#rowena vs john winchester

[shallowseeker]

JOHN ROWENA FIGHT?!!!!

You see? Yes!!!! Specifically, I want her to make him cry.

////

Ref to John versus later-seasons characters:

John is butting heads with Rowena:

Because it would amuse me personally if she were able to make him cry. Also, no one would stop her. That's just Rowena's way. She gets away with things like this.

On a serious note, Rowena is shifting much of self-hatred of her Past Self onto John, and it’s delicious. All of her failures as a parent can now be safely expressed, and she’s petty enough to indulge (because John is a dick and he *reacts* like one of those kindergarten volcanoes)

John likes to stir shit up? Well, he can’t out-shit-stir Rowena MacLeod. No siree.

RE: The potential of a John & Cas fight

It's not that I think he wouldn't fight with Cas. I just think Cas, at least in later seasons, might be relatively disciplined and composed in the face of John Winchester's anger. (I think a bit about how Cas is pretty successful in gray-rocking Lucifer, for example.)

Also, Cas's background as a soldier means John might even suck up to Cas in some respects.

//

But I think there's a strong element of it arising from a situational issue... John pushes people away (at least part of the reason for so many falling out situations later in life), but he seems particularly triggered and afraid when people leave. (Or lie. Or underprepare him. Or treat him like a damsel/child.)

In the fight with Sam in Dead Man's Blood, John is totally freaking out because he’s paranoid/afraid of everything being too much to handle and not being able to protect everyone, but also he prominently screams at Sam:

JOHN: “You left. Your brother and me, we needed you. You walked away, Sam. (Yelling in SAM’S face) You walked away!”

//

I think it’d be so cool if through Plot Reasons, it’s when Cas left and came *back* that John got triggered.

Maybe after Cas does one of his abrupt, unannounced departures that has Dean frantically checking the phone. And John gets Weird(TM) about it because it gets all tied up with John’s unresolved feelings about Henry leaving.

It's about the whiplash, about how someone who's been up now unreliable and unshakeable suddenly leaves out of the blue. John could come unglued. Also. Like Sam, I think John wouldn't like a dose of his own medicine very much...

Imagine if we carry it further: Imagine transference. Imagine John getting mad at Cas on Dean’s behalf. Like, Dean would be struck silent, and very very confused.

JOHN: “DEAN NEEDS YOU HERE!” etc etc. The delicious hypocrisy!

And just... it’d be such a delicious mess! Not to mention, it could echo Dean getting mad at Henry on John’s behalf in As Time Goes By:

DEAN: “He thought you ran out on him! Your responsibility was to your family, not some glorified book club!”

//

Other thoughts:

Cas is, on the whole, I think more composed than John, and much more barbed when he wants to make a point, maybe.

If Cas ever lost his temper with John, I can easily see it being over Jack’s safety. And Cas would say something low and angry, meant only for John's ears, like, “If something happens to Jack because of YOUR stupidity, I will tear you limb from limb.”

Then we’d get a long shot of John after the fact, staring after Cas in an impressed way, thinking, “Hell yeah. This guy would tear me limb from limb over his kid and I am so approving of that attitude.”

///

Otherwise, I think they’re the type to fight about specific things, like disagreeing on strategy.

Anyway, I just love when everything is discordant and confusing. <3

[ananke-xiii]

I've written somewhere that Team Free Will is actually Team Dean's Will but it wasn't, like, a criticism or something like that, it was what I personally got once the show was over (and I still have very legit concerns about Dean's choice during the last episode).

I don't think Chuck won in the end because he, as a character, wouldn't have wanted for Dean to die. As far as polysemy goes, Chuck does represent many things but, to be really honest, I don't really think he represents John Winchester on a cosmic level. Like, yeah, OF COURSE, we can definitely put them together in the "Shitty Fathers" box but when Chuck tells Dean that he's not like his father I think he's not that wrong after all. Chuck is much worse and not because he's a John Winchester on a gigantic scale, it's not about quantity. He's worse because he just is.

Leaving aside the many problematic aspects of their relationship, Mary and John can be totally seen as Amara and Chuck (the show does go there and I think it's interesting for many reasons) but it's also true that the one who lied in the couple was Mary, not John. Even if we know why she had to lie and it can be understandable, it's also true that both Sam and Mary are willing to omit a Very Important Thing about themselves that, eventually, gets their partners killed. But, unlike Chuck who's to blame for his omissions, lies and manipulations, both Sam and Mary are two characters that, even more than Amara, are ALWAYS stripped of any choice. So it's almost like no matter what they do, they can only fight for their free will but never fully live it (SPN final thesis: you can never get what you want).

So yeah, if we consider John as a person and, more specifically, as a partner (therefore not in his paternal role), Chuck's not like him at all. Chuck's in control of his narrative, John couldn't even choose his own car at the dealership (btw, in my fantasy John has a love/hate relationship with the whole album "Boys for Pele" by Tori Amos that he keeps hidden like Bobby's passion for Tori Spelling). John is very much mainly narrated by other characters, in this respect he's just like Mary, to be honest. We don't 100% know who he is because he's a character described by absence. So much so that Sam and Dean didn't even know he had a fucking SECRET family!!!

Chuck is portrayed to be less enigmatic. We know he lies because we are shown that multiple times even before "Moriah". He's a character without much depth and that bothers him So. Much. He's a God who wants to be like Keith Richards. LOL!

However, even if Chuck, to me, objectively doesn't win (I also have my own "Billie won theory"), he neverthless does represent the Dictorial Power of Shitty Fathers that some might call The Patriarchy (not me. I would NEVER!). In this way, yes, he sort of wins because, as I've said, the natural order wins in the end and, in SPN, the natural order is Absent, Shitty Fathers. The sugarcoated version of the bygone days, the bittersweet nostalgia for a golden past that inevitably leads to death.

And who, the show tells us, represents all of the above? The absence of John Winchester via the presence of his journal. A man who's become so powerful he's been morphed into a myth. Maybe he is the real tulpa of this story, after all.

What does this have to do with Team Dean's Will? I find that saying that what Dean did in the end is a "choice" is very troublesome. To me personally. But the show does imply that, not strongly enough because it leaves some room for doubt but it ultimately does that. So okay, I'll bite and will consider it to be a Real Choice out of Dean's Free Will. Fine. What about Sam, though?

S15 starts with Sam and Rowena and ends with Sam and Dean. Rowena and Dean both commit suicide that's not 100% framed as suicide. Among other things, it is framed as a sacrifice. And Sam's there with them and he doesn't want that. He says so. He tells Rowena to "screw the books" and he tells Dean that he doesn't want what Dean is asking for.

Rowena's act is framed as being done out of her own agency because she believes in prophecy and magic. To which I say bullshit, not to Rowena but to the show because this is a cop-out. Since S13 Rowena couldn't do what she wanted to do because it wasn't possible. Fine. But how come that prophecy seems to be working only for her? How come the "rules are rules" mindset only applies to her? Why do other characters' books change and hers alone doesn't? How come her sacrifice is both destined and out of her own free will? It means that it can happen then! That destiny and free will can coincide! This change in thinking about the question is so packed with possibilities that they could've done another 15 seasons about it. Unfortunately, destiny and free will seem to meet in Definite Death which meh. Story over.

And Sam? He's still there. Participating and not participating. Against his will.

