#like all the little dean meta things

[garashir]

kinda sickening how so many of the dean winchester meta analysis posts I like apply to arthur morgan so instead of being able to say anything coherent or intelligent about arthur my brain just goes “so deancoded” as if that makes sense to anybody

[youchangedmedestiel]

Friend: What are you doing right now?

Me: I have a lot of projects.

Friend: Oh so cool, what are those? New job, new business, new home, new relationship?

Me: Ok, I have a lot of SPN/Destiel projects.

[shadystranger]

You're a good man, dean. everything you've ever done you've done for the right reasons. You're a good man, dean. everything you've ever done you've done for the right reasons. You're a good man, dean. You'll never hear me say the real you is anything but good. The mark is evil not you. You summoned me because you knew I would do anything to protect you. You're not an evil man, dean. You're a good man crying to be heard. You had a good reason, dean. You let Michael in because you were protecting me, dean. You're a good man, dean. everything you've ever done you've done for the right reasons

[comradesummers]

The take that Maddie's childhood wasn't great but Buck had it so much worse is so infuriating. I know Buck is the fandom's favorite, but why are you straight up lying about Maddie to prove that Buck had it worse? Can't they both have had shitty childhoods? Because canonically, they sure as hell did.

To recap, Maddie watched her little brother slowly die and then her parents moved her away from any one who knew Daniel and forced her to never speak of him again. Like I cannot stress how fucked up this is. They completely isolated this traumatized child from any support system she may have had and literally forbade her from grieving. That's insane. And on top of that, they parentified her and made a nine year old the primary caretaker of a baby all while neglecting them both. Also Maddie talks about how her mom would tell her that she wanted to kill herself. You know like a normal thing to say to or in front of your young daughter. And that's just how they treated her when she was a kid. When she got with Doug (at only 19!) her parents basically disowned her, thus ensuring that she would not feel safe to come to them when the relationship became abusive, which is probably a big reason she stayed for so long. And people are always talking about how the Buckley parents never visit Buck when he's grievously injured in the hospital. They also don't visit Maddie in the hospital after her husband kidnapped her and nearly stabbed her to death, even though we know Buck called and told them about it.

Unlike some of the Buck girlies, I don't feel the need to compare. The Buckley parents were awful to both of their living children (and frankly to Daniel as well for erasing his memory like that). I just object to the idea that Maddie somehow had it better than Buck because it is so obviously not true. And I find it really interesting that when it comes to male characters like say, Dean Winchester, people will write endless meta about how parentification is abuse. But when a female character is parentified by her parents people think it's not that bad because it doesn't seem as unnatural for a girl to be forced into a caretaker role, even if she was literally nine years old.

[shanastoryteller]

I was one of the anons that didn’t know what to think when I first saw the Sam/Dean tag on See Something Say Something but now I’m like. You know what fuck it, you write it well. I look forward to every chapter and i apologize for being a hater

LOOOL you are forgiven we have all guzzled hatorade at some point

during my initial foray into supernatural (when i was watching the early seasons in real time) i didn't ship them at all until i read a crack fic as a joke

The incestuous courtship of the antichrist's bride by fleshflutter

summary: Sam is trying to become the Antichrist in order to save the world. He has a small army of angels and demons, he has an adoring cult, he has a work of prophecy by Jack Kerouac, and he has Dean. Things are going pretty well until he accidentally signs Dean up as his Beloved Consort, a role that requires sex with the Antichrist on an altar. And that's when things stop going pretty well. Also, the soundtrack to the Apocalypse sucks.

it has no business being as unbelievably good as it is, but also it was my first fleshflutter fic so i didn't know what i was getting myself into. it's one of my favorite fics in any fandom just because the balance of crack and horror and love and humor is so finely done that you just have to go damn. even if i hated everything about this fic i would still love it

but i was like, okay, just because this fic was good doesn't mean i really ship it. like what's wrong with just a freaky little codependent brotherly relationship? the ship mostly just exists because they're hot

then i read Stranger Than Fiction by nyxocity

summary: Meta-comedy/drama set immediately post-4x18, The Monster at the End of This Book. Dean can't stop wondering why people would write gay porn about him and Sam. Research takes him to interesting places; re-reading novels for subtext, visiting message boards, and a really freaky place called LiveJournal. What he discovers is a sick fascination with fanfiction, more about gay sex than he ever wanted to know, and an even deeper obsession with understanding why people write this stuff. Meanwhile, they're hunting a mysterious monster that takes the form of a person's truest love to kill them slowly, the lines between fanfiction and reality are starting to break down, and they still have to stop Lilith and save the world.

which reads like it's crack, which is probably why i clicked on it, and isn't really. not only did the author convince sam and dean, they also convinced me. i was like okay fine you make a compelling argument

and when supernatural sucked me in this time a decade later, i was once more like well! yeah wincest is fine but i really am just a sucker for a good fucked up brotherly relationship. no need to be a folgers commercial about it

then i read It's the Blueprint of Your Life by queenklu

summary: Sam jerks awake in the middle of the night and everything goes to hell. Well, not literally, though Dean is staring down the barrel of less than a year before his deal comes due. In the midst of dealing (or not dealing) with his impending death, a killer ghost ship, and Bela showing up out of the blue, Dean also has to figure out what’s going on in Sam’s head to make him so twitchy, why he’s suddenly breezing through this case while writing endless notes in a notebook he won’t let Dean see. Damn it, Dean thinks, This is gonna take a lot of chickflick moments.

which is not only one of my very favorite supernatural fics but the one that made me throw up my hands and go fine!! i ship it then!! are you happy now?

pleased and honored to be your gateway drug in these trying times <3

[scoobydoodean]

if the spn queer poll showed me anything, it's that sam girls don't even like the show version of sam 😭 i can't even fault them for that tbh

(before i get misunderstood!) i don't hate show sam personally, i love him, warts and all. the sam girls just take a lot of creative liberties with the fanon version and i get the appeal of that

Fanon Sam is just so not my jam that I will never get it I don't think. I just don't see it as an improvement. But funnily enough, I was just thinking a little while ago that the reason queer Sam meta falls so flat for me is that every time I see it, it's based around what I regard as aspects of Sam that are misunderstood. Specifically, the idea that Sam was rejected by his family ever since he was a child because he was a freak. In the typical queer Sam narrative, Sam's "otherness" and his family's rejection makes him queer-coded. If you take it a step further, then within this framework, Sam is "forced" for the entire series to assimilate into hunting instead of being allowed to be "himself". So the predominant queer Sam meta overlaps with the interpretation of Sam as this autonomy-less baby who is forced to be a hunter his whole life, and that just isn't Sam's story.

In reality, Sam suffered from childhood neglect, and that neglect gave him some hangups, but he rejected his family from a fairly young age because they were freaks. On a very surface level, we can say he rejected them because John wanted him to be someone Sam wasn't, but when we dig just a tiny bit deeper... the whole first season slowly unravels all of John and Sam's similarities, and the reason Sam rejected his family is that they weren't normal and being normal was what Sam initially wanted most desperately at that time. Over the first few seasons, Sam slowly comes to the realization that he loves his family, that he doesn't want to be normal, and that hunting with his freak family is where he's at his happiest. I have a whole tag for this called #sam the hunter, but I'd like to focus on this bit of dialogue in 4.17 "It's A Terrible Life" when Sam is actually forced to assimilate into a normal life, because I think it fits into what I regard as a more compelling queer Sam meta where hunting actually represents Sam embracing queerneess, and normal life is Sam trying to/being forced to assimilate into a cishet mold:

SAM: No. I—I just can't shake this feeling like I—like I don't belong here. You know? Like I should do something more than sit in a cubicle. DEAN: I think most people who work in a cubicle feel that same way. SAM: No. Well, look, it's more than that. Like, I don't like my job. I don't like this town. I don't like my clothes. I don't like my own last name. I don't know how else to explain it, except that...it feels like I should be doing something else. There's just something in my blood. Like I was destined for something different. What about you? You ever feel that way?

