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you-cant-spell-subtext-without · 4 years ago

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Hola Mishamigos! It’s Friday and I am here with more nonsense from my SPN rewatch - dudes, we are all SLEEPING on Season 11, in both good and bad ways. There is so much in just the first trifecta of “Out of the Darkness, Into the Fire;” “Form and Void;” and “Bad Seed” (since “Baby” deserves her own analysis) - so come relive my rewatch with me. This is a summary of some things that stood out for me (few are analysis, most are clowning; basically this is a pared down live tweet - you’re welcome/I'm sorry); copy/paste from the script is included with my own emphasis:

OUT OF THE DARKNESS INTO THE FIRE [11x01]

-There’s lots more to this episode, but really this is the most important and relevant part (also it’s too soon and I am offended, damaged, attacked and hurt) -

DEAN: Yeah, whoa. All right, take -- take it easy, okay? (gesturing to the deputy’s wound) Bad guys?

JENNA: Rebar. I sought cover. I fell.

***LIKE EXCUSE ME, but what in the actual fuck. Did they just decide to pull that from the episode four years later to emotionally traumatize us in the subsequent rewatches? I know it’s probably coincidence but my sad soul has not recovered *enough* for rebar’s first SPN appearance to be right now in this moment when I am blissfully 5 entire seasons away from the dead end in the road.

- The only other important part of this episode - when Dean takes the call from Cas privately first before putting it on speaker for Sam, and something about this exchange is so endearing-

(Dean’s phone rings)

DEAN: Where the hell are you, Cas?

(The scene flips between Sam and Dean at the hospital, and Castiel in the woods.)

CASTIEL: I'm...I'm okay.

DEAN: You don't sound okay.

CASTIEL: Dean, I am fine. Besides, what I have, you can't help me.

DEAN: What do you mean, what you have?

CASTIEL: Just please tell Sam -- Rowena escaped with the Book of the Damned and the codex.

DEAN: Okay, forget Rowena. Where are you?

CASTIEL: Now, you tell me -- the Mark . . .

DEAN: Oh, really? You're worried about me after everything that I’ve --

CASTIEL: Dean, is it gone?

DEAN: Yes. I'm good. I mean, I'm not great.

CASTIEL: Makes two of us. (Dean puts Cas on speakerphone) This is good news.

SAM: Hey, Cas.

CASTIEL: Sam.

***It’s just so poignant that Dean wanted privacy for the first minutes of that call, probably because he is still haunted about the beating he gave Cas in 10 and *other things,* and Cas is literally being torn apart by Rowena’s curse but he only cares about Dean getting rid of the Mark, and the world is ending but Dean only cares about Cas and where he is - honestly this scene - I’m -

***Further thoughts on the Animal Curse/Cas/Dean below under 11x03

FORM AND VOID [11x02]

(love the Genesis call back to this verse in the title - “And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep.”)

-speaking of emotional trauma, this fucking shit again -

JENNA: Yeah. I pretty much grew up here. Learned to ride my bike down the road. Had my first kiss at that blue house over there. Lost my virginity up there (pointing to different house).

DEAN: I'll bet blue house was pissed.

JENNA: She was. (handing Amara to Dean) Do you mind?

***This frustrated/disappointed/angered/saddened me to NO END despite already knowing that it happens constantly on the show, because what was the reason?! Did they have to point out that she had a female love interest for this brief moment just to turn her evil and kill her off? There was no need to include this detail. It’s either blatant homophobia or willful ignorance (so also blatant homophobia) that this is what representation means. I won’t go on because obviously we are aware of this and much has already been said/written about it, but still, fuck this.

-we meet Billie and there is more “FORESHADOWING”-

QUEEN IS SINGING “OH DEATH” aka Death’s entrance song from Season 5 and I am BLOWN AWAY by this almost as much as her amazing voice - like did they know at this point she would become the new Death season later? DID THEY KNOW? I need answers.

Seriously, go listen to it immediately; bask in its glory:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFOm5i6b56o

We also get our first mention of the Empty, so that’s cute that they referenced both Dean’s and Cas’s Season 15 ‘demises’ in the same episode (it’s not cute really and I am crying again now) ->

BILLIE: You and Dean . . . Dying and coming back again and again. The old death thought it was funny. But now there's one hard, fast rule in this universe. What lives . . . dies. So the next time you or your brother bite it, well, you're not going to Heaven . . . Or Hell. One of us -- and, Lord, I hope it's me -- we're gonna make a mistake and toss you out into the Empty. And nothing comes back from that. I know you're dying. I can feel it. You're unclean in the biblical sense. So I'll be seeing you again, Sam . . . Seeing you real soon. Name's Billie, by the way.

-another reason for me to continue denying the flaming trash heap that they tried to call the series finale-

Sam is dying here because he has been infected by the Darkness-vein-animal-exploding-people-plague so he goes to pray about it

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

**DABB WROTE THIS F-ING EPISODE. How are you going to write Dean deserves a life here to just do what you did Dabb. Don’t get me started on my feelings about this scene in the dark depths of my finale-denying soul. DEAN DESERVES BETTER INDEED, SEASON 11 SAM.

To rub salt in this particular wound, they show us THE cutest scenes of Dean with this damn baby so we can have feelings about how great of a parent he could be (also I ADORE that whenever Jared, Jensen, or Misha have scenes in later seasons with young children/babies it is SO clear they slip into their own natural dad mode without even noticing it; these guys just all seem like excellent fathers and it makes me mushy) and even Crowley picks up on that shit and makes his little ex-boyfriend joke (after Demon Dean and most of season 10 there is no way I will ever NOT believe that Crowley and Dean did not take a tumble; I will take no criticism):

CROWLEY: The child likes you. No surprise, really. You're very maternal.

LIKE WHAT IS THIS:

Speaking of King Jackles, next comes the episode he directed ->

BAD SEED [11x03]

-Cas/Dean parallels with the Attack Dog Spell/Mark of Cain-

This arc appears in the 10 finale and then runs through the first three episodes, culminating in this one. Despite it hurting my heart to see our angel so bloody eyed and feral, I LOVED this parallel; it’s truly brilliant - Cas’s reaction to the attack dog spell is such a mirror to the way Dean dealt with the Mark most of 10. It’s also beautiful that Dean is the only one that can pull Cas from the spell’s control at the end of this episode; that alley scene between the two of them in 11x02 is so tender and sweet. I like to think this brought an entire new layer of depth to their connection, because no one truly understood how Dean felt under the influence of the Mark until now (someone write a fan fic about this exchange!!!!!!) I *love* this journey for them (please say that sentence in Alexis Rose in your head). Bonus that the episode containing my most favorite of *domestic* phone calls with Dean and Cas follows this one, and also Dean’s SHORT SHORTS follow because now he is just walking around the bunker in short shorts while Cas is there and I maintain this is because of this new level of closeness. As previously stated I ACCEPT NO criticism.

ALSO OF COURSE THE FACE CUP THAT JENSEN HIMSEF DIRECTED HIMSELF TO DO. I STAN A KING. I HEREBY DEMAND AT LEAST ONE FACE CUP PER EPISODE OF THE MINI SERIES JENSEN.

***I just saw something posted by @watchthebeesandfish back in 2015 when digging around the internet re: this episode - that this was the first time both Dean/Cas had seen each other as “themselves” since that heart wrenching bridge scene in 9x10, when Dean walks away from Sam/Cas after the Gadreel possession reveal (he goes on to take the Mark of Cain in the following episode, and has it the rest of the season through season 10 finale). That is brilliant and accurate and I BOW DOWN in humility to that parallel. I now love this scene a billion times more. *single [wo]man tear* Anyway, hope you guys enjoyed this little trip down memory lane, thanks as always for getting through my rambling, and HAPPY FACE CUPPING FOREVER.

#destiel #deancas #spn #spn family #spn fandom #sen season 11 #spn recap #spn analysis #spn clowning #heller #jackles #king jackles #but why not write an entire live tweet dissertation of my spn rewatch #spn subtext

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jawritter · 5 years ago

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Right In Front Of You...

Request: Dean x Reader. The reader is hunting with Sam and Dean, and she is constantly getting annoyed at every single thing that Dean does. And she always acts very bad with Dean with this making dean think that she hates him. And that makes me very sad because he has feelings for her but when Dean saves her sacrificing himself from hunting gone wrong. She starts to develop feelings for him.

Pairing: Dean Winchester x Reader

Warnings: Angst, Reader is a bit of an asshole, language, a little bit of fluff, Implied alcohol abuse, SPN level violence. I think that’s it.

Word Count: 2300

A/N: As always all mistakes are mine! Please do not copy my work! Feedback is golden! Hope you all enjoy this one!

Want more? Check out my Masterlist!

***MASTERLIST***

You had been hunting with the Winchester now for six months, and man it had been a long six months.

You were used to hunting alone and having to hunt with people, two people to be exact, was an adjustment for you that you weren’t exactly handling all that well.

It wasn’t exactly in your nature to have to look out for two other people around you. You didn’t know how to handle the fact that there were two other possible casualties beside yourself, and it made you on edge, to say the least.

Sam keeps telling you that you will get used to it, that after a while it would become second nature, and it’s just something you would adjust to, and once it does being alone would be strange for you. You on the other hand weren’t so sure.

Sam, you probably could get along with. He wasn’t as... well…clingy.

Your problem seemed to be with Dean.

He was dominant, he was controlling, and he always acted like his idea was the best idea. He was always trying to run around acting like the Alpha male or something.

It got under your skin, you had been hunting just as long as Dean, you knew how to survive without him, and for some reason, he just treated you so fragile, at first anyway.

After about three hunts he figured out quickly that you knew what you were doing, and back down.

Some anyways.

Then it was the constant following you around, sitting next to you, wanting to always talk to you, well trying to talk to you anyway, Dean never was very good at holding a conversation with anyone, so usually, he just stands there staring at you, which honestly you found a little weird.

You didn’t like being close to people, because if you got close to people you always ended up having them ripped away from you. So it wasn’t like it was second nature to just sit and hold a conversation with someone.

Thankfully he’d finally stopped following you around like when you jumped down his throat one night after a hunt. He was trying to hover over you, wanting to help you stitch up a small cut on your arm, you were tired, and just at the end of your rope.

Maybe you shouldn’t have lost it like that with him, but at the time, you just couldn’t stand the clingy behavior anymore, and just wanted to be alone.

——————————

“Sweetheart, let me do that, please? I’ll get it cleaned out, and stitched up if you will just let me help you.” Dean pleaded, his voice soft and honestly, it made you feel things that you didn’t want to deal with.

“No Dean, I’ve got it. Go get some food or something," you mumbled, trying to ignore him.

Dean knelt down in front of you, placing his hand lightly on your knee, you stopped what you were doing, giving him a death glare.

"Get your hands off of me, Dean,” you warned, not sure what he was doing, but you were ready to take him out if you needed to. You didn’t like how he was always so touchy with you, because that was just you, always expecting the worse, and always on the defense.

“I just want to help.”

“I DON’T WANT YOUR FUCKING HELP, DEAN!!!"

Dean shot back like he’d been slapped in the face. Literally landing on his ass.

"I don’t need you, want you, or anything else that involves you! I’m not some damsel in distress that you need to save! I’m not Sam! I can take damn care of myself, and I don’t need you to do anything for me, or because of me! For weeks now you’ve been stuck under my ass, and it’s getting on my goddamn nerves, so back the fuck off!”

Dean sat there on the floor at the foot of one of the beds in the dingy motel room, looking at you like you’d just kicked his puppy. Getting up slowly he said nothing, just grabbed the keys to Baby, avoiding making eye contact with you, and leaving you to your work.

—————————-

That was the last time Dean Winchester ever spoke to you, and that was two weeks ago.

From then on if he needed something he sent Sam to ask you for it, or to check on you. He bought himself a separate motel room when you had to stay overnight in a town for more than one day. He wouldn’t even look directly at you, at least not while you were looking at him.

He did what you asked him to do, left you alone.

It bothered you, but you couldn’t put your finger on why.

You did notice him drinking a lot more than he usually did, but hell, you all drank in this job. Getting drunk enough to go to bed at night, and hold the nightmares at bay was just part of the job description.

He became more and more distant from you as time went on, which brings you to where you are right now.

In the middle of an old abandoned house, walking up the stairs, an angle blade, and a flashlight in front of you, with Dean about three paces behind you, walking backward, and looking down the stairs.

You both knew that the demon had been taking small children, and you were both pretty sure that he was trying to either make some kind of new demon army spawned in the local town’s people’s children, or he was a really sick fuck. Either way, he needed to die.

When you made your way to the top of the landing you turned the knob on the door slowly, opening the room up at the top of the stairs. It was dark, damp, and seemingly empty. You Look behind you at Dean to see if he saw anything from his angle. Just as you turn to look at him, Dean’s eyes widen, and you feel the air shift behind you.

Before you had time to even turn to see the damn thing face to face Dean was already pushing you against the sidewall, throwing himself in front of you, just as the demon threw the angle blade in his hand, impaling it into Dean’s stomach.

Before you could even react Sam rounded the corner with Ruby’s knife, stabbing the damn thing in the neck, effectively killing it as it’s body flashed and fell to the floor.

You turned and made your way over to Dean, who was now laying on his back, a blank look threatening to cross over his face, the angel blade laying on the ground next to him that he’d obviously pulled out of his own body.

“DEAN!” you yelled, slapping the side of his face, attempting to keep him awake, your hand pressed over the profusely bleeding wound in his stomach as his piercing green eyes searched for you through the darkness that threatened to try and overtake him.

“Y/N?” he asks weakly before reaching out to you, finding the side of your face, tears streaming down it now that you didn’t even notice, grabbing the hand he had stretched out to you. His skin was pale against yours, you vaguely hear Sam yell for Cas, but nothing really registered aside from the fact that you were about to lose Dean.

Your mind was mush as you looked down into the eyes you never really allowed yourself to look into before.

You realized now how stupid you were. All this time you refused to see what was right in front of you. You pushed him away, and all he was trying to do was show you how much he truly cared about you.

“Dean, you stupid jackass why didn’t you just let it kill me?” you ask, putting your hand on the side of his face, and with the last little bit of strength he seemed to have in his body he leaned down into your hand.

“Because I couldn’t watch the woman I’m in love with die, even if she does hate me," Dean said, one big tear rolling down the side of his face. Fighting to keep his eyes open he looked at your shocked expression.

Something inside of you always knew, but for some reason your own fears and insecurities made you push him away, and now you were standing here wondering if it was too late.

"Dean, I’m so sorry. I didn’t see what was right in front of me,” you mumble to him through your own tears.

Dean’s eyes were being too close, and his skin became paler, he was losing the fight to stay conscious as Sam desperately tried to contact Cas.

“Dean wake up!!” you screamed, slapping him in the face a little harder as he struggled to look at you.

“You don’t get to tell me you love me, and then just lay down and die!”

With that, a flutter of wings sounded behind you, and two long fingers pressed down on Dean’s forehead, a blinding light appeared throughout the room.

For a moment you all thought Cas was too late until Dean’s eyes fluttered open with a deep breath.

Wrapping your arms around him as he set up on the floor you held him to you as close to you as you could, tears flowing freely now down your face as relief washed over you, you almost lost what you so stupidly pushed away, but you were never going to do that again; from now on you were going to let him in.

No one had ever given their life for you before, and you had a lot of making up to do with Dean.

You’d hurt him, you see that now, and you were determined never to do it again. You were wrong, and you almost let the best thing that ever happened to you die. One of the things you wanted the most but were too scared to let him in. It was right in front of you, it always was. Yet you almost lost it out of your own bitterness, and stupidity.

“I’m so sorry, Dean,” you whispered to him as you clung to each other as if either let the other go, then you’d both lose everything.

“Y/N s'okay, I’m stubborn too,” Dean said before a clearing of a throat behind you made you both break apart, and look up at each other.

“So, can we kill the chick flick moment, and get our asses out of here before we get caught?” Sam said, looking around you saw that Cas was already gone, leaving just the three of you.

Dean stood to his feet, still a little wobbly, but otherwise fine. You wrapped your arm around his waist to help steady him as you both made your way to Baby.

It was a quiet ride back to the motel room, and you brought Dean to your room instead of his own so that you could keep an eye on him. You didn’t want him to be away from you, now that you almost lost him you didn’t want to let him get out of eyesight.

Once you were both cleaned up and changed Dean laid down on the bed next to you, and for the first time you laid your head down on his shoulder, and let him wrap his arms around, pulling you tightly to him.

“So does this mean you don’t hate me now?” Dean asks carefully, afraid that he’d mess things up for himself again.

You looked up into the olive green eyes that you were very quickly falling in love with, or maybe you always had been, but you just wouldn’t let yourself feel it.

“I don’t hate you, Dean, I never have, I was just too afraid to let you get too close. This life that we live, it’s not really built for relationships, and everyone I’ve ever let get close I’ve lost.”

Dean looked at you knowingly. He’d lost a lot too, and you never really let yourself see how it affected him, selfishly you were only worried about yourself.

“Sweetheart, there’s a high chance one of us may die tomorrow, but we can’t be afraid to get close to people just because we’re scared to lose them. I’ve lost just about everyone I’ve ever loved, but I can’t not love you, I have since the moment I met you, and I will as long as I’m breathing.”

You swallowed hard, trying to think of what to say.

“I love you too Dean, but I’m going to need time to get used to this, whatever it is that we are."

Dean pressed his lips lightly to yours for the first time in a soft, gentle kiss that spread warmth through you like you’d never felt before, and peace washes over you for the first time in years.

"We’ll take it one day at a time, there’s no rush,” he said to you as he pulled the covers tighter around the two of you, exhaustion of the day getting the better of the both of you.

You didn’t know what tomorrow will bring, you may get him ripped away from you before the sun comes up, but he was right about one thing, you could take it one day at a time, for as long as you had. Even though it wouldn’t be easy, it would be worth it.

You loved each other, and he’d already proven that he’d die for you, so you weren’t going to be an idiot and let him slip away. This was it, this was where you were meant to be, right here in his arms. This was the home you were looking for, and it was always right there in front of you.