With Dean things are a bit different because we do know that Chuck is obsessed with him. Once Chuck is out of the picture, we could imply, Dean's finally "free" to choose what he wants. Which is such a naive thought because if it were only the absence and/or presence of things/persons to determine our lives we, perhaps, wouldn't need therapy.

But, as I've said, I'll be good and keep my promise: let's say Dean chooses out of his own free will. It should be cool for us, right? This is what Dean wants. The Big Big Bad is not dead but he's not the man behind the curtains anymore so hurrah! Free/Dean's Will wins. We should feel like we must respect that. And yet, it doesn't feel right.

And Sam? He's still there. Participating and not participating. Against his will.

It doesn't feel very "Free Willy" if the people just let the orca free. It's not very Free Will for Sam if the show tells us that it's Dean literally getting out of the picture that will "free" Sam. Brrrrrrr.

So what does this tell me? That the "destiny vs free will" discourse seems to be working only when there's a villain on the horizon, a commanding power that wants to tell you what to do, someone actually stronger than you whose actions can alter your life's story.

If you take that power out, what's left? Only people with their choices. And your absent, dead father's journal radiating The Real Power (the idea of power inside your mind that controls you). Is free will still in the room with us? Cause it starts to look like somebody's supposedly "free" will might be somebody's else constraint. As far as Sam is concerned, it seems to say: it doesn't matter whether there's a God, Death or that prophecy is real or not. What matters is that you can only stand there, participating and not participating. You don't want that? Too bad, 'cause that's what you got.

Maybe the finale really took the worst from my "Billie won theory" and the worst from the "Chuck won theory", i.e. an idea of natural order that upholds patriarchy. Or, since I can and will go there, that the natural order is the patriarchy.

So what about Free Will, is it an illusion? If it applies to only a few it certainly doesn't seem like something worth fighting for. And the natural order is indeed restored in the end. I don't think the show gives a real answer to that, by the end of S15 there are so many things that simultaneously mean 100 other things that everybody can take what they want from the show.

If you ask me, I think it was a moot question, to be honest. It made sense in S4-5 but once SPN goes full meta in S15 it becomes very superficial. Of course I know they're fictional characters and literally don't have free will, the premises were interesting because I wanted to see how these characters would react to stuff happening in the story. Once the story is revelead to be a bluff, though, what am I left with? Characters spiralling into crisis after crisis. This could be interesting in a novel but in a 15-seasons-long series you have to give me something ELSE as well, the "all die more or less happily" last-minute finale (knowing Heaven is a scam, by the way) is just... not having to deal with the consequences of the narrative choices that were made.

Or, perhaps, Supernatural is a show where one of its themes is "destiny vs free will" that ultimately tells you that there's no destiny but there's also no free will, there's only John's journal aka the Power of the Dominant Narrative. Which is the power of the people who write that narrative for us to believe in it. Perhaps, not even the people making the show were free to do what they would've liked to do. They were also there, like Sam, participating and not participating. Finding ways to cope.

[destieltropecollection]

Destiel Trope Collection 2024 | Day 18: Amnesia

and the skeletons in both our closets plotted hard to fuck this up | @cassiecasyl Rating: Teen & Up Word Count: 2,704 Main Tags/Warnings: Memory Loss, Castiel in the Empty (Supernatural), Post-Episode: s15e18 Despair, Dean Winchester is a mess, Confusion, Dissociation, Dreams vs. Reality, Dean Winchester is Going Through It, Dean Winchester Has Issues, Hopeful Ending, Castiel reaching out to Dean, Dean Winchester Needs Castiel, Castiel Says "I Love You" (Supernatural), Angst, Hurt/Comfort Summary: The skeletons in Dean's closet are divine, but the hole inside his chest sheds feathers, and you know what they say about the thing with feathers.

three card stud | @autisticandroids Rating: Mature Word Count: 4,356 Main Tags/Warnings: Season Six, Script Format, Canon Remix, Pre-Slash, Experimental Style, Dark, Dean-Cas-Lisa Love Triangle, Infidelity Subtext, Mindwipe, Summary: A collection of script excerpts for a version of Season Six that goes a bit differently. Cas and Dean conspire. Lisa is oblivious, and they keep her that way. Dr. Freud always said nightmares were based on wishes, too.

After the Thunderstorm | @verobatto Rating: Explicit Word Count: 4,630 Main Tags/Warnings: Apocalypse AU, angel!Castiel, memory loss, hunter!Dean, enemies to lovers, falling in love, angel grace kink, top!Castiel/bottom!Dean Summary: Thunderstorms are weird in the Apocalyptic World. But they are known as dangerous and deadly. It's one of those nights, and the thunder brings a naked and beautiful man to the Human Resistance Camp. The man doesn't remember his past or who he is. Dean, the leader of the Resistance, will try to help him. They need all the help they can get against the heartless angels.

Remember When | @verobatto Rating: Explicit Word Count: 11,031 Main Tags/Warnings: Season 8, canon divergence, time travel, memory loss, case fic, slow burn Summary: Trying to find the demon tablet in the supernatural auction, Cas and Dean found Toth, an egypcian god of time. He sees the angel is being controlled by Naomi and decides to help him by putting him and Dean to a test. Sending them to England, Regency era. Or… how Dean has to deal with Emmanuel!Castiel, the angelic loss of memories and his wife Daphne again.

Map to Yesterday | @amaranthhiding Rating: Teen & Up Word Count: 23,003 Main Tags/Warnings: Canon Universe, Mass Amnesia on Team Free Will, Mystery, Magic, Road Trips, Angst, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Recovery of Identity, Angel Wings, Rowena Is Part of Team Free Will, DCRB 2022 Summary: Team Free Will wakes up with no memory of where they are, or who they are. Left with nothing but some foggy shreds of their identities, they have to rediscover themselves and each other—and team up to piece together what even happened.

Here We May Be Free | @friendofcarlotta Rating: Explicit Word Count: 39,506 Main Tags/Warnings: Alternate Canon, Mermaid Castiel, Hunter Dean Winchester, John Winchester's A+ Parenting, Fluff and Angst, Canon-Typical Suicidal Ideation, Amnesia, Magic, Falling In Love, Misunderstandings, Top Castiel/Bottom Dean Winchester, Bottom Castiel/Top Dean Winchester, Top/Bottom Versatile Castiel/Dean Winchester, Creature Sex/Monsterfucking Summary: When Dean was eleven, he saw something in the ocean: a boy with blue eyes and iridescent scales. Almost twenty years later, a spontaneous detour after a hunt brings Dean and Sam back to the town where that encounter took place. And Dean can’t shake the feeling that Castiel, the owner of the local Mermaid Museum, looks familiar…

Unveil the Splendours of Your Heart | @thefandomsinhalor Rating: Mature Word Count: 68,868 Main Tags/Warnings: Modern AU, Homeless Dean, Famous Model Castiel, Memory Loss, Trauma, Assault, Hurt Dean, Fluff and Angst, Addict Sam, Protective Castiel, Cuddles, Pining Summary: When a reporter asks Dean, a homeless man with a mysterious past, why he exclusively keeps close to the billboards and posters of a specific male model—the one Dean likes to refer to as the angel with spectacular blue eyes—in a moment of weakness, thinking it won’t change anything about his situation, Dean tells him the truth: it’s how he finds comfort and solace. Something that is difficult to come by. That is until the story reaches the ears of Castiel Novak, the model in question.

