#pk rewatches spn number?

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Season 4 of supernatural is just dean sleepy sleeping and Sam sneaks out and then Dean wakes up with Cas standing over him like

“what were you dreaming about”

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Fucking 1.14 "Nightmare" lmao

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Obsessed with this moment from 2.04

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Dean: Big daddy bloodsucker? I ain't gonna miss that. But this is your deal. Okay? I get it. I'll follow your lead. I trust you. Ext. Campbell Compound. Night. Dean: I don't trust him. Dude's hiding something. Sam: What? Dean: I can feel it. And if you weren't Robo-Sam, you'd feel it, too.

6.07 Family Matters

Cassandra!Dean moment

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4.16 On The Head Of A Pin

The difference in wording. Cas speaks in a way that makes it clear Dean torturing Alastair for them is out of his hands, while fallen angel Anna says "Dean is in your hands. You are letting this happen." Obsessed.

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Thinking about 4.05 "Monster Movie" and how the shifter (Lucy) who dresses up as Dracula fixates on Jamie and Dean, casting Jamie as Mina and Dean as Jonathan Harker—Mina's fiance—the righteous hero who, with Van Helsing, saves Mina from Dracula.

The last time we really focused on the POV of a shifter was 1.06, where our shifter was a Dean parallel. This time I think our shifter represents Sam—or rather, the shifter represents Sam’s feelings about his own monsterhood, and the occasional envy he feels toward Dean—Dean who is cast by the envious shifter as righteous hero who "gets the girl" (but not this time, Harker!) In season 4, Dean will be given the title “The righteous man”. The same angels calling him that will call Sam “The boy with the demon blood” and “abomination”.

Opening on the scene where Dean has been dressed in lederhosen and tied up by the shifter:

DEAN looks at a portrait of a woman’s face on the wall which resembles LUCY. DRACULA She is beautiful, no? Bride number three from the first film. She never got the acclaim that she deserved. Which is why I chose her shape, her form, to move among the mortals unnoticed. To listen to the cricket songs of the living. That is when I discovered my bride had been reborn in this century.

The shifter wanted to fit in—to be perceived as normal—so they chose Lucy’s shape. It isn't difficult to connect that desire for normality with Sam's initial desire for normality. But the shifter discovered Mina (Jamie) and then everything changed.

In “Monster Movie”, the shifter initially despaired of their monsterhood, but monster movies gave the shifter a sense of dignity—a taste of power.

DRACULA "Real" is being born this way. Different. "Real" is having your dad call you "monster" -- it's the first time you hear the word. And he tries to beat you to death with a shovel. Everywhere I ran, everywhere I tried to hide, people found me, dragged me out, attacked me. Called me "freak," called me "monster." Then I found them. The great monsters. In their movies, they were strong. They were feared. They were beautiful. And now I am like them. Commanding. Terrifying.

I'm immediately reminded of a speech Sam gives in the previous episode, explaining why he's decided to embrace demonic power (4.04):

SAM I've got demon blood in me, Dean! This disease pumping through my veins, and I can't ever rip it out or scrub it clean! I'm a whole new level of freak! And I'm just trying to take this - this curse... and make something good out of it. Because I have to.

In Dracula, Mina was saved from Dracula at the end of the story by Harker and Van Helsing. Lucy wasn't able to be saved—she was a victim of Dracula’s, who started out a kind, soft hearted woman, but was killed by Dracula and reborn as a monster who fed on children. She was subsequently destroyed by Van Helsing.

In our parallel, I don't think Mina (played by Jamie) parallels a person so much as Mina represents an ideal or desire. Mina represents "getting to be the hero"—Mina represents the capacity for redemption.

What the shifter (and Sam) don't know is that redemption is something Dean is also seeking:

JAMIE That must suck. I mean, you're giving up your life for this terrible... I don't know, responsibility. DEAN Last few years, I started thinking that way, and, uh, it started sort of weighing on me. Of course, that was before... A little while ago, I had this – let’s call it a near-death experience. Very near. JAMIE sits down next to DEAN. DEAN And, uh, when I came to... things were different. My life's been different. I realize that I help people. Not just help them, though. I save them. I guess it's -- it's awesome. It's kind of like a gift... like a mission. Kind of like a... a mission from God.