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mittensmorgul · 5 years ago

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Plastic fantastic

I've put off doing this long enough, and spent the intervening days reading everyone else's interpretations, so there's gonna be a lot in here, but also a lot that I've probably not focused on too heavily because other folks have already said the things better than I could've. So this is just a recap of the things I personally feel are most significant and thematically cool going forward. It's... a lot... :'D

15.04 was infused with an element of surreality. Which I ended up referring to throughout this post as “plastic.” Hence the title. But this got super long, so here have a cut. :’D

Right from the THEN segment, we're reminded of Cas. Rowena's sacrifice, Cas's own suffering at Chuck's hands, and how this has affected Sam and Dean-- Sam miserable for having done what they had to do (right?) in sacrificing Rowena, and Dean PISSED but feeling like this was the only way to free them from what he sees as Chuck being a "fanboy" of them. It shifts directly into BECKY, who was described previously as a "fangirl" and involved in a supremely unhealthy relationship with both Chuck AND Sam (even if it was completely one-sided and creepy with Sam). And then shifts to Chuck being told-off by Amara in 15.02, in essentially a recap of all the best insults and condemnations she could fling at him... because he deserved it honestly, I mean HE LOCKED HER AWAY FROM THE DAWN OF CREATION TO SUFFER ALONE WHILE HE DID HIS THING TO MAKE HIMSELF FEEL BIG.

Okay, sorry, I just really hate that guy and his hypocrisy sometimes (read: all the time).

Right. Where were we. At the beginning.

Gunfight in the bunker, with the Danger Lights activated. I've been waiting for this scene since we got BTS photos of Jensen all battered and ragged with the beard. This... isn't real. It's not SPN universe real anyway. Since the SPPT promo came out, I have been eager to see this episode just for this scene. I guessed it was a vision Sam was having/receiving because of the Equalizer Wound, the beginning of his glimpses into "Chuck's writing process." Is this an AU that Chuck actively created? Is it just the sort of thing Chuck daydreams about? Or in the style of Supernatural episodes past, is this some sort of window into the ending Chuck wants/intends to write for them, which obviously would be something they absolutely could not let stand?

Like Dean’s nightmare he awoke from in 10.09 where he saw himself slaughtering a room full of people at the beginning of the episode, which became reality by the end of the episode? Is Chuck’s horrific ending that Becky hated what we actually saw play out in Sam’s nightmare? The show has invited us to consider that as at least a possibility. Or, to at least assume Chuck’s horrifying ending was at least that awful.

There's so much in this scene that doesn't match up with what any of us might imagine Sam would even consider a nightmare of his own mind's creation, you know? And yet it's SAM who is plagued by these incongruous nightmares that don't even really connect up with things that are relevant to the things currently on his mind, you know? After recent events, one would think the things that would plague Sam's nightmares would be the loss of Jack, or his role in Rowena's apparent death and his guilt/depression over it, or even the fight against the ghostpocalypse and the people who lost their lives as a result of that. Instead, he's having "nightmares" about having gone full Boy King of Hell demon blood addict, which hasn't been a pressing personal fear of his for more than a decade. He's even talked specifically about how he's made his peace with that entire time in his life, such as his talk with Magda in 12.04. NOT coincidentally also written by Davy Perez.

That's because... this is NOT Sam's "nightmare." Why would Sam "dream" about Dean's regular gun having the power to spark out demons? Why would he "dream" about BENNY being a human (and alive!) ally of Dean's that Sam had sent his own army of demons to destroy? Why would Sam dream that his demonic-self would hunt down and kill his loved ones (Bobby! Jody! and nobody else mentioned! as if this was some weird time-travelling situation combined with Benny's human presence!), and then in the end hunt down and murder Dean in cold blood? This wasn't Sam-As-Lucifer (though I believe we will be seeing that particular nightmare in next week's episode), but SAM. HIMSELF. Turned into the demon he always feared he was "destined" to become before they learned how to tear up the story and make their own choices about their destiny.

The problem now is that they actually believe that Chuck has gone, and they're on their own now. Sam believes that this must be his own nightmare, and therefore he's just stuck with it, as his own mind and memories and fears come back to torment him. He's lost his power to fight against it, like Dean's lost his power to fight against his current experience. It's as if the only power Chuck retains over them is in the fact that they BELIEVE he's gone, you know? Magic's power is in the belief of the caster, Rowena has recently reminded us with her own life. And I think that's exactly what's leaving Sam and Dean so completely vulnerable to manipulation by Chuck, in ways they've never before been vulnerable to it. Because they've both staked their entire futures on the fact that they so firmly believe they're free of Chuck's story.

Sam is just... so confused by this nightmare, he can't even make sense of it at all. And the sleep deprivation isn't probably helping.

I think we've all covered the Meat Man conversation already, as well as all the Dean vs Food stuff, so I'll only add that commentary in here if I think of something I haven't already said on the subject.

Dean calls out Sam's assertion that he's fine, directly telling him "No, you're not," and expressing his understanding of what he's going through.

And here come the cheerleaders. And doesn't this (as I believe many of us have already said over the last two weeks) just smack of Sam's "fake case" Gadreel had him trapped researching inside his own mind in 9,10? Crowley had to convince Sam that what he was trapped inside wasn't real, that he was possessed by an angel who was forcing him to experience these things. And obviously the God Wound isn't direct possession, and I don't doubt that this is a real case, but how much of this case might have been "arranged" by Chuck, or how much of Sam's perception right now may be clouded or colored because of the effects of that Wound?

Not only that, but Dean is also a participant in this entire odd case, and he doesn't even HAVE a wound connecting him directly to Chuck, you know? But his judgment seems to be equally clouded by something, as well... I'm gonna call it Intense Denial. Dean is basing his entire life right now on the presumption that Chuck has stopped interfering in their lives, when I think the exact opposite is true. I think Chuck is now focused on them more directly and more intensely than he ever has been before, and their obliviousness to that fact is only strengthening his hold on them, and amplifying his power over them.

But back to the current point in the episode:

Sam interviews the vice principal of the school, and the girl who was killed was in the drama club, debate team, cheerleading, campus ministry, you name it. That's... an awful lot of potential friends, so Sam asks about BEST friends, and we're directed to Veronica "and the girls." Veronica is singled out, which makes her speech to the empty room later even more interesting...

This episode relies on a lot of the elements of the case they're investigating to seem rather... plastic. And Veronica stood out as one of these elements. She could've just been "one of the girls," but she was identified specifically here, and it's like that designation itself somehow altered reality just a little bit. Heck I think I'm gonna need to put this line of thought on hold until we get to the speech scene. Remind me to come back to this.. >.>

The Whitmans interrupt (oh those crazy parents from 1.08, at it in a completely different role), seemingly uncaring of the dead girl and demanding their son's future not be ruined by postponing the lacrosse game. (OH THE IRONY) Sam rightly calls them out on framing it as "the end of the world" if he doesn't get into his first choice college. These parents have already been established to be Those Kinds of Parents who will do anything for precious little Billy to get whatever he wants in the world. They'd probaly strangle kittens on live TV if it would guarantee their son's future, you know? We haven't even seen the full extent of what they were willing to do for their son, and they already feel like cartoonish villain types.

I need to take another aside here to talk about the boy’s name. BILLY. Which, considering how we left things in 14.20, we’ve all been wondering about what Billie is up to in the Empty, right? This boy that will, by the end of this episode, become a literal stand-in for Jack on a cosmic scale? Is called Billy. Just... consider that.

I can already hear Becky critiquing Chuck's Monster of the Week here... and in turn parts of the fandom cynically saying that this is the complaint on MotW episodes forever-- that they're boring or unimportant or skippable because the monsters are predictable and boring, and just... NO. YOU HAVE OFFICIALLY MISSED THE POINT.

I think the general assumption is that the case we watch Sam and Dean solve is being directly affected by Chuck's simple act of typing it out. In exactly the same way we believed Metatron influenced the events of s9 by the simple act of typing it out. Could he control the thoughts of the people he wrote about? Not exactly. Could he manipulate the situation via the power of the angel tablet-- the direct word of God-- to influence the scenario and events in improbable ways? Yes, I absolutely think he can. And I'll continue discussing this as we go along.

But we return to Dean leaning against the car eating pretzels. I've already written about his constant eating and drinking in this episode, but PRETZELS?! That's a new one for Dean. It's usually jerky, or chips, or candy, or... all sorts of other things. Where did he even get the pretzels from?

He'd apparently been at the morgue examining the body, and found a vampire tooth. So this case that seemed NOTHING like a vampire case based on how the body was found, suddenly there's irrefutable evidence that it's a vampire instead. Almost as if the facts of the case have shifted somehow, rather improbably and inexplicably. Just as inexplicably as Dean finding the beaver mascot riding a scooter "awesome."

The second girl to be abducted calls out Veronica as being "so fake" in her grief over Susie's death. And yet, improbably, after a long cheer practice, she's the only one alone in the school parking lot late at night. Where's the rest of the cheer team? The coach? Anyone? How was she there all alone? Yet she was, because the case needed her to be.

It's plastic.

Like the little square of crime scene tape left unattended in the woods. Weird, right? That after the scene was cleared and the original investigators left, it was still left there around an empty patch of dirt. And Sam and Dean... are just... standing there at the edge of the woods, boxed in by yellow crime scene tape and orange cones while they have their conversation about the fact the police have no idea what could've done this, and Sam laments the fact that it's THEIR job. THEY deal with the truth and carry the weight, while everyone else gets to go back to their blissfully unaware lives.

Dean busts out the flask while the two of them stand there in their own personal crime scene box, like their lives are the crime here. They ARE the victims of a cosmic crime. And the corpse of what their lives could've been, of what Sam had always thought he'd want of his own life, to live in a little town like this and just be NORMAL, is what they'll find on the autopsy here. And Sam is just beginning to realize he can't identify with those sorts of people at all.

And then we jump right from Sam lamenting the lost white picket fence to Becky's house-- where the front railing is white pickets, where she's built a real life for herself. Yet even something about it seems... off... just a little bit. That older kid seems way older than 7, which I assume would be the oldest any of her kids could be based on when we last saw her in canon, before she began to recover from her obsession and begin building a true happy life for herself. Heck maybe I'm talking myself into a problem that doesn't exist, and he's supposed to be just a really big 6-year-old, but okay. Or maybe he's adopted, or the kid of her husband from a previous relationship. GAH This is so not relevant to anything, why can't I let it go... >.>

Regardless, she clearly loves her family, and is invested in her life with them. Her husband is a man who truly appreciates and loves her in return. I'm really happy for her. Her husband at one point says, "Where would I be without you," and she jokingly replies "Covered in puke." And it's the same sort of cute exchange we saw between Sam and Jess in the pilot, where he asked, "What would I do without you?" and she jokingly replied, "Crash and burn." And considering that Sam himself will mention Jessica at the end of the episode, it seems worth pointing out the thematic similarity they're trying to set up here.

I wonder how much Becky has told her husband about the reality of the Supernatural books she's built her business and hobbies around, or her own part in the events of the books? More than Sam ever told Jess about the reality of his life? At this point, I'm gonna be glad her husband didn't end up pinned to the ceiling on fire.

Becky waves goodbye to her family as they leave for a day of fun, and Chuck waves back at her. He's inserted himself into her life again, and it's freaking creepy.

Chuck says he "wanted" to see her, and corrects himself to "needed." And here we have the laying out of the classic “NEED VS WANT” conundrum we’ve been yelling about for literal years. Funny that Chuck has it all wrong himself, you know? Becky makes herself clear that she neither wants nor needs him. He's not welcome there at all, and yet he presses on, past her assertion that his problems aren't her problem. I've already written a little bit about what Chuck apparently wanted from Becky, and what he actually got from her, so I'll try not to repeat myself, but to say that Becky was far kinder to him than he deserved.

So we learn about the second cheerleader's kidnapping, Dean makes an uncharacteristically flippant comment in front of the Vice Principal (somebody has a fetish), and kinda... blinks in shock at himself before professionally affirming they'll look into it and turning and walking away. Like he can't quite believe he actually said that. Which is weird, right? Because this is the sort of thing Dean has made flippant and kinda gross comments on in the past, right? But even when he's made comments about which cheerleaders are legal (4.13), or suggestive comments about even college students, he's rarely done so this blatantly directly TO the school principal, you know? This was... odd... like everything is just slightly out of sync.

I'm fascinated by the tiny models of Supernatural things that Chuck is prodding at in Becky's house. The first thing we see is Lil Levi's gas station. The only time we have EVER seen this gas station was in 10.03, when Hannah and Cas stopped there for gas, and yet Becky has the Impala parked by the pump, and what looks like a yellow classic car of some sort on the other side, hidden by the pumps so it's impossible to really see it there.

(I swear I will replace these Mittens Quality Screencaps™ as soon as HotN properly caps the episode... apologies for the photos of my tv in the meantime)

It was Cas's pimpmobile we've actually seen at this location in canon. And this was the gas station where Cas was losing his grace, desperately trying to get to Dean in time to save him, and Hannah kept getting them lost. He calls her out over her feelings-- dangerous temptations-- clouding her judgment and getting in the way. They're attacked by Adina, and Crowley arrives just in time to save them both from her, stealing her grace and force-feeding it to Cas, enabling him to power up again and save Dean. Aah, callbacks! And I mean, it might just be a visual callback to the fact that Jensen also directed that episode (and that gas station was named after his nephew), but it's still a reference that brings an awful lot of baggage with it, regardless of what prompted its appearance in miniature in Becky's house. Not to mention, this reference happened LONG after Chuck had supposedly stopped writing about the Winchesters' lives. And yet... Becky seems to know this reference, which had nothing to do with Sam and Dean and everything to do with Cas.

The second model we see looks incredibly like (or at least should all be having us THINKING of) the Carver crypt from the first three episodes of s15. And that's... super creepy, right? What is this building? Why did Becky have a model of it at all? This happened DAYS ago in canon.

And the third is Singer Salvage yard, with the Impala parked out front. How long has it been since we've seen it? In an episode that opened on Sam's "nightmare" that involved him strung out on demon blood having just killed Bobby and Jody in Sioux Falls? Interesting that Chuck expressed fascination with that particular model in this episode, isn't it?

He asks if Becky is still obsessed with his work, and she corrects him. She's obsessed with HER work. She'd essentially dismissed Chuck as the creator of Supernatural, and relegated him to the role of Recorder Of Events, as a prophet. It wasn't actually HIS story. But what she's made of it, what she's made her life's work, IS HER OWN CREATION, based on the same reality she believed that Chuck had been nothing more than a conduit for. And OUCH for a guy like Chuck to not even get credit for any of it now, because of the lie he'd told to insert himself into his own creation. It's incredible to me. He wants nothing more than recognition as the creator, as the writer, and Becky's far more interested in her OWN stories about the same characters. She saw herself as more than Chuck’s equal as a writer, she saw herself as his superior. He just recorded, she CREATES. She dismissed everything Chuck was most interested in, and writes the characters all having achieved a measure of peace and happiness, the same as she has. And Chuck... hates it. :'D

Remember, this is the guy who invented monsters before he invented anything else. Leviathans were his first creation, even before the archangels. But they had a nasty habit of eating everything else he tried to create, so he grudgingly locked them in Purgatory, and moved on to the next thing. And he's had a lot of similar failures over the years... like the original hellhound that Lucifer stole away (and that Sam killed in 12.15). Seems like this has always been the story Chuck wanted to tell, because he's always only ever had his original drama with Amara as a source for his creation. He's... obsessed... with his version of events, no matter how many times he's confronted with reality, he weasels out of personal responsibility for everything. Like he does in this scene with Becky, letting her believe he's just a poor dude who wants to keep writing and lost his writing mojo because his prophet powers dried up.

This is probably the first Becky's heard Chuck had a sister, who Chuck only explains rejected him because she "sucks." And... Chuck... you're leaving out the horrific things you've done to her as an explanation of why she refused to help you. He's still hiding behind the “super cute” Chuck Facade. And nothing he says is an out and out lie, but it's entirely a manipulation, a complete reframing of the cosmic scale of what's happened into something he expects Becky to be able to offer him sympathy over. And she's just not having it. And again, good for her.

Chuck admitting that he's lost and hates himself at least engages Becky enough to try something to get him moving forward (again, still thinking he's just a guy who's lost everything). And tells him if writing makes him happy, then he should write.

Meanwhile Dean's incongruously eating a hot dog (WHERE IS HE GETTING ALL THIS FOOD?!) and interviewing a beaver. Sam questions why, and Dean's not only gotten information about the case (mascots have access to cheerleaders), but information about the kid inside the suit (he's a smart kid, got a full ride to IU). Dean's been unusually productive while chewing that hot dog, apparently. But he’s basically a caricature of himself during this case, like he’s trying to wear a suit he hasn’t worn in 15 years, and is finding it really ill-fitting. (it’s probably all the snacks he’s eating, honestly)

Veronica hands Billy a black wristband printed SUSIEFOREVER, which... is probably how Billy's feeling at the moment (hello, she was his girlfriend and he accidentally killed her... this is gonna haunt him forever). Veronica (who we've already been told by the latest girl to disappear is "so fake" in her grief over Susie's death) seems to be coming on to Billy, or at least making her interest in him known. And we DON'T know how all of this will resolve yet, but there's an awful lot going on in this scene. Did Veronica actually kill Susie? Is she the vampire and is that the reason for this OTT "so fake" grief on her part? Did Billy's "anything for my kid" mother who interrupts the scene actually kill her and Billy know something about it? Why is everyone acting so... weird?

Because we're back to the plasticity of this entire case again. What's actually killing cheerleaders? What's really going on here? If this entire case is Chuck's machination, because he wrote it down, and therefore subtly affected the situation, is that why everything seems just slightly off? Slightly malleable, as if Chuck is only working out the details of the case as he's writing it all down?

Billy leaves with his mom, and Veronica is left in a dimly lit gym filled with empty chairs and programs for the memorial service. She's practicing her speech to this huge empty room, speaking into a microphone. And as she talks, she edits her speech.

We've seen Chuck do this. in 4.18, he had Dean push the doorbell with determination, and then went back and edited it to read "with forceful determination." Just before the doorbell rang, and it was a forcefully determined Dean doing the ringing... So Veronica's self-edit here seems almost like a Chuck self-edit.