Two Worlds Apart | @destiel-pirate-in-middleearth Rating: Mature Word Count: 70,329 Main Tags/Warnings: Amnesia au, Past Castiel/Dean Winchester, Starting Over, Amnesiac Dean Winchester, Falling In Love Again, Mutual Pining, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Panic Attacks, Nightmares, Dark fic, Meet cute. Summary: After being injured in a car accident and suffering memory loss, Dean spent the last five years attempting to put his life back together. The majority of his memories return, but something still remains missing—something he can't identify—that everyone is hiding from him, something that always remains unanswered. Dean’s past comes back to haunt him when he visits Sioux falls for a business meeting where he meets a stranger named Castiel. Something about the man seems strange and oddly familiar which makes Dean wonder if he knows him. But the guy always denies that. And that marks the beginning of a quest to solve the mystery of his past hidden in between those recurring dreams which becomes more vivid the more time he spends with Castiel which soon leads to a painful realisation and series of regrets.

[ao3feed-destiel-02]

Biology 101

read it on AO3 at https://ift.tt/ZdwOxcg by Questiel (Quefish) It's Dean's first day of college. He's taking the basics and doesn't want to draw attention to himself, just wants to get his education and degree and open his own shop. His Biology professor is gorgeous and a Freudian Slip at the end of class utterly mortifies him. Words: 2322, Chapters: 1/?, Language: English Fandoms: Supernatural (TV 2005) Rating: Explicit Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Categories: M/M Characters: Castiel (Supernatural), Dean Winchester, Charlie Bradbury, Benny Lafitte, Jo Harvelle, Gabriel (Supernatural), Rowena MacLeod, Bobby Singer (Supernatural), John Winchester, Sam Winchester, Meg Masters 2.0, Multiple Canon Character Cameos Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Human, BDSM, Dom/sub, Dom Castiel/Sub Dean Winchester, Domestic Relationship, Inspired By Memes, Slow Burn, Slice of Life, John Winchester's Mediocre - but not really abusive - Parenting, Fantasizing, Masturbation, Kneeling, Blowjobs, Rutting, Cockwarming, BDSM Scenes, Spanking, handjobs, Pining, broken leg, Mystery Dinner Theater, Reference to Timeless Episode w/Misha Collins as Eliot Ness, Minor Sexual Harassment Investigation and Resolution, Safe Sane and Consensual, Kink Negotiation, Kissing, Reference to David Carradine's Death, Coming In Pants, Mild Dissociation, Sub Case including Bathing and Toothbrushing, Bondage/Suspension, Blindfolds, Aftercare, Cuddling, Texting, Sex Doll Roleplay, Objectification/De-humanization, Anal Sex, Rimming, Erotic Photography/Videos, Somnophilia, Watching/Commenting on the Writer's Favorite Movies, LARPing, Safeword Use, Broken D/s Scene, Rape Fantasy, Discussion of Rape Fantasy vs Reality, Edging, Cards Against Humanity, Public Play, Exhibitionism, Body Worship, Ideal BSDM Club, Flogging, Mild subdrop, Additional Warnings Will Be in Author's Notes, Piddywickles and Chonkers - Writer’s Insistence on Including Her Favorite Food/Recipe read it on AO3 at https://ift.tt/ZdwOxcg

[willowlark369]

WIP Ask Game

RULES: make a new post with the names of all the files in your WIP folder, regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous. let people send you an ask with the title that most intrigues them, and then post a little snippet or tell them something about it! then tag as many people as you have WIPs.

I wasn't tagged. I saw it on my feed from @iam93percentstardust.

Baffle Them (MCU AU)

Conflicts of Interest (MCU; Post-AoU)

Beaten Son (AC & IM)

Blueberry Belligerence (Frost Iron)

Pomegranate Promise (Spicy Star Shock)

Raspberry Rebellion (Double Frost Iron)

Something Like Soaring

Legacy of Thetis

Auntie Rowena vs John Winchester

The Heart of Snakes (Loki)

Nesting (Black Bowtie)

Implosions

Tagging @ayadiefair; @starspangledpumpkin; @jetainia; @girlnic; @blue-sunshine; @mrsprobie; and I'm stuck on who I know who writes fics.

[thatlonelymarshmallow]

Tumblr's favourite Supernatural character - round 1

Okay, okay, we all know who the final contenders will be, but I'm curious how other characters stack up.

Say no more - get voting!

Round 2 coming soon...

Round 1 closed 7 December. Winners are bolded.

Mick Davies vs Balthazar Kelly Kline vs Bela Talbot Alex / Annie Jones vs Sheriff Jody Mills Ellen Harvelle vs Dean Winchester Zachariah vs Dick Roman Charlie Bradbury vs Castiel Michael vs Meg Masters Billie vs Donatello Redfield Lisa Braeden vs Pamela Barnes Ben Braeden vs Benny Latiffe Kaia Nieves vs Anna Milton Samuel Campbell vs Metatron Amelia Richardson vs Garth Fitzgerald IV Amara / The Darkness vs Lucifer Arthur Ketch vs Hannah Claire Novak vs Rufus Turner Sam Winchester vs Bobby Singer Anael vs Abaddon Gadreel vs Kevin Tran Mary Winchester vs Jack Ash vs Ghostfacers Death vs Gabriel Naomi vs Asmodeus Rowena MacLeod vs Crowley Maggie vs Eileen Leahy Duma vs Chuck Shurley Jo Harvelle vs Donna Hanscum John Winchester vs Adam Milligan Ruby vs Lady Toni Bevell

[deanbrainrotwritings]

— a b o u t m e ˚₊‧꒰ა ☆ ໒꒱ ‧₊˚

eris | 21 | infj | she/her | aro-ace | latina 🇲🇽 | deancoded deangirl

— COMFORT CHARACTERS

dean winchester, the doctor, wanda maximoff, cayde-6

— FAVOURITE CHARACTERS

donna noble, link, mobius, obi-wan kenobi, eric effiong, anakin skywalker, beau arlen, soldier boy, clara oswald, amy pond, 12th doctor, daenerys targaryen, sirius black, din djarin, r2d2, matt murdock, like uh all ryan gosling’s characters

— FAVOURITE SERIES AND MOVIES

supernatural, lars and the real girl, the fall guy, resident alien, the winchesters, doctor who, the boys, scooby-doo, the grand tour, heroes, gen v, big sky, marvel, dc comics, fallout, extraordinary attorney woo, the last of us, bullet train, the mandalorian, dark angel, sex education, business proposal, hannibal, strong girl bong-soon, weightlifting fairy kim bok-joo, modern family, parks and recreation, good omens, sherlock holmes, bee and puppycat, game of thrones, buffy the vampire slayer, harry potter, john wick, star wars, the sandman, the umbrella academy, adventure time, brooklyn 99, invader zim, dexter, tombstone, austin powers, mega mind, scott pilgrim vs. the world, teen wolf, the king : eternal monarch, ten inch hero, the vampire diaries, the devil’s hour, narcos, my bloody valentine, miraculous ladybug, the originals, a monster calls, smallville, the walking dead, you, the magicians, merlin, once upon a time, criminal minds, house md, devour, fairly odd parents, true crime, dawson’s creek + more

— FAVOURITE DUOS

merlin & arthur, twelve & clara, ten & donna, house & wilson, scooby-doo & shaggy, link & midna, sherlock & john, c3po & r2d2, nikki & pug, anakin & obiwan, anakin & ahsoka, din djarin & grogu, mobius & loki, lemon & tangerine, ron & april, stiles & derek, natasha & clint

