#i say that in regards to spn and spn only

[the-mpreg-guy]

do you think Jack ever envied or hated/disliked Sam because he was someone Lucifer actually wanted

I might have to outsource to a Jack Understander (@soullessjack, @shallowseeker only if you wanna talk about the little guy tho :3 ) to get a totally accurate analysis of this, but despite the potential for angst being absolutely insane, I'm gonna say that I THINK no (TRAGICALLY. SORRY ITS REALLY GOOD ANGST) because Jack fully rejected Lucifer before he was even born. I don't think he'd ever feel any resentment towards Sam even if he wanted Lucifer to want him after watching what Michael did to Dean (aka what angels do to their vessels).

That being said, I do think he has complicated feelings regarding his relationship to Lucifer and it's a shame that Spn never had Jack or Sam ever have a moment about it.

[sleepyspiriit]

jimmy.

i feel bad for jimmy. i feel HORRIBLE for jimmy.

He had a daughter, a wife, a life. He had a FUTURE. Cas took it all from him, his daughters life was destroyed

[shanastoryteller]

i know spn hates good writing and also sam, but the dumpster fire of s4 really could have been salvaged if they'd just played ruby and castiel straight

by which i mean

ruby should have been one of the good guys (honestly it feels like the writers changed their minds last second regarding her anyway)

castiel should have been the villain (which, let's be clear, he totally was)

the point of this is that it would force dean to confront his own bullshit and maybe figure himself out, which not only would have been good television but would have been satisfying to me, personally

sam's problem is that he wants there to be a good equal to every evil. that he believes goodness exists even where it doesn't, that he always wants to give things a chance, that he always has hope. they sound like good traits, up until they're used against him. they reach the station of angels are bad eventually, but it should have been more immediate and visceral, that there is no greater good here. sam should have had this knocked out of him, which would have shattered him in way, to lose this thing he's depended on his whole life, but it really would have hammered home that it's choices that really do matter, not circumstances

dean's problem is always that he sees monsters as monsters with no grey area, that sam always has to play his moral center the second anything becomes complicated. then he goes to hell, breaks, tortures innocents, and an angel yanks him out and tells him that he's a righteous man

dean desperately desperately wants this to be true

because it's sam who they had to look out for, sam who was destined to go darkside, sam with the demon blood

dean doesn't have that excuse

he's just a human man with a hunger for violence who never learned to curb his appetite. who was instead pushed to gorging himself on it, who is left broken and desperate and angry by what he did to save himself. his whole life, his whole self perception for thirty years, was about protecting innocents. then he betrays that in hell. do you think he kept count? how many innocents he destroyed against how many he saved? the day it equaled out, do you think he wished he could weep?

dean is so unbelievably messed up by hell. not the torture he endured, that's barely a blip, but the torture he inflicted is what haunts him

so he needs for sam to be the bad guy

he's using his powers, he's hanging out with demons, he's drinking demon blood. he's the monster. he's inhuman

(he's using his powers and hanging out with demons and drinking demon blood and still he's doing less harm than dean, still he's trying to save people. dean can't accept this, because he can't be the rotten one. he'll forgive sam anything, but never himself, so it has to be sam. because he can fix sam, he'll always love his brother, so if he's evil there's stil a path forward there. but if it's dean? if he's the one going evil? sam's left him before. why would he stay now? if dean is the one going darkside then he loses everything. himself. his brother. it has to be sam)

dean is projecting all his own shit onto sam because he can't deal with any of it, which is why he treats sam like shit, why he treats him in a way that he's never treated him before. it's how he treats himself. and sam has no idea what to do with this, is left reeling and hurt and broken himself by dean doing this to him. sam never thought dean would leave him to die in the panic room, because dean wouldn't, not the dean he's known his whole life, not the dean that loves him. not alone.

but dean would do that to himself. and since sam is his proxy for himself, it's what he does to sam, but sam doesn't know that so all he feels is the weight of betrayal and grief and rage

isn't it funny, almost? the demons brought sam back just as he was, exactly the same. the angels bring back dean but he's not the same. dean comes back wrong, comes back different. but no one wants to say that. to deal with it

having ruby be evil and castiel venerated justifies all of dean's spiraling, all of his punishment. he was right all along, sam was the problem, don't you see?

boring

ruby stays loyal to sam, a demon who chooses something different, who chooses the boy with the demon blood because there's something compelling about sam winchester, as tempting as the apple before eve, and ruby didn't get where she is by knowing better

(remember when sam pulled all the psychic kids together, acted as leader, and resisted azazel? there is a leader in sam, a compassion in him, that azazel had to cheat in order to beat. and if ruby can show him how to win against demons then-)

castiel let sam out of the panic room. he's following orders, because that's his job, and damn the consequences. this should have been seen as the act of betrayal and evil that it was, castiel proving he was never really on their side at all, never on the side of preventing harm. it also would have made his redemption arc mean something, it would have given castiel a lot more to work with if they'd had to really bring him back over

ruby realizes too late what killing lilith means. tries to stop sam, but now that she's here it's too late, kill or be killed. sam accepts that, is willing to die rather than start the apocalypse. but then dean is there, and he can't watch his brother die again, he just can't. so he kills lilith to save dean, when he would have been willing to die himself

ruby gets them out of there. they discover what castiel did, that he pushed forward the apocalypse rather than prevented it

this breaks dean. he finally snaps, but it's good, because everything he'd used to shore himself up before had been terrible and rotted and corrosive

a righteous man is not a good man. dean is forced to confront everything he's done in hell, and after he'd gotten back, everything he put sam through, how he left him in that panic room and almost killed him, how he's treated him for the past year. how it was a demon who tried to help in the end and an angel that damned them