Remember how I mentioned way back toward the beginning of this mess how Sam asked the VP for a clarification on who Susie's "BEST" friends were, and Veronica was singled out among a group of her close friends? And now Veronica stands alone not only as the sole person in the room here talking to empty chairs, but as the one with apparent motive to kill Susie, who's been accused of expressing a lot of over-the-top melodramatic "so fake" grief. And... she edits her relationship with Susie on the fly:

Veronica: We are here to celebrate the life of my friend Susie. No. *clears throat* *takes a breath* We are here to celebrate the life of my best friend Susie. My best friend Susie who I miss like... *sigh* like she was a part of me. And in many ways she's still a part of me. She'll always be a part of all of us. Susie Martin was as rare as a ghost orchid and as unique as a snowflake. So beautiful inside and out. But as Robert Frost tells us, nothing gold can stay. And that's what Susie was. Pure gold.

And during this entire speech, to the empty room, the music in the background is ominous, looming, tense. The musical cue is telling us to doubt her performance here, with the high strings picking up the tension just as she comes to a close and Dean shows up with his slow clap. I mean, it was a pretty OTT speech, delivered with an intensity that literally does feel rehearsed. Stilted. Plastic. Everything in the case so far has pointed the arrow at her being the monster. The framing of the narrative would support it if it had been true, but the background of the entire case feels exactly as Becky has described it. What if THIS was the original ending to the case that Becky had voiced her complaints about, as if THIS is the story that Chuck would've written.

But that's such weaksauce. MotW episodes are nothing if not thematically consistent. Vampires are about revenge cases, and this case is a very specifically pointed bit of revenge, of Chuck against the Winchesters. They ruined the last story he tried to tell, and the fact this started out looking like something OTHER than a vampire case (possibly a ghoul, based on the parallel to 9.10, and a dismembered body), and then seemingly remolded itself INTO a vampire case halfway through... it feels like that first fang Dean found at the morgue was Chuck sinking his teeth into their lives.

And Veronica, no matter how the case had painted her to this point, was completely innocent. A bit plastic, because she's a victim of this reality bend as much as Sam and Dean are, because the real monster of this case is Chuck-- only Sam and Dean don't have any idea yet.

Dean calls her on her fake emotions, and they directly accuse her of killing her friend. And get the proof that she was innocent because she HAS BRACES, which she's apparently self-conscious about, but it proved she wasn't a vampire. *SIGH*

Plastic.

So Sam and Dean look for video evidence from surveillance cam footage, which the police had apparently already looked at and found nothing, but now they find a car driving past immediately after the second girl's abduction. Did the police not see it? Or is this another bit of plastic?

Meanwhile back at Billy's house, his parents refuse to even hear him say Susie's name, and suspicion immediately shifts to their entire family. Billy's father washes blood off his hands, and nobody seems to find this strange. Are they all monsters? Did one of them slip up? What the heckeroo is actually going on here? Whatever it is, it feels like they're all complicit, and Billy seems to be having reservations. Except they've also got the latest victim tied up and blindfolded in their storage room. So... they're definitely guilty of something. But we're only halfway through the episode at this point, so there's clearly more to the story.

Chuck tells Becky he can't see what Sam and Dean are doing anymore, as he conveniently scratches at his left shoulder where his wound connecting him to Sam is. Which is wild, right? Because what little we know about the Equalizer gun was that it fired INTENT. And that it affects the person shot and the shooter identically. So what was Sam's intent when he shot Chuck? Dean had just told Chuck to "Go to Hell," but Sam didn't say anything out loud when he shot Chuck. Was his intent "stop fucking with our lives" or more vaguely grief-filled "go to hell" or something more? Because whatever intention Sam shot at Chuck seems to have directly caused both Chuck's loss of power AND his inability to see directly into their lives now. And after having watched the Sam and Dean show for their entire lives, Chuck is PISSED about not being able to see what they're up to.

And I wonder, incidentally, if this will be the same factor that's causing problems for the Winchesters, too... that Sam may have inadvertently severed whatever protective force had made their lives as hunters as... implausibly unproblematic as they've always been, you know? I think we'll be seeing that develop more in the next episode, but we saw hints of it happening in this episode too (like with Dean's comment about the killer having a cheerleader fetish). But regardless, I think this is why Sam is suffering these grief-fueled nightmares, his inability to breathe, and his general current mental state. He’s suffering from the same intent he’d fired at Chuck. Only it hit Chuck with a case of writer’s block, while it hit Sam with something he’s been unable to truly define or explain. Yet.

Becky tells Chuck to write about the Winchesters if he loves their story so much, because that's what SHE does. Her stories don't have to be based in reality for her to enjoy them, but Chuck's only metaphorically a writer. He doesn't just want to make up tales, he wants to literally create reality. During Becky's entire pep talk, Chuck's holding a little figurine of Sam pointing a gun, and ain't that just on the nose? She plucks Sam out of Chuck’s hands and puts him back on the mantle (and I admit to at first thinking it was the Cas doll from 5.06, because Dean did the same thing with Cas, putting him up on the mantle like that), but Chuck still expresses doubt in his ability to actually write.

And here's where the most incongruous stuff in the entire episode begins happening-- the family dynamics of a killer family. It's still unclear who the monster is among them, but like Dean, we are leaning toward the father. The thing is, none of it's actually plausible. That's the beauty of this entire case. It's plastic.

How did this single kid out of this entire town get turned by a vampire, and his parents just... completely accepted what happened immediately without question? How did they KNOW what to do for their son in this circumstance? They went out and killed animals for their blood for him. Where did they learn to do this for him? And then how could they so casually just... kidnap a whole human being just to feed their son? Why not go back to feeding him animal blood like he'd done before? They didn't see anything wrong with any of this, either. DID THESE PEOPLE NOT HAVE QUESTIONS?!

And what of the vampire that made him? Did that vampire just... turn him and run? Did he give the kid a pamphlet explaining vampire life to him or something? It's just utterly baffling that this whole family just... incorporated this development into their lives as if it was all an entirely normal thing to accept about their kid. The dad KIDNAPPED A WHOLE ENTIRE HUMAN BEING for him on his own initiative, the mom was ready to shoot Sam and Dean for interfering in their plans. LIKE HOW IS ANY OF THIS NORMAL?!

And perhaps most bizarre of all, Sam and Dean didn't see anything wrong with it in reflection later that night. But I'll get to that when we get there. Heck this note-writing thing is really hard when I already know everything that's gonna happen. I have enough trouble staying on point without the benefit of foresight. :'D

So these parents are insistent that they're doing all of this, sacrificing all of this, just for him. And when he tells them he doesn't want them to, they just beg him to tell them what he wants from them. And he's just so frustrated because they aren't listening to him. Like they don't even care about him despite professing they're doing all of this so he can be happy. And he's just... profoundly not happy.

So the father, when Sam and Dean show up, still thinks they're going to ARREST him. Which is a weird thing for a suspected vampire to believe, and he's horrified when Dean pulls out a machete instead of handcuffs. This is a totally shocking development for him, and yet he STILL holds it together enough to bargain for his wife and son's lives. And the wife is profoundly confused by this, and our suspicions shift to her. But that's still... not quite right. She's prepared to literally shoot what she believes to be two FBI agents to save her son, again, as if all of this was entirely normal. As if this is what normal people are willing to do for their monster children.

I've already written a bunch about Becky's critique of Chuck's writing, and how poorly Chuck takes her notes. Chuck... is really out of touch with fanfic culture. Becky's reading this story as if it was fic, not reality. She kudos'ed and commented, and expected Chuck to just accept that and move on, because that's how fic culture works. But he demanded a beta read level critique, and Becky gave it. And he shouldn't have asked for it if he didn't actually want it.

And here comes the revenge that justifies the Vampire Plot. Chuck... is the vampire. he's the monster that doomed Billy for no reason. Who drove the parents to such extreme lengths to protect their child. Because that's how CHUCK saw what TFW had done to protect Jack. He saw it as just that outrageous and unfounded, even though it was in no way the same. We just witnessed Chuck's critique of TFW's actions in 14.20, and it was scathing, mocking, and vindictive.

Plastic.

But I also suspect that Becky wasn't reading ~this case~ exactly, because she complained that Sam and Dean were tied up (they were never once tied up in this episode), and she complained about the villain monologue being stale (Dean does most of the monologuing here, and it's Sam who figures out what's actually going on). Just one more bit of plastic.

But Chuck somehow managed (even if he couldn't see it) to put Jack's 14.20 realizations about himself into Billy's mouth. As if Chuck's story had already been written, and through some power of its own it was brought into reality via these previously innocent people. The story itself is more powerful than the author.

Like Jack, Billy has been trying to accept responsibility for his actions. He couldn't control himself, he didn't know it would happen, but he's dangerous and needs to be stopped. And Billy's speech isn't a "villain monologue," but a painful confession of everything he'd done. So what story was Becky reading?

Sam angrily judges the parents' actions, and Dean expresses his shock that the father would've just let him cut off his head to save his son. And is taken aback at the comment that he must not have kids, if he doesn't think he wouldn't have done the same for his own child.

And Dean's like... well, no I wouldn't have done the same for my own child. It's a super messed up situation that I'd really been trying not to think too hard about, thanks. It's been less than a week and here you go bringing up the worst day of our lives, so thanks for that... but they carry on. The mother says they just wanted him to have a normal life, and that's something Jack never would've had regardless because of what he was. But he had *a* life, with the Winchesters. If Jack had been a vampire, they wouldn't have gone out hunting and kidnapping teenage girls for him to eat, you know? But they were willing to raid heaven and shout down God for Jack. But context matters. And this hastily assembled vampire family ready to play revenge/victim for Chuck's story lacked all context. They were plastic.

It's Billy who ends up dictating how his parents are to handle everything, calm as can be. And his parents finally listen to him. And he sacrifices himself to the Winchesters. And they just... go along with it, take him out to the woods, and Dean kills the boy kneeling at his feet, accepting his fate as he's clearly crying, while Sam watches on. It's what Chuck had wanted in 14.20, and Dean had refused to give him. And now this entire situation has been Dean, manipulated into providing that demanded sacrifice, one way or another. And the most interesting bit of it? Chuck... couldn't even see it playing out. He missed the whole show that played out in Chuck Puppet Theater despite the fact. Like whatever he actually wrote was irrelevant, because his intent is somehow still connecting through to the Winchesters in pantomime.

And Sam and Dean's reactions to all of this are also just weirdly plastic.

I've already written about Chuck and Becky enough I think, but Chuck's moved on from "Writers lie," to "I can do anything, I'm a writer." With some of the worst villain monologue we've ever gotten, with "There, see, it's making you feel something! That's good, right?" While Becky is outraged and heartbroken over Chuck's ending. The only thing I need to say about whatever Chuck's planned ending is, is that if the series ends the way CHUCK wants it to, it'll go down as the biggest intentional betrayal of a fandom in the history of television. The show has stated to us in this episode that Chuck is the final boss big bad, and that he cannot be allowed to win. He can't have the final word in this story.

In *our* world, the current writers have officially called out a good number of sins of their past and exposed them via Chuck. They wrote the Leviathans being a personal favorite of Chuck's despite being pretty universally hated by fandom... well... they're looking for redemption for themselves in s15. THEY can't allow the story to end horribly. They've staked their current writing cred on it, as well as the entire history of 15 years of building TFW into the heroes. Sure, they've joked that not all fans will be happy with the ending, but in serious comments they've also promised a "real" ending and not some advanced level deus ex machina that wipes everything clean, either. That's a lot to deliver, and Chuck's suggested ending of the Winchesters horrifically dead doesn't deliver any of it.

So... back to the denouement of the episode. To the Impala! The least plastic thing in the entire episode. But it's pretty plastic.

Sam suggests that what Henry did for his son, was something they would've done for Jack, given the chance. And no, he's not talking about kidnapping teenage girls to feed him, he's talking about offering himself as a sacrifice in his son's place. Because Dean literally did do that. He was willing to sacrifice himself to kill Jack before he could kill again. It's what Chuck had presented as the ONLY way to stop Jack from destroying the world, with the examples of Jack having accidentally killed Mary, and then the whole of society crumbling because Jack told everyone to stop lying. But Sam? He wasn't willing to sacrifice both of them. And then he learned the truth from Chuck, about the manipulations that forced them all to this point, how Chuck probably did have the power to make everything right, restore Jack's soul, everything... but he didn't want to because it was more entertaining for him to watch them act out his plots instead. He WANTED that drama, that horrible sacrifice. He ENJOYED it.

But given the choice, I think Sam and Dean both would've traded places with Jack. We actually *saw* Cas literally exchange himself for Jack in 14.08. But Chuck wasn't satisfied with that trade. He wanted more from them, and they decided they were done playing on his stage.

There's a bit of incongruity in the speech Dean gives Sam about his current state, as well. He's usually so much better at reading Sam, yet he's comparing Sam's current mental state to his own back in the crypt, after Chuck. And just... no? This is not it at all? When he told Sam he's felt like cashing in, *we* think of 13.05, where he literally DID think of cashing in, you know? That feels far more similar to how Sam's feeling right now than to Dean's ANGER and "we need a plan!" bossiness from the crypt after Chuck. It's jarring as a comparison, because IT'S THE WRONG THING ENTIRELY.

But it's wrong, because it's the glaring omission of Cas that's already been lampshaded in the episode. That Dean's current blind spot here is shining a violently bright light on what SHOULD be said. Just like the end of 13.05 when we all yelled "HELLO, DEAN" at the television when Cas didn't say the line to him. We've been talking FOR YEARS about how this show uses narrative negative space like this, how it expects us to shout HEY WHAT ABOUT CAS?! at the screen, or to see that even this driving scene in the dark, in the car, is a perfect inverse mirror of that scene in 13.05, where Sam had spent that entire episode feeding his favorite junk food that he criticized Dean for in this episode, Dean and dragging him out on a case in the hopes of making him feel like himself again and... that's what Dean's telling Sam he wanted to work this case for now, to show Sam exactly what Sam had tried (and failed spectacularly) to show Dean in 13.05.

Dean even quotes some of Cas's last words to him before he left, that he should "move on."

But they needed to walk around the giant Cas-shaped hole in the narrative. And they needed to do it this incongruously. And that's exactly why it works.

And it's why Sam CAN'T move on. He doesn't feel free. I've already written a bit about this, and how it's directly tied to Sam's wound, and what it's probably doing to him. And what IS it doing to him? Chuck wobbles his head side to side, and the Sam and Dean bobbleheads on the desk beside him follow suit.

#spn 15.04 #spn s15 spoilers #i have no idea how long this is but it's so many long #the scheherazade of supernatural #this is The Author actively preventing shahryar from listening to the final story #we are all shahryar

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dotthings · 5 years ago

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Heavily cluttered, as many Bucklemming eps are, but worth the trip. There was a lot of goodness in 15.08 and there were two moments where I shrieked out loud.

My two out loud-shriek moments, let’s get that out of the way:

Queen Rowena. Caaaaalled it.

Dean and Cas are going back??? To???? Purgatory???? Together?????? And Bobo???? Is???? Writing the episode???????????? *SHRIEKING AND FLAILING*

Okay more orderly and sedate now. Eileen is so damn fierce. She’s a very physical fighter, she’s smart but seems to use a blunt fighting skill. She can punch HARD. I love watching that so so much. I would enjoy female characters on SPN like this regardless, but the fact that this is a hero character with a disability and it’s never a big deal is deeply refreshing and SPN did something really really right bringing her back, amen.

Protective Sam shows up and Eileen is happy to see him but literally pushes him aside so she can make the kill. She doesn’t need his protection, but she also values him as a hunting partner as the ep shows. Also they’re trying to build a relationship here. Eileen seems used to hunting solo and Sam wants to offer backup, and he got worried.

So the plan is to lock up Chuck like Chuck locked up Amara. The sweet irony of this delights me. He tried to shut away the divine feminine rather than actually stepping up to deal with his sister as, well, a person (well, a divine deity, but still, a being with feelings and thoughts and complexities). Chuck, the arrogant and narcissistic toxic masculinity God, maybe to be locked up now instead as his hubris and his lack of empathy and his petulance is exposed. What if Amara was the more competent deity all along?

There is no way Dean doesn’t know what an Achilles’ heel is. The random WTF of this is so much it’s not even angering it’s just so bizarre. LOL what even. Look I am really enjoying S15 but I hope the butterfly net tightens on stopping this kind of thing because honestly. I’ll just pretend that scene isn’t there. Luckily I enjoyed the episode overall a lot.

Team Free Will in research mode together in the bunker just really makes me happy. Cas is where he belongs.

Donatello!Chuck threatening Jody, Donna, Eileen, “pretty much everyone on your speed dial” as a deterrent to Sam and Dean is bearing out again my impressions of how Chuck views these characters. I’m still not 100% sure what he thinks of Cas who is right in the room but Chuck doesn’t seem to acknowledge him, except as some sort of right arm to Sam and Dean, as I’ve said in other posts, I think Chuck regards him as a nuisance now, and a deterrent to his miserable endings, and a pawn. Just like Donna, Jody, and Eileen, to him, they’re just pawns. They’re all people Sam and Dean care about, and Chuck will use them to keep his two favorites in line.

See what I did there?

Yeah. Chuck doesn’t care about the characters as people. Everyone except Sam and Dean are expendable and tools to be used so he can control Sam and Dean and that’s it. He’ll destroy them with a snap of his fingers and won’t care. Look at that. Familiar attitude, isn’t it. How interesting.

“If you want to stay here, stay here.” Dean’s gone back to not!listening to Cas I see. While Cas is Dean-avoidant and trying not to look at him throughout the episode. But both of them are thawing just a little.

Like when Cas heals Dean’s cut palm and the way it’s staged looks like he’s going to take Dean’s hand to do it which I don’t think is an accident. That moment was meant to be soft. Dean didn’t ask. Cas offered. And Dean didn’t jerk his hand away or say no. Then there’s the fact that Cas is going to go with Sam and Dean into Hell despite all his misgivings about Michael and this entire plan.

Team Free Will, getting all researchy together, and then getting all BAMFY together with their angel blades going into Hell.