— FAVOURITE SHIPS

wanda/vision, wanda/loki, thor/jane, river/the doctor, amy/rory, vastra/jenny, jo/dean, cassie/dean, lisa/dean, bela/dean, jessica/sam, rowena/sam, eileen/sam, jody/donna, meg/castiel, charlie/jo, saint-14/osiris, eris/drifter, ray holt/kevin, tara/willow, spike/buffy, sirius/remus, andy/april, jordan/marie, lucifer/chloe

— OTHER FAVOURITE THINGS

destiny, legend of zelda, bts, muse, avenged sevenfold, led zeppelin, radio company, my chemical romance, fall out boy, waterparks (band), lots of music, coconut milk, cooking/baking, drawing, tea, coffee, honey, chocolate, spicy foods, doughnuts, all shades of green, books, astronomy, physics, liquid eyeliner, bees, animals, silly pens, rocks, dinosaurs, flowers/plants, comic books, paradoxes, carl jung, friedrich nietzsche, cowboys, soft blankets, superheroes, fun socks, shoes, bags, lip tint>>>

© ALL RIGHTS RESERVED TO DEANBRAINROTWRITINGS

do not steal, plagiarise, translate, or republish my work on another platform

[gates-keeper]

Part 1: “Words of Affirmation” Destiel Quotes & Parallels

I’m sure someone’s done this before me and done it better, but I’m compiling a huge Destiel evidence docket for no reason. Anyone got any quotes to add?

Comments From Outside Characters

To Dean

Uriel: “He has this weakness. He likes you.” (4x10)

Balthazar: “You have me confused with the other angel. You know, the one in the dirty trench coat who’s in love with you.” (6x17)

Hester: “The first time Castiel laid a hand on you in Hell, he was lost.” (7x21)

Meg: “He was your boyfriend first.” (7x23)

Charlie: “What about Castiel? He seems helpful. And dreamy.” (8x20)

Marie: “Although we do explore the nature of Destiel in Act 2.” (10x5)

Sam: “Shouldn’t it be Deastiel?” He then goes on to tease Dean with “Sastiel” which Dean takes negatively. (10x5)

Dean: “This Cas is looking at me weird.” Sam: “So like the real Cas then.” (15x14) 

To Castiel

Hannah: “We gave you our trust. Don’t lose it over one man.” (9x22)

Metatron: “His true weakness is revealed. He’s in love…with humanity.” (9x22)

Metatron: “Oh, that’s right. To save Dean Winchester. That was your goal, right? I mean, you draped yourself in the flag of heaven, but, ultimately, it was about saving one human, right?” (9x23)

Ishim: “I’m going to cure you of your human weakness [i.e. Dean]” (12x10)

The Empty: “I have tiptoed through all your little tulips. Your memories, your little feelings, yes. I know what you hate. I know who you love…There is nothing for you back there.” (13x4)

Demon: “I thought you were joined at the… (looks down) everything.” (14x01)

There are also several instances where other characters try to poke at insecurities regarding their relationship.

Naomi: “You're hoping Castiel will return to you. I admire your loyalty. I only wish he felt the same way.” (8x19)

Casifer: “There comes a time when every relationship has run its course.” (11x18)

Michael!Dean: “You only tolerate the angel because you think you owe him, because he ‘gripped you tight and raised you from Perdition.’ Or whatever.” (14x10)

Comments From Dean

To Cas

“There are two things I know for certain. One, Bert and Ernie are gay. And two, you are not going to die a virgin.” (5x03) 

“So what? I’m Thelma and you’re Louise and we’re just going to hold hands and sail off this cliff together?” (5x03)

“You know what? Blow me, Cas.” (5x18)

“Cas, not for nothing, but the last time someone looked at me like that, I got laid.” (5x18)

“Look, I don’t need to feel like hell for failing you, okay? For failing you like I’ve failed every other godforsaken thing that I care about! I don’t need it!” (8x07)

“We need you. I need you.” 

For more on this quote see the “We vs. I” section.

To Other Characters

Bobby: “I think maybe it’s time you made a call.” Dean: “Why does it always gotta be me that makes the call, huh? It’s not like Cas lives in my ass. The dude’s busy.” (Cas appears) Dean: “Get out of my ass.” Cas: “I was never in your… (head tilt)” (6x19)

“On my car…. He showed up naked… covered in bees.” (7x23)

While Cas suffered from some mental issues at the time, it seems somewhat significant that he sought Dean out under the circumstances, not Sam, etc.

“There’s things… people… feelings that I want to experience differently than I have before, or maybe even for the first time.” (10x16)

“My shy but devastatingly handsome friend here” (12x12)

“He came into my room and he played me.” (12x19)

“Let’s see. Crowley’s dead, Kelly’s dead, Cas is—Mom’s gone.” (13x01)

Dean’s inability to list Cas’s death singles him out as the most devastating of the losses.

“We’ve lost everything. And now you’re gonna bring him back.” (13x01)

While some people have heard this as “bring ‘em back”, the Netflix captions and transcripts I have been able to find say “him.”

“And Cas bought it. And you know what it got him? It got him dead! Now you may be able to forget about that, but I can't!” (13x03)

“I have a family.” (In response to John Winchester lamenting Dean doesn’t have a wife and kids) (14x13)

Comments From Cas

To Dean

“I was getting too close to the humans in my charge. You. They feel I've begun to express emotions. The doorways to doubt.” (4x16)

“I’m hunted. I rebelled. And I did it—all of it—for you.” (5x02)

“I gave everything for you. And this is what you give to me.” (5x18)

“I do everything that you ask. I always come when you call.” (6x21)

“So you will bow down and profess your love unto me, your Lord.” (6x22)

Before taking on the role of God, Cas seemed very concerned with Dean’s forgiveness/acceptance/love. It is interesting that, as God, that was the first thing he asked for, turning from Sam (who had just stabbed him) to Dean to ask for love.

“Sam, and everyone you know, everyone you love, they could be long dead. Everyone except me.” (10x22)

“I love you. I love all of you.” (Arguably to the group, but the first “I love you” can be seen as Dean-specific, especially since it cuts to Dean after being said.) (12x12)

“You mean too much to me. To everything.” (12x9) (To Mary, Sam, and Dean. However, the camera immediately cuts to Dean specifically, even though he is in the back of the group).

“I’m your Huckleberry.” (13x06)

Cas love confession (15x18)

To Other Characters

“Dean and I do share a more profound bond.” (6x03)

“I won’t hurt Dean.” (8x17)

This is said as Castiel is breaking away from Naomi’s mind control—mind control she fostered specifically by having Cas kill a thousand versions of Dean. This implies she knows that Cas’s strongest loyalty is to Dean, not Sam, or humans in general.

“The point is that they [Dean & Sam] were here at all and you got to know them, you -- When they're gone, it will hurt, but that hurt will remind you of how much you loved them.” (14x14)

“You know, Dean, he... he feels things more acutely than any human I've ever known.” (15x13)

Other Comments

Reaper: “How do I start looking for this... Castiel?” Bartholomew: “I got one word for you. Winchester.”

Rowena: “An Angel of the Lord, shattered at the altar of Winchester.”