Sam describing being forced to be normal by Zachariah and losing his life as a freak hunter like... dysphoria??? Anyone??? He doesn't know who he really is, but he knows something isn't right—he doesn't like the image that greets him in the mirror. He feels stuffed into a ill-fitting normal life—forced to perform something that is not him, and he's desperate to get out to the point he asks Dean Smith—a relative stranger—to run away with him and go be ghost hunters.

5.12 can serve as another example, where Sam is again shoved into someone else's ill-fitting normal life and their actual body, and acts like an angry wet cat about it the entire time, culminating in this exchange:

SAM Yeah, I know. I'm telling you, kid – I wish I had your life. GARY You do? Thanks. SAM Get out of here. GARY and NORA head for the house. DEAN That was a nice thing to say. SAM I totally lied. That kid's life sucked ass. All that apple-pie, family crap? It's stressful. Trust me – we didn't miss a damn thing.

I think that when we embrace the idea that Sam is ultimately a hunter at the core and that hunting is where he feels most himself and most accepted, and allow hunting in of itself (at least in Sam's case) to serve as a metaphor for self-acceptance, and allow his family he initially rejected to be a family of freaks (i.e. queer), and allow college and the push for normality to represent him as a queer man desperately trying to assimilate into "normal" society only to realize happiness comes with embracing who he really is... we stumble across a much more compelling queer Sam meta.

[eisforeidolon]

The writers were aware of fandom wank, which is why a lot of the “Dean/Cass” stuff ends up on the cutting room floor. It’s like they’d write something that seemed fine on paper, the. they realize people will read too much into it when performed and cut it out.

That was some of it. Like the infamous fake heaven scene they thought would be so hilarious to fill with pictures of Dean - where Jared had to point out some fans would take it seriously as a hint to where the story was going. So they removed it because that wasn't the intent. Like the crypt scene were Jensen pointed out Dean would not say I love you there. So Robbie changed it to what he more explicitly meant in terms of it being familial affection by his own direct admission.

Hellers want to insist all those little cut moments are PROOF of a conspiracy to ~*cheat them*~ out of an intended D/C story the writers were trying to give them, damn the meddling network and producers! However, what all the details we've actually heard about show? Is the ship being a thing in canon was so far outside of the genuine agreed intent multiple writers not only didn't think about the implications and not only used it as a punchline? But usually immediately removed those supposed hints when anyone pointed out the prospect of it being taken seriously by fans. Of course, when you have fans so desperately searching for clues they can turn literally breathing in the same room into ~*epic romance*~ it's hard to remove everything unless the characters literally never interact (and then you end up with "negative space" meta, so there's no winning).

Sure, there's a deeper question there as to whether they thought that specific pairing was ridiculous in the context of the canon (absolutely) or they generally thought m/m pairings were only fodder for jokes (not cool). Except that's a whole different discussion, because either way? What is clear is there was never some intentional secret storyline in easily cut throwaway moments leading up to making D/C canon the REAL story of the show. And not just because the idea anyone would tell a story on tv that way is fucking bonkers.

The writers definitely became more aware as time went on about fandom wank in regards to the subject? Though I think it was complicated a bit by them also having some quote unquote writers join the team towards the very end who were desperate for attention and actively wanted to bait those unhinged fans, like Bobo the Assclown and whatsherface the minion underling.

[zmediaoutlet]

was scrolling through your tags and saw "i wonder if he and dean argue abt gas money" and i feel like dean is in charge of their finances. like maybe there's more to be said about that topic like winchester money or lack there of, that maybe you have opinions about? i'd love to hear them.

love your writing, btw ❤️

Dean is definitely in charge of their finances, altho what "finances" means in the era of "we know how to hack credit agencies" is a little fuzzy. (Someone pointed out a laptop screenshot where Dean emails Sam and says that Sam "owes him gas money", which is both a) endearingly dumb and in character, and also b) YOU SHARE MONEY, DORK. THERE IS NO MONEY. [Dean: "It's the principle!" me: I repeat, dork.])

Winchester money is an interesting one! In the way-way back there was this big sprawly meta conversation about their interaction with class that really went all over the place, but what's interesting about it to me is that they are no-collar while coding blue-collar middle class. Like the old middle class, of limited debt and home ownership but still being on a modest salary and with modest tastes. Maybe a vacation once a year, etc. Not that that was their exact situation, but it's the social bracket they occupy. Note that Sam was desperate to get into the white-collar strata and really tried hard to play at that, especially in s1, but like a lot of the jumped-up masses he was more bougie nouveau riche than actually part of that set -- note how he couldn't order a glass of wine in Provenance (which happens to be one of my most hated scenes in the whole series, but that's not Sam's fault, lol). He makes fun of Dean's blue-to-no-collar tendencies but he's irrevocably part of them, and luckily he grows up mentally enough over the first few years that we don't get as much of that college kid crap, just home from school and making fun of Mom's casserole for not being what the kids in the city think is cool. You like the casserole, kid. Stop fronting.

But Winchesters-and-money really takes on a whole other valence because they're free of it. Like obviously in latter years once the credit cards get perfect (I guess that's as of the introduction of Frank and/or Charlie) it means nothing, and I'm glad of that bc we actually don't need to think about it, it's a solved problem. But when they're younger, there's the literal in-the-moment needs of food/gas money/clothes/where are we gonna sleep tonight, and they're very hand-to-mouth. But the way they're hand to mouth is like... fine. They don't have to worry about a mortgage. The Impala certainly does not have insurance, and neither do they have health insurance. There is no retirement account and there are no debt collectors knocking. They're free of the credit/financial system in a way almost no one else is, because they're also completely free to steal and pirate their way through life. Not least because it's the moral choice inside the textual universe -- they have to be free to save the day, so who cares if they're fucking over some random person's credit history.

It does a really interesting thing to their characterization. They're not stuck in the backbreaking poverty of e.g. the characters in Shameless. They aren't struggling to pay bills because they don't have bills. There's in-the-moment urgency but once that moment has passed and there's food in their bellies and gas in the car and Sam's got a new pair of shoes without a hole -- they don't really have to think about it the way most would. It's almost more of an aesthetic than it is a foundational shaping. That said, you do have to solve those moments as they come because there's no savings cushion, either, so either you get the new cards from the PO box or you figure out how to scam someone or you, you know. Do whatever else Dean might've done, to make sure there was food on the table.

[dufferpuffer]

It is true that many characters demonstrated inherited prejudices towards werewolves and Snape wouldn’t be too different - but I do find it a bit disappointing for people to think that systematically stalking someone with the intention of ousting them is a knee-jerk reaction coming from a generalised societal prejudice. Maybe it’s trying to over justify and defend Snape’s actions, which to me were more motivated by his hatred of the Marauders, and later, fear and trauma of being exposed to a transformed werewolf?