and how sam saved him anyway, damn the consequences

we should have returned to what the show had been building up to from the beginning - that sam loves his brother enough to do terrible things and dean has no idea how to deal with that

so we've got sam and dean on the run with ruby, castiel's slower and much juicier redemption arc, and dean having to pick up the pieces of himself while sam tries to figure out how he gets them out this mess. and sam's guilt is justified here, his aching sense of responsibility, because this time he kills lilith knowing it'll free lucifer. he makes that choice, for dean. and he's determined to fix it

just. demon blood tainted sam and turncoat ruby trying to save the world. the angels trying to end it. all while dean finally accepts the crushing guilt of what he's done and starts to work through it, starts to work on becoming the brother sam lost, on once more being the steady thing sam can hold onto no matter what it takes, because sam choosing him reminds him of something he'd told himself he forgot

he doesn't want to be a righteous man, a torturer, a demon, a victim, a martyr

he just wants to be sam's brother. the one he looks up to, depends on, loves

he wants what he's always wanted

to feel worthy of his little brother's affection

[angelsdean]

All these thoughts also prompted me to think abt what John and Mary's fights were often about, especially the fight where John leaves and Dean then comforts Mary. And I think a big part of it was Mary keeping secrets and sneaking around with regard to hunting.

We know she was still hunting in 1980, when she saves Asa Fox. Dean would've been a year old and the hunt is not local, it's up in Canada. Mary says she's been tracking this werewolf for a long time and that they have history. I do think when she says "a long time" she means years and that she hasn't actively been tracking it but it's been something on the back-burner that she's kept an eye on all these years. But that still means she left for a number of days at the very least, and I wonder what she told John. What excuse did she come up with to justify suddenly taking off when they have a baby at home. And no, I don't think she needed to be there as "the mom" to take care of Dean or that she can't spend time away from the home or that fathers are incapable of taking care of their children or anything like that. But I think John would certainly wonder what's taking her away from them so suddenly. What could possibly be so important. And with a hunt like this, I don't think she could've exactly given him a set time-frame for her return.

Now, imagine that happening multiple times. Imagine that happening again when Sam is just a few months old. She says she has to go visit her uncle who's poorly (father of the Campbell cousins. The uncle that paid for her headstone when she died). And then she's gone for longer than she anticipated. And John is just suspicious. And when she comes back they argue about it. "I know you're lying! Just tell me the truth, Mary! What, are you seeing someone else?" And Mary holding firm to her lies because her family cannot know about the supernatural and hunting. Because she doesn't want her kids growing up like she did. Because John is her suburban fairytale. He can't know. And then John snaps. He's pissed. He thinks she's cheating while he's working to provide for the family AND watching the kids in her absence. So he flings a "Is Sam even mine?" at her in his rage and she slaps him and tells him "Don't you dare" and then John storms out in a huff but then calls later to talk about it more and Mary shuts him down. "No, John. … We’re not having this conversation again... Think about what? … You’ve two boys at home. …"

I can imagine a version of this phone call going something like this:

John calls. Maybe apologizes for what he said, but mostly just wants her to be honest with him.

John: Please, Mary, can we just talk about this.

Mary: No, John.

John: I just want you to tell me the truth! What are you hiding? What's going on that you can't tell me?

Mary: We're not having this conversation again.

John: Oh okay, 'we're not having this conversation again.' Well then can you blame me for where my mind is going? What would you think, huh?

Mary: Think about what?

John: You know how it looks, Mary. And I just, I can't keep doing this--

Mary: You have two boys at home. (and ohh the delicious irony of that in the context of her being the one leaving to continue hunting in secret)

John, probably, since the convo seems to continue: Oh that is rich coming from you right now, Mary.

Anyways, this is only one of many many scenarios I can imagine of their fights. And it's perhaps a little too sympathetic to John, but! I enjoy thinking of John complexly, especially considering how Young John is presented in SPN, and also John in the opening scene of the Pilot seems like the easy-going family man, who definitely had underlying issues prior to Mary's death (thank you SPNWIN for confirming that) but clearly those issues got worse after Mary's death, and for the most part he wasn't yet the guy we see him become after he is transformed by grief and anger. Also s12 Mary's rose-tinted recollections of John being such a good father, which starkly contrast to Dean's later memories of John, I think it's not a huge leap to say John pre-Mary's death was a good father, and I think seeing Mary leave them (likely repeatedly) under secretive circumstances for days at a time would have bothered John back then and been a continuous point of contention in their marriage.

And again, this is all simply one angle of interpretation, theorizing, and headcanoning and by no means the only possible scenario.

[mismatchedwonders]

I love that even though it was a campy underproduced and (probably) underfunded show, SPN gave us some genuinely GREAT actors.

Like, just look down the list:

Jensen is INVOLVED and CAPTIVATING

Misha is VERSATILE and EMOTIONAL

Jared

Jim is SERIOUS and COMFORTING

Jake is ENERGETIC and ENTERTAINING

JDM is MULTIFACETED and REALISTIC

Ruth is CHARISMATIC and DELIGHTFULLY WICKED

Richard is FUNNY and FLEXIBLE

Rob is INTERESTING and LIKEABLE

Alex is BELIEVABLE and GENUINE

Mark is CONFIDENT and FASCINATING

Samantha is SWEET and GROUNDED

Sebastian is SNARKY and FUN

Mark (P) is SCARY and SYMPATHETIC

Rachel is COOL and PASSIONATE

+a whole lot of others that I can’t remember + a hell of a lot of the guest cast also did sooo good. Just wanted to take a second to celebrate the performances people turned in for the Yeehaw Brothers in the Muscle Car show

Edit since I’m already seeing shit about it: I don’t have replies on bc I never had them on to begin with. In case you haven’t noticed, I haven’t posted on here nearly at all since I got this blog, I don’t care that much about it. This is simply a place where I go to talk into the void so my thoughts aren’t constantly in my brain.