We didn’t get any kind of nod back to Dean and Cas’s last visit together to Hell and that’s the second time they have been back to Hell (well the last time was some sort of Hell ante-room, the cage was brought up iirc) and SPN failed to nod to it, WHY AM I CONTINUALLY DENIED THIS.

“Hello, boys.” There it is. My actual shriek of delight. I hope it didn’t alarm the neighbors.

“I took it.” Yes you did, my red-headed goddess queen of the underworld. You sure did. GET IT ROWENA. Rowena won the game of thrones. Boom.

She’s a little flirty with Sam, still has a soft spot for him I think.

And then starts playing marriage counselor for Dean and Cas. “What am I picking up with you two? A wee tiff?....So fix it.” Someone called this, I’m fairly certain, that if Rowena saw Dean and Cas again during their divorce she’d size that situation up and down and comment on it. FIX IT. So say we all.

“Family sucks.” Jake Abel did such a fantastic job in this. tbh I didn’t give much thought to Adam all these years, it seemed like SPN was never going back there. I liked Jake’s performances in S5, but it just seemed like a story that was over. But Jake Abel, man. He comes back after all this time and owns the dual roles and made me care. With a performance that was alternately fearsome and vulnerable.

“That’s adorable.” Dean is SO happy about Sam and Eileen, he looked so soft, and still a bit not okay because his chosen other half is barely looking at him, but mostly Dean’s rooting for Sam to have some happiness. “If it was to work, she gets it, she gets us, she gets the life.” It’s a retreated on Sam’s speech back during “Baby” about someone...something...who understands the life. And Sam has found that with Eileen.

Meanwhile Cas is right there, with Dean, with this great big chasm still open between them but...he’s there. And all the arrows point towards him for Dean.

Dean and Cas are being magnets again. Not like in S14 where every time there is a crisis they stand very close together and are drawn together, now they’re like magnets that are trying not to feel the pull but they cannot escape each other’s pull nor do they really want to, but they can’t quite figure out how to cross the distance.

There’s more than one scene where Dean or Cas is out of focus and the other in focus, as if to emphasize how they’re both there but not in phase with each other. Not yet.

I so enjoyed the Cas and Michael stuff. Cas’s prayer to Michael, Michael’s mad on for Cas. “Oh, I didn’t come to beg.” And there’s the ruthless strategic angel.

There’s also something really...fitting about Sam and Dean and Cas all being the ones standing outside the ring of holy fire together to trap an archangel who they effectively hope to bring in from the cold, to their side, in a post S6 era of the show.

“To paraphrase a friend you had an entire oak tree shoved up your ass.” I see Cas is still quoting Dean, having Dean as a compass point or a North star. Even if he can barely look at Dean right now.

Cas telling Michael his unimportance to God and keeping the upper hand is just...so satisfying. Cas has grown so much. I keep thinking about S5 Cas and how despite how powerful Cas was back then, radiating power in ways he doesn’t quite do the same way now, Cas always seemed so...smol next to the archangels. Punching above his weight class. But now he faces down Michael and tells Michael rawly how it is with their dad Chuck. And when Michael tries to choke him, he fights past it and goes into Michael’s mind to show him everything, to help him see the truth. Cas has grown so much, this felt a lot like a little brother constantly picked on leaves home, grows, and comes back to find big, big brother isn’t quite as big and intimidating as he remembers.

Which in fact he isn’t, because Michael is capable of insight and change and feelings too. He’s not his father. Despite being the favorite. Despite clinging still to his hero-worship. But Cas worked past that with Chuck long ago.

When Eileen’s friend needs help on a hunt, and Eileen goes to Sam, Sam goes with her, no doubts. Tells Dean he’s going, as Dean recounts to Cas, and Dean seems cool with it.

Sam and Eileen seem to be growing closer and closer, and while there is something tentative about Sam, he definitely is drawn to her and cares. That tentativeness is from past hurt and loss and maybe he’s scared to enter into this kind of relationship. But they’ve got their own magnetic pull together, they fit.

Dean and Cas facing each other in that bunker kitchen, the lighting darker and colder than usual. They’re facing each other, and each shift in and out of camera focus, not looking at each other much. Cas can’t look at Dean at all in this scene, while Dean keeps sneaking glances at Cas. In other scenes, Cas does sneak looks at Dean. They are ridiculous and my heart hurts. The blocking here is them facing each other only not--they are a few feet off, so looking past each other.

Cas sitting at that table, hands folded, staring straight ahead and working very hard obviously to Not Look at Dean.

Dean’s reaction on Cas reporting the words Michael said, “I want you dead, get out.” The things Dean has said to Cas are coming back to haunt him, coming from the words of their once mortal enemy, that’s gotta sting.

Both Dean and Cas have some work to do here, but Dean definitely is already very aware his own words went too far, and has been for a while.

“God lied to me. I loved him.” Oh wow that hurt, I didn’t expect these feelings.

A thing about Adam and Michael, both feeling so abandoned by their families, and losing everyone. They offered support to each other. They worked out a time-share in Adam’s body. We’ve seen genuine vessel and angel bonds form before (in Lily Sunder). There’s also a S7 episode by Ben Edlund about the bond between a human and the demon who possessed him. Not sure how healthy Adam and Michael are, but they seem weirdly functional, and don’t despise each other and I kind of have some feelings about Adam and Michael bonding the way they did in The Cage. Perhaps Michael shielded Adam from the worst of it. It’s how Adam is coherent after being down there for so long. Maybe Adam made Michael less lonely. Did I ASK for feelings about Adam and Michael, no I did nOT and yet here we are.

Then there’s Adam. It was interesting that scene where Sam acknowledges maybe they gave up too easily. Because Sam and Dean refuse to accept it when it’s each other they lose, and have gone way over the line to get the other one back. Here Sam is admitting that it shouldn’t be just for them. That Adam was worth saving. Even though they don’t know him well, he still didn’t deserve what happened (as Dean acknowledges at the end of the ep). And Sam and Dean never mentioning him again or giving him another thought apparently, all these seasons...well, that kind of made me assume that was that. Just because someone is blood, doesn’t make you family and they barely knew Adam.

But if it’s someone who could potentially earn that? Someone basically good? And they just...forgot about him and left him to his torment in Hell? So this did need addressing. There’s not much time to develop a relationship with Adam and TFW this late in the game but there was a start here.

Dean likewise offers his apology to Adam at the end. “You’re a good man. You didn’t deserve that.”

Right when I was thinking, so many of them don’t get what they deserve, they just keep getting Hell heaped on their heads, Adam says “Since when do we get what we deserve.”

There’s a subtle thing there where Adam looks at Cas, Cas very pointedly still tries to be not looking at Dean, and after Adam leaves Dean turns to Cas looking so...sorrowful for a moment. I keep saying, Dean and Cas deserve each other, and right now they can’t figure how to have each other.

But Michael left them a strange gift. The Leviathan flower, to seal away Chuck, but the gift has a double meaning (unintentionally on Michael’s part). It’s not just the tool to shut away the villain, Michael opens a door to Purgatory and boom just like that, opens up a whole doorway on Dean and Cas’s story because of the emotional significance of Purgatory for them. What they had there. What happened there. The way that place broke loose some of their feelings. I’m not sure what’s going to happen now, if they both go, as the promo glimpses seem to suggest, does one return and the other gets trapped? Is Dean’s prayer to Cas going to be inside Purgatory, is Cas also still in Purgatory and they get separated? Is being thrown together back into that environment going to help them heal? Or will they be torn apart again but that provides another route to reconciliation?

#spn #supernatural #Dean Winchester #Sam Winchester #Castiel #team free will #rowena macleod #Adam Milligan #Eileen Leahy #Saileen #Destiel #meta #Michael

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winchesternova-k · 5 years ago

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Why/how do you support "Dean" when he has nearly every major trait in which people dislike "John" for? And I genuinely have no aggression towards this question! I just want to get your take on this character.

tbh i rlly hate comparisons between dean and john fvgfvf bc i don’t think it’s fair when their dynamic is one of a victim and abuser but i’ll do my best to answer this fvgfvg idk how articulate i’ll be this bc i do have adhd. ik what i mean and i understand what my point is but whether anyone else will is anyone’s guess fvgfvg

largely in the early seasons dean’s picked up john’s toxic traits as a way of coping w his abusive/neglectful behaviour. in later seasons, dean doesn’t exhibit many of these traits in an unhealthy way, and when he does (which is rare) i usually put it down to the unhealthy coping mechanisms he has (more on that below) or bad writing bc there have been several times when i feel he’s been ooc (his early treatment of jack for example). there’s multiple posts abt these instances in my liveblog tag (“emily liveblogs spn”)

a lot of the issues i have w john stem from the way he puts his vengeance in front of his kids. dean never does that. in the recent seasons, there’s multiple occasions where he actually puts jack in front of his mission. john continually puts his kids in danger, on purpose. the episode w the strega comes to mind. he used his kids as bait and takes his anger out on dean when sam nearly gets killed. he doesn’t even tell them they’re bait. dean is absolutely terrified of sam getting hurt and of disappointing his father. i can’t remember dean ever doing anything like that to anyone let alone jack or ben.

john treats his kids like soldiers and possessions instead of y’know kids. he gives them “orders”. like parents obviously tell their kids what to do but this is whole different level tbh. they blame themselves when things go wrong bc “they didn’t follow orders”. there’s “wow maybe dad knew better and i should listen next time” and then there’s “dad gave me an order and things went wrong bc i ‘disobeyed’. i’m a bad person”. dean and sam experience the latter. on top of that when they disobey john gets rlly angry bc they’re not under his control. this is a classic abuser move and one that my abusers have used on me. dean doesn’t do this w anyone let alone any of the kids he’s been in charge of, including sam.

i mean dean straight up blames himself when they’re used as bait by demons to get to john in one episode. that’s not a reaction that comes from a healthy relationship. jack’s scared sometimes of disappointing his dads (and i think on one occasion of making dean angry), but dean’s v quick to reassure him that even if he’s done smth wrong they still care abt him. john never does that. and like i said, any negative thing resembling john w dean & jack’s dynamic i usually chalk up to bad writing bc parts of it are v inconsistent between eps and dean never acted this way before w ben. and that aside dean has no history of acting like john in those respects any other time.

when sam and dean need help, john doesn’t give it. he just lets them handle it alone, even when they think it could get them hurt, unless it could help w his overall vengeance. whenever someone needs dean’s help, he’s there. i’m rewatching s1 atm (coming straight off the back of not watching any spn for abt idk 3ish yrs, and then starting from last 2 eps of s12 to the most recent ep), and a major difference between dean and john is how they r towards sam. when sam wants to leave, john shouts at him and guilts him into staying and even disowns him. dean is clearly upset and short w him but he tries to be supportive. he doesn’t know what to say and ultimately he’s honest abt how he feels but he doesn’t want to make things hard for sam or hurt him or drive him away like john. he doesn’t want to control sam like john does. he just wants his brother around, but accepts that sam wants things to be different. ultimately i think if sam had gone back to college he would’ve accepted it and gotten used to a more functional relationship. that’s not to say that the winchester brothers relationship is healthy in early seasons bc it’s not. their relationship formed when they were being abused/neglected and dean literally raised sam, and he doesn’t rlly know how to get along w/o sam which is rlly rlly toxic. but it improves over the yrs bc neither of them want to keep living in that unhealthy cycle

w ben, his parenting model w him is completely different to john’s. he tries to keep him out of danger to the point of trying to keep him from knowing the truth until he absolutely has to. when he does the wrong thing by ben (which i’ll admit like john, is usually out of fear) he apologises and tries to make sure he doesn’t do it again. john never does either of these things.

idk if ur talking abt his drinking, etc.? if that’s (partly) what this is abt, they’re unhealthy coping mechanisms that dean has developed bc he doesn’t know how else to deal. he doesn’t do therapy and the influential figures in his life coped this way (bobby, john, etc.) and he would’ve copied it.

mostly i think john doesn’t want to improve. dean does. dean doesn’t want to hurt the ppl he loves and when he does he apologises, even tho it takes a while. that last part is smth i relate to as an abuse survivor, bc abuse makes it hard to admit when ur wrong bc it will be used against u, smth we know for a fact john did w both sam and dean. john is shown to care less abt hurting ppl he cares abt than whatever he’s chasing and i think he apologises like once? in the entire show. i mean dean even knows when he’s being possessed by a demon bc john’s nice to him and tells him he’s proud. sam even says he feels like nothing he ever does is good enough bc of john (smth i also experience due to abuse and neglect). dean’s never afraid to tell jack or ben when he’s proud of them.

john’s happy to hurt whoever he has to to achieve his mission and his revenge, even hurt or kill his kids. he doesn’t WANT to hurt them, but again the strega ep shows that the mission comes first. dean shows how different he is when he refuses to kill jack in the s14 finale. he’s angry and he wants revenge but he knows hurting jack is wrong. dean often goes headfirst into danger to protect others w little thought for his own safety. that’s partially a reaction to john’s treatment of him, but john used to drag his kids into that danger w him. ik sometimes when theyre older john tries to keep them away from it, but that’s when they’re old enough to choose (and he’s still not letting them). but when they were dependent on him, he straight up did not care whether they were in danger or not. not when his mission was at stake. when they’re older and can keep themselves out of danger, that’s when and only when he tries to keep them out of danger. it’s a control thing. john wants them under his thumb and to only do what he wants. jack is usually kept out of the situation unless it’s necessary, and ben was entirely except for one instance where it would’ve been more dangerous to keep him out of it. dean parents jack and ben but he doesn’t try to control them.

ig my main thoughts r that dean’s actions r that of an abuse survivor and developed to survive the situation whereas john’s r that of an abuser. dean’s negative actions usually r only intended to hurt himself whereas john’s r intended to hurt everyone. all up i think their traits seem similar on the surface, but deeper down dean’s v different to john. his negative traits tend to be self destructive rather than just destructive. it’s more ig that dean’s actions r different to john’s? idk if that makes sense fvgfvg but i think that dean treats ppl v differently to john. he tries not to hurt ppl but john doesn’t rlly seem to give a shit if he hurts ppl or not.

tldr; i don’t rlly think dean’s toxic traits are similar to john any further than on a superficial level. any time i’ve seen that (esp in recent seasons) has been a result of bad or inconsistent writing. dean’s also a better dad than john. john shows signs found in abusers and ones i saw in my own abusers; dean doesn’t.

#anti john winchester #dean winchester #sam winchester #spn #supernatural #alex talks #i mean this w zero aggression to but i rlly dk how anyone could compare dean to john in this way but anyway #also if this comes across as agressive i dont mean it to! so long as u dont spew ‘john did nothing wrong’ at me we’re good fvgfvg #im sure theres stuff im forgetting to but #this is so fucking long fvgfvg sorry #john stans dni or get blocked #winc*st shippers dni or get blocked #abuse tw #meta #i think it officially counts now fvgfvg #long post #anonymous #asks #my meta

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spn-ficfanatic · 6 years ago

Text

Halo- Chapter 1

SPN-FICFANATIC MASTERLIST

"HALO” MASTERLIST - CHAPTER TWO - CHAPTER THREE

Fic Summary: You’ve lived next door to Jensen and Jared for a year and have had a somewhat strained relationship. After a recent and massive change in your life your paths cross again and they discover the cause of that, and bridges start to mend in unexpected ways.

Characters: Jensen x Reader, Jared x Platonic!Reader

Chapter 1 Words: 2664

Genre: Angst mostly

Warnings: Swearing (the reader is a bit of a pottymouth). Blood.

Trigger Warning: Descriptions of domestic violence.

A/N: I’ve had this one on the backburner for soooo long, you have no idea! I probably finished it 6 months ago and have just had it sitting in my WIP folder trying to get up the motivation to post it. I hope you all enjoy :)

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Their neighbour had been complaining about their “loud” music all year, so when your music started blaring through the wall separating your apartments Jared and Jensen could only look incredulously at each other.

“Is she kidding?” Jared snapped, pausing the game and putting his controller down.

“It’s pretty unusual,” Jensen commented, doing the same and looking at the wall separating them from you. They could hear shuffling against the wall also, not a sound they were familiar so they were having trouble placing it.

“What do you think?” Jared asked with a frown.

“I think she’s been pissy at us all year for our loud music, and then the first day off we have in a week to play video games she blasts hers? No deal,” Jensen replied with a huff, putting his controller on the ground and standing up. Jared followed him as they walked out the door and headed to yours, knocking loudly to try and get your attention. They weren’t normally the “mean neighbours” but your incessant irritation at their music choice, asking them to turn it down when it was already as low as human ears could hear, was tipping them over the edge.

The woman they expected to see when the door opened was not the prim and proper uptight Y/N they were familiar with though. Your hair was in low pigtails and you were dressed in a simple white t-shirt and overalls, and for once you had a smile on your face. The usual caked-on make up was gone too, showing off your actual face for the first time.

“Oh, hi guys!” you greeted them with a wide smile which lit up your entire face. Jared and Jensen just gaped as they stared at you, stunned by your unexpected look and demeanour change.

“Is everything o… Oh shit, I’m so sorry my music!” you realised with a gasp, taking your phone out of your pocket and turning the volume down, activating your Bluetooth speaker in the middle of the room. “Shit, I’m so sorry, that must have been so loud on your side. There was a quiet song and I turned it up and then I forgot and the next song played and I just kinda got into the rhythm and… sorry, I’m rambling.”

“Umm, yer,” Jensen replied, clearing his throat to try and form coherent sentences.

“It’s err, it’s fine. We’re just trying to play Xbox, you know, and …” Jared started but you cut him off.

“And my music interrupted you, of course. I can’t apologise enough, especially after how I’ve acted this whole time. Actually, hang on, I have something for you guys,” you said, suddenly disappearing to what they presumed was your kitchen. They poked their heads in and saw the floor was covered in tarp, and a bucket of water and a sponge mop were leaning against the wall you shared. Jared was about to comment when you suddenly reappeared, practically bouncing into the door frame holding a large basket.

“This is for you guys, just a little something to say ‘sorry’ and ‘I hope we can start over’,” you said clearly embarrassed, handing them the basket and backing up a step.

“Um, wow, this is… unexpected,” Jared commented, looking at Jensen who for some reason couldn’t take his eyes off you. He nudged his shoulder, knocking him out of whatever world he was in and stared pointedly at the basket to bring it to his attention.