Use of We vs. I

In the crypt scene in Season 8, Dean tells Cas, “We need you.” This is not enough to stop Cas’s actions. When the language switches to “I need you,” Cas drops the angel blade.

We can clearly see that Dean tries to put up barriers about how he really feels about Cas in his use of “We.” For example, after showing the audience many scenes of Dean, not Sam, frantically trying to call Cas, we get the following lines:

“So not only were you ditching us, but you were also ignoring us?”

“With everything that's going on, you can't just go dark like that. We didn't know what happened to you. We were worried. That's not okay.”

It’s clear that these “we’s” are really “I’s”

In the alternate future presented in 15x9, Sam asks Dean, “What’s happened to you Dean… ever since…?” to which Dean responds, “Ever since what? We lost pretty much everyone we’ve ever cared about? Ever since the Mark made Cas go crazy and I had to bury him in a Malak box… ever since then?” While he acknowledges Sam’s losses as well, his switch to “I” in reference to Cas implies that Cas’s loss belongs especially to him.

(Mostly) Verbal Parallels to Other Couples

In 1x01 (start at 2:27), Dean pulls Sam away from a dead Jess in a direct parallel to how Sam pulls Dean away from Cas in 12x23

Following Jessica’s death, Sam keeps seeing glimpses of her as he and Dean travel around in the Impala. Dean does the same in Season 8 following his return from Purgatory without Cas.

David from “Bloodlines” (9x20) tells his love interest, “I was there. Where were you?” which is the same thing Dean says to Cas in “The Man Who Would Be King” (6x20)

When asking Dean whether he’s in love with Cassie, Dean gives a similar response to what he will say in 10x5 when asked about Destiel.

Destiel is paralleled with their counterparts from the Supernatural play who are “a couple in real life” (10x5)

Cain compares himself to Dean in Season 10. He describes the significant kills of his life (The Knights of Hell, his wife Collette, and his brother Abel) and tells Dean that he will follow his same pattern by killing the King of Hell Crowley, Castiel, then Sam. It is also mentioned that all Collette asked of Cain was “to stop,” which is the same language Cas uses with Dean in 10x22.

Dean explains how his parents fell in love to prove his identity to Mary in 12x1, “He was cute and he knew the words to every Zeppelin song, so when he asked you for your number, you gave it to him, even though you knew your dad would be pissed.” Later in this same season (12x19), Dean gives Cas a homemade mixtape of his favorite Zeppelin songs.

Ishim fell in love with a human named Lily Sunder who ultimately left him for someone else. When trying to recruit Castiel, he compares Dean to her.

Dean questions how much of their life has been controlled by God. Cas states, “You asked, ‘What about all of this is real?’ We are.” (15x02) Later, they find out that God has been using Eileen to spy on the Winchesters. She says, “After what happened, I don’t know what’s real anymore.” Sam kisses her, stating “I know that was real.” (15x09)

PART 2 “Physical Touch” Now Finished

[sidecarghost]

Kripke: Family (as a source of trauma)

Sam and Dean’s brotherhood and the dichotomy of loving your brother while also disagreeing with him on almost everything at a fundamental level.

Azazel fostering a group of special children to serve in his holy war, and John raising Sam and Dean as soldiers for his holy war.

Filial piety taken to the extreme where any agency is given up. Meg’s blind faith in Azazel and then Lucifer, and Michael’s blind faith in following through with God’s plan for the end.

John Winchester’s legacy of hate and revenge being passed down to his children, Sam and Dean.

Dean, Cas, and Micheal and the consequences of absentee fathers and their sons hopelessly trying to gain approval from them.

Found family that helps emotionally support each other with team free will Sam, Dean, Bobby, and Cas vs the toxicity of the family you are born to. Similar parallel to fate vs free will.

Gamble: Identity (roles we assume vs our authentic self)

Souls as the fundamental particle that establishes our internal compass, but also capable of being lost or weaponized.

Assuming a role at the cost of being authentic:

Dean and Lisa where Dean tries to be a better father to Ben than John was to him

Cas as God where Cas tries to be a better God than the father he never met

Sam as soulless where Sam tries to be a better hunter than John, Dean, or the Campbells ever had been

And Leviathan becoming better capitalists than humans (authentic chameleons that live their best life by assuming whatever form let’s them be the most effective predator)

Carver: Oppression (being a hero to some makes you a villain to everyone else & the only force strong enough to cure oppression is love or total annihilation of the oppressors)

Abuse of power at all levels: Hell, Heaven, Earth

Monsters are shown to be morally complex and an oppressed population

The MoL is a defunct organization of humans that oppressed monsters.

Sam and Dean as the inheritors of the MoL legacy of oppression. They are never redeemed and carry on killing monsters until the end of the series.

Cain saves his brother Abel from damnation, but the cost doomed millions. His only escape was conquering the mark because of the love of one woman.

Naomi overriding the free will of angels by reprogramming them to keep them kowtowed to her agenda for heaven. Cas is able to conquer Naomi’s reprogramming because of the love of one man.

Metatron ejects the angels of Heaven forcing them to live among the people heaven has oppressed in the name of God. The show frames Metatron as a hero and a villain because good and evil can be subjective.

Rowena as the narcissistic mother that sees Crowley as a failure because of her own failings, and attempts to emotionally manipulate and influence his role as king of hell. Eventually Rowena is redeemed by developing genuine love for her son and team free will.

Styne family as a dynasty of white supremacists trying to make a race of superior humans. Their reign of oppression ends with their annihilation by Dean.

Sam clings to faith and hope in a righteous God even though he has suffered his whole life. Sam’s relationship to faith is never resolved through the end of the series.

Light oppressing the Darkness. God’s only sister was kept entombed by her only brother. Love for each other was the only force strong enough to stop their suffering.

Dabb: Fuck if I know???? (Cw: racism, suicide ideation, rape, incest) Dabb era is the most racist era of a very racist show. Other eras were problematic, but at least they attempted to tell a story based on an interesting theme. I cannot, for the life of me, come up with a theme for Dabb that the season wide plots feed into (calling it plot is a misnomer because there really is none in s12-s15, that shit cannot be consumed serially).

Destiel is shamelessly queerbaited, because Dabb has found that the queer and queer ally portion of fandom responds favorably to these crumbs.

BMoL as oppressive but now also British, and a new bunch of white people are added to the cast, because in the Spn universe Britain is solely populated by white people.

Lucifer keeps appearing to antagonize the protagonists, even though his relevance as a legitimate antagonist ended 7+ seasons ago.

Lucifer rapes a woman by posing as her lover. This results in the birth of the Messiah and death of the woman. No one ever seeks justice for Kelly, instead they endlessly obsess over her fetus.

The actor cast as Jack, the Messiah, is yet another white person in a cast full of white people.

Alternate universes are found that are like the main universe but way more boring.

Crowley is killed because Dabb is out of ideas for the character.

Sam and Dean are only interested in finding a way back to the apocalypse universe because their mom got stuck there. They express no desire to find a way back to help the universe where humans are being exterminated. They have completely given up on altruism and are living it up as privileged white people in their bunker mansion.

Black archangel Michael is villainized and loses any of the moral complexity that white archangel Michael exhibits.

Kevin Tran (one of the few recurring PoC), reappears in the Apocalypse universe just to blow himself up as a suicide bomber.

Archangel Gabriel was being kept imprisoned by Colonel Sanders who moonlights as a prince of hell. Does any of this mini arc impact the overall narrative? No. Just more white men added to the story because Dabb can’t figure out where to take the franchise.