Also, regarding Jared, I have my own complicated feelings about him as a person, especially considering that he’s done a lot of scummy shit and brushed off that behavior with “uwu I have mental health issues” which, yes I can sympathize with since that is an AWFUL thing to struggle with (and I’m in a similar boat when it comes to shit like depression) but that’s not an excuse to behave how he does.

Also, no one else from the show has been able to find work? Lmao fucking where are you getting that? Almost everyone from SPN has acted in at least one other thing since it finished airing, and even some THIS YEAR, whereas Jared has only acted in ONE SHOW that he produced and got created for HIMSELF, and even then it was canceled (bc it wasn’t that well-reviewed by anyone, even by wipe who like the guy).

I don’t categorically hate ALL of his acting, there are a few episodes where he is genuinely good. But he just progressively got worse and worse over the series. And as for the “steady acting career” before SPN, sure, if you count roles in D-list mediocre movies as steady work. And in a lot of those, his acting isn’t much different.

And I know for a fact that people will say stuff like “well if he’s so untalented/unpleasant, why was he kept on? Why does he have work?” Well, see above, and there are plenty of fundamentally untalented actors that continue to get work bc they’re conventionally attractive

So yeah, just a bit of clarification

Have a lovely day 😘❤️

[olderthannetfic]

its kinda hilarious to be honest that saying "because of the rampant bigotry in harry potter, and because of j k rowling's extremely pubic behavior, and the fact that she spends any money she gets from harry potter, which includes library purchases, official merch, etc, on material harm, i can not think of the fans as safe people to interact with" is something thats a controversial opinion.

its not even a "this thing is gross, evil, and should not exist" thing its a "you realize she uses any money she gets from this, which she will continue to make tons of money from this as long as it remains culturally relavent, to actually harm a marginalized minority she has decided to hold a personal vendetta against until the end of time".

if she were dead and the money wasn't going to hurting a group of people who can't actually defend themselves against a whole entire billionaire, i don't think the people squicked out by harry potter fans would care so much.

and the people squicked out haven't actually put out calls to harass them or anything, more just saying things like "i'm going to block you for my own safety, because you're not safe to me"

they aren't pulling anti shit. they're calling the fandom a personal red flag, who they choose to avoid.

pretty telling to be honest, that the reaction to that one account going "yeah no." in regards to not judging harry potter fans got so many people angry at them.

reminds me of why i choose to stay anonymous in fandom spaces.

oh no. someone is uncomfortable your personal comfort media written by a bigot who uses her money to make a very vulnerable minority groups lives hell, and her rhetoric has actually caused deaths! better block the person and write a bunch of stuff talking about how thats anti behavior so i don't have to think about the fact that i help rowling maintain cultural relavence, and therefore help her earn money that she uses to hurt people!

pathetic

--

We've had this wank many a time.

Personally, I'm not sympathetic to the fact that it's people's comfort media or unique for them. That just ends up annoying me for how other fandoms could be bigger or more vibrant if some of those HP fans migrated.

However, the reason people are pushing back so much on my tumblr is that we talk a lot here about censorship and media and the bigger picture. JKR is a menace, but HP is so astronomically popular that the fanfic arm of its fandom is essentially meaningless to its overall cultural clout.

I think people should go stan some other author because we could make a book fandom happen and authors able to pay the rent if we cared to put our energy towards somebody smaller. I have this same objection to the forever fandom of SPN and all the people whining about but not leaving MCU fandom. To JKR, we're gnats, but our presence would actually make a difference in some smaller space.

But the kind of ask you've just sent only makes people less willing to let go of HP.

[crowned-clown-rising]

I know the original tag was a joke, it's always fun to bend canon for destiel jokes.

But this thing about Sam not giving a flying fuck about destiel is sadly the most accurate to canon. I mean fanon Sam matchmaking and always in the middle/ tragically unaware is great but canon Sam??? why is he like that.

Like the whole season 11 when Cas let Lucifer posses him -in Sam's place and bc he thought he wasn't important enough to fight for- and Dean is utterly distraught, not resting not eating not sleeping barely joking always trying to get him back etc... and Sam is all the time like... "oh, well." "dw bro, we'll find a way *goes to sleep*" "chill, Cas is okay. *eats his breakfast calmly*"

And I know, I know script wise he is worried as well and only being logical and Dean is the one overly worried about Cas, but the way Jared delivers it is: 0 fucks given.

[lambmotifz]

Regarding: https://www.tumblr.com/lambmotifz/776096880500359168/spn-fandom-will-talk-about?source=share