“Err yer, Mrs Y/L/N isn’t it?”

“Oh god, please call me Y/N. And you’re Jared and you’re Jensen so that’s the introductions out of the way. And it’s nothing really, I know I’ve been hard to live next to this year. For what it’s worth I think you have brilliant taste in music! But my husband, well, ex-husband now. Wow, I don’t know if I’ll get used to saying that. Anyway, he had this thing about music, he liked what he liked and damn anyone else you know? And anyway he’d, sorta, send me over whenever he wanted you to turn it down. It’s shit really cuz I couldn’t listen to music any other time but if I didn’t go over he’d, well, anyway… I’m sorry is basically what I’m saying, you know?”

You took a breath to fill your lungs after your ramblings, and Jared and Jensen watched on with wide eyes.

“Wow ok, yer, it’s fine. Really, don’t worry about it,” Jensen stumbled out, scratching the back of his head and looking at you in concern. Jared’s attitude had also taken a complete 180, and he also watch you with a worried expression on his face.

“This is… you really didn’t have to. It’s nice that you did, maybe you could come over tomorrow and we could share the goodies?” Jared suggested with a small smile, hoping you would agree. They were both saddened when you shook your head.

“Nah, it’s ok. I mean, it’d be great to have a beer sometime but I sorta have plans.”

“You’re not talking about painting the walls are you? Because I promise we’re a lot more fun than literally watching paint dry,” Jensen said with a lopsided smirk and you let out a giggle.

“I hope you are. And yes, I AM painting but this is kinda, well, it’s dumb. It’s a bit like therapy I suppose. I always hated this colour, HE picked it out so I just need to change it like now, you know?” you asked, blushing a little and hoping you didn’t sound like a crazy person.

“I get it, makes total sense,” Jensen replied with a genuine smile, hoping to put you at ease. “We’ll let you get back to it, if you like.”

“And you know where we are if you feel like a beer or something ok?” Jared added, shuffling his hand out from under the basket to pat his hand on your shoulder. You smiled at the friendly action and swallowed down the tears that you could feel coming to the surface. You nodded and gave a small wave before slowly shutting the door and turning back to face your mission for the weekend.

“Well, THAT was unexpected,” Jensen said once they were back in their apartment.

“No shit, and what about that crap with her husband? Did you have any idea?” Jared asked, putting the basket down on the kitchen counter. Jensen shook his head.

“Nah. God, how did we never notice? I mean, looking back she was never around, you know? And the rambling? It was almost like she was worried we’d interrupt her before she finished or something.”

“It sucks man, I reckon we go over with breakfast or something tomorrow. Let her know we’re cool.”

Jensen nodded, deep in thought. He couldn’t help but look back over the last year since you and your husband had moved in, and the little signs started to become more obvious. The long sleeves in summer, the fact you never left the house only to water the lawn and get the mail. Christ, you even had a black eye once.

“Fuck man… are we idiots?” Jensen asked sadly, flopping down on the couch before Jared joined him.

“I’m starting to wonder that myself.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Your basket of goodies turned out to be entirely home-made. Biscuits, croissants, muffins, a pie…. It basically turned their kitchen into a bakery. And each bite the guys took only caused further guilt to pile on. Both went to bed that night feeling uneasy, both vowing to themselves to make sure they reached out and looked out for you.

It was an unwelcome turn of events that the following morning Jared was called into set. They were supposed to have the day off however they needed a shot and they needed it ASAP. Jared grabbed a muffin on the way out the door at 8am, leaving a note for Jensen explaining he’d be back “sometime after lunch (hopefully). PS. Don’t eat all the pie. PPS. I mean it Jay, don’t.”.

Jensen would have loved a sleep-in but his mind had been racing since 7:30am from the events of the previous afternoon. He’d heard the muffled conversation from Jared’s room and made the correct assumption he was headed to the set, but opted to stay in bed instead of getting up and being forced into conversation at such an early time. A shower and a cup of coffee later, Jensen was ready to face the day of basically doing nothing. His gaming buddy was out for the count and he didn’t have any scripts to read through. When the soft sound of music floated through the air he smiled and headed for the door, before remembering what you’d said. This was your therapy, and you didn’t need him interrupting that. He groaned in annoyance and picked up the Xbox controller, throwing in Halo 3 for the hundredth time.

It was around 10am that he heard the unmistakable sound of a gasp followed by swearing. Hitting the mute button he tried to figure out the problem before racing over and embarrassing himself over a stubbed toe.

“Fucking shitballs! Ahhh ok, shit, you’re ok Y/N. Just a bit of blood, you’re fine…” you muttered to yourself, and at the mention of blood Jensen was already up and out the door.

The blood was starting to spread across your shirt, and you were limping to the bathroom for the first aid kit when a loud pounding came to the door. You were startled, but calmed down when you heard Jensen on the other side calling your name. You took a deep shaky breath and headed over to the door and opened it just slightly, enough to block his view of your bleeding abdomen.

“Jensen, hey, how’s it going?” you asked quickly and with a strained smile, holding your stomach out of his view.

“Is everything ok? I thought I heard swearing,” he said rushed, concerned plastered over his face. You sighed and closed your eyes before resting your head on the door, berating yourself internally for bothering him.

“Shit, I’m sorry about that. I’m fine really, you can go back to Halo…”

“No I think maybe I- wait, how did you know I was playing Halo?” Jensen cut you off, looking at you confused. You laughed.

“I think we’ve established at this juncture that the walls are paper thin Jensen. I’ve played 1 and 2 and recognise the music. You suck at it by the way, I can hear your terrible aim from here” you giggled, standing up straight again and enjoying the gentle banter you seemed to have quickly developed. Jensen laughed too, happy to see your eyes light up if only for a moment. The moment passed quickly though when he spotted the blood on your shirt, and he gently pushed the door open further to get a better look.

“Shit Y/N, your stomach,” he mumbled as he reached out to lift your shirt. You stepped back with surprise at the sudden physical contact and he apparently picked up on that.

“I mean… God, I’m sorry Y/N. I’m just worried, can I please check your stomach? I’d never forgive myself if you bled out after I went back to gaming,” he told you, lifting his hands into a surrender pose to show he meant you no harm.

You bit the corner of your lip, sizing him up and down. He was a big strong guy and you were alone in your apartment with him, but he had proved himself nice enough so far so perhaps it was worth the risk. You nodded slowly and pointed to the bathroom.

“First aid kit is in the vanity, I’m just gonna...” you gestured to the couch while he headed to the restroom for the bandages. By the time you were seated he was back, kneeling on the floor in front of you and opening the bag.

“What happened?” he asked as he rummaged through, looking for the antiseptic.

“Um, popped a stitch I would wager,” you replied quietly, looking down into your lap embarrassed. He looked at you confused as you gently lifted your shirt and peeled back the blood-soaked dressing to reveal the wound on your stomach. A couple of inches long, it looked red and angry and Jensen’s heart broke a little when he laid eyes on it.

“Shit Y/N, what happened?” he asked again.

“I guess you guys were out a few nights ago?”

“Um, yer, we’ve been on set late all week.”

“You missed all the excitement then, kind of explains your coming over yesterday looking like deer in headlights,” you sighed. “Michael, err, my husband�� EX husband. We got into an argument while he was chopping up vegetables for dinner. Apparently the dishes don’t go in like I put them in and he could only tell me so many times and one thing lead to another and, well, let’s just say I gave Mrs Krandle across the road a mini-heart attack when I stumbled from the house bleeding,” you rambled, shutting your mouth quickly after your confession. Jensen stared at you with his mouth agape, astonished with what you just told him.

“Um… shit. That’s-”

“Fucked, yer. In a way it’s good though. It got him out of my life and the police reckon he’ll be going to prison for some time. And you know, I’m not dead so that’s always a good thing. And hey, I can stack the dishes anyway I like now so yey for that bit of freedom,” you laughed, trying to make light of the situation but when your smile didn’t quite reach your eyes Jensen could tell you were putting up a front.

“Hey,” he said, lifting your face to look at him. Your eyes were glistening and you were swallowing hard, trying to keep the tears at bay. “There is nothing ok about any of this. And I’m sorry we never noticed. We feel like such idiots for leaving you to deal with him.”

“Oh God, please don’t blame yourself. I literally don’t think I could take that, please,” you begging him, the dam overflowing and the tears falling freely now. “He was smart enough to only hurt me when he knew you were out. He was manipulative and cruel and a complete douchebag and I was too blind to realise he was playing me like a fucking fiddle. And now even after he’s gone I’m jumping at every noise and every shadow in the corner of my eye, and the damn music can never be loud enough to shut up the voices telling me I’m not good enough and that he was the only one who would want me and-”

“Y/N stop,” Jensen said firmly and you pursed your lips shut, blushing when you realised how much you’d revealed.

“Shit, I’m so sorry, this was absolutely not meant to turn into an episode of Ricki Lake or anything. You can go, I can handle this I promise,” you told him, moving to grab the antiseptic wipe packet Jensen had yet to open. He pulled it back and stared at you with worry in his eyes.

“Not a chance. Just… lay back and I’ll fix you up. And then if you want to we can talk about all that crap, or we can go next door and play Halo together. Whatever you want… Deal?”

You nodded timidly, and decided silence was golden while letting him clean you up. After declaring further stitches were not required he gently wrapped a bandage around your waist and stood up to put the first aid kit away. When he returned he looked at you, not with pity but with determination.

“So, it’s up to you. We can hang out here and talk, or you can come next door and play Xbox. Painting is so completely off the table. What do you want to do?”

Chapter Two coming soon

SPN-FICFANATIC MASTERLIST

"HALO” MASTERLIST - CHAPTER TWO - CHAPTER THREE

Tag Lists (Open) Halo Series taglist: @ocean-waves-that-misbehave, @flamencodiva @krys198478, @lostnnot2befound, @deansyahtzee “Dean/Jensen” taglist: @lilydarcy (won’t tag *SOB*) “Everything” taglist: @angelsandwinchesters, @grace-for-sale, @growningupgeek, @iamnotsaneatall, @nanie5, @waywardasfudge, @ronja-uebrick, @im-dead-inside05, @julzdec, @adoptdontshoppets, @meghanbeinghappy

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spn-meanttobe · 5 years ago

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Spn Meant To Be Masterlist -2011