We can bring up Molly, but we can also bring up people like Hermione, Harry, and Dean Thomas. Hermione worked out his secret and didn’t feel the need to freak out and expose him. Dean Thomas leaned later he had been taught by a werewolf and quickly and unprompted jumped to defend him in front of Umbridge. Harry immediately felt sympathy when confronted with the reality of Lupin’s condition, even when exposed to its scary and dangerous side. Even Ron, who had what I’d call a knee-jerk reaction, got over himself pretty quickly.

It’s just a bit wet to be like “well everyone was shit about it, so Snape is forgiven for being shit about it”. Not everyone was shit about it.

Does it make Snape look better to think that most students would be outraged to find out there’s a werewolf amongst them? I like to think some students, if they worked out, much like Harry and Hermione would see the person first and not get super weird about it.

I think you are severely underestimating the level of bigotry the Wizarding World has against werewolves - as well as the social climate at the time the Marauders were at school.

What you suggests breaks Remus' character in terms of the choices he makes, the sheer weight of his friends keeping his secret, Dumbledores actions to support him (and the implications of Severus' unwilling but dedicated silence for 18 years)... and are missing the point of why SPECIFICALLY Harry, Hermione and Dean are the ones most defensive and supportive of Remus.

It's not me trying to justify Severus' actions. I don't need to justify Severus, he can be a petty little ass. (Though the trust breaking of him finding out Dumbledore is protecting a werewolf makes the "fuck yall 'good guys' I'm going all in on rebuilding wizarding society" element of his character enriched.)

It's me spending WAY too long combing through the books to intricately understand REMUS' situation. It's for HIM - not Severus.

This is all SUPER fresh in my mind because I'm working on a part 7 of a massive, huge, too-big Lycanthropy meta, so uh... I went nuts:

+ Harry, Hermione and Dean were ALL raised by Muggles. No shit they are more accepting and sympathetic, especially when their first interaction with a werewolf is their lovely teacher. They have no cultural point of reference. It wasn't random to make Dean Thomas, of any side-character, stand up for Remus. Not Neville, not Seamus, not Lavender, not the Patil sisters.

Even then - + Hermione felt conflicted in keeping his secret but gave him the benefit of the doubt. Evidently, though, she had read how awful werewolves are and just didn't want to believe it. "he wants you dead too -- he's a werewolf!" "If I'd been a bit cleverer, I'd have told everyone what you are!"

+ Ron reacted with immediate revulsion towards Remus. "Get away from me, werewolf!" He didn't call him Professor, or Lupin, or even just leave it at 'get away from me'... he see's him as an animal. And he only got over it when Remus spent ages explaining himself, his past, his intentions - and proved his rat was a 33yr old man.

+ Harry is one of VERY FEW characters that actually treats Remus as a human being. Who else... Arthur, Albus, Tonks - possibly Dean... + Hermione directly compares his situation to that of House-Elves and says 'Wizards think themselves better than other creatures'. Remus is a Wizard, not a different Being, Beast or Part-Human - he is just disabled. She often accidentally does the exact things she wants to fight against: not listening to the voices of House-Elves and 'othering' werewolves as not-quite-human. “But you are normal!” said Harry fiercely. “You’ve just got a — a problem —” Even Remus' friends weren't as good as Harry is: + James is flippant with the fact Remus was a werewolf, even when Remus asked him to be careful - and his entire theme is that Harry is a better man than him. + Sirius treated Remus as a point of interest, wishing it was the Full Moon so he didn't have to be bored - regardless of how painful it is for Remus to endure - and at the first sign of there being a mole suspected Remus without proof. + Peter stood with James and Sirius in ignoring Remus' concerns, even when James and Sirius were more openly nasty to him.

+ "...out of bounds, at night, consorting with a werewolf and a murderer..." Snape says to the Minister of Magic, about equal weighting put on 'Murderer' and 'Werewolf'. Even though that 'Werewolf' was Harry's teacher, the fact Harry KEPT consorting with him after finding out he was a werewolf is whats damning. And the Minister just nods his head, agreeing.

+ "I’ve made her an outcast! ... You have only ever seen me amongst the Order, or under Dumbledore’s protection at Hogwarts! You don’t know how most of the Wizarding world sees creatures like me! When they know of my affliction, they can barely talk to me!" Remus wasn't being hyperbolic here. It's all true. Tonks IS an outcast now - she had to run from the Ministry. Wizarding society utterly detests werewolves.

+ Even as a little boy his parents had to move house every few months when their neighbours started to notice Remus not being allowed to play with other kids, getting ill on the Full Moons. There was no sympathy even for a 5yr old if he was a 5yr old werewolf. Remus grew up having to run away at the first sign of suspicion. It's sorta shocking how relentless it is in the books - I'm doing a meta on Lycanthropy, here's Part 2 where I go through how society seems to act and how Remus feels

'Does it make Snape look better to think that most students would be outraged to find out there’s a werewolf amongst them?' Better...? He is just correct. It makes him look NORMAL. It makes him look petty and irresponsible, really, that he didn't go to teachers first. But he was a 15/16yr old used to not getting any help. + Even LILY treated accusing Remus of Lycanthropy as a deathly serious accusation. It was terrible and ridiculous to even think of. "I know your theory,” said Lily, and she sounded cold.

Why do you think that more than a small handful of students would not act with prejudice if Remus was exposed as a werewolf...? Even if students and staff stood beside Remus, as they had known him for years - why that would matter in the face of Parents, General Society and Ministry persecution?

Especially during the dawn of the First Wizarding War???

Fenrir Greyback, the most savage werewolf alive, was biting CHILDREN to amass an army in the Death Eaters service. Death Eaters were on the rise, getting more violent. Secretive - nobody knew who they were, where they had infiltrated. Casting the Dark mark over peoples houses when they had killed their families. Getting Giants to kill more Muggles than in any point in history. Armies of inferi - dead family, friends and muggles they murdered being reanimated to fight the living... One of them, one of Greybacks children - is in HOGWARTS. One of the safest places in the Wizarding World is compromised. That's how it would be seen! That's essentially how it was seen even 13 years later - being outed to the public destroyed Remus.

...We, as readers, know more about werewolves than general Wizarding society does. Especially Wizarding children who only get some lessons on how dangerous they are and how to kill them.

+ If you listen to Pottermore, which fair enough if you don't - there are books published such as Prof. Emerett Picardy's 'Lupine Lawlessness: Why Lycanthropes Don't Deserve to Live', which state things such as 'werewolves permanently lack moral sense'. Misinformation is rampant. Murdering werewolves is acceptable. When werewolf-sympathetic books are published its done so with anonymous authors because they fear backlash.

You might 'like to think that students who found out wouldn't get super weirded out by it'. But I just don't think that's realistic. And even if there was a massive Hogwarts-wide cultural shift in the perception of werewolves just because Remus was 'a pretty nice lad' - it would mean little. We SEE it meaning little: Everyone likes Remus as a teacher and it meant jack shit. Werewolves were in a worse position socially, not a better one, after Remus was a teacher.