Makes me think about Sam feeling pressured to stay with Dean and keep him in line (by offering himself up), just to keep the world safe(r) from his brother

this is very true to their early s2 dynamic: dean was extremely violent and was enjoying hunting so much he was starting to lose his humanity—specifically that one scene from 2.03 where he brutally kills a vampire and sam watches with a horrified look. at the end of the episode dean talks about how he’d have killed all of the vampires (despite the fact that they weren’t dangerous) and how his instinct told him to do it (which further highlights gordon’s words “you’re not like your brother. you’re a killer, like me” + dean/gordon parallels). he admits that he didn’t do it because of sam. and sam says he’ll stay with him then and dean thanks him. this interaction pretty much confirms your point. also sam’s quote from 2.04 “i don’t scare easy, but you’re scaring the crap out of me…you’re on edge, you’re erratic—except for when you’re hunting, cause then you’re downright scary” and another one from 2.09 “you might kill an innocent man, and you don’t even care”

dean doesn’t think twice when it comes to hunting & killing “monsters”, and it scares sam, especially since he’s a “monster” himself. it’s also one of the reasons why he didn’t tell dean about the demon blood (we as the fandom don’t talk about sam’s fear which makes him lie to dean in s4. and you know, considering he ended up locked up in the basement and forced to detox against his will which could’ve killed him, keeping his secrets from dean was entirely justified)

but going back to your point, obviously it’s not the only reason why he stays. it’s also about taking care of dean emotionally (i guess physically too, because taking care of dean emotionally usually includes sam offering himself up as a punching bag that dean could use for anger relief). and finally, dean’s actions throughout the show fuel sam’s dependency on him. sam already feels like he owes dean because dean practically raised him and then dean makes it so much worse when he selflessly but also selfishly sells his soul because he couldn’t live without sam. guilt is the main reason why sam can’t allow himself to leave

[lol-jackles]

I looked at your links of commentary on 15.18 and memes mocking Cas, because memories have slid over time about reactions that night. What I'm wondering is if Jensen's last con reaction--saying the text was there, reactions there, no need to revisit what had gone on--was A SIDE STEP OR AN EVOLUTION. Because imo it felt very much related to what he's said from day one, only more delicately phrased on the friend zone part and more bluntly on No!NotAgain <starkytower/status/1794778358024409591>

The "Relive the best memes mocking Cas descent into Turbo Mega Hell" in the 15x18 tag?

Have read the transcripts and seen the video, I say it was a side step (also the name of Cordell Walker's bar). Jensen never changed his anti-Destiel stance since 2014, and he hasn't changed his answers regarding the meme-making confession since 2020. Jensen is just getting better at being diplomatic when answering the same damn trap-loaded question while never straying from his original stance. And hellers are as usual twisting Jensen's words for their own clout-chasing or self-soothing.

Destiel hellers can't stop being bitter over the finale nearly 4 years later because they spent decade+ investing both emotionally and money on a stupid slash ship so they desperately need a "win" to show for their decade+ of investments.

This sad sap had a petition and wrote 29 pages essay on why few thousand entitled basement dwellers *deserve* a new SPN finale. 4 years later and they couldn't even get half the online Destiel fans to sign the petition.

This other petition even got less signatures.....

[luci-in-trenchcoats]

SPN Episode Tag Game

So this morning after checking out some of @campingmonkey 's latest gif posts, I got to thinking about underrated episodes and what might be some maybe unpopular takes about SPN? And thus, this little tag game was born! The rules are simple:

Name as many (or few) of your unpopular thoughts about episodes, etc. regarding SPN as you want

My thoughts:

Wendigo (1x02) is a GOOD episode. We get the OG "Saving People, Hunting Things" line. We get to see Sam take charge and that the boys, while brave, are flawed and will make mistakes as hunters

Meg 1.0, Yellow Eyes, Lilith and Season 5 Lucifer were the only truly scary villains

MoTW episodes > Larger plot point episodes

The dark/gritty aesthetic from S1-2 should have lasted longer

Monster Movie (4x05) does not get enough love in fandom for it's creative choices and nods to OG horror movies

Ruby 2.0 is basically a different person to Ruby 1.0

Adam being Sam & Dean's half-brother was a stupid plotline

Season 5 is considered the strongest overall season. But other seasons have more standout episodes

Ben isn't Dean's son but Dean was happy to be the father to step up after Lisa was there for him at the end of Season 5

Bobby was done dirty by his death

Season 6 has some good episodes (and no, not just French Mistake)

Crowley & Rowena had the best character growth throughout the show

Angel blades should not have been introduced as weapons

Going to purgatory in season 15 and saying Benny was killed off screen was extremely stupid

Season 11 was the last good season (and parts of 12 if I'm being generous)

Jack was a good edition to the show in S13. Beyond that, they didn't know what to do with him

Sam & Dean acted out of character many times in the last two seasons

I think Season 15 is generally regarded as the worst season, disregarding polarizing opinions on the finale, because they favor larger storyline over MoTW episodes and the S15 plot wasn't strong enough to carry that burden

Tags if you'd like to play along (or anyone else)! @zepskies @campingmonkey @lamentationsofalonelypotato @waynes-multiverse @dean-winchester-is-a-warrior @spnwoman

[eisforeidolon]

Forgive me for restating the obvious, but I was reading through an old post and it just kind of hit me in a way it hadn't before: One of hellers' most fundamental disconnects with the show (and media literacy in general) is how they try to insist parallels establish romance.

SPN used parallels to couples and romantic tropes a lot in regards to the brothers. But it was never meant as a signal that they were romantically in love or to tell you something you otherwise couldn't figure out. It was to underline what we already knew from the entire rest of the story about how they were the most important people in each other's lives. It used romantic relationships because that's a central status typically reserved only for romantic relationships - that was part of the point.

Let's take an example or two. Dean compares himself and Sam to Jesse and Cesar from The Chitters. After interacting with them for a while, Dean is like, 'Haha, you fight just like brothers, almost as bad as Sam and me' and they say that it's more like an old married couple. This is Dean comparing an exact thing that actually happens between him and Sam, silly petty bickering, to something that exactly happens between a married couple. Likewise, let's take Dean's expression and the script note he's thinking about Sam's close call in Red Meat. Michelle is talking about watching the man she loves die and how nothing can be the same, and Dean is thinking about how he believed he lost Sam earlier that same episode and reacting to what she's saying. No one is under the impression that these are signposts telling you for the very first time that Sam and Dean are weirdly, claustrophobically close in a way that compares to romantic couples. They're quick moments which draw an underline on what you already know from the way they've acted towards each other for the entire preceding (and following) length of the show. If you cut either of those moments? It would change nothing about what we understand of Sam and Dean's relationship, because that's how using parallels in storytelling actually works.