RPS

Title: Once Upon a Breakup Author: anyothergirl415 Artist: favoritedarknes Pairing: Jared/Jensen, past Jensen/OMC Rating: NC-17 Word Count: 26K Warnings: AU, minor violence, extreme schmoop, background character deaths, an abudance of Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter references. Prompt: Getting Rid of Bradley Lucy Savage is finally getting rid of Bradley—and his hideous green recliner. Bradley is out of her life for good. Or so she thinks. Turns out Officer Zack Warren wants to arrest the very same Bradley for embezzlement and figures the lovely Lucy can lead him straight to his target. Good thing there's a cop around. Because someone shoots at Lucy and then blows up her car. Zack insists she needs twenty-four-hour protection. What does he think her three dogs and attack cat are for? Still, he insists on moving right in to Lucy's house. Now there's danger lurking outside and in her own kitchen, bathroom—and bedroom. Or maybe Zack is just what Lucy needs.… Summary: Jensen would consider his life pretty magical, buried in fantasy and cookie dough, and free of the ex that was really no good for him. Everything was on the right track, which was probably why he suddenly had a Detective in his shop, guns waving in his face, and a whole mess of trouble he didn’t sign up for. Bloody Hell. Link to fic: on Ao3 Title: That a Broken Bone in Your Pocket, Or You Just Happy to See Me? Author: dugindeep Pairing: Jared/Jensen Rating: NC-17 Word Count: 26.5K Warnings: language, sex Prompt: Here I Am: Born into a real-estate dynasty, Brandt Wainwright chose football over the family business, and now he's a Super Bowl MVP. That streak of good fortune runs out the day Brandt crashes his SUV into a tree. During the long recuperation, the fun-loving quarterback becomes cranky and sullen—until private nurse Ciara Dennison shows up for duty. Ciara has zero interest in sports, or in tall, blond jocks with overblown egos. She's dated a man in the public eye before, and she's not repeating that mistake. Somehow Brandt keeps breaking down all her defenses, seeing through her facade to the sexy free spirit underneath. But once his recovery is complete, will he return to the celebrity life he knew—or choose the woman who can fulfill his dreams? Summary: Jensen Ackles is a physical therapist who couldn't give less of a crap when he's assigned to help Chicago's hottest basketball player recover from a wrecked knee. As an NBA All Star, Jared Padalecki's crass and smug as all hell, but he's also persistent and committed to this thing they've got going on. Link to fic: on LiveJournal Title: Love Burns Author: dante_s_hell Pairing: Jared/Jensen Rating: NC-17 Word Count: 26K Warnings: minor character death Prompt: Wild Fire. Battling a fire at a friend's house turns into a nightmare when firefighter Shelby Fox becomes the only witness to a murder. Unfortunately, a bad fall at the killer's hands leaves Shelby with traumatic amnesia and plunges her life into danger. Assigning himself as Shelby's personal protector is Detective Clay Jessup, her best friend and someone she always counted on. But as they work to find the murderer, a fierce desire begins to replace the simple friendship they once saw in each other's eyes.After all these years, could there finally be something more between them, or are they just flirting with danger? Summary: Jensen is a firefighter with a close knit group of friends. One night, he's called to fight a fire at a friend's house and he witnesses a murder. Only he doesn't remember. His best friend, Detective Jared Padalecki, decides Jensen needs his protection. Over the course of the investigation, Jared and Jensen realize their feelings for each other have changed. They are growing closer, but will a murderer intent on killing Jensen halt their burgeoning relationship in its tracks? Link to fic: on Ao3 Title: Some Things Stay the Same Author: peggy_lane Pairing: Jared/Jensen, background Misha/Sebastian Rating: NC-17 Word Count: 24K Warnings: none Prompt: Ramona and the Renegade Deputy Joe Lone Wolf never would've guessed that helping someone at the side of the road in a thunderstorm would throw his carefully controlled world into a tailspin. But that's exactly what happens when he realizes the sexy "stranger" is his childhood best friend, Ramona. He's spent years convincing himself that she deserves more than a former rebel with a scarred past. But all it takes is one stormy night in a deserted cabin with Ramona to make the fierce lawman change his mind. Falling for Joe is a risk veterinarian Ramona Santiago knows she shouldn't take. Everyone she's trusted has let her down and left her alone…except him. Can she possibly hope that she and Joe were always meant to be more than friends? Summary: It just feels like more bad luck when Jared's car breaks down in the middle of a thunderstorm. But when the Good Samaritan who brings him in from the rain turns out to be Jensen, his best friend from childhood, things start to look up. For Jensen, seeing Jared again after so many years could be the best chance he's had yet to get everything he's ever wanted. Link to fic: on LiveJournal Title: One Small Step Author: sandymg Artist: apieceofcake Pairing: Jared/Jensen Rating: NC-17 Word Count: 38K Warnings: Jared/Jensen, Jensen/Tom, Jensen/OMC Prompt: For Business … Or Marriage: She'd always been in love with her boss. Secretly. And it had almost killed Abby Morrison each time magnificent multimillionaire Cade Stone began dating another woman. And now ... he wanted her to plan his wedding! Abby knew Cade was making a mistake -- marrying for business reasons a woman equally uninterested in love. For too long she'd been the mousy little secretary. But now she refused to keep quiet. So she had one month to plan Cade's wedding? That gave her one month to change his mind. Summary: Jared has had a secret crush for months. But it’s not like publishing genius and gay activist Jensen Ackles is going to notice the tall, weird guy pushing the mail cart. So when Jared’s best friend and Jensen’s assistant, Sandy, tells him that Jensen is getting married in one month to a fellow activist -- something about being the first gay couple to get married in the state -- Jared knows some things just aren't meant to be. And now Sandy is insisting that Jared help her plan the wedding. She thinks it’s a good idea. Jared thinks she’s nuts. Because the only thing this could lead to is heartbreak. Right? Link to fic: on Ao3 Link to art: on LiveJournal Title: Home Is Where the Hurt Is Author: tebtosca Artist: fiercelynormal Pairing: Jared/Jensen Rating: NC-17 Word Count: 15K Warnings: Total schmoop Prompt: My Favorite Cowboy Rugged, rough and rowdy, Jarred Riddell is everything a cowboy should be. That's the problem. 'Cause Jarred has set his sights on a pretty lil' socialite who has no use for his unrefined ways. Luckily, he has a plan: get the local librarian to whip him into charm-school shape and that city gal will fall right into his gentlemanly arms. But co-conspirator Serena Higgens has more on her mind than proper manners. She's pined for years after the sweet, hardworking rancher who lacks a bit of polish. To earn some much-needed cash, she'll put her feelings aside and give Jarred a crash course in respectability. Besides, throwing out mud-caked boots and correcting double negatives should help Serena get over her crush. It's the perfect situation…until Jarred adds kissing to the lesson plan! Summary: Librarian Jensen Ackles has been secretly in love with cattle rancher Jared Padalecki since high school, but Jared's been pining after the Big Oil socialite that got away. When said socialite returns to their small town newly single, Jared decides to finally woo her by having Jensen teach him how to be a proper gentleman. Jensen never could say no to those stupid dimples. Link to fic: on Ao3 Link to art: on LiveJournal Title: Deception Bay Author: zubeneschamali Pairing: Jared/Jensen Rating: NC-17 Word Count: 15K Warnings: none listed Prompt: A Caribbean island...a honeymoon suite...sexy lingerie. Emily Wright has everything for the perfect honeymoon—except a husband! Although her nuptials are off, Emily takes her honeymoon, hoping for peace and quiet. Instead, chaos erupts when a stranger crashes into her suite and tackles her to the ground, protecting her from flying bullets. His chiseled physique sets off a wild desire in Emily.Delta Force Commando Tyler Matheson wasn't planning on a gorgeous civilian to come between him and the assailant he's chasing. Now he needs her help even though it means jeopardizing her life. Neither of them counts on the very real danger their sizzling chemistry provokes....Summary: While trying to enjoy his honeymoon-turned-solo-vacation, Jensen's party for one is literally crashed by a handsome, mysterious stranger who saves his life. Before he knows it, he's thrown into a world of danger…and passion like he's never dreamed. Link to fic: on LiveJournal Title: How a Writer Survives His Sister’s Wedding Author: matalinolukaret Pairing: Jared/Jensen Rating: NC-17 Word Count: 18.5K Warnings: None Prompt: The Rogue Wedding GuestHannah couldn't wait to get back home for her sister's wedding. But it's hardly a holiday—to research a new TV show, her boss has decided to come with her! Hannah doesn't want the roguish Bradley Knight with her as her wedding date! How can she act professional with karaoke as the wedding entertainment? She's harbored a secret crush on Bradley since she started her job—so spending the weekend with him is a little too close for comfort. Especially when she finds out he's booked the penthouse suite for them both to share.Summary: Jared’s ready to go back home to celebrate his sister’s wedding. But that all changes when his crush/somewhat boss joins him on the trip to Texas. It’s going to be an interesting week, that’s for sure. Link to fic: on LiveJournal Title: Making Opportunities Author: raeschae Pairing: Jared/Jensen Rating: R Word Count: 21K Warnings: None listed Prompt: The Bikini Car Wash: After Andrea Wolkowicz abandons corporate life to help care for her sister, she quickly wears out the want ads in their rust-belt hometown. Time to be her own boss. Every mogul knows the best idea is an old idea with a new twist. So Andi proudly revives her father's business: an old-fashioned car wash…staffed entirely by bikini-clad women. That ought to get traffic—and blood—flowing on Grosvenor Street! This gutsy gimmick soon has the whole town in a lather, and not necessarily in a good way. Scandalized citizens are howling, neighboring businesses are worried. But straitlaced grocery-store owner Pete Guthrie is definitely intrigued. He knows it's hard to run a small business in a big-box world. To him, Andi's brains and bravery are as alluring as the bikini she calls business attire. Summary: LA event planner Jared doesn't take many trips back to his small, Midwestern hometown these days, but when his first crush, Jensen, is in need of his services, Jared can't resist the urge to drop everything and drive half way across the country. Now he has one week to raise thousands of dollars, save a youth center, and show Jensen exactly what he missed out on all those years ago. Link to fic: on LiveJournal Title: Shadows of the Past Author: myficjournal and saklani2 Pairing: Jared/Jensen Rating: NC-17 Word Count: 26K Warnings: violence, some hurt!Jared, almost undoubtedly some mistakes in regards to police procedure Prompt: Rogue Stallion: "I don't want kindness—or your kind of woman."Sterling McCallum gave the plain, hard warning to Jessica Larson. The brooding rogue cop had a stone in place of a heart and a past as mysterious as the case that had brought them together. But this time Jessica couldn't back off. Something compelled her to stand her ground and brave the emotions this man had long aroused. Suddenly, their darkest secrets, their deepest desires, shimmered to the surface…about to explode.Summary: Detective Jensen Ackles was betrayed by his former partner and lover. Ever since, he has driven away all his partners and been alone. But new partner, Jared Padalecki, and the murder of a man tied to his past will force him to change everything. Link to fic: on Ao3 Title: I see great things in baseball Author: withdiamonds Pairing: Jared/Jensen Rating: R Word Count: 8K Warnings: None Prompt: In Bed with the BossFor three years, Kalera has been a model secretary to Duncan Royal, with only one hiccup in their otherwise perfect relationship: a one-night stand that should never have happened, and which both have tried to forget. Or so Kalera thought. But Duncan is haunted by their one night of unbelievable passion, and secretly longs for their relationship to develop after office hours. As a rule, he can have any woman he wants—so he's furious when Kalera announces her engagement to another man! Whatever it takes, Duncan intends to entice Kalera into his bed once more—and this time it will be forever.Summary: For the five years that Jared Padalecki has owned the Albuquerque Isotopes, Jensen Ackles has been his perfect assistant. Two years ago, they had a one-night stand. It was awesome, but they decided business and pleasure really didn't mix and agreed to forget it ever happened. Jared has no clue that he harbors real feelings for Jensen. He merely thinks that he thinks Jensen is hot, but when Jensen announces his intention to marry another man, Jared realizes he's actually in love with Jensen. Now he has to figure out how to convince Jensen that he feels the same. Link to fic: on Ao3 Title: The Long Way Home Author: jesseofthenorth Pairing: Jared/Jensen Rating: R (language) PG-13 (Action) Word Count: 11k Warnings: none Prompt: Texas is a long way from Oregon, but Amanda Allen isn't planning to make her stay in Brody's Crossing permanent. All she wants is to meet the brothers she only recently discovered she had and head back out—mission accomplished. But what to do about Leo Casale? The tempting Texan is doing his level best to make her feel right at home. Leo is completely captivated by the stranger with secret! written all over her. He wants to help her, but Amanda refuses to confide in him. Does she have to be so stubborn and independent? Things are happening way too fast. Suddenly, Amanda has a whole new family to get to know, including a certain irresistible charmer who's making her believe that she belongs here too! Summary: That, mostly. Except more gay. And told from Jared's point of view. Link to fic: on LiveJournal Title: It's so easy loving you Author: the_milky_way Pairing: Jared/Jensen Rating: R Word Count: 15K Warnings: None Prompt: Her Best Friend's WeddingWhen did Sadie Beecham get those curves? She'd always been the geek next door, his baby sister Meg's brainy best friend. Smart, sure. But hot? He never would have imagined it…before. Now, Trey Kincaid's imagining all sorts of things. And none of them has to do with Sadie's gifted mind. A mind, he discovers, she's clearly lost. Because she thinks she's in love with Meg's fiancé. And that's an obsession he's determined to put an end to—one way or the other.Summary: Jensen looks up then and stares. Open mouthed and all that. He must look quite idiotic, sitting on the stairs with a kitten hanging from his little finger, mouth open and eyes wide. Because, holy hell, is that really Jared Padalecki standing there? Link to fic: on LiveJournal Title: The Tampa Connection Author: tcs1121 Pairing: Jared/Jensen, past Jared/JDM Rating: NC-17 Word Count: 17K Warnings: Harlequin Romance. (Please read in the spirit it was written.) GuySex. Some Hurt/Comfort eventually. Prompt: Summary: On paper, Jared Padalecki Morgan had a lifestyle most people would envy. Only he knows what a sham his marriage really was. So when his politician husband is killed in a hit and run accident, he moves to Florida and takes a job as a personal assistant to Jensen Ackles, a powerful CEO with an intimidating reputation. Jared's intelligence and social grace prove invaluable to Jensen, and on a business trip to South Carolina's lush Low Country, their business relationship takes a sensual detour. But when threatening letters arrive at Jensen's office, Jared realizes that his husband's death was no accident—and that he will meet a similar fate unless they can uncover the scandalous truth together... Link to fic: on LiveJournal Title: Let the sun rain down on me Author: trinipedia Artist: theblackrose16 Pairing: Jared/Jensen Rating: R Word Count: 15K Warnings: language Prompt: The Angel and the OutlawHe wants her as his bride, but the law wants him! No one asks the dark, brooding stranger about his past. People gossip, but daren't question. He and his young daughter live alone--and that's the way Stuart Taylor wants...needs it to stay. When the spirited new schoolteacher, Rachel Houston, is touched by Stuart's shy little girl, who's never uttered a word, everything starts to change. Stuart's surly manner doesn't worry Rachel--she can see the vulnerability hidden in the depths of his blue eyes. She's convinced there's more to the rugged, handsome stranger's story. But when the truth comes out, has Rachel the courage to stand by her man?Summary: Jensen Ackles is a moody petty-thief who marries his parole officer's nephew, believing that he can use the honeymoon to escape to Canada. Jared Padalecki is the sweetest guy you can ever hope to meet. He truly believes that Niagara Falls will change Jensen for the better and won't let anything stop the honeymoon...not even his own death. The story of a marriage that truly is forever, based on the movie "Camille".Link to fic: on Ao3 (art embedded in fic) Title: Quite So, Sir and Other Code Words Author: forelyse Pairing: Jared/Jensen Rating: PG-13 Word Count: 9K Warnings: None Prompt: What's a Housekeeper to Do?Being housekeeper to crime writer Cameron Travers should be a pretty simple, safe job—just what Lally Douglas wants. Once burned, forever shy Lally wants to blend into the background. Cameron Travers is attractive, intelligent, fun and very charming! Soon Lally wants to wear all colors of the rainbow and embrace life. Most of all she wants Cameron to notice her, in that way.Summary: Being housekeeper to novelist Jensen Ackles should be a simple, safe job—just what Jared needs. Once burned, Jared wants to lead a pleasant but otherwise generic life. Jensen is attractive, intelligent, thoughtful and very charming! Soon Jared wants to wear all colors of the rainbow just to get Jensen to notice him, especially in that way. Link to fic: on LiveJournal Title: ho'ololi (transform) Author: topaz119 Pairing: Jared/Jensen Rating: NC-17 Word Count: 8K Warnings: None Prompt: #31 Pleasure in HawaiiGene Malloy is finally ready to get on with his life. And he just may have found the perfect woman to share it with him. From the moment Gene rescues Sloane Hepburn from a rogue wave on the beach, she makes his most passionate fantasies come true. With her sultry beauty and lively spirit, Sloane is turning the divorced Maui B and B owner's life upside down—and he's loving every minute of it….Relocating to Hawaii is a big step for the overextended career woman. But with hunky, seductive Gene Malloy romancing her under a tropical island sky, how can a woman keep from falling? Now he just has to make her see that their love is here to stay. And that the pleasure is just beginning…Summary: They were good together, in bed and out, but Jensen didn’t know if that was only because they really weren’t together all that often. Link to fic: on Ao3 Supernatural Title: Cover Art Artist: gold_bluepoint Pairing: Sam/Dean Rating: PG-13 Word Count: N/A Warnings: None Prompt: "Responding to a 911 call, Whitehorse Deputy Halley Robinson is stunned to find herself face-to-face with her teenage crush, Colton Chisholm. The schoolboy who had teased her is now a strong and sexy man—and he's on a mission to solve a case! But if he plans on unmasking a killer, he's going to need her help. Colton can no longer run from the truth…someone in his small town has gotten away with murder. Now it's up to him to bring the killer to justice—with the help of local authorities, which, to his surprise, include Halley. The girl who had once idolized him is now a woman he must fight to resist. But as they work on the case, the attraction between them only grows stronger. Their rocky past may lead to a future together…unless the killer parts them forever." Summary: Interning at a local police department while at Stanford, Sam is stunned to find himself face-to-face with his older brother, Dean. The overbearing sibling who had teased Sam is now a strong and sexy man - and he's on a mission to solve a case! But if Dean plans on hunting the killer, he's going to need Sam's help. Dean Winchester can no longer run from the truth... a violent creature is taking victims in the San Fransisco Bay Area. Now it's up to him to find the killer - with the unwitting help of local authorities, which, to his surprise, include Sam. The boy who had once idolized him is now a young man he must fight to resist. But as they work on the case, the attraction between them only grows stronger. Their rocky past may lead to a future together... unless the killer parts them forever. Link to art: on LiveJournal (art is no longer visible)

#masterlist #spn meant to be #meant to be #2011

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dmsilvisart · 6 years ago

Text

What SPN brought to my life

Okay so I've had what...5 days to process the announcement.

I was debating typing this so soon or waiting until the end. I have a feeling the next year is going to be daily “the end is near” posts. I don’t want to talk about the end I want to talk about the last 5 years of my life.

Under a cut cuz I rambled a bit:

My sister in law, the sister i talk about most on here, my rock and my best friend was going through a hell of a time 5 years ago, and the five years before that. Hell, from around 2005 until now, if we’re being honest. Extremely Abusive relationship, alcohol to cope didn’t help anything, moving out of the abusive relationship and into her own house with her daughter, more alcohol issues, job loss, unemployment, new job, job loss again. Finding out her daughter was a victim of sexual abuse, restarting her entire life, by changing career paths completely (she went from banking to massage therapy, because she couldn’t help people in banking). Dealing with PTSD caused by everything her abusive relationship and everything her daughter went through. The place that helped her change career paths turned out to be an incredibly toxic environment once they had your money, and a DUI later, she was effectively grounded... and so she left the toxic place, worked in a pizza shop until she found new facility to work in. Even though she is now in a place that she loves, with coworkers who bring out her best, she doesn’t drink to cope anymore (she’s been forced to stop drinking) she’s still climbing out of the hole that she created the decade before now....so how did SPN help this?

Well while she was unemployed in 2015? think it was 15, might’ve been 2014... we spent hours daily binge watching tv, mostly because her being alone was a bad idea. Everything she went through both out of her control and stuff that she did herself that didn’t help her situation, took away her light. She use to be a light up the room person, she became bitter, her thoughts were dark, it wasn’t good. We started with Buffy, which led to Firefly and then Castle. The TNT loop had Bones on before Castle every morning so we started seeing like the last 10 minutes of Bones and so we binged that too. Before Bones was SPN and one day I saw Mark Sheppard’s brilliant mug at the end of an episode and when we were looking for a new show to binge, I suggested that. It had been a show that I always intended to watch and never got around to.

We ended up watching the first 5 episodes one day and I woke up at some miserable hour of the morning to a barrage of text messages, telling me about how Jared was dealing with depression, and this guy named Misha and what character he played and the work he was doing outside of the show, and on and on and on. She has watched all the gag reels even though we weren’t even through season one, She had latched on to these guys with a ferocity I hadn’t seen in her in ages. Especially to Jared’s ideas on mental health and talking about it. It was this that got her to therapy, it was this that made her reevaluate where she wanted to be in her life and make that career change. From there, it all went up, she was excited again, she WANTED to change things. She had her light back. It hasn’t been smooth sailing, but she keeps trying, and eventually her waters will calm, I know they will, because dammit, she’s the most giving caring individual I know and karma has back pay for her.

So SPN gave me my sister back. Besides that HUGE gift to me lets look at the other ripples this show has caused:

It gave me my art back, I was in a bad place myself and doing NOTHING with art at the time. If I got a commission fine, but doing art for fun wasn’t happening.

Somehow I ended up looking up fanfic, I don’t even know how, because I’ve been a part of fandoms since I was 10, and never looked it up before that.

Finding fanfic:

made me want to draw for fun again.

led me to the term “demisexual” which not even my doctor told me about and all of a sudden I didn’t feel like a freak anymore because I didn’t feel sexual arousal like “everyone else”

led me to amazing writers who I now consider friends, some even close friends

SPN led to GISH which led me to Tumblr to watch a Q&A with Misha about GISH.

AO3 and Tumblr collided when I went from one to the other to follow people.

I’ve met so many amazing people here

GISH, AKF etc.:

AKF, Your are not Alone, You Are Enough, all of these, while I use them as reminders for myself, I’ve used them to reach out to people I know were in dire mental states, people in my real life who never heard of SPN and still don’t know about it really, but it’s helped me pull some people up and help them help themselves.

GISH helped me understand that I didn’t need to save the world by myself. The world use to crush me. I couldn’t take the horribleness of it. I couldn’t watch the news, it would leave me immobilized. I felt like all the problems were beyond me. I was too small to help.

Thanks to all these charity campaigns, GISH stuff and similar things these actors have taken part in I've seen that little things help and grow and DO change the world. I finally understood that I could help, in whatever capacity I was capable of at the time and the kindness would spread. I didn’t feel useless anymore.

Think about it, the actors, creators, everyone involved could’ve just done their job and went home, they didn’t have to do all that ^^^^, they chose to and so...

I want to find the good, I intentionally seek out the good in everything now, to keep a bright outlook to keep the positive spreading, even if it’s just a “hi how are you to someone, or a smile, if there’s no other physical way I can help at that point.

Like a pebble in a puddle, this little show (it’s actors and the example they lead with) that wasn’t suppose to be so impactful has created ripples that have LITERALLY improved the world!

This cast and crew never had to share their private lives with any of us, but they chose to, they never had to do anything other than show up to film and appear where they needed to for PR, but they went so far past all of that...for 15 years.

The pebble that is SPN has rippled out to improve my outlook, my sister’s outlook, has helped us help others, has sparked my creativity again by sparking it in the minds of so many other writers and artists, those writers and artists have become friends, some even confidants, all of them have created works that got me through shitty times.

When I said SPN salted and burned my other fandoms, I started watching for Mark Sheppard but stayed for everything else, I meant it. It took years for me to want to watch or get invested in anything else again. I’m glad to have found it and everything/ everyone who came along with it.

I wish this cast and crew all the joy, all the blessings, happiness, and peace. I hope whatever roads they down next are successful for them, on screen or off. If they do nothing but hide away and enjoy their families for the foreseeable future, good for them, enjoy it, they deserve it.

Sorry for rambling, I had to get it all out...

#spn #season 15 #season 14 #akf #GISH #family don't end in blood

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jdumblr · 7 years ago

Note

I don't know if this will qualify in your realm of ask and you can ignore if it doesn't. So here goes my ask. Some were saying that Jensen's tbt IG posting of him and Danneel (the November 2nd one) was actually done by her on his IG. What are you thoughts on the subject? Especially since she responded so quickly after he posted the picture.

Dear Anon,

Thank you for your question. I indeed wanted to talk aboutthis subject, as I don’t think most people understood what Jensen and D didwith that post and comment. See, in order to understand the reason behind what they did, I will have to go back a week before that. Please, bear with me.

Timeline of J2 Slander — Reasons & Damage Control

Wed, Oct 26th — Supernatural Episode 2

The episode causes a major rift in Fandom. And by Fandom Imean The Only Fandom that exists: Sam & Dean fans. Never in all my 12 yearsof being a SPN fan have I ever seen such uproar; so many people screaming theirdissatisfaction with storyline, character erasure, character being dumbed down to jumpstart the spin-off. However,instead of uniting for a common complain, what we saw were BiBros, SamStans,DeanStans fighting each other. Nobody was happy. That was the episode that broke fandom.

Sat, Oct 28th,NOLA Con — D at the Vendor’s Area

D sets up a Family Business Beer Co stand and sells merch at the vendor’s area.Fans line up to talk to her. Some TinHats are attackedfor wanting to meet her, and Hets and Hellers team up to bully them. Here’ssomething you need to understand about Hellers: they love the wives because intheir twisted logic, the wives invalidate TinHats/J2 and anything that could upsetus is game for them. Raise your hand you whose TinHat tweet/post was neverbashed by a minion.