[all-pacas]

Chase inheriting house’s braincells the moment house lets go of his responsibility and losing all his abilities once house comes back is so funny bc it’s probably meta thing but also very parent-child coded. Kinda like being destined to mess up cooking when mom’s watching.

i'm recently really fascinated in this from a meta perspective. because like. the show is pretty fucking explicit in s1-3 that foreman is the Main Character, right? he gets the most focus, the strongest arc, he is house's special favorite (in an antagonistic way, but house clearly takes him under his wing in a way he doesn't the other two). he gets put in charge of a case in s1, and gets a whole arc in s2 where he's in charge again. foreman is the main character.

they kind of tamp down on this in s4-5 with the new team arc, but even then: foreman is the leader. he is the best of the team. he is the one house puts in charge, he is a supervisor, he is the smartest, he gets his own subplots and career. the show kind of drops this after s6 i think, although it's hard to say exactly when it happened: by s7 foreman's pathological need to be in charge is a running joke, and he starts being made fun of for it more often -- they were teasing him in s2 for it, too, but at the same time it was unequivocally true, right? by s7 they're still teasing him, but foreman isn't really given his moments of Strong Leadership to compensate. in any case, by s8 they clearly have abandoned the idea of foreman as house's natural heir, not just because foreman is now dean (instead of cameron, who in turn spend s4-5 getting lots of set up for that job): in s8 chase also starts getting very obviously thrown into the old foreman role, taking charge, being called the best of the crew, given lots and lots of focus episodes and time to shine.

i say this all because i think it's pretty clear, right? foreman is the best of the team. he is the smartest. he is the most leaderly. he has the most focus. so why, i wonder: why does chase keep getting the brain cell?

chase solves the most cases on the show outside of house. admittedly, several of them are clustered in s8, when he's being groomed to take over the department, but like. s3 he gets two independent solves; in s4.2 he solves the case two seconds after learning about it (admittedly in a moment kind of meant to show up the contrast between the old team and new candidates). in the pilot, he doesn't solve the case, but he figures out how to prove the diagnosis when everyone else is stumped. at the same time, early seasons chase isn't… i wouldn't say isn't smart, but is often slightly less likely to participate in differentials, is kind of a dumbass in a very chase-ish way; he's perceived as being a little dim. house is surprised in no reason when fake!chase says something smart, you know? chase isn't on the team for his genius intellect, he's there to keep people alive while house thinks. and that's fine! but he keeps getting that braincell.

and it's even more striking because foreman doesn't, usually. part of it is because a lot of foreman's arc is his struggles with his arrogance/coldness - he tends to lose patients to teach him a lesson, etc. and i think you can make a case that in s3, chase was written as more confident to set up his firing/leaving: foreman was going to leave as part of his development, cameron was leaving as part of hers (letting go of house -- her desire to protect/fix/shelter him by instead just letting him be), but chase doesn't really get character arcs like the other two, so we just need to prove he's ready to move on in other ways, right?

but he keeps solving cases. and foreman, really, doesn't.

i have no grand thesis conclusion here. i just find it fascinating from a meta perspective. there's a real temptation in fandom to pretend chase was always the most special smartest boy, and that really isn't the case. but because it wasn't the case, that makes his frequent wins even more interesting to me.

[aliusfrater]

sammary hcs? can be things you like to think about in connection to canon or just straight up fic porn stuff...

SORRYYY you get meta. or whatever this is 🫳

i talked about this in the tags of a poll once but sammary intrigues me in the earlier supernatural intentional gothic horror incesthorror + later seasons supernatural wwird action/comedy/adventure thing kind of way. a best of both worlds kind of way. like i think of it as an extension/perpetuation of mary kissing azazel in her father's body while unknowingly selling her son's body and quite literally creating the space for what can be seen as sam's csa metaphor but in the most literal way because this is a sexual relationship between post-resurrection!mary and sam. even moreso if you consider all the sam-mary mirrorings and parallels + the similarly motherly overtones in the simularities between her & jack's and sam & jack's relationship as well as the same overtones in mary as a symbol for sam + mary as a matriarchal figure for jack (the sam-mary 4.22 panic room scene and the 14.17 mary and jack 'tell me it's okay' scene are sisters to me). like their sexual endevors would just be blurring that line further either in terms of what their relationship could become ORRR in terms of their characters (both literally in terms of what they would get up to sexually and what it would metaphorically mean). this ship is like What if you lapsed them as people + their narrative structural (patriarchal & winchester familial dynamic & hunter dichotomies) roles a little further.

anyway, realistically, or in my head at least, they're less romantic and more sexual mostly from mary's side because there's a lot of friction between her and Making Sam This Way + Continuing It but also she thinks sam is fucking hot and she initially has a really hard time thinking of sam as the same son she doomed. she also thinks he's really sweet in that every time he goes out of his way to Understand ber and Forgive her or remember little things about her she kind of melts but again she struggles with it (i also like to think that her fear that sam won't forguve her perpetuates into her thinking sam's forgiveness is too good to be true, which adds to her emotional distance). sam, on the other hand, needs her to romantically acknowledge him so bad it's basically unrequited but he's also getting the weird motherly connection he needs from their sex life so it's enough to keep him hooked. their dynamic is like. they have nasty fucking sex (in a way that's not fun for the audience) and cuddle after then mary slips out of bed in the middle of the night and sam isn't surprised when he wakes up and she isn't there despite only them being in the bunker and not needing to hide it from dean but he buries his face in the sheets where she was laying and curls up real fetus position-like and his eyes water. there's a lot of emotional compartmentalisation on both their parts in a 'well at least we have a relationship we both want/are getting something out of' kind of way and this wraps around to the aspects in which they're similar in. their sex is a way to relate on their respective panic rooms and autonomy losses which are strikingly narratively similar lol but especially relating to azazel and the fissure it creates that's constantly cracking and repairing itself between them. i read a fic once where the only time sam and mary explicitly talk about it is in the impala in a kind of constipated way so my idea of this ship is like a Sure, And fix-it that's mutated into something else.

as for headcanons my favourite is that i think mary is jealous of (nonship) sam and dean and what they have and hates herself for it. when sam and dean stare at each other the whole time after sam's ressurection in 13.21 -> 13.22 and dean leads sam off to get cleaned up and they head off alone, she gets resentful about it (in a canon way i can't rightfully connect here so i'll leave it alone). it goes back to the not letting herself have anything super nonsexual w him thing. also. when mary dies sam doesn't mourn the sex.

honestlyyy this is one of those ships where you just really like both characters separately but specifically for mary and sam, it's actually crazy to me how much they mirror each other, especially when it comes to the reveal of mary's actual personality rather than her idolised version and how much That also mirrors sam's as well as how little anything was canonical done with it. it's like my brain made too much space for the sam and mary section but there was a shortage so i'm making up for it with this whole idea. i don't even want to smash them together like dolls. i'm cutting them open and connecting their intestines.

[according2thelore]

That anon who said they dean being jealous of himself is SO right. I'm LOVING the angsty jealous dynamics you've been feeding us. I'm partial to "young Sam is jealous of old Sam" myself because it's soooo cute and sad. Like yes! Make Sam pout! Make him value himself less! Make him glare daggers at LS!Sam and ES!Dean!!! Make him think he's the odd one out and not wanted! The angst! I'm also dying for ES!Dean to comfort ES!Sam once(if) he realizes that he feels left out. Just UGH. ES!SAM FEELING LIKE THE LAST CHOICE! SO good. I love coming to your blog just to see what you post lol, you just hit every right button for me.

AHHH! THANK YOU!

let's discuss!