Hellers want to insist that romantic couples and tropes being parallels to D/C in and of itself proves that D/C is romantic. Why else would SPN use couples and romantic tropes?!? Well, because SPN does that all the fucking time, maybe? Which is even before you get into how superficial the basis for their supposed parallels typically are.

Let's take an example or two. Hellers want to insist that Dean and Castiel were paralleled to David and Violet from Bloodlines because and I shit you not, one of them wore a tan coat. As well as the absurdly generic dialogue line, "I was there, where were you?" being used both in the backdoor pilot and in 6x20 by Dean. Aha! David and Violet are clearly stand-ins for Dean and Cas, and they were planning to run away together, so D/C is clearly romantic, BOOM! Except literally nothing about Dean and Castiel's actual relationship lines up with that. In no sense were Dean and Castiel ever planning to run away from their families together - not at the point where Dean was calling Castiel out for pretending he didn't know where Dean was if he really wanted advice or otherwise. Unlike the actual parallels with Sam and Dean, there is no underlying narrative base. Likewise, hellers want to insist that Castiel is Dean's Colette. Aha! Cain said Dean is living his life in reverse, and he killed Collette last and his brother first, so since he said Dean would kill Castiel before Sam, Castiel=Colette, and Colette was a romantic partner, so Dean lurves the angel! BOOM! Just for the sake of being pedantic, let's break this nonsense down one more time. Cain lists Crowley as well as Castiel as people Dean will kill before Sam. Collette was special to Cain because she saw everything he was, never gave up on him, and was able to get him to drop the blade. Which is literally what Sam does during the time Dean has the Mark - meanwhile Castiel tries to get Dean to not go and slaughter the Stynes and fails and is ready to give up and kill Dean after he goes demonic. Which doesn't even get into the part where ... Cain is literally just wrong in telling his little fairy tale. Dean is not him. When given the choice of killing his brother, Cain does it. When given the choice of losing control, Cain does it. Dean tries to get Death to shoot him into outer space and then kills Death rather than actually kill Sam. Dean and Dean's love for his brother are both far stronger than Cain is capable of understanding. So the parallel life thing? Is fundamentally hooey anyway. Again, there's no narrative there for a parallel to be drawing an underline on because none of their cobbled together meta resembles anything going on in the actual text. That's not how storytelling uses parallels or any other kind of subtext, by creating something entirely separate and expecting the general audience to decipher it. Though it's no surprise they try to insist that a show would do that, because they have nothing else.

TLDR; Their entire argument is that a comparison to a romantic couple makes two other characters' relationship automagically romantic because reasons. Which even putting aside the lack of validity in their parallels ... continues to be a boldly idiotic statement given the number of actually textual comparisons the show makes between Sam & Dean and romantic couples. Again, it's no wonder they freaked the fuck out over that forehead touch, because they very fundamentally refused to understand what SPN was actually doing on literally any level.

[ananke-xiii]

More on the power of resurrection as the "apple of discord": Chuck vs Billie.

In Chuck's mind Death is not a problem because he controls space and time... he's actually right. I mean, he's definitely shitting his pants at this point but he has never respected Death enough to be worried about her (and his narrative shows just that since Death dies four times in SPN lol).

Chuck manipulates space and time and he's clearly pro resurrection. In his world people can resurrect either through demon deals or magic. Or if he says so, obvs. There always seems to be a price to pay for this, though, because Chuck is obviously the type of god that likes human suffering "for the plot".

Amara in all her "evillness" has a different point of view on the matter, for her resurrection is a gift. Which is still problematic ("what you are regarding as a gift is a problem for you to solve") but offers a new perspective: no deal, no magic, you need it? You get it.

Then there's Jack whose command of the power is still wobbly but shows all the potential to disrupt Chuck's narrative. His take on resurrection is closer to Amara: he doesn't know it but it's his desire to see Dean getting what he wants that sparkled life back into Castiel. You want it? You get it. Dangerous.

Billie, on the other hand, is NOT part of Chuck's family, so to speak. She's very ambivalent about rules: she doesn't like it when others bend them but she really enjoys being the one who bends them. Her initial affiliation and perhaps romantic connection with Crowley while many reapers "sided" with Castiel in s9 tells us that she has her own specific ideas about basically everything.

When she becomes Death, she doesn't want humans performing resurrection spells because she wants to be the one who decides who lives and who dies, thus taking on a role that is not hers to take.

S14 shows us her hypocrisy brillantly: Dean wants to die but she says that he will live; Rowena wants Crowley back (to which she should have, perhaps, been amenable as per above) but she says NO. She hides herself behind the "death books" or whatever they're called and the "natural order" for whatever it means in SPN but Rowena calls her out: it isn't fair.

And she's right. Billie ignores Rowena, doesn't care about reapers dying (she even kills one herself) and only shows up because Rowena held Sam hostage and planned on killing him.

What Billie wants, though, is very much in tune with her role as Death: she wants things "as they were", heaven and hell, humans back on the "normal" timeline, "everything in its place and a place for everything" type of mentality. She wants something she can't have in a world where God, who controls time and space, keeps changing the plot.

A mentality that clearly contrasts with her s11 rebellious streak where she would have loved to toss a Winchester into the Empty, reap God and ultimately fucking harvest the Veil for souls! THAT girl had 99 problems but being conservative was not one of them.