Mary Winchester is fridged, yet again, by another yellow eyed supernatural being, so a singular family member can go into a vindictive rage about it.

Canon bisexual God is villainized. I would say for plot reasons, but I have yet to discover anything in s15 resembling a plot.

Main universe Kevin Tran (who sacrificed everything to devote his short life to helping Sam and Dean) reveals that God sent him to Hell all those years ago. Kevin is then doomed to wander Earth as a ghost until he goes insane. At which point, white guy Sam is probably going to kill him sending him back to suffer for eternity in Hell.

Billie, a black woman, becomes Death, a primordial entity and a stronger force than God (will reap God in the end). She is villainized and killed by white men for being committed to keeping the universe in balance and adhering to the natural order. No one seeks justice for her.

W*ncest is shamelessly baited because Dabb has found the portion of fandom that prefers bros as soulmates responds favorably to these crumbs.

Romanticizing suicide in a meta attempt to inform viewers that this show has lived past its useful shelf life and keeping it alive is a punishment to be endured.

Spn Prequel: ??? Not to jinx the prequel but at least it should not be worse than Dabb era.

[postpunkdean]

Every month of 2021 ♡

post your favorite or most popular post from each month this year <3 (it’s okay to skip months!)

tagged by: @endverse - thank you so much gen!

So I started/ moved to this tumblr mid year - so I'll start when I started posting stuff and I'll also pick one edit and one piece of writing for each month and I'll go with my favourites as opposed to most popular posts.

JULY

Edit: Claire Novak & Good Girls lyrics - the only thing I made in July but I really like it! Screen Violence by Chvrches is definitely in my top 3 albums of 2021 and this song just fits Claire so well! And I like my use colours as well.

AUGUST

Edit: Dean Winchester & Final Girl lyrics - more Chvrches! We all love our final girl Dean!

Writing: My Father's Son - a Dean poem about heritage & legacy - still one of my favourite spn poems I've ever written!

SEPTEMBER

Edit: Horror in Daylight - Loved trying to make screencaps from Baby have a more horror-like colouring, but also trying to keep its bright day setting.

Writing: I Carry Corpses - a Dean poem about grief, also one of my favourites!

OCTOBER

Edit: Monster Movie coloured according to B&W era tinting conventions - this is really niche, but I really like it! Black & white films were in reality often originally showed tinted and there were conventions for how to do it, e.g. blue for night and green for the mysterious.

I'm gonna do two for this month since I really like Revenge: Dean vs. the Styne family as well. I'm really happy with the colours in this one - I think it has the feel of a sort of fun & stylised modern horror/thriller.

Writing: An Oddly Specific Spell Ingredient - a Sam POV Destiel fic, lighthearted & humours 5k fic. Also features a sly & awesome Rowena. I'm quite proud of this one as I think I managed to keep all the characters quite in-character.

And fave poem: The Longing of Dean Winchester - a Dean & Destiel poem about longing.

NOVEMBER

Edit: Destiel & Safe From Heartbreak lyrics - I had fun playing around with text placement and I like how it turned out!

Writing: Poemnatural - I started this sort of crazy project where I attempt to write one poem for each episode of spn! Fave of this month: Foundations of Dead Women - a meta-textual poem on S01E01

Non-Poemnatural poem: The Ruin of Your Father's House - a lemony/limey and blasphemous Destiel poem.

DECEMBER

Edit: The beauty of American Nightmare - just stared this series to highlight shots I find particularly beautiful/interesting/cool in 12.04 - it's fun because there are some truly stunning shots in this episode!

Writing: Poemnatural: Roots - a S01E09 poem about the toxicity of places you have called home.

Non-Poemnatural poem: The Rules - a poem about how John's words have harmed Dean's self-worth. My more in-depth though on this particular poem can be found here.

Tagging:

I think most of my taglist besties has already done variation of this but if you want to do another: @emeraldcas @supernatural-jaeger @jactingjoices @chapeldean - but do feel free to ignore this. (You already posted yours while this sat in my draft @lengthofropes ❤ but do go check hers out - so much good content!) Since I've been very sporadically online during the holidays I might have missed it if you've already done it, but if you want to I'd love to see ones from @knifelesbianjo and @crossroadsdirt as well! Also tagging anyone else who wants to do it!

[roublardise]

Artistic overview - 2021

Turns out most of what I created this year was spn related. I got back into writing fanfic when I had told myself I was done ; I got back into doing some gifs ; I used my degrees to go off about the show in a smarter way. Mostly, I've started video editing!!

I'm quite proud of all I've created, and here it is 💕🥰

META

SPN vs Consent - the portrayal of consent

Amara's potential

my "Crowley isn't attracted to women" take (aka, gay Crowley is canon)

Rowena's attraction to men and heteronormativity

GIFS & GRAPHICS

for spnwomenweek

fav character - Amara gifset

colors - Amara edits

for sapphicnaturalrights

poetry & comphet - gifset

community - Max & Stacy edit

motherhood - Mary edits

sapphics of color - bi Alicia gifset

rarepairs - Amara/Mary moodboard

lesbianism - Charlie & Claire gifset

Amara's outfits - edits

Cruel Summer by Taylor Swift but it’s about moc!Dean - edit

Drowley & Amara - gifset

Dean & Crowley - pride icons set

Crowley - pride icons set

AMV

(alphabetical order, so the skills can vary a lot from one to another)

individuals

Amara - Ancient dreams in a modern land

Amara - Don't make me

Alex Jones - Living Dead

Bela Talbot - Girl is a gun

Castiel - Rootless

Dean Winchester - Baby, I'm an anarchist

Jo Harvelle - My Own Dance

Mary Winchester - All Souls Night

Meg Masters - Look What You Made Me Do

ships

Anael/Bela - Cowboy like me

Bela/Meg - I Know Places

Claire/Kaia - Pretty Girl

Claire/Kaia - Rebel Girl part1 - part2

Destiel - Hey Stephen

Destiel - Taxi Driver

Drowley - Bad Together

Drowley - Imaginary Lover

FIC

(under the cut but you won't regret clicking)

You therefore must bc perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect

9.4k - rated M

Childhood memories are coming back to Dean after John's death. Pieces of what was and what could've never been, tied together with barbed wire, and cutting his skin from inside. He can't look away as they draw the perfect abuse picture and he won't be able to until he figures his way out.

TLDR: adhd trans Dean breaking the cycle of abuse, set in early spn times

here come the fallen, here come the failed ones

6.1k - rated T

Castiel and Meg are both following orders and pretending they aren't questioning them. They meet and keep wondering - how does Hell work? when do human souls turn to dark smoke? can angels even feel? what is so wrong about kisses? why the "human only" signs? Then natural disasters happen. And love.

TLDR: true forms megstiel (which can be read as either platonic or romantic). exploration of what it means to have a soul & the ways in which Cas & Meg (& Dean)'s stories intertwined. w/ autistic cas

It's new - the shape of your body

1.4k - rated M

Dean is starving to be touched ; Crowley is starving to be seen.

TLDR: emotional t4t drowley

admidst ashes and feathers

6.7k - rated M

Mary is brought back from the dead by Amara (again). This time, she doesn't want to do the same mistakes. This time, she wants to be herself. Whoever the hell that may be.

TLDR: lesbian Mary Winchester finding support and her own community. if you're gonna read only one of my fic, pls be that one!