SO much of ES!Sam's life up to that point is feeling like the odd one out!

when it's just dean and sam, i think sam doesn't feel like he has to try to fit in as hard. when dean's trying to impress/ingratiate himself with dad? for sure. those awkward few hunts after stanford? 100%

but when it's just dean and sam, they might fight and get snippy, but sam doesn't have to put up a front. he doesn't have to put on airs. in fact, we see a couple times in the show that when sam's trying to be something he's not with dean, it's to protect him/protect his feelings.

so for ES!Sam, to have that safe space (lol pardon the phrase) GONE--sam's only completely authentic space (bc even with jess, he had to hide huge parts of himself)--

it would definitely put him off-balance. to sam, dean is choosing a different, better version of sam. ES!Sam felt safe being his own bitchy self with dean, but to have ES!Dean so clearly prefer a version of sam with all that removed, i wouldn't be surprised if ES!Sam felt the pressure to change to meet ES!Dean's new preferences.

which of course he resents! sam spent so much of his life being told to change: by dad, by dean, by other hunters, by himself.

to find out that your only true safe place to land can, does, and will prefer a seemingly faultless version of yourself?? bro. immediately confusing and devastating.

and even outside of the meta-dynamic of their relationship, ES!Sam is confused! and scared!

because he's also in love with dean. so to be usurped so easily both platonically and romantically?? GRAH! it drives sam crazy!

because he's not even sure which parts he's "allowed" to be mad about. he's not sure if glaring at the space where LS!Sam has his knee pressed against ES!Dean's in the car is an "acceptable" platonic jealousy, or if it's part of his sick-wrong-bad possessiveness that ES!Dean is his.

he's not sure if wanting to rip off LS!Sam's face for making ES!Dean laugh like that is annoyance that ES!Sam's superpower is communal or fury that ES!Dean is capable of belonging to someone else.

he's afraid of coming out and saying a lot of it, because what if it's too revealing?? what if he missteps and ES!Dean recognizes that ES!Sam's agonized ire is because he wants to suck his cock until he can't see straight?

he's annoyed and he's mad and he's upset, but bottling it up is all ES!Sam really knows how to do unless he wants to bring their house of cards down!

as for comfort, i think ES!Dean at first would not recognize this at all, lmao. for all ES!Dean's attentiveness to the changes in ES!Sam's moods and needs, he thinks he's just being a little bitch about the whole thing (his regrettable choice of words, not mine).

like c'mon, we're both weirded-out by this whole thing. we're in this together! and being rude to LS!Sam&Dean is not going to change our situation. dean does not take slights to sam lightly, even if the person slighting LS!Sam is ES!Sam.

i think it would take something stronger for ES!Dean to realize that ES!Sam's feelings are genuinely hurt--or at least confused--about the whole thing. ES!Sam avoids him like the plague, and these men do not sit down to talk about feelings, lmao.

maybe ES!Dean stumbles in on LS!Dean & ES!Sam talking, and LS!Dean is obviously comforting him, hand on the back of his neck, and ES!Sam's got a pink nose and shiny eyes and ES!Dean kind of blows up, because what the fuck did you say to him? what's going on in here?

LS!Dean rolls his eyes and shoves him off like go talk to your kid. i'm not here to mediate your bitchfits.

maybe it finally comes out later, ES!Sam not really able to look dean in the eyes, that he's sick of dean being so whipped for LS!Sam, and since when did dean need other brothers?

ES!Dean doesn't know how to express the fact that he's so taken with LS!Sam because this is a brother that wants him back! that needs him back! LS!Sam loves the hunt and he loves dean, and he's not shy about either of those things! if LS!Sam has free time, he spends it with dean. if LS!Sam is bored, he goes to look for dean. ES!Dean is thrilled by the promise of that future, of a sam who is gorgeous and strong and sexy as fuck and wants dean!!!

so he fumbles his way through it like "c'mon, sammy. he's you."

"is he, though? he's...i don't know. it's hard to recognize myself in him. he's...different....than i thought he would be. i guess."

ES!Sam doesn't know how to say that out of the four of them, he's the only one that feels Other. he wants to be part of this, but they don't make it easy.

ES!Sam doesn't know how to navigate on the outside of the Sam&Dean dynamic. he is the Sam in the Sam&Dean dynamic--he's realizing how strange and alienating it is to be not Sam or Dean in that, and he hates it.

"you think i'd put up with some guy that wasn't you?" dean scoffs, and they both kind of stare at each other for a second, because that was dangerously close to the truth.

"listen," ES!Dean follows up quickly, because he's not willing to let those words sit in the air too long, for the off-chance that ES!Sam will have time to process them. "you're my sam, okay? my pain in the ass little brother. this guy is sam, but he's that dean's sam. so. y'know. they're not us. or ours, or...whatever. you're still the little shit i'm gonna bug first."

it's tense for a long moment, unsure if that was too honest, too revealing. ES!Sam's still breathing a little fast, and ES!Dean keeps shifting on his feet.

"you're an asshole." ES!Sam finally says, exhaling, looking genuinely un-strung for the first time in weeks, and ES!Dean practically slumps forward in relief.

"aw, sammy. you sure know how to make a girl blush." he coos, and ES!Sam swats him away, all it's sam, you know it's sam.

and ES!Dean is smiling and rolling his eyes and his hands are still shaking under the table like yeah, yeah, whatever you say.

GAH!!!!!!!!!!!! jealous sam! devastated sam!!! isolated sam!!!

YOU GET IT!!!!!!! YOU UNDERSTAND THE VISION!!!!!!!!!

thank you for this ask!!! and for your kind words!!! mwah, mwah, mwah! <3

-lizzy

[shallowseeker]

why do you think it’s such a popular idea in fic for post-empty rescue cas to be mad at dean for letting jack become god?

like not that this trope even necessarily bothers me, i’ve read many fics that include it that i’ve absolutely loved!! it’s just a really interesting fandom trend to me cause (i think) the thing that made jack and cas’s relationship complex was that cas wanted jack to make the world better peace on earth style and all that, and like. being god would let him do that right? idk i just think it’s super interesting that this is so popular even amongst writers who like truly do love dean, if that makes sense, and i’m trying to understand why. thanks in advance!

I actually haven't read any like that, so I may not be able to answer this very well, except for the context you've given me.

In short, my TLDR; is that fandom can emphasize anything, and if they want to emphasize Cas's good qualities, I love that! I feel a little uncomfortable talking about fics, per se, because I do feel like fics have every right to live outside of meta and canon, or to take the best parts of it and run with it!

BUT. That said. I'm going to pull out the line I think you're asking about, which is, "Would Cas be okay with Jack wielding Godly power?"

///

My answer is, "it's complicated." In my world, this challenging aspect of Jack, "His Destiny" is such an overt, deeply embedded Cas arc... and I view it as affecting Cas more heavily than other members of TFW.

CAS x FREE WILL

Despite being an overarching champion of free will, the ugly truth is that Cas struggles with free will, all the way up until the end of the series.

Cas repeatedly struggles with the idea that "other angels aren't like me" and, in my opinion, he tends to reach for authoritarian "kingly" power to solve problems, like how he behaves throwing his weight around with the guard-angel and Dumah in s14 Jack in the Box. Cas is absolutely at the end of his rope, but also, he clearly expects to march in and see Naomi right away; he is acting, still, as Heaven's commander.

(Contrast this to angels like Hannah, who were messily trying to have a "court," where the "angels governed themselves.")

Jack himself is, in my opinion, treated in some ways like "a royal heir."

I like to think of Jack as the embodiment of "the good King fallacy." It's this tempting idea that power isn't the problem (even though it is); it's just going to take the "Right, Good King" to wield that power.

//

CAS x DUTY

And Cas loves Jack, of course he does!