So why does she change? Well, becoming Death would do that to a girl but I don't think that's it. I think she kinda likes it, to be honest.

No, my conclusion is based on what she can't stop repeating at least once per season: Castiel stabbed her in the back. Billie is holding a massive grudge that she very wrongly takes on Dean. Well, maybe not so "wrongly" per se since we know why Cas acts like he does, but when she blames Dean for being chaos incarnate and a disruptor of order she's sooo off target.

If there is one character who wants order and "everything in its place and a place for everything" is Dean Winchester.

No, there is one disruptor in SPN and it's Castiel. And HE stabbed her in the back.

And his resurrection (via Jack) is what should have tipped Chuck off (as I've been trying to demonstrate with all these yappings about cas and resurrection).

Basically Chuck's mortal enemy is Jack who bestows or revokes resurrections as he pleases. But he doesn't see him. Billie's mortal enemy is Castiel, creator of cosmic consequences that dismantle the coveted "balance". And she doesn't see him. Like snakes in the grass.

[shanastoryteller]

I've been watching your progress updates and getting chapter update emails from archive so im starting to get curious about the your spn fic, but im very green in regards to spn itself (i think i only watched the first 10/11 eps of ssn 1 before stopping). would you say a reader needs to know spn context before reading or is it relatively friendly to readers like me?

I know there are several people who are reading it who haven't seen supernatural and are enjoying it, so i'd say it's pretty newbie friendly! but anyone feel free to correct me or add your two cents

[walkergirlsposts]

https://www.tumblr.com/walkergirlsposts/772523580964667392/httpswwwtumblrcomcarolinagirl807724961819190?source=share

You have all provided great examples refuting that anon's claims, as they should be refuted because that anon is just repeating things from the standard AA/Heller checklist to try and claim that JP/J2 fans are the worstest ever ( with no receipts, of course), but I will share that there was one death threat towards Jensen after Rust. But, what anon either doesn't know (because they don't bother to research the facts behind the claim) or would rather ignore facts, is that the person making that death threat, despite claiming to be a Jared fan, was not followed by any Jared fans, nor did any Jared fans interact or support that person. In addition, as soon as Jared fans saw they threat, they reported the account en masse, and helped get the account deleted.

Now, if anon wants to compare death threats, we can take one (supposedly Jared fan threat) versus the massive litany of threats against Jared, often for no other reason than existing. Some, as recently as four months ago.

https://x.com/Sam_Maddy/status/1828883140825223184

And what happens to those people threatening Jared? Do those accounts get reported by other AAs and/or Hellers? No... they get more likes and reblogs. So that anon can miss me with their fake rage.

As to Jensen's comments about the crew on Rust, yes, he did call them whiny bitches, but it wasn't over coffee and drinks. It was the for multiple reasons including housing, but more importantly about safety concerns, for which they had, unfortunately, as we found out, a legitimated reason. https://thehill.com/blogs/in-the-know/in-the-know/578190-camera-crew-walked-off-job-to-protest-safety-concerns-on-alec/

I mean, just how bad did it have to be to have crew members walk off the set? How often has anon heard of that happening on any other set? i can only imagine how bad it was and Jensen's dismissal of their feelings definitely contradicts all the times he talks in conventions about treating everyone on set well, including the crew. (We also saw how poorly he thought of The Winchester cast when he told them not to F*#^ it up for him, or the fact that they had to work while deathly sick (link no longer available... wonder why), or the fact that one of the crew members almost died from a lightning strike. https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/lightning-strike-winchesters-lawsuit-1235580457/)

If anon would like to debate their claims further, I'm ready for them.

Right, in regards to any death threats towards Jensen, there's always hundreds more directed at Jared. Hell, even with his car accident he had people wishing him to die. When the show ended and he was cast to lead Walker??? Hundreds of death threats because how dare he end the show so they don't get destiel. When he said SPN wasn't about romance?? Again, hundreds of death threats towards him all done by hellers. So anon can spare me the one or two Jensen might get. When he gets hundreds then you can come back to us crying.

And as for why the crew walked off?? It was pretty bad. They cited the reasons as no pay, no accomodations, many had to sleep in their cars, they heard explosions going off sporadically, it was a very unsafe set to work in.

But like I always say. Come at us when Jensen has hundreds of threats and anyone trying to ruin his reputation, then we can talk.

[shallowseeker]

It’s kind of a gross misstatement to say Cas was simply a bad friend during the season 6 arc. Dean was also a jackass. He refused to even listen that Cas had his own problems to contend with in heaven and just insulted him (Baby in a Trenchcoat) or took him for granted and prayed when he needed some angelic boost like the time travel. It was only after months of this that Dean finally had a half-ass “Hey Cas, if you need any assistance with your heavenly war, let us know”. Dean and Castiel are both equally at fault for the initial breakup.

I'm not sure why I'm getting this particular question, but yup, I agree that the situation was complex.

One of Dean's legendary coping mechanisms/neuroses is to get prickly and mean when the going gets tough, and I love to talk a lot with regards to both the fighting/hunting and the parenting of Jack Kline.

For Dean and Cas, they're both deliciously Going Through It (TM) in season 6 in different ways, Cas dealing with paranoia via the fallout of Heavenly betrayal and Dean with his complicated feelings of displacement into civilian life.