Eventually, things evolve to an attempt to starta witch hunt.

Sun, Oct 29th,NOLA Con — J2 Panels

During the J2 Gold Panel, a questionabout pick up lines prompts a joke that the entire fandom had heard from J2before and no one had ever batted an eye (timestamp: 20:21).

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In the Afternoon Panel, J2 are asked whatlead roles in SPN, other than Sam & Dean, they’d choose to play.

What follows is the longest M*sha/C*stiel shade ever thrownby Jared and Jensen, individually or combined—see for yourself those 3 fullminutes (timestamp: 10:12 to 13:02):

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Once again, I’ve never seen J2 throw such enormous shade, Iguess it speaks volumes about how fed up they are with M*isha. You can see in thevideo the immediate reaction from Hellers booing Jared, who started the shade.

Now think with me: who’s the one Hellers most want out ofthe way because of their nonexistent ship? Jared. The two situations have onething in common: Jared. He was the one to mention the chloroform joke, and hewas the one to initiate and continue the M*sha/C*stiel shade. Now tell mewho Hellers were most pissed at? Jared.

You think I’m exaggerating? Here’s some foodfor thought.

Mon, Oct 31st— pseudo-article trashing J2

A wannabe author from a blog where literally anyone could bea part of, makes an unabashedly Heller post, accusing J2 of making a rapistjoke. To back up their allegations that “fandom was dragging J2” theyunsurprisingly add caps of D*estiel accounts. No agenda at all, as you can see.

[Let’s go back to the Sunday events for a minute. J2 bashedM*sha, Jared was the one starting the shade, Jared is the one they hate, Jaredwas the who told the chloroform joke this time around. Now tell me if thatwasn’t the reason behind that “article”?]

J2 fans lash on the blog’s account for tweeting the “article” and thetweet get deleted, but not the article.

Side note: Jaredattends 1 or 2 Halloween parties in Vancouver and takes pictureswith half the town’s population. Curiously enough, he was alone, no costume anddressed as if he had been dining outand decided to drop by. Oh, wait…

Tue, Nov 1st— T*een V*gue reposts article

What could have well been stopped by CW/J2’s reps on Monday, gets the unexpected and undeserved traction: a bigger, more accredited,teen-oriented website reposts the pseudo-article. No facts were checked, no oneapproached J2 for a statement and guess what? The same H*ellers’ caps werepresent; it was a mere copy of the previous article.

The damage is done and more websites publish the same storywith slight variations but none of them favors or approaches J2 for a statement.The articles get reposted outside of the US.

The slander shocks J2 Shippers, TinHats and Hets who,unexpectedly, unite in at least three hashtags to show their love and supportfor Jared & Jensen:

#IStandWithJ2

#ISupportJaredandJensen

#ILoveJ2Because

J2 Fans flood the websites that posted the slander with commentspointing out all the good things the Js have done for fans, Mental HealthAwareness, charities, etc. During these 48h of slander, I didn’t seeone single website or accredited institution show their support for J2, exceptfor Attitudesin Reverse.

Not a single peep from J2 co-stars, production, nothingexcept for the one you’d least expect: Mart Pellegrino posts a simple andhonest tweetpraising J2:

J2 Fans retweet and thank him for being the onlycast member/peer who dared support J2. It seems that the only ones mature enough to be honest and recognize that Supernatural only is what it is becauseof J2, are Mark Pellegrino and Mark Sheppard.

Nov 2nd —J2 issue a statement

Reps for both Jared and Jensen issue combined statementsaffirming they do not condone rape and the subject apparently dies down.

J2 Fans speculate whether this incident will cause Jared andJensen to share less on Con panels. Some even fear the possibility the boysmight eventually cut down the number of Cons.

Jensen post a pictureof him and D

Contrary to what Jensen had been doing until now, he poststwo different caps, one for his IGAccount and another slightly different one on Twitterwith an added “❤ u”:

The picture is apparently cozy, once they’re sorta hugging. However,some point out how weird the picture is with her half smile and peace sign, andhis closed off face. Does that scream couple to you? …

As you well pointed out, Anon, D quickly replieswith more information about the #tbt picture: they were at Cabo, they were meeting the parents andthey’ve been together for 11 years and going strong.

Eleven years?? Come again? Oh, wait, she’s justdoing her job, I mean, Jensen was the one who started that 11 years story,precisely in Oct 26th 2007, at an interview he gave for TV Guidetitled UpClose with Supernatural’s Jensen Ackles: Part 2:

So, one year before that 2007 interview, when they filmed TenInch Hero. How convenient.

Check out the whole story at Anna’s blog.

How interesting that he managed to “hide” his one-yearrelationship from anyone, right?

The funny thing is that apart from that statement he rarely,if ever, mentioned the amount of years they've been together. The only time that comes to mind was at Kelly & Ryan.

Well, Anon, all this ridiculously long post to conclude thatJensen and D were only using social media to take the focus off of the eventsfrom the previous days. Did you see how many RTs/Likes both his posts had?

Twitter: 4.5K RTs/ 36K Likes

IG: 632K Likes/ 3,905 comments(as of today)

Did you see the hets and Hellers swooning over their love?

Jensen did what had to be done to change the focus and giveFandom something else to talk about. BUT much like his mentor Kim Manners wouldsay, ‘give them what they want in a way they don’t expect.’ Jensen did postsomething for PR purposes but on his owns terms. Just look at his face on thepicture he chose to represent how much he loves D.

Bonus: Jensen low key liked Mark’s tweet.

#jensen and d's picture #j2 slander #11 years together #mark defending j2 #tv guide 2007 interview #IStandWithJ2 #ilovej2because #ask #nola #Timeline of J2 Slander — Reasons & Damage Control #102017 #timeline #J2102017 #J2112017 #112017

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dotthings · 6 years ago

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Now that’s how to do pain. It hurts but there was growth and the story and characters moved forward. Thoughts on 14.18 featuring lonely bunker tracking shots, Jack’s subconscious being an asshole, self-aware Winchesters, remorseful Cas, big Destiel drama, and Team Free Will tested but not broken.

“Get out of jail free card.” So yeah. Jack’s been fixing mortal injuries and murdering enemies and being the magical fix-it guy and this is exactly why the writers have had to keep messing up Cas in various ways or having him vanish because Sam and Dean can’t have a magical superpower hanging around fixing stuff all the time. Jack is a lot more powerful than Cas now, and a lot more of a wild card, while Cas as completely proven himself, so this issue has shifted from Cas, who is much more of a steady fixture in Sam and Dean’s lives, to Jack who is re-powered up and extra powerful and a loose cannon. So of course things have to go terribly wrong with Jack. What the endpoint will be, I don’t know. Re-souled and reduced power? Re-souled and turned human? I don’t know. There’s probably going to be a lot of hurt first.

The shots of that empty bunker as the camera reflects Sam and Dean’s search for Mary and Jack, who were supposed to be back there, is very very telling. Oh so interesting. Sam and Dean alone in their bunker is no bueno and the narrative is underscoring in yellow highlighter with these visuals and the boys’ worry. The bunker should be filled with their family and the emptiness and loneliness of those tracking shots...

“Not Nick, not Lucifer. I’m you.” So Jack created this manifestation? Have to say, Jack’s subconscious is an asshole, and extremely hard on Jack. Of course.

This music score is some MCU epic angst levels.

Okay, Nick’s really dead-dead. Can’t say I’m sorry but I get that for the characters, this is horrifying, to know someone they care about killed someone like that. It’s not about whether Nick deserved it, it’s the out of control brutality. I’ll just wave my hands and pretend this isn’t undermined by how much an actual honest-to-god majority of the fandom in every lane, even lanes that never agree on anything, wanted Nick gone and thank you, Jack.

Cas’s memory flashback of Mary, oh noes, this hurts. He offers to heal her but she’s reluctant. “Are you still afraid of me?” Oh my heart. Cas forming attachments to more than just Sam and Dean, this matters. Cas of yore didn’t attach like that, and didn’t mourn. Not the way now!Cas does.

Cas: “I know you know this Mary, but Sam and Dean are glad to have you back...you should know they’re happy. I mean, finally they don’t have to be so alone.” Mary: “Castiel...they were never alone.”

LEAVE ME TO CRY SHE KNOWS CAS WAS THERE FOR THEM SHE ACKNOWLEDGES IT.

And it’s interesting Cas assumes their aloneness when, well, he exists. No, I don’t think this line is there to acknowledge Sam and Dean have each other although that’s certainly true as to why they were never really alone and Mary knows that too. But the context here was Cas specifically talking about Mary, a third party, making them less alone, and Mary points out they haven’t been, because hello, Cas is right there and has been there for them a long time and Mary has figured that out.

Oh goooood everything about this Sam, Dean, and Cas scene is heartbreaking.

“I was scared. I believed in Jack for so long. I believed that he was good...we were a faily and I didn’t want to lose that...I failed you and I failed Jack.”

JUST STAB ME.

Dean’s lashing out, saying if anything has happened to Mary, “you’re dead to me” to Cas is very harsh. That doesn’t mean he’s a horrible person, abusive, doesn’t love Cas, is actually going to never ever forgive Cas. He’s scared too. He’s grieving he’s hurt and he trusts Cas. Cas holding this information from them wasn’t the right thing to do. But it’s also not all Cas’s fault, Sam and Dean knew something was wrong, they knew Jack was soulless. So it’s not a matter of Cas deserves to hear such harsh words.

Dean is ready to grab that BOTD and do whatever it takes. Hey Dean, remember in S10 you made Sam swear to never use that to save you? Because of the damage it could cause? After you say “you’re dead to me” to your best friend--even if understandable how upset you are--now you’re throwing away your own hard-earned awareness of the butterfly effect of going too far to get a loved one back. Dean is in major pain and not thinking clearly. And oh here’s the thing...he doesn’t get into this state of mind just for Sam.

I’ve pointed this out before, I’ll say it again: it’s not about Sam. It’s not about Cas. It’s not about Mary. It’s a Dean thing. It’s his fear of losing family. Talk all you want about how far Dean will go for Sam but he’s flipping out losing it over Mary, and we saw how devastated he was by Cas’s death, to the point he lost all hope. Dean’s rage over Kevin’s death and he broke furniture. Dean’s rage over Mary’s death and he broke furniture. We saw MoC Dean completely lose it over Charlie’s death. We saw what Dean was like in Purgatory refusing to leave Cas behind no matter the risk to himself, to themselves (although not risk to the world).

This is all incredibly painful but I’m not seeing how else Dean should be expected to react all this, I also think it wouldn’t be good if things stay there with no growing and well, guess what, they don’t.

Something that isn’t making sense--if Jack is soulless, how does he feel this much remorse for killing Mary, how is his subconscious torturing him so much about losing Sam and Dean’s trust? I’m not sure where Jack’s story is going ultimately but maybe this is a reason to hope he’s not completely lost.

Rowena: “Talk to them Jack, they’re your kin.” Yep. Rowena, who said yes to Michael to save them all. Who swore up and down to never be weak again, that love was a weakness, has gone all Team Free Will on us. I love her arc so much.

Mary training Jack flashback. I’m always happy when SPN actually shows hunter training and this transitions beautifully into a Sam memory of Mary and now I’m going to start yelling about CLOSURE CLOSURE CLOSURE again. Like last week, it’s all pointing to saying goodbye to Mary. (Which I have some thoughts on, on a meta-textual level, but will do that in a different post).

“How much did the two of you go through when I wasn’t there for you” “Somehow they’re literally the bravest, kindest most heroic men on the planet.” I AM GOING TO CRY. I’m glad Sam got to hear all that. I’m sorry Dean didn’t but he did get Mary’s apology last week for not being there for them more often.

But damn, CLOSURE THEME. I been saying. After John literally fading in ep 300 and Sam and Dean moving forward from that. Now they say goodbye to Mary.

“Cas should have told us.” “Dean, it wasn’t just Cas. We knew Jack was dangerous...I just dumped Jack on Cas and left. I knew something was gonna...” “I did too...it was a warning...I just couldn’t see it.”

MY BEAUTIFUL SELF-AWARE HURTY WINCHESTERS.

So there it is. Yeah Dean is still mad and Sam has to initiate the wave-down and takes the pro-Cas argument. But Dean capitulates immediately. He knows. They both know. They all knew something was wrong with Jack and it’s not all on Cas, although yes Cas should have told them about Felix. The narrative continues again and again to show sympathy for Sam, Dean, and Cas and I am immensely enjoying all this character development where they’re voicing these things so readily. That this conversation fell within the same episode as Dean’s harsh words to Cas.

Of course Cas isn’t there to hear this, but things are pointed in a good direction for these three at least.

They all wanted to believe in Jack so so much. Even Dean with his initial rejection was won over. They all wanted to believe. I can’t say they were wrong, because I can see why they did, and by S14 I’m rooting for Jack to be good too. I’ve been metaing all season about the good Jack as brought for them, Team Free dads.

I don’t have a strong sense where they’re going with Jack, it’s not like with Mary and what looked like an inevitable march to closure. I did expect Jack to go dark and here we are. But where this lands? I hope they don’t lose Jack. I don’t think they were wrong to see the good in him but how does soulless ultra-powered Jack can get fixed and how he can come back from having killed Mary Winchester?

Dumah tells Cas that Mary is “at peace. She died instantly, completely.”

There’s Rowena, being the Cassandra warning Jack about the consequences of meddling with necromancy, plus there’s no body so it’ll be a full mess.

Dean wanted to race for the BOTD. Jack is hell-bent on using necromancy. Winchesters.

Dean’s memory of Mary sleeping on his shoulder as he drives through the night and he looks so content and happy. JUST STAB ME IT WOULD HURT LESS.

Although Dean didn’t get to hear all the things Sam did from Mary, Dean did get some sense of connection back with her. He got to have his mom back, that hole of loss that’s been in him since he was four years old and he accepted the whole brittle complicated realness package, after most of his life idealizing a soft-focus childhood memory. Although he hits the ceiling about Mary in this ep, Dean was able to let John go in ep 300, and I think losing Mary now is also different. He’s not four years old. He has a family (albeit one that’s yet again a hot mess but I think they’ll work things out). He got at least to get to know her as Dean the adult, not Dean the four year old who had his mom ripped away plus trauma of seeing her burning on the ceiling. He got to say what he said to her in S12, to acknowledge what losing her did to him, to their family, and his hate and his love. There’s at least some healing here.

Jack’s subconscious really wants to burn it all down. Not only will Sam and Dean never trust Jack again, “you can never trust them.” Oh SHUT UP WHO ASKED YOU, JACK’S SUBCONSCIOUS.

Sam looking at the pictures. MY SADNESS

AND CAS WALKS IN.

AND THEN DEAN.

Okay, that’s good, they’re all in the same room and nobody is yelling. Dean’s still behind a wall of ice right now.

“She’s in heaven and she’s at peace.”

Dean’s clipped inquiry about whether Cas just took Duma at her word about Mary and Cas’s reply that no in fact he went into heaven to see for himself. Zing. Is that all you think of me, Dean, pls. Without getting outwardly angry at Dean. Okay yes this is terrible but they are going to be okay and this is some big Destiel drama going on right here before our eyes. If anyone ever got it together enough to bring this out of subtext to full text, I’d be expecting make-up sex.

Sam, Dean, and Cas holding the hunter’s funeral pyre for Mary hurts in a thousand ways but for the sake of Team Free Will, the three of them grieving together, they’re all there together, shouldering it...I expected this ep to be a Team Free Will fest and it is, in a really hurty way. It’s also significant we’re seeing Cas grieving. To get to grieve. To be present at a hunter funeral for family.

Cas trying to go to Dean to comfort him, and I presume try to apologize and say how very sorry he is and Sam putting out his arm and stopping him was shattering but so right. Sam is right. Dean needs some breathing room and Dean deserves some breathing room. He’s not canceling Cas but he’s still raw from the grief and trust issues.

Dean has already acknowledged his own shared culpability. He hasn’t talked to Cas about it but he acknowledged it, and Sam acknowledged it. As I said earlier, Dean trusted Cas so much and they went through so much together to get there. Even if Dean knows it isn’t all on Cas I think Cas hiding the information about Felix from him shook him. He also, given that he already acknowledged shared culpability, is likely feeling uncomfortable because after saying “you’re dead to me” to Cas, well, how does he walk back from that? And even if his rational brain knows it isn’t all on Cas, Dean still hurts. So Dean’s not ready and Sam knows it, and I think Sam, knowing that, also sees how desperately Cas wants to make things right with Dean, and that if Cas gets rebuffed right then, it’ll hurt even more. Sam is playing Destiel mediator, as well as being protective of Dean, and you just know he hates it when they’re like this, but he also understands. This gesture was really intuitive of Sam.

The MW joining the SW and DW on the table feels right. Interesting nobody added a JW. Back to my thoughts about the camera’s lonely track through the empty bunker, SW and DW’s initials aren’t alone on that table any more. Even though they lost Mary. Hopefully family doesn’t have to die to get carved on there and we may see more to come.

I’ll put some extra Mary thoughts in another post.

#Sam Winchester #Dean Winchester #Castiel #spn #supernatural #supernatural spoilers #Mary Winchester #Jack Kline #Rowena Macleod #anti-Nick #Destiel #Team Free Will #Team Free Will 2.0 #meta

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mittensmorgul · 5 years ago

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9.06, Heaven Can't Wait.

YAY! BOBO!

so I neglected to mention Buddy Boyle and Bartholomew the fallen angel, and all the angel factions forming in the 9.03 report because I was trying to get through it as fast as possible, but ugh... guess I gotta mention them eventually. There, I mentioned them, just about as much as this episode did. :P

But this is directly relevant to Cas's current state of mind, which is relevant to the overall plot of this episode, because of Rit Zien angel and why he's come to this town where Cas has tried to make a life for himself as Sales Associate Steve. The Rit Zien seeks out pain-- originally mortal wounds on battlefields-- and either heals or else "humanely puts down" angels he cannot heal. Except, as Cas will explain in this episode, he doesn't understand human emotions, and that emotional pain is temporary... and then we learn that the Rit Zien was drawn to this town by the magnitude of Cas's suffering specifically. Which, if that's not a statement on Cas's current emotional state, I don't know what is.