Dean is on a mission from God—and we as forward-looking viewers who know Dean tortured souls in hell have a better understanding of why Dean ties himself to that mission—as a form of redemption.

Monsters on the other hand... monsters don't get the girl—monsters don't get redemption—monsters don't save the day. Harker and Van Helsing save the day, and Harker (Dean) gets the girl.

DEAN You do realize what happens at the end of every monster movie? DRACULA Ah, but this movie is mine. And in it, the monster wins. The monster gets the girl. And the hero, he’s... electrocuted. And tonight, Jonathan Harker, you will be my hero.

This is, in some sense, our Sam from 4.04 manifesting a win—manifesting becoming the hero through monstrosity. Dean doesn't get to be the hero this time.

SAM Dean, I need her to help me kill Lilith. I know you can't wrap your head around it, but maybe one day you'll understand. I'm the only one who can do this, Dean. DEAN turns back around. DEAN No, you're not the one who's gonna do this. SAM Right, that's right, I forgot. The angels think it's you. DEAN You don't think I can? SAM No. You can't. You're not strong enough. DEAN And who the hell are you? SAM I'm being practical here. I'm doing what needs to be done.

Sam wants Dean to take a back seat. In a sea of motivations for lying and working with Ruby, one of them—most certainly—is that Sam wants to be the hero and wants Dean to not be the hero... and in some sense, this also fits with shifter who tries to force Dean into a role—who insists Dean play the role of Harker... who, while one of the story's heroes, also plays the part of the damsel in distress at various points in Bram Stoker's Dracula.

Crucially though, Sam isn't just represented by Lucy and the shifter in "Monster Movie". Sam is also associated with Van Helsing—or rather—when Sam arrives to free Dean and Jamie, the shifter shouts,

DRACULA You will never be Van Helsing!

This is Sam's despair in the mouth of the shifter. Sam could never be a traditional hero. He's unclean—he could never be a hero like the badass Van Helsing—the closest thing the Dracula novel has to a hunter (knowledgeable, strong, tenacious, clever). Sam could never go on a quest like that.

SAM Knights of the Round Table. Had all of King Arthur's knights, and they were all on the quest for the Holy Grail. And I remember looking at this picture of Sir Galahad, and, and, and he was kneeling, and— and light streaming over his face, and— I remember... thinking, uh, I could never go on a quest like that. Because I'm not clean. I mean, I w— I was just a little kid. You think... maybe I knew? I mean, deep down, that— I had... demon blood in me, and about the evil of it, and that I'm— wasn't pure?

The thing is, Sam is paralleled with the shifter as Lucy (desperation for normality) and as Dracula (despair, reclaiming monstrosity as his own), but Van Helsing is also a part of Sam too. Van Helsing represents Sam's ability to choose his destiny—Sam's ability to choose to be a hero, despite how he's despaired of ever being clean. He just has to realize it's his choice—that life is not a maze he has no choice but to run through. He is not unclean. His destiny is not defined by Azazel's blood.

JAMIE Ever think that maybe you're lonely because you kill people? DRACULA Or I kill people because I’m lonely.

Sam continues through season 4 with this same frame of mind in a sense—not in the sense that he's killing people (though... at one point, he will) but in the sense that his actions are someone else's fault and are out of his control. And yet, the capacity to be Van Helsing and not the monster who despairs remains.

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3.04 Sin City vs 3.09 Malleus Maleficarum

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HOWLING at how close together Dean and Cas are standing.

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I love the way Dean responds to Sam’s anger in 7.06. Like Sam is mad at him and clearly communicates that he can’t be around Dean right now and Dean doesn’t start arguing or turning on the water works or throwing/reversing blame or justifying. He just says “okay”, apologizes, and leaves.