I sort of miss the days of TV when people got to screw up this badly with one another, but not in such a way that it’s bludgeoning, mean-spirited cynicism, hehe. (((For example, I struggle to think of a modern era of SPN where Bobby's frustration and worry over Dean would boil out in this horrifying way: "You sorry--you're not a person," when in actuality, he's desperately begging Dean not to die, and it's coming out all wrong. Or Dean's indirect forgiveness of Cas, that Cas picks up on immediately by tone alone: "Bottom of the ninth...I'd rather have you, cursed or not.")))

But if we're talking about season 6, Cas is controlling most of the means of communication from the get-go, and the power is definitely weighted in his favor. He sets the tone for it as soon as his big heart leads him to abruptly flit from the car to go and rescue Sam. BUT it's also no accident that Dean's narrative nickname for Cas is SUPERMAN. A perfect, invincible superhero. Dean took him for granted, hero-worshipped him, and conceptualized him as perfect... something Lily Sunder Has Some Regrets reflects back in an off-key manner: "I thought he was perfect...he was a monster (and hurt my child)." The truth with Dean and Cas is not either extreme, however. ("That nifty metaphor has holes:" Cas was trying to save Sam from the get-go, on multiple occasions.) It's the humanity that's in the middle.

It's lovely! And to me, it feels so real, too. Maybe someone else can chime in, but I don't have any huge, complicated feelings about this except that I really, really like the disillusionment period on both sides!

“We think that the point is to pass the test or to overcome the problem, but the truth is that things don’t really get solved. They come together and they fall apart. Then they come together again and fall apart again. It’s just like that. The healing comes from letting there be room for all of this to happen: room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy.” - Pema Chödrön

Love isn't baggageless perfection. It's understanding, forgiveness, resilience.

DEAN (in the dream state, to MARY): I hate you. (Deans voice breaks as tears run down his face) I hate you. And I love you. 'Cause I can't – I can't help it. You're my Mom. And I understand...'cause I have made deals to save the ones I love more than once. (Mary continues to look away but seems to hear him) I forgive you. I forgive you. For all of it. Everything.

[sammygender]

hi.. erm im back (anon from the last 2 asks) (im too scared to un-anon sorry) i want to ask (another) genuine question abt wincest because ur the nicest person ive ever met who's willing to talk abt it from both sides.

i guess i just don't get why people ship wincest? background: im aromantic and have a hard time understanding certain shippy stuff, but i do notice alot of arophobic statements in regards to the evidence given as to why people ship. ex: a lot of "brothers don't look at each other like that." type things. (which i know is not wincest exclusive and is often used by destiel shippers too)

also i notice alot of people being quite amatonormative (definition: the assumption that all human beings pursue love or romance.) so it's hard to even take wincest shippers seriously when all their evidence tends to be perpetuating arophobic sentiments and stuff.

we can all agree that their relationship is seriously unhealthy. but i just have a hard time with it being even borderline incestuous. i also really like the idea of relationship anarchy (definition: relationships within this structure are fluid, and therefore have no solid differentiation between sexual, romantic, or platonic relationships.) so to me it's like. well it's platonic because they say it is? only the people within a relationship can determine what that relationship is and they have?

anyways i know im throwing a lot of words and definitions at you. you're just extremely helpful to talk to and i like what you have to say, so id be extremely interested in your opinions about this.

hi anon!!! im so sorry i literally yapped like crazy in response to this. had no idea i was capable of this much thought on this topic. everything is under the read more

TLDR for the TLDR: for me the 'borderline incestuous' nature of their relationship isnt actually the way they act with each other cause i do think boundaries of romantic/platonic r weird and fake (tho by normal 'societal standards' sam and dean r strange). its more the framing of it by the narrative and genre conventions of spn as a horror. i think. <3

everything im abt to say has been written on at length by much smarter people than me - if ur interested i probably have reblogged other peoples posts on similar topics and tagged them somewhere under #poison in the water and maybe #she walked in on us. i am SO sorry for the mountain of yap you have unleashed.

before i rly start, re: talking abt the concept of wincest from different angles/sides - its honestly so totally beyond me why people dont actually DISCUSS this stuff more. ofc wincest shippers are sometimes obnoxious when they go ‘NORMAL BROTHERS DON’T ACT LIKE THIS!!!’ over anything (like i personally don’t like the whole ‘sam and dean are OBVIOUSLY in love because they bring each other back from the dead!!’ thing. like why is that romantic. i’d try my hardest to bring my siblings back from the dead too.) but like u said pretty much all shippers do that. i think people are (UNDERSTANDABLY) squicked out by the idea of incest, even fictional, and have an immediate kneejerk reaction when people ‘corrupt’ their favorite characters by talking abt it in relation to them. and i completely understand just not wanting to engage with readings you find uncomfortable or odd!! TV can just be escapism there’s nothing wrong with that!! but i tend to find immediate negative reactions against anything that even ACKNOWLEDGES the incestuous subtext in spn uncharitable and annoying. for one, incest is a real thing that happens and its not shipping goggles or creep behavior to look at fiction through the lens of it, just as its not whatsoever unreasonable to look at, for example, the azazel demon blood storyline as a CSA allegory (again of course all this is real heavy and just one interpretation and absolutely no hate for fans who like… just don’t want to think like this <3). for two, i do think there is an undercurrent of it written into supernatural with intentionality to further the themes of familial horror.