[ananke-xiii]

(the following is an unchecked stream of consciousness and I can’t guarantee any logic or sense but hear me out anyway)

A few weeks ago I saw this post about Raphael that made me go “oh, how very Macbeth!”. Since then my brain couldn’t stop looking for Shakespearean traces in the writing of SPN and the most obvious thing to think about was S11 and “Henry V”. I was simultaneously thinking about the mark of Cain and its meaning in relation to the themes of exile and imprisonment when I thought: what if S10 is a bit like "The Tempest"? Ngl, I kinda dig my own personal parallel because it confirmed an old theory of mine (Rowena shares some similarities with the “Evil Mother” par excellence, Medea) and it accidentally made me think of Rowena in completely new terms: Rowena is an exile, she’s stateless, always a foreigner and an outcast.

I had never put 2 and 2 together but Medea is also an exile and a foreigner and it’s exactly the threat to be exiled from Corinth that led her to the extreme act of killing her sons. That and a copious dose of revenge against her husband, Jason. You see, now we have two themes pertaining to parenthood, revenge and exile, that interest me a lot. Truth be told, I’m lately thinking about parenthood and its hardships/failings in relation to another show but I think that there is, perhaps, something that I can explore in SPN too.

If you think about it, who else in the show is a parent and a metaphorical exile in quest of revenge? Yeah, exactly him: the one and only John Winchester.

Is, maybe, John Winchester like Medea via Rowena? I think he can be in a figurative sense. While Medea flees her country with Jason, her partner, John self-exiles himself (and his sons) because his partner has been killed. While Medea kills her sons out of revenge because Jason has re-married and wants them gone, John figuratively sacrifices his own sons in his crazy pursuit of Mary’s killer.

It’s a tenuous parallel but I think there are one or two things here something worth exploring: first of all, single, exile-like parents and their relationship with their children; secondly, the bond between partners/spouses is so strong to the point that, if one of them “fails” the other, the consequences can be tragic.

I like this angle because it gives me room to expand the “family is hell” vs “found family” theme of the series. As far as I’ve personally seen, the theme is always talked about taking into account the perspective of the children and their relationship with their parental figures. However, it very much applies to partners/spouses too, aka to the families one marries into.

If I think about some of the main characters in SPN who also have a parental role (apart from John, Mary and Rowena, of course) I think of Bobby (single putative father after the death of his wife), Jody (single putative mother after the death of her husband and child), Linda (single mother), Amelia (single mother after the “death” of her husband) and, obviously, Kelly.

Unfortunately, without her knowing, Kelly “marries” the “family is Hell” thesis in quite the literal terms, since, you know, she’s pregnant with Lucifer’s son. However, her son Jack half-chooses, half-finds himself in a “found family” in quite the literal terms, since, you know, Sam and Dean do, indeed, find him in “Lost and Found”. Jack’s chosen father Castiel, in turn, eventually finds himself comfortable in this weird family of theirs and, this time, there are no single parents: Jack has quite a lot of parental/mentor/supportive figures around him. And this is still not fucking enough because Cas is so afraid of losing his family that he still feels the need to take all responsibilities upon himself.

In this light, a subterranean family-related theme in the series is partners/spouses failing at being precisely that: partners/spouses. It’s not just about fathers who are absent and mother who are dead. It’s also not about the failings of a nuclear-type of family with two parents because even the “it takes a village”-type of family has its own failings. Lots of problems find their roots not so much in the parent-children axis but in the partners/spouses one. Which means that adult people fail/are unable to communicate with their chosen family, aka their partner, because they’re scared… of losing them.

Partners/spouses in SPN either have lost their consorts (the people with whom they share their fate) or they’re scared to death of losing them.  A family-related theme that comes out is that of the partner who marries into the spouse’s family and who’s then left… alone. A figurative and sometimes literal exile.

Ah! the macbethian aspect of Supernatural is actually quite cool, too bad we don't have actual screentimes of deranged couples being deranged together!

[spn-romantica]

So I watched SPN for years, right up until the end of S11, when they brought back Mary. I heard that S15 would be the last season, and I was like ‘oh ok I’ll rewatch (for like the 8th time) and finish SPN then’ BUT THEN 15x18 happened and I was violently pulled back into the SPN fandom. I still haven’t caught up fully watching yet, but I’ve read so much discourse now...and I have thoughts. Hypotheses currently. I’ll wait to finish the whole show for real to call any of this theories but, I wanted to record my thoughts.

They’re about Chuck. As a villain. Which weirds me out. As an antagonist? Sure. As evil? No. Can’t envision it. I just finished my rewatch of S5 and, damn, but if Chuck is the ultimate villain, S5 reads very differently. :0

But I recently saw a post comparing Dean’s reaction in 1x18 (I believe) to his in 10x05 (for sure) about when someone mentions his mother’s death. In 1x18, it’s Sam when they were children and Dean gets angry. In 10x05, it’s a group of high school girls and Dean just bops his head along to the song. The post was framing it as 10x05 not understanding Dean’s thoughts about his mother, but I think that both episodes understand Dean. When Dean is a child, the trauma over his mother’s murder is still fresh. By 10x05, the event is 70 years in the past. Of course it still affects Dean. Of course. You never really get over something like that. But I’d argue that after 70 years, Dean has moved through the stages of grief to acceptance. It still hurts, but like an old ache, not a fresh, still-bleeding wound.

Interestingly, 10x05 is when we see Chuck, after a long absence. He’s watching the play, probably happy that someone loves his work enough to even make a musical, but he is also watching the Winchesters. The actual episodes of the show, aka the books Chuck writes, are what Chuck knows/cares about regarding the Winchesters. Despite being God, I’d argue he doesn’t pay attention to every second and all the little minutia of the boys’ lives. So, here in 10x05, we have confirmation that Chuck is around to see that Dean has healed from his mother’s death.

Later, in S11, Dean acts as therapist/life counsellor to Chuck/God, regarding Amara and Lucifer. And it works! Dean teaches God about family and about healing. Why does God listen to Dean Winchester, a random human? Perhaps it is because of S1-5. Perhaps it is because Dean and Sam were part of God’s test, as God himself describes it in 5x22.

What was the test? Was it God’s experiment about choice and free will? About freedom vs peace? Or, perhaps, was God trying to understand sibling relationships? He and Amara are two faces of the same coin. They are siblings, but with very different outlooks and it caused a rift between them, caused Chuck to seal Amara away before she could destroy his creations. Chuck regretted this, but saw it as a necessary betrayal. But then, some time later, Chuck’s angelic children experience their own betrayal and sibling rift. Lucifer tries to turn the angels against God, rebel and reject God. He makes demons, for sure, and maybe even Hell. But why? God figures that Lucifer was maybe jealous of the new baby (humans) like others in the show postulates. Or maybe Lucifer had beef specifically with Michael, because humans are little more than amoebas from an angelic perspective. Aside from Castiel, Anna and a handful of other angels, angels consistently view humans as humans might view dust mites. Maybe humans were the cause of the rift between Michael and Lucifer, but it was Michael and Lucifer’s relationship that needed fixing in the end, regardless.

So God is left with the sad conclusion that maybe close siblings will inevitably betray each other and be unable to forgive and heal. He wants to heal with Amara. But he also wants Michael and Lucifer to be able to heal. (It doesn’t occur to God that maybe Lucifer’s problem was never with humanity or Michael; it was with God.)