But it takes Cas a very long time to come to terms with the fact that he's allowed to love Jack irrespective of a mission or duty (s15 Gimme Shelter, Despair).

Cas has always been tied up with duty, and he almost tends to... convert what he cares about into missions.

(Aside// Tragically, even when Cas says "I love you" in s15 Despair, it's wielded like military strategy, with so so much pragmatism, it hurts.)

I think, on the whole, Cas flounders whenever his sense of mission stalls, or especially when he feels too weak to complete the "mission."

(SEE: Cas failing to protect his cherished human family in s12, Lily Sunder Has Some Regrets, Stuck in the Middle with You.)

And I personally think that's why the "mission" of raising Jack was so attractive to him in the first place. It was something otherworldly to "honorably" tie Cas to earth. Jack was something good and strong that would restore Cas's own sense of power/accomplishment, that would make Dean feel "relieved," and would make Sam feel "free.")

Cas eventually learns that Jack doesn't have to be cosmically important in order to be important to Cas.

///

JACK x BEING UNBURDENED & "NOT SPECIAL"

But anyway! Back to your point. Jack opens up about the need to be not special to... Dean, actually. (s14, Unhuman Nature)

This might get swept under the rug too easily. Even Cas knows that Jack opens up to Dean about the things that truly bother him; it's why we see them "switch kids" in Peace of Mind. In some ways, Sam is more like Cas; Jack is more like Dean.

But it's complicated.

Dean ends the show on his lowest note ever, and there's little grace to be found for his plight.

//

CAS x DESTINY; DEAN x REVENGE

On the back-end of s15, things have imploded.

Dean and Cas are having their respective existential crises re: revenge and destiny, and Dean's crisis is much, much harsher and uglier than we're used to seeing from him.

But that doesn't change that Dean has a long, rich history of resisting destiny. He has arguably been THE most wary member of Team Free Will when it comes to power. But in s15, Dean is having a crisis, and he gives into fatalism... for a time. (This speaks volumes about how losing Mary and losing Jack were twin wounds that damaged him more than ever before.)

It's Cas who resists Chuck the most in s15, at the beginning.

BUT, IMHO, Cas's character is overall shown to be "most okay" with Jack's intense power imbalance. (Perhaps because Cas himself is... overbalanced with respect to the human family.) Tragically, we see that continued in s15, when Cas encourages Jack to "strengthen his vessel" by eating angel hearts.

Dean balks at that, but he trusts Cas. Like Cas, Dean doesn't want to push back because he doesn't want to lose their tenuously restored family.

Effectively, when Dean and Cas discuss Jack's "destiny" in s15 Destiny's Child/Galaxy Brain, they say the SAME thing but with different motivations. Cas wants Jack to take power, and Dean wants Jack to dole out some punishment.

Their motivations are different, but the end result for Jack is the same. Cas's is draped in euphemism; Dean's is brutally honest.

And we have sympathy for that! Jack died! If he's strong, then maybe Chuck can't kill him, and they'll be spared that pain forever.

But in terminal s15, Dean goes down the same path that John, Godstiel, and NBK!Mary go... he winds up losing sight of the things he wanted to protect in the first place.

///

TFW x JACK'S POWER

But here's the rub: they all show signs of liking Jack's dominance. Not just Cas.

Sam veers into this immediately, that so long as Jack's power is "molded the right way," as he tells Donatello in s13 Rising Son, that his power can be a good thing.

We see AU Bobby do an about-face about Jack after Jack wallops the angels in War of the Worlds. He's, to quote the script, looking at Jack with starry-eyed hero worship.

And even Dean begins to chomp at the bit at the idea that Jack will be able to "end all the evil in the world." He returns to the trap of the black-and-white mentality, that things can finally be solved, invoking a Purgatory-style manner of looking at the world: "it's like shooting freaks in a barrel." (In s13 Let the Good Times Roll. Dean was looking forward to passing the torch to Jack... and to his own retirement!)

I think that TFW were all "okay" with Jack's power at different turns, and this desperation is often at odds with their idealized core values. This... tragic faith in Jack is at its heart because they love and trust him.

(A la how Chuck trusted Lucifer...)

And with respect to Jack fighting Chuck and being "allowed" to take in that power, their backs are against the wall. They feel Jack is the only option.

To quote Rowena speaking of her past as a poverty-ridden peasant, "What do you do when all the choices suck?"

///

A few last things...

CAS x TOYS

It's been pointed out by clever folks that Cas is lovingly associated with childish toys! Charitably, I think you can take these associations for Cas as stand-ins that he longs for Jack to be "normal/unburdened" too.

(I'm thinking of when Cas plays Connect Four with Jack or how we assume Cas was involved in buying Marvelous Marvin the Talking Teddy for Jack in parallel to how he bought Grumpy Cat for Claire.)

I've seen a few essays sensibly point out Cas is the one who lets them be children because he buys them toys, not weapons. This is in contrast to how Dean gives Claire a gun, and how Sam teaches her fraud.

So, with respect to your question, I think it's lovely when writers take this and highlight it for Cas, giving it wonderful implications for Cas "letting kids be kids."

On the other hand, despite giving his loved ones silly tokens of affection, what is the first way Cas spends time with Jack? Teaching him battle and military skills (s14, The Scar). A hunting trip.

So clearly, childish tokens aren't the full story.

///

CAS x MUNDANITY

There is also Cas's line in 15x18 Despair:

"We don't care about you because you're useful or because you fit into some grand design. We care about you because you're you."

This line may be charitably carried to a healing place: that Cas has made peace with throwing off the chains of destiny.

It's only natural to want this. Maybe the fandom is like Dean in some ways. We want to rely on Cas and believe in him the way that Dean does. That's Cas'll do the right thing and say the right thing... at the right time.

Cas is shown to be very impatient, and he's not what I'd call an expert communicator. It's because of this, I think, that he's prone to making sweeping gestures and grand testaments, especially when the shit has hit the fan... when it's already clutch time.

But I suspect that... in the day-to-day, Cas might struggle.

But it is nice to me as well if people want to take his good qualities and carry them further, to give him peace. :-)

[chiisana-sukima]

Hey so this post just came up on my dash and its an interesting perspective for sure. I was wondering if youd feel inclined to share your thoughts on it but no pressure ofc feel free to ignore.

https://www.tumblr.com/zudilio/648738136098275328/the-thing-is-that-i-miss-the-early-seasons?source=share

Yeah, I saw it on my dash too and considered reblogging with comments, but it's three years old and the OP has said in other posts that they're a "Sam ignorer", so I figured they wouldn't be appreciative. Also, to a certain extent, "they should've given the plot points I don't like to the character I don't care about" is just a matter of taste, so there's not a ton to say about that part anyways.

As far as the "Sam is like John because at the start of the show he's driven by anger and his need for revenge" part, my thoughts on it are here, and @ardentpoop and @aliusfrater have excellent meta here as well.

Leaving aside the piece where I think the OP is wrong about Sam though, I do agree with them that Dean's character arc was mismanaged, and I sympathize with them and all the other Dean girls (gn) who got stuck with *waves vaguely at spn in general*. I agree with OP that Dean isn't an inherently angry person. I don't believe inherently angry people exist, but even beyond that, I don't think the intended reading of spn is that Dean's story is about anger. Gamble said at some point very early on that on the inside Dean is a frightened little boy who never had the chance to grow up, and I do think spn carries that thread through the seasons pretty well all the way to s15, where it attempts (with not-great success imo) to resolve it.