so to kind of…. explain i guess… why i say i can see canonical backing for sam and dean’s relationship as incestuous or incestuous-adjacent (lol), i have to go back to the general incest subtext in supernatural as a whole, from a completely academic-interest and not at all shippy way. like i said ofc SPN is primarily a show about FAMILY HORROR - ‘family is hell’, to quote eric kripke in the pilot commentary. or at least this is how i view it; a lot of destiel fans, for example, tend to see it more as…. idk really, i don’t claim to have much contact with them, but certainly not usually a horror. an action-adventure. a western. a story about a Tragic American Hero (sorry im being tongue in cheek and bitchy). i think viewing the show with a sam-focused lens tends to make you view it as horror for… a lot of reasons which i won’t get into here. but i PERSONALLY - getting off track here, sorry - view it as horror. that’s what he originally intended, and it’s what supernatural is most successful at doing. and incest in horror, especially gothic horror, especially gothic horror about the family and the home, is well-trodden territory (where’s my essay from last term about incest in wuthering heights where i somehow ended up, while researching, on an essay about wincest itself). - and supernatural is full of allusions to it. azazel’s silhouette in the pilot as intentionally strikingly similar to john’s, when he first feeds sam demon blood (framed as a CSA allegory, whether intentional or not). then azazel actually possessing john later. mary making the deal that dooms her family for years after via kissing her father on the mouth. hunting portrayed as something abnormal, irregular, taboo in direct opposition to a ‘normal family’ (tho abuse also comes from the nuclear family etc etc). then you can look at sam and dean specifically….

from the pilot, you have the woman in white telling sam, who has just left to go on a roadtrip with his brother, that he’s about to be unfaithful to jess; even if this could technically be said to be about the fact she then attempts to assault him (tho that doesn’t really fit with woman in white lore?? she goes after people who have already cheated…), it’s still portraying jess and dean as innately in opposition, just as jess has to die in order for sam to join dean. all the loaded lines about ‘the way they were raised’ - dean telling sam he can’t escape it. supernatural is clear: the rot is IN the family.

OF COURSE all of this can equally just be about familial abuse!! and IS about familial abuse!! but the way the story unfolds DOES position sam and dean in…. shall we say Roles. sam is the feminised ‘bitch’ to dean’s ‘jerk’; they’re mistaken for a couple in 1x08, in 1x18, in 2x16, in s8; they’re compared to bonnie and clyde, to mallory and mickey, serial killer lover duos. crowley tells dean, ‘you’re lying to sam like he’s your wife’. dean says, at a later opportunity, ‘what about sam? does he want a divorce?’. an ANGEL tells their HALF BROTHER that sam and dean are ‘psychotically, irrationally, EROTICALLY codependent’. dean himself is unable to name what’s between them, explicitly saying ‘love, family, whatever it is’ (which is just SUCH an odd line. Like it’s love and family between you two Dean is it not??? Why are you acting like neither of those words describe it???). then there’s the way jensen and jared act it, their physicality, eg. sam looking genuinely like he’s about to pull dean in for a kiss during playthings 2x16… i also find the whole ‘brothers don’t look at each other like that!!’ annoying, but tbh, they do give each other wild looks sometimes. the end of wendigo sticks out to me whenever i watch it as a genuine ‘why is jared/sam looking at jensen/dean like that… what possessed him…’.

wait another addition - when i first wrote this i also totally forgot about 4x14 sex and violence, which iirc has dean’s siren, originally described only in terms of sex/romance, literally telling him ‘i should be your little brother’. of course the concept of a siren that isn’t really about sex or even romance is really interesting and one valid reading - and also lends itself to a reading of dean as aro which i rly like. but i don’t think that reading is any more or less valid than the more obvious one. (irrelevant side bar but there’s a 2003 sociology book about sibling incest that i read for an essay on wuthering heights called ‘Siblings: Sex and Violence and that makes me go ??? every time i think about the episode. Literally what. That has to be a coincidence. But??)

i think in regards to why people ‘ship’ wincest, a lot of it is of course just that they just kind of See It, for whatever reason. whether it’s the thematic (which i talked on at length already sorry <3) or just the way they look at each other or just because jared and jensen are hot or just because they think it’s really interesting to explore an added dimension to sam and dean’s already messed up relationship. same with destiel, same with sastiel, same with whatever, like u said. shipping culture in general IS hugely amatonormative - people love to declare wide statements about what people who are In Love do and don’t do, which are always silly and shallow. partly why i don’t really consider myself as someone who ships things in general.

i also totally agree w u that only people within a relationship can determine what that relationship is. im not aro but i also really like the concept of relationship anarchy. however, when i see the incestuous subtext between sam and dean, it’s more in a media studies way than in a way of analysing their actual Relationship (though to be fair i’m not a wincest shipper); eg. asking the question why is their relationship portrayed ‘like that’, and what does that say about the themes of spn itself. also it is just an interesting concept to a lot of people.

TLDR the reason i can view sam and dean’s relationship as borderline incestuous isn’t due to their codependency, or dean’s intense possessiveness, or how close they are, or because they spend all of their time together, or because they’ve brought each other back from the dead multiple times and get suicidal without each other. this is even though in our society all that together IS often coded as romantic/sexual and is definitely acknowledged in that lens by the writers (hence constant comparison of them to married couples) - because it could also just as equally be completely platonic and completely insane and the result of the world’s worst trauma bond (the latter which it CERTAINLY is <3). when i talk abt canonical backing for their relationship as borderline incestuous, it’s more about the narrative framing and context surrounding it. at the very least, their relationship is ‘abnormal’, deviant (meant in the most literal meaning as an digression from social norms); different from accepted ‘sibling relationships’, pointed out by the characters around them. <- none of this makes any sense but its 3am and im on tumblr so its ok.

feel free to dm also if u want to or just send an ask back!! and also ofc feel free to argue with/disagree with me in any way u like. or ask wtf i mean by anything cause i talk too much. tbh from what u say it sounds like u just don’t really vibe with shipping culture in general (might be an assumption sorry if so) which i totally understand/agree w. but i hope i answered ur question in some way somehow