The first victim we see is a man who literally hangs up on a suicide prevention hotline because he lost his wife. He even has a gun, but changes his mind when faced with the Rit Zien, but he gets exploded into pink goo anyway.

The next is a high school girl suffering a normal level of teenage angst, telling a friend she could just die of embarrassment because her boyfriend broke up with her in the cafeteria in front of everyone but in no way meaning it literally, and poof... pain disintegrated.

Despite his own pain having been kicked out of the bunker and feeling completely abandoned by Dean, Cas still calls Dean to alert him to the strange cases in town, but tells Dean he won't participate in the hunt. Dean manages to track Cas down working at the Gas N Sip anyway (Cas never told him where he worked), and pulls Cas into working the case with him.

There's the whole Nora thing, which Cas thought was a date but was actually a babysitting job... When the Rit Zien shows up for Cas, he thinks it's for the baby, running a fever and crying. But he's actually there for Cas.

CASTIEL: How'd you find me? EPHRAIM: Because you're warded? The same way I find all my patients – I just followed the sound of your pain. You have no idea how loud it is. I could hear you for miles.

And then the question we've been waiting on an answer for ever since:

EPHRAIM: Shh-shh-shhh. It'll be over soon. I'll take the pain away. CASTIEL: I want to live. EPHRAIM: But as what, Castiel? As an angel? or a man?

Because back in s9, this question remains directly tied to PAIN. To SUFFERING.

CASTIEL (to the baby): Nobody told you. Nobody explained. You're just … shoved out kicking and screaming into this human life, without any idea why any of it feels the way it feels, or why this confusion, which feels like it's … a hair's breadth (The baby stops crying.) from terror or pain. You know, just when you think you do understand, it'll turn out you're wrong. You didn't understand anything at all. Guess that's just how it is when you're new at this.

He thought he understood, and he's only just beginning to truly understand (and I mean, Crowley as almost-human this season too, despite having been human originally long ago, still suffers with the burden of human emotions, equating what demons and angels are capable of feeling even way back here, long before 10.03 when Cas will make that same comparison).

Cas is feeling the guilt of what's happened to the angels, and he's already hurting over it. So when Sam and Kevin discover (with Crowley's help) that the angel fall spell is irreversible, Dean doesn't tell Cas that fact thinking he's protecting Cas from even worse guilt. But meanwhile, it's still a major source of Cas's pain (and Dean's pain, because hell if he doesn't want to bring Cas back to the bunker here, but can't as long as Sam isn't healed enough...)

EVERYBODY'S SUFFERING! Lies all around. Dean specifically tells Sam that he won't be seeing Cas on this hunt, and yet he spends the entire time pretty much with Cas. But also Dean, lying to everyone, trying to manage his mounting lies in the name of protecting (or in the language of 14.08, "not wanting to burden them") or just out of pure FEAR because this situation is officially so far above his pay grade and he can't even talk to ANYONE about how bad it actually is without the whole thing crumbling down around him... and that's not even considering the Fallen Angels Fighting Amongst Themselves situation on top of all his personal shit...

Which interestingly is paralleled in the experiences of young Dean in the flashbacks in the next episode...

spn 9.07, Bad Boys.

Dean's put in a situation way above his pay grade, having been left to "rot" by John after getting in trouble for shoplifting enough for him and Sam to eat while John was off somewhere else on a hunt and Dean had been left in charge again. John had demanded that Dean tell Sam a very different story, one that not only covered Dean's "shame" at having been caught shoplifting and abandoned by John for several months while Sam was "shipped off to Bobby's" (and remember, Sam would've been about 11 years old at the time, ie old enough to have understood the truth of the situation, but maybe not why John refused to get Dean from Sonny's, that to John this was a form of punishment for Dean-- both isolation from everything he's ever known AND forced separation from Sam, like John was punishing him for failing to take care of Sam by isolating him completely...), but also was about John hiding his OWN culpability in any of this happening in the first place. Child abandonment, neglect, the fact he regularly left the boys on their own and disappeared for weeks or months at a time leaving them to fend for themselves on whatever meager sum he left them. Which, I mean, YIIIIIKES.

And this episode was really the start of my "sanitized for sammy" and "the story became the story" tags, of how fundamental to their codependency these small lies have always been, since they were children (and yeah, we saw that going all the way back to s1, with 1.18, 3.08, 4.13... pretty much all the flashback episodes, but this is where Dean gave that calculated deception a name-- "the story became the story.")

We really see the extent of Dean's lifelong struggle with managing all these secrets begins to break down, which exactly parallels his "bigger story arc" issues in early s9. With all that in mind, it's no wonder he breaks and feels his ultimate failure connected with the collapse of the tower of lies that all started with the best of intentions, and just spiraled out of his control. All in the name of protecting his loved ones.

Kinda like Dean trying to keep John's horrific final words from Sam back in s2 (even though that only lasted a few episodes), kinda like Sam hiding the truth back in s4, kinda like Cas hiding the truth in s6. So now they all will have this fun little problem in common (less dumb, less ass...)

But more interesting to me than the actual circumstances of this episode specifically, is how these lies begin to slowly unravel throughout the episode, and how the truth finally coming out affects everything going forward.

First Sam begins to learn the truth about that time, but it's still not really the whole truth. Dean plays it off as his own fault, shrugging the experience off. Sam also can't figure out why Dean's not only kept in touch with Sonny all these years, but also actually told him the truth about the hunting. The deeper truth slowly comes out in bits and pieces. And then there's Robin, who Dean never told the truth to in the past who learns it all in a shocking way... seeing it first-hand.

This had been Dean's one real "escape to normalcy" of the sort that Sam had spent most of his life running away toward (and which Dean's being forced by circumstance now to push Cas toward... let's not forget that the original airing order of these episodes put 9.06 AFTER this episode... which is why I've smooshed the two of these into one way-too-long post). And let's remember that it was only Dean's need to make sure Sam was safe that got him to leave Sonny's and return to John. He talked about his interest in fixing cars in this episode, and he could've had that life if he'd chosen to stay, because Sonny agreed to fight for him if he wanted that.

But even by the end of the episode, Sam only knows part of the truth, and Dean's still trying to protect himself with that tiny shard of a lie:

Sam: You just got lucky? Kind of like you did with this place. I mean, here I was thinking this was the worst part of your life, and it turns out it was the best. Why'd you ever leave? Dean: Never felt right. Sam: Really? Dean: It was two months, Sam, okay? And I couldn't wait to get out of here. I don't know what to tell you. It wasn't me.

And he can't bring himself to burden Sam with the truth, that it was literally Sam himself and his duty to protect him that made him choose to leave.

Then there's Timmy, losing his mother in a fire, Dean thinking it's the "I Clobber Evil" action figure that the mother's ghost is tied to, when in fact it was Timmy himself. Because it's not exactly that Dean sees himself in Timmy-- repeatedly running away from foster homes, clinging to "imaginary friends" -- It's SAM. He talks to Timmy like we have to imagine 16-year-old Dean would've talked to SAM. And doesn't that just say it all here.

And using this “decoder ring” of a couple episodes to help us unravel what happens when these dudes try to protect each other, to “not burden each other” with these sorts of secrets, things almost universally go sideways. Because this is, yes, what Cas was thinking in hiding his deal with the Empty to trade himself for Jack, but it’s also the sort of smaller concerns from each other regarding Jack’s behavior after 14.14. Each of them were worried for Jack, each of them had noticed small things in Jack, but NONE of them wanted to admit the truth to themselves, let alone to each other. Each of them held their tongues, not wanting to worry each other over Jack, or unfairly burden each other for nothing when all they really have are their individual suspicions and no actual concrete evidence that Jack’s soul is actually gone, you know? But the consequences of trying to protect each other are far more grave in s14...

#spn 9.06 #spn 9.07 #winchester family dynamics #lies and damn lies #the story became the story #sam sympathizes and dean empathizes #s14 hellatus rewatch #spiders georg of the tnt loop #the scheherazade of supernatural #spn 14.08 #spn 14.14 #it's spirals all the way down

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mittensmorgul · 8 years ago

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I think there's a zero % chance of the nephilim being truely good without a catch. Having a superpowered child as a plotline that just a innocent babs is not a storyline. Not to mention it's already enforcing some form of a plan and it's not even born yet; saving Kelly, getting rid of Dagon, getting Cas and Cas to protect him even over Sam and Dean, the fact after the golden eyes Kelly and Cas are both super invested in the nephilim beign born with powers, it wants these powers for a reason

RIGHT?!

Honestly since that creepy shot in the doctor’s office in 12.17 where the baby turned its head like it was looking directly at the doctor on the sonogram I’ve been giving it a lot of credit for being “decidedly not human normal.”

(I mean that whole scene happened because WE NEEDED TO SEE HOW NOT-NORMAL THAT BABY WAS. So not-normal that Dagon IMMEDIATELY reverted to mind-wiping the doctor in order to stop him from saying just how not-normal the baby was out loud to Kelly…)

I will start by reaffirming that the creepybadwrong magically growing baby thing is ubergross to me. I wish they’d written pretty much ANYTHING else this season, because dammit we just HAD Amara doing the creepy baby thing LAST SEASON. Okay, enough damn creepybabby stories. We get it. It’s gross. Pls stop *coughbucklemmingcough*.

But it’s what we have, so…

I’ve got SOME suspicions of what might be going on with the kid, some of which are just wild speculation, but some of which I’m pretty confident about. I’ll be vague and leave you to decide which are which…

The kid is half-human, but also half-angel (which means grace). We know very little about how angels are made, but speculation seems to run high toward “they spring fully formed into existence.” I love comics and fic of the “baby angels” growing up and learning how to be good grown-up angels as much as the next person, but I have no illusions that canon angels were ever “babies.” Or that they were ever anything other than fully-formed celestial wavelengths of intent. They were very literally created by God.

(and great now I can’t stop thinking about Athena springing fully formed from Zeus’ head… but honestly? That’s sort of how I’m imagining the nephilim here. Because Kelly ISN’T an immortal god who can recover from something like that…)

(have I mentioned today JUST HOW MUCH TIME I spend thinking about the nature of angel grace? Okay. I mentioned it now. :D)

So because this child IS “half angel,” or at least “half angel grace,” I firmly believe that even if its “human side” is just a human-ish looking baby, the part of it that is an angel is already fully-developed. The only thing holding it back now is the biologically human bits. And it’s even building THAT at a much faster than normal-human rate.

No wonder it’s sort of “using up” Kelly in the process. At least that’s how I’ve been thinking of this.

It’s not good or evil, it’s selfish. Which I suppose might be considered “evil,” but it’s not making that choice for itself. That’s just what it does. Like, mosquitoes aren’t inherently evil, they’re just trying to live. Heck, even like most of the monsters in SPN. They’re just trying to survive, stay under the radar of the hunters who’d see them dead, and go about their business.

The difference with the nephilim is that combination of human free will (that comes with the kit!) combined with the unwavering nature of angelic certainty (I won’t call it “faith,” because in this case, it’s not).

Think of this particular baby’s parentage, too. Yes, Lucifer is Fallen, but he is still an archangel. He’s inherently a creature of Heaven even if he’s been exiled to Hell. He’s still made of the same grace that all the other angels (or archangels, since they seem infinitely more powerful than run of the mill seraphs) are made of. There’s nothing inherently “evil” in Lucifer’s grace.

Heck, even LUCIFER was set on destroying his own creations, the demons. He has just as much disdain for demons as he does for humanity. So nursemaid Dagon never really stood a chance here.

And now I can’t help think back to Jesse the Antichrist, whose powers came online when the final seal broke. But he’d had what, 9 or 10 years to learn how to Human properly before he had his powers sprung on him? Yeah, this baby doesn’t even have that…

So it senses Dagon’s intentions for it, and has already decided (because it’s half ANGEL remember), that this demonic abomination must die. It must know Kelly cares for it, and I think it’s pretty clear that we’re supposed to assume that she cares for it because IT IS MAKING HER CARE FOR IT, because it needs her the way an angel needs a vessel, and honestly that’s where my brain just wants to start screaming and run away from talking about this entire plot arc, but the show insists on giving it to us so here I am stuck with this squicky horror…

Where was I? Right…

(nvm I have no idea where I was because I had to take a mental break from typing this. have i mentioned that everything about the nephilim completely squicks me out? okay… deep breaths mittens we can do this)

We’ve seen Lucifer communicating with Dagon in some sort of hybrid angel radio/prayer/demonic blood bowl phone without the bowl of blood telepathic way. I assume that’s because he can’t perform that trick directly with Kelly (or with the baby). So Dagon’s been the go-between out of necessity. But Dagon is still a demon. Not a creature of Heaven, not a creature of Angel Grace (despite having a lot of similar powers to angels). By angel standards, she is an abomination.

I mean, so’s the nephilim, but I don’t think the nephilim would consider itself an abomination, you know? It is what it is. And it wants to be born and to live and continue to do its thing, and has the power to manipulate its environment to suit its needs.

I think it demonstrated that admirably when it healed Kelly from her suicide attempt. It couldn’t allow its current vessel (because I honestly don’t think it considers Kelly anything more than a vessel it needs to grow its human body for it) to “fail.”

But we’ve seen how Dagon was able to “influence” humans, via her mind-wipe of the doctor. I think the “angel side” of the nephilim has been mostly “dormant” up to this point, either because the human side was still developing enough for it to actively engage this way or because Dagon was somehow keeping it under control until it grew powerful enough to thwart that control.

Going back to what we learned about nephilim in 12.10, they apparently “grow into their power.” So that theory isn’t coming entirely out of left field, here.

So this baby is “growing into its power.” It’s less than a month from being born. At the beginning of 12.19 Kelly was so adamant that it NOT be born that she attempted to kill herself. Then she agreed to Joshua’s suicide plan of walking through the Heaven Portal. But the nephilim thwarted THAT as well.

It saw its opportunity in Kelly’s moment of weakness with Cas in that motel room, and I can’t help but believe that when her eyes flashed gold, that was the death of Kelly’s free will. That was the nephilim taking full control over her beliefs and actions. If only they’d showed up with the grace extraction sooner, I think she would’ve agreed to let them try it. But it was already too late, and she refused. Because the NEPHILIM refused for her.

She says she has “faith” that the child being born with its full power will “save the world.” But I think that’s the nephilim talking through her.

She went from actively trying to die and take the baby with her to doing EVERYTHING in her power to see it born, even though she knows it will kill her. And Cas confessed his own weakness, that he wished he had her faith, and that’s where the nephilim granted his wish… Kelly took Cas’s hand at the sandbox and the nephilim gave Cas faith.

Do I believe this is “real faith?” Absolutely, 100% NO.

And here’s where my second anon in my inbox seems relevant to mention here:

What do think will happen to Cas’ narrative and endgame now? I had been predicting (hoping) that his whole arc has been moving closer to a point where he’d choose the Winchesters for good. Now, after 12x19, it seems different. It’s like a bit of season 4 Cas was revived. He’s got this same type of faith he used to have, and maybe he’ll be raising a baby next season. Do you have any predictions? I’m hoping his endgame is still with the Winchesters, but now I’m concerned…

CAS DOES NOT HAVE “THE SAME TYPE OF FAITH HE USED TO HAVE,” and I honestly DO NOT BELIEVE that he will be raising this baby next season.

He’s being CONTROLLED by the nephilim right now.

Remember in 6.06 when Dean asked for truth, and then got SLAMMED with it? Remember in 4.08 when people were making wishes on this ancient cursed Babylonian coin and all the wishes turned very bad? Remember in 12.17 when Mick of the MoL mentioned he was brought into the MoL when he pickpocketed an ancient cursed Babylonian coin?

The wishes go bad. They violate the natural order. They invoke Cosmic Consequences.

Do you see where I’m going with this?

I think the nephilim itself is a sort of embodiment of this concept of Cosmic Consequences. It’s a factor of chaos, a violation of the natural order.

I am so freaking tempted to go off into an expository rant about how Dean Winchester is the embodiment of Balance and Order (despite having “violated the natural order” again and again). But he IS “Humanity.” He is Free Will. He was the one Cas did everything for, and he was the one both God and the Darkness designated as “the firewall between light and darkness.” He’s the one Death taught his lessons to about the natural order, and he’s the one who KILLED Death… Essentially every character on the show has eventually bent to his will. INCLUDING FREAKING GOD HIMSELF.

Dean wanted the universe to be in balance, so it was balanced. Hooray 11.23.

But then Mary came back. Because DEAN needed to discover that balance in himself, and the only way to find balance is to understand the imbalance. She’s been the cosmic consequence unbalancing the natural order since she showed up.

All season I’ve been waiting for the MoL storyline and the Lucifer storyline to intersect… and I think it’s all going to hinge on Mary, and on Dean finally getting “what he needs most” from Mary… i.e. an acknowledgement of the imbalance within himself that’s been built on the pedestal he’s kept Mary on since he was four.

The nephilim, in contrast, seems to be a force of anti-free will. And this goes right back to one of the show’s core principles, that free will and choice are greater than blind faith and destiny. Right now it’s seemingly stripped Cas of all his doubts, all his free will, all his choice. He asked for faith, and he got SLAMMED with it…

But NOTHING about it is CAS. It’s not his choice, not his free will. Because we know he’d rejected Heaven and duty and destiny, and had been doing EVERYTHING FOR THE WINCHESTERS. HIS FAMILY. So this sudden attack of “faith” that came in the form of the same weird glowy-veiny laser-eyes treatment that we last saw him suffer in 7.17 when he took on Sam’s Hell Damage and left him CATATONIC and damaged… well…

What I’m saying is he needs something to break free from the will of the nephilim, to regain his own free will…

What broke the connection, Cas?

He’s gonna have to plainly answer that question this time.

Okay I think that’s as much brain as I have for this :D

#spn 12.19 #spn 12.17 #spn 4.08 #spn 6.06 #the wishes turn very bad #cosmic. consequences.#dean is the center of the universe #nephilim #order vs chaos and darkness vs light #castiel winchester #the scheherazade of supernatural #no seriously if you take the destiel out of this storyline it makes no sense #the entire a-plot hinges on this love #anonymous #spn duality

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