which is Beautiful and Meaningful but also a problem because a) Cas already knows everything Dean is, read it on his soul way back then, so Dean has no reason to talk to Cas about All The Things and we, the audience, are left guessing about many of them, b) Cas is not human, which means he sometimes reacts bizarrely and not in any useful way and c) at the moment, Cas is pretty dead, so there’s also that. In my story, I had Dean talk to Jody, which is sort of the only option Dean’s got left at this point, and also a Terrible Idea if it’s Crowley’s death he needs to discuss because, well, Crowley did try to kill her - jerk move, Dean.

(In his defence, he was very drunk.

Dean, that is, not Crowley.) 

And also: the reason Dean will miss Crowley (and it’s text that he will, because Cain said so) is Highly Problematic. As much as I loved whatever that thing between them was, I think Supernatural crossed the line without even realizing it, because writing our hero, the Righteous Man, sleeping around with the King of Hell (and they’re! both! men!) - I don’t think they actually wanted to o there, I have a feeling it was some kind of joke gone wrong, like the beginning of Destiel. And whatever point this show makes about shades of grey, in the end its moral compass is pretty on point, which means there’s no place for Dean to have any kind of feelings for someone like Crowley, who may have changed, sure, but was still a demon up to the moment he died and never much repented about anything bad he’d ever done (including being a very visible threat to Dean’s heterosexuality).

Furthermore, Supernatural is peculiar in that it is both very self-aware and extremely patchy with past events? Like, there’s all sort of parallels, both visual and narrative, to other seasons, but at the same time, what’s dead stays dead and once the episode is over, goodbye and good luck. We never hear Sam and Dean staying in touch with people they’ve saved or helped (even in cases where that should definitely happen - you’d think Sam would try and text Magda, for instance, and maybe he did but we don’t know anything about it; same thing goes for the Cuevas - me, I would have stopped by and said hi at some point, if not to see them then to remind myself that happy endings do exist, but, again, that never happened), and we never hear them mention dead people at all, which, again, as someone who lost people, I always found Weird, because it just happens, you know? You go somewhere or you see something or you dream about stuff or simply, after enough time has gone by, you find it pleasant to discuss these things even out of the blue - Charlie would have loved this movie and Hey, remember the way Bobby used to -? And yet, nothing. Same thing goes for season continuity - last year, they basically found out that God exists and they had waffles with Him and there was that whole awe-inspiring and traumatizing Amara business - stuff that hasn’t been brought up once in S12.

(Maybe it’s because they want casual viewers to be able to just start watching whenever, I don’t know, and it’s true that it happens on other shows as well, likely for the same reason, but still - it’s weird and unnatural and I don’t like it.)   

Anyway, all of this means that the scene I sort of want probably won’t happen, and what we’ll have, if anything, will be Dean pouring himself Crowley’s brand of scotch and Sam raising his eyebrows at him and Dean going, whatever, bitch and Sam saying something funny which will totally undercut any possible gravitas the moment could have had. The whole thing will take, what? one minute? yeah - sounds about right - and then we’ll go right back discussing what Lucifer is doing next (personally, I think ‘possessing a rich dick who doesn’t know how society works’ is a good bet).