Unfortunately, I also think that spn's failure to resolve Dean's character arc satisfactorily was inevitable, and that the things that attract many fans like OP, who identify with Dean, are the same things that made resolving his issues impossible given the set-up. Just as Sam has a realistic case of poorly-controlled, chronic dissociative/classic PTSD (with psychosis during s7 and some CPTSD-like features) and doesn't have the resources to manage it beyond bare-bones survival, Dean has pretty realistic untreated, chronic CPTSD/BPD without the resources to even begin to manage it in a way that doesn't destroy his own life and the lives of the people around him. Dean's violence stems ultimately from his childhood environment, sure, but the person he is by the time we meet him in s1 has severe attachment issues, difficulty regulating his emotions, poor distress tolerance, black and white thinking in a job where black and white thinking results in victimizing people based on factors they have no control over, and most of all, no real concept of boundaries whatsoever. The cause was for sure his childhood, but the present of spn is just a very symptomatic adult. His mental health issues--and Sam's too--are the kinds of chronic illnesses that never go away and that people struggle with over their entire lifespans.

I don't want to be overly negative; many people with mental illnesses this severe do learn to manage them well and live full and happy lives (I am, within reasonable limits, one of them). But it's hard. And longstanding, deeply-rooted patterns of thoughts, beliefs, and behavior don't change without community resources, considerable effort, and for most people, years of trial and error. Spn's main premise is, for some wild reason, that the problems Sam and Dean encounter are metaphorically equivalent to real life problems normal people encounter all the time, but that in the spn world, all of the resources real world people have available to help them are impossible to access, except guns and torture. It's s13 before spn manages to get Sam and Dean into ONE SESSION of therapy with someone they can tell the truth to, and by then, we get this:

Dean is being a lot less unrealistic here than one might think, and yes, this picture will end badly in real life too.

Since the finale, a lot of fans have said things like "Dean deserved to go to therapy and get better" or "spn thinks if you have trauma, you should kill yourself about it", but deserving is fake. We in the real world live in a The Good Place universe. There's no fair calculus for who "deserves" anything. Everyone both deserves health and happiness and love and a comfortable life and also deserves nothing because there are other people who have nothing.

And unlike ours, the spn universe is not a The Good Place universe. It's worse. The writers of spn are and always have been profoundly ungenerous. The whole universe is built on victim-blaming and bullshit calculi of what crimes deserve what punishments and who should or shouldn't mete them out. In the spn universe, Dean is lucky. He had not one, but two BPD favorite persons, and he treated them both like shit, and they still both loved him and wanted to be with him and will be with him in the afterlife, presumably continuing to have the same intense, volatile relationships they've always semi-tolerated.

I like to pretend that maybe Sam, Dean and Cas can all read The Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills Workbook on Heaven's version of archive.org and take it to heart, or that maybe Sam grew some boundaries in the years he lived without Dean that he can insist on hard enough and long enough for Dean to get a reparative relationship out of, and they can all after-live happily ever after. But the Dean that was alive during the 15 years of spn hadn't done that work yet, and the outcome he got was--if one subscribes to "deserving" as a concept--better than what he "deserved". If you hit your partner, you deserve to be left. If you hold a gun on them, you deserve for it to go off and kill them by mistake and you never see them again (although of course they don't deserve to die). It doesn't matter who the "angry" partner in the relationship is. Any sane person in this universe or the spn one should be angry a lot of the time, because both universes suck. Not to beat a dead horse with a flowchart but:

image source

The violence is the bastard. The emotions are not.

[woundlingus]

Colour Grading, Insincerity, and Loki is right and Gabriel is wrong; a Lokiel Meta

It’s the big gun, it’s the mother lode of me ripping apart Unfinished Business frame by frame to feed my shipping and laying out all my thoughts on the matter clearly as can be so maybe I can sway some people sitting on the fence or at least give some context to those who see my posts and go “wtf” because they’re not viewing this through the lens of my insanity. Want to know why these guys haunt me? Here;

Credit where credit is due, the one thing I’ve always really liked about supernatural is how they use colour grading to tell the story, and it’s not really all that secretive that the Gabriel episodes look aesthetically like some of the best episodes because they colour them very specifically to set the tone for them;

Fun

Nonsensical

Insincere

The three big tells that something trickster is afoot in the episode, (and I apologise for the scuffed quality on some of these, I’m skating the tumblr upload rules).

(Tall Tales 2x15)

(Mystery spot 3x11)

(Changing Channels 5x08)

It tells us that whatever is currently happening typically feels very real to those experiencing it, but is actually not at all. This is make believe. It’s a figment of Gabriel’s imagination that he’s whipped up at his own convenience to tell the story he wishes to impart upon the narrative. While this is obvious in the earlier season when they’re still shooting on film and using the dark overlays to create a spooky ambiance, it still follows through to the end for Gabriel until he puts down the trickster label and picks back up the archangel one and officially joins the Winchesters bringing him into the same dark coloured world that we’re used to viewing. There’s a sadness in it, that Gabriel went from all these bright colours to essentially having his spirit snuffed out by Asmodeus, but it gives us a very clear point to reference when things are real and when they’re make believe.

Obviously Gabriel is a liar, we’ve all known that to be true since his very first appearance- but there’s one incident that I talk about often that bothers me deeply but I’ve never really explained why.

The hotel with the rest of the trickster gang.

Gabriel tells this story three times in a pretty short time span- short enough for Dean to remember and call him out on it in the moment, and every time he tells it the story is altered ever so slightly.

I was alone with porn stars in Monte Carlo

I was alone with Loki and Co in Monte Carlo

I was with porn stars AND Loki n Co in Monte Carlo

He’s always been a very unreliable narrator, but this one was particularly on the nose and when it comes to “continuity errors” Gabriel is always aware of them, he does it on purpose because he wants to get caught. We should ask the question, why did it take you three attempts for us to hear this?

He tells his final iteration of the story in grand bright colours, telling feats of his sexual exploits and how good he is at cards, “and then everyone clapped and cheered for me” and then Loki Judas betrays him because Gabriel is so cool and his brothers are so tough and Loki was scared witless and hoping to avoid bloodshed blah blah blah…

Here’s what the real world looks like in comparison to Gabriel’s little fantasy he’s got running here-

This matches the rest of supernatural, this is a realistic portrayal of events through the eyes of Sam and Dean. This is the bitter reality Gabriel is avoiding with his fantastical little displays; he’s a broken little man who is hurt, injured, and scared.

So, Loki tells another variation of this story, yes? Gabriel was the betrayer here, not Loki. Gabriel ran out recklessly and while passing world saving information to the Winchesters, both saving the world AND the vast majority of Loki’s family, he cannot convince Odin to leave and he dies in battle (and like, he would’ve gone to Valhalla can we just unclench a little?). That is why Loki chooses to damn Gabriel to Hell with a very reckless move to attempt to take down an archangel, sell him to a demon, and then cross his fingers and pray his bestie- the 6th most powerful thing in all of creation ever- doesn’t break free from this pitiful demon eventually and come looking for him. But the environment tells another story, look;

It’s the return of the high vibrancy filter, because this room isn’t real, Loki isn’t real, and neither is the story he’s telling. What are the tricksters, if not liars and showboats?