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SAM So, same pattern, same victim pool – just like when we were kids. AMY No, I – it's not what – look, I'm not – I've had the same job for the last six years. I – I have a house, two cats, a mortgage. I have a normal life.

Instead of saying out the gate that she hasn't fed on humans for years and years and that she had no choice in this specific instance, Amy's very first point of protest is "I have a mortgage".

That is insane to me. But also so delicious in terms of the social class dynamics that tend to play into Sam's storylines.

While Amy's son is certainly the catalyst and her mother's M.O. helps define the victim pool, I can't help but feel the specific choice to define her "goodness" via upward mobility first and foremost suggests Amy believes that being middle class justifies her taking the lives of addicts who hang out in parks at night. They're beneath her on the class ladder. They don't have homes (like she once didn't—like Sam once didn't) but now she's "better". She's "managing".

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Why do salmon dean always have angsty conversations on like. A pier.

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Sam and Dean’s commitment to never ever changing their appearances even slightly while nationwide manhunts go on for them is something else

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The thing is that when Cas first laid a hand on Dean in hell he was lost, and not actually because "For the first time, I feel". Cas had felt before he knew Dean. We know this because we know Cas had rebelled before. Naomi tells us Cas never did as he was told—that Cas had a "Crack in the chassis straight off the line" (something Chuck later echoes in a rage).

Cas's rebellion is far older than Dean and that rebellion is a function of what he feels. Cas just doesn't get to remember feeling. Each time he does, he's stripped of the memory of it... but subconsciously he starts to understand it as something he must keep secret.

Can I tell you something if you promise not to tell another soul?

Cas is in love with humanity, and we conflate this with Dean because Dean is the narrative heart, and the subject of Cas's greatest love, and because the concept of humanity and Dean are so deeply linked they're almost one in the same. We are not at all wrong to conflate the two, but make no mistake—Cas is in love humanity.

You misunderstand me, Dean, I’m not like you think. I was praying that you would choose to save the town.

Cas calls humanity a work of art, and the camera pans to Dean sitting on the bench beside him. Dean represents humanity. Not just as precious works of art, but also because humans get to feel. Humans don't get lobotomized for feeling. Dean encourages Cas to feel. He encourages Cas to feel by asking him to—begging him to, and by feeling for others, and by existing and deserving to be loved himself.

Dean echoes free will to Cas like a call from the wild. He's the beauty of humanity. He's the liberation and beautiful terror of choice. The reason "You always have a choice" and "There is a right and there is a wrong here, and you know it" works is because Cas already feels, already hopes, already loves.

You were gonna help me once, weren't you? You were gonna warn me about all this, before they dragged you back to Bible camp. Help me -- now. Please.

The function by which Dean gets through to Cas is through Cas's own feelings and convictions. He gets through because Cas is "not a hammer, as you say". Cas has questions. Cas has doubts.

Cas is in love with humanity, and every time he remembers it, he gets packed off to Bible Camp and he forgets. But he can remember again. What it takes is a push. What it takes is a hand reached out in the darkness. The day Cas rescued Dean from hell, two people were saved. A hand clawed out toward Cas too, breaking through his own torturous prison and offering him escape. For the first time in a long time, he felt.

Dean's importance is that he touches Cas. He makes Cas remember. And he keeps making Cas remember. Through touch, through words, through the expression of his own affection for Cas and for others. Because Dean cares, Cas cares.

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Cas:

“I dragged you out of hell. I can throw you back in.”

“I find the sound of your voice grating”

“Today, you’re my little bitch”

“You failed. So keep your opinions to yourself”

“Maybe they wrongly assumed Dean would be brave enough to withstand them”

“Sam, of course, is an abomination”

“At least I won’t have to watch you fail”

*beats the shit out of Dean in an alley*

Cas in 5.22 when confronted with a single sarcastic remark: “You don’t have to be mean” :/

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“This whole industry runs on absent fathers” will haunt my dreams for all eternity.