There’s a huge lack in vulnerability which is what they’re both trying to paint over in these scenes to make themselves cool, to make themselves the victim, to make themselves untouchable. Loki tells a half cocked story about the archangel bastard who took his father, completely detached from any real sort of attachment to Gabriel or Odin- even says himself that he hates Odin! And in a story where we know the ending is Gabriel at the hands of Asmodeus he spends ninety nine percent of the story talking about pornstars. They cannot be vulnerable with these outsiders watching them, they also don’t seem to want to admit to themselves what the crux of the issue is here.

They both want to be the ultimate victim of the situation, they’re painting these half done stories trying to convince an audience (Sam and Dean) that doesn’t care that they are right and the other is wrong—

Until they meet each other;

You can lie to everyone, but you can’t lie to yourself.

We’re back, grounded in reality in this moment when they come face to face with each other, the lighting darkens and becomes gritty once more meaning all facades are down and what’s transpiring here between them is without tricks, and there’s an honor in that when it is a battle between two very clever tricksters who could make this endlessly complicated if they wanted to. When they fight, Gabriel is next to silent (listening, or trauma response? You can decide) and Loki does all his talking for Gabriel and Gabriel alone. They have no one to impress here, they sent the Winchesters on a fools errand to have this moment alone creating a tense intimacy where Loki shreds Gabriel’s facades and calls him out for what he truly is and lays out his deep rooted fears and secrets bare, letting us as the outside party they’re unaware of know that what the two of them were here wasn’t some ordinary friendship or half cocked deal out of desperation, but a real and honest bond between two beings terrified, alone, and looking for safety and someone to confide in. They’re each others secret keepers. Long time confidants. Their most trusted. The reason both of them ran to begin with, in a plan that would involve them wrapping themselves so tightly around the other they’d become one in all ways but physical, and promise to keep each other and that secret until death do them part.

It is bloody, and messy, and Loki has no real way of winning this fight because he cannot hurt Gabriel in any way that matters because he’s an archangel and whether he takes damage or not he will live because of the way he was made, only one of them is killable here and only one of them has any intention of killing the other and it’s not Loki. It’s never been Loki. Ever faithful Loki.

They made a vow, and maybe it was childish and unrealistic but that’s what the two of them are by nature are they not? Fickle, childish, and endlessly devoted. To their families, to their lovers, to their fathers, to each other.

Loki should run at this point, if he has any intention of wanting to live. He’s not stupid, he knows Gabriel better than anyone else in the world and Gabriel acknowledges this by how hurt he is emotionally by the way Loki talks about him and the secrets they’ve passed over the thousands of years they’ve known one another. He’s smart enough to know sentiment won’t save him here, it didn’t save his sons, Sleipnir tried that already and it failed spectacularly. Gabriel is here to kill him, and when you take into consideration the wild power imbalance here in this battle what Loki is doing is essentially laying his head down on the chopping block for Gabriel. He’s a smart creature to survive this long, he could be gone if he really wanted to be just like the many times we watched Gabriel disappear.

He doesn’t.

To me, the crux of their story here is abandonment. You left me. Gabriel made the choice to break his vows, and chase after a family he left behind and even though YES it was for a noble reason that is still nothing when it was a personal stab in the back to Loki who also left his family behind to run away with Gabriel and didn’t go for Odin even though the call was put out to Loki to join the gods for the evening.

Loki didn’t go for his family, but Gabriel did.

Loki didn’t go to save his father in an event they were both invited to, Loki had the opportunity to go and save Odin and he chose his bond to Gabriel over saving him. Gabriel discarded his vow and went anyway, and Odin died.

Gabriel betrays Loki, and it’s not that Odin died, it’s that Loki was willing to sacrifice the opportunity to save him and Gabriel couldn’t say the same for his own family. Odin died for nothing, when Loki could’ve been there the whole time to come get him, and he was robbed of that opportunity while Gabriel went behind his back to do exactly that for his family.

Loki was faithful to his own detriment, and Gabriel was not.

Gabriel is punished fairly in Loki’s eyes because this isn’t just about some deadbeat dad (who chained Loki in a cave to torture him). This is a slight of a much more intimate nature. This was a betrayal of the worst kind.

Gabriel is unfaithful.

Everyone knows that Asmodeus is the demon Prince of lust, but in a little more detail that’s not entirely what makes him up. The cardinal sins are the worst because they are what you inflict upon others, an upon your very soul. Lust is something inherent to the condition of just being alive, but the sin is in the act of hurting others and yourself, so the vast majority of what Asmodeus is imagined ruling over is the adulterer, he is most often the one depicted punishing the unfaithful. Loki wasn’t just looking for a way to hurt Gabriel for the sake of inflicting pain, the trickster is never like that. The trickster doesn’t strike just to maim. Loki is sending a very explicit message to Gabriel by giving him to Asmodeus of all people;

“You were unfaithful.”

— Okay, maybe it’s wrong to say that Loki had every right to do what he did because it was definitely still A LOT to do to someone, but it’s far more understandable when the emotional weight of Gabriel’s crime is made clearer. You probably shouldn’t torture anyone ever for any reason— I’m avidly anti-torture— but dick move Gabriel…

And look, yeah they both sleep around and invite porn stars and hookers to the hotel rooms and what not and I certainly will not hang my ‘Gabriel is a bad person here’ hat on the human morality of monogamy because I think it’s shallow and a disservice to the kind of bond the two of them actually have, but there’s an extra added pain in it that Gabriel also turns up for his ex girlfriend in this situation who is willing to betray him for basically a can of pop but not for Loki who will let Odin die to protect Gabriel.

Gabriel comes back, and he offers no apologies because he isn’t capable of learning his lesson, he is selfish by nature (Also the inherent message of the nature of Hell and torture being one that is wholly unnecessary and cruel, punishment never breeds change internal or societal, you can’t change and reform under immense duress it just further traumatises and keeps you locked in the cycle, the system of Hell shouldn’t exist period). Instead, Gabriel comes to kill Loki’s boys so he can watch them struggle and die first before Gabriel delivers the final blow to the man himself. Would you want to live after all of that either, entirely alone without your family or the one who loved and understood you the most- or so you thought?

And could Gabriel live with it either, knowing the punishment didn’t fit the crime but that Loki had a point (see script) and he wasn’t innocent either and it’s cost him everything because now he gets to look at what it was he saved and it’s a brother who seeks him out in the dark just to torment him about his abuse?

And the story ends circular here, devastating me personally even further by twisting the knife.

Gabriel ran away because his family was so horribly broken, and Loki took off with him to escape his torture. Together they made the plan to become one and Gabriel could use Loki’s face and name to hide among the pagans, and his archangel might to take all the hits being thrown Loki’s way and keep him hidden, because no one’s going to fuck with the god who has the freaky new upgrade and just escaped the slammer. Slowly over time what was Gabriel and what was Loki had melded into two very similar personalities, a little different based on their life experiences, but still so the same they were indistinguishable to everyone but each other.

The core difference between them is their life experiences.

Until Gabriel comes back, tail between his knees and asks Loki to please take him back and let him resume playing the ‘Loki’ character, and Loki says sure, and he binds him and and subjects him to torture at the hands of Gabriel’s very own snake in the cave. Mouth stitched shut. “Be me, then,” He says. “Be me in my entirety.”

And Gabriel comes back after this, bitter and angry and he picks up a weapon and he starts knocking Loki’s family down piece by piece, stalking them through the night no matter how far they run, to make sure Loki’s family is as broken as his own before he delivers the final blow to end his life.

Loki’s family as shattered as Gabriel’s, Gabriel as shattered as Loki himself. Fully one in death.