So God has research to do, to see if it’s possible for siblings to experience such deep betrayal and still heal. He turns to his little hairless apes, the only sentient species on Earth with potential to parallel the angels. He starts testing siblings. Cain and Abel are first up. Needless to say, but the betrayal was too strong and left no room for healing. But on down the line of Cain, God continues testing. Eventually, we come to Sam and Dean.

God has scheduled Michael and Lucifer’s family counselling session for 2010. All the data up to this point says it can only end badly. Maybe it’ll half-kill the Earth, but it’s finally time for Michael and Lucifer to meet and for one of them to die. God isn’t happy about this conclusion, but it’s what the data says. So, finally, the last test subjects, the last in the line who will be the vessels for Michael and Lucifer’s showdown, arrive. Sam and Dean Winchester are to be the last sibling test. The conclusion seems foregone at this point, but there is no point in cancelling the last bit of the test after so long, so it continues. God watches. And Sam and Dean surprise God. Siblings after siblings had failed for millennia to heal. Betrayals too strong, healing too little, too late. But Sam and Dean. no matter how badly they hurt each other, find a way to come back together and heal. They don’t give up on each other, despite millennia of data to the contrary. Still, the angels and demons push and push at Sam and Dean until their rift is as wide and as deep as Michael and Lucifer’s, as God’s and Amara’s (in late S4). It seems, despite the brothers’ best efforts earlier on, it’s all for naught.

But there is a further element of randomness, something God couldn’t foresee. Castiel. God hasn’t had occasion for romantic love in his own experience, so he is entirely blind to what choices Castiel is likely to make. He provides an element of randomness to the experiment, an essential part that gives Dean the ultimate chance to go back to Sam and begin to heal (4x22).

Throughout S5, Sam and Dean heal. There is hurt, still, of course, but they love each other and forgive each other. By 5x22, they’ve surprised everyone. Even the angels have given up on turning them against each other, and have shrugged and settled for using Nick and Adam as the vessels for the showdown. Sam and Dean passed their test. They were siblings who betrayed each other and healed from it. God reconsiders how family counselling will go with Michael and Lucifer. He figured it would be the Apocalypse, the end of the problems between Michael and Lucifer, as one of them dies, as had always happened before. But, Sam and Dean showed God, that though it is rare, it is possible to heal. So God gives Sam and Dean an out. He gives Sam the strength to seize back control from Lucifer, should things go south.

Finally, the showdown arrives. Michael and Lucifer meet. They talk things out. To God’s surprise, Lucifer reveals that he never had a problem with Michael. He had forgiven Michael long ago. But Michael couldn’t forgive Lucifer. He had to be a ‘good son’ and do what he thought God wanted him to do. But Michael didn’t realise, that God doesn’t give orders. Free will all the way, baby! But the whole thing comes as a surprise. Apparently, all this time, the problem relationship wasn’t siblings, it was parents.

Oops.

Good thing God had a back-up plan.

Sam throws himself and Lucifer (and Michael and Adam) into the Cage. Michael and Lucifer have an eternity to figure things out between each other now. But that’s beside the point. The point is, now, that God has to start testing all over again. Not how to fix sibling relationships, but how to fix parent-child relationships.

God restores Castiel, perhaps for a few reasons because God exists outside of time, but originally it may have been just for one. He likes Castiel. He is impressed that Castiel invented free will for himself, broke free of angelic programming (multiple times over), and did it all for love. It’s novel. It’s interesting. God might even think it’s sweet. But God has had time later, and thought about it, and he has a plan. And Castiel is essential.

But Dean Winchester is the key.

Sam and Dean’s relationship with their own father has been strained, but both boys find a way to forgive John his flaws and failings, and love him. Whenever they do get a chance to see him again, post his death, they don’t hate him. They’ve healed. John’s relationship with Sam and Dean is one point of data, Abraham and Isaac another. There are many data points that God can reflect back on and consider.

But as S6 through S10 roll on, God watches Sam and Dean and Castiel. He even watches Crowley and Rowena for another data point. Dean is his main focus, however. (This is a little meta, but as the story focuses more on Dean than Sam post S5, it ties in. Prior to S6, both Sam and Dean were essential - the sibling test. Now, post S5, the parent test, Dean is the most essential. Of course, Sam and Castiel are important too. But Dean is key.)

Dean is a good father. He was a good father to Sam, even when he was only 6 years old himself. He was a good father to Ben. He was willing to die for Bobby John. He’s always good with kids. Not only that, but Dean is blunt enough, brave enough, and crazy enough to tell God to God’s face what he thinks. God needs Dean’s advice, his perspective and opinion on family relationships, but he also needs to see what Dean would do if he were in God’s shoes.

[Edit (1/04/21): After seeing Michael and Lucifer (mostly) heal, and after seeing Sam and Dean heal their relationship, God finally has hope for him and Amara. So God logically wants to retrieve Amara from her prison. But how? Well, he could just wander on up to Cain and do it himself, but what would Amara say? “So I see you’ve come crawling back, eh, Chucky?” She wouldn’t be impressed with God. She wouldn’t understand, because she’s hopeless too. SO how to give her hope? How to make her see that she and God can be okay again? Why, stick her near Dean Winchester, of course! So God sets things up for Dean to get and lose the Mark of Cain, thereby ensuring that Amara will feel a connection to Dean and stick around him/keep him alive long enough for Dean to work his life-coach magic.]

In S11, God and Amara heal their relationship because of the hope Sam and Dean gave God, and also the direct advice Dean gives God. God and Lucifer, not so much.

God needs more data. He needs to see what Dean would do. In comes Castiel’s relevance. God sets things up so that Lucifer can have a son. A nephil. Jack. And God points Castiel in Jack’s direction, trusting Castiel’s ability for unconditional love to keep Jack alive long enough for the experiment. Castiel becomes Jack’s father. But Castiel will never betray Jack, the way God betrayed Lucifer. And, besides, Castiel isn’t the target of this experiment. But it is Castiel’s relationship with Dean Winchester that provides the link needed to get the experiment rolling.

Because Jack is Castiel’s son, he is therefore Sam and Dean’s nephew. Except, God has been watching Castiel and Dean. And, frankly, their romantic love for each other is so obvious even God cannot miss it. Through Castiel, Dean sees Jack as his son too. He loves Jack, exactly like a son. In this way, Dean parallels God, and Jack parallels Lucifer.

But God knows Dean would not easily turn on any child, let alone his own child. So God had a plan for that too. One that Amara helped him with.

They brought back Mary Winchester.

Mary is the one person in existence whose loss would hurt Dean enough to spur him to action. So, she was brought back to die. It was a matter of only a few years of gentle prodding to get everything in position. Jack causes Mary’s death. Dean is faced with a horrible decision. If Jack can kill Mary, what’s to say that Sam and Castiel wouldn’t be next? Mary’s death is like everything beginning all over again for Dean as well. Her first death set off a chain reaction, a series of unfortunate events that spanned decades and nearly caused the ruination of not only Dean’s life, but Sam’s and John’s and even the world. That scar, which had healed as well as it could after 70 years, that God saw was healed in 10x05, has been violently opened up again. It’s the only thing that could force Dean’s hand, that could get him to betray Jack and try to kill him. If Jack had killed Sam or Castiel, it wouldn’t have had the same effect. Both Sam and Castiel had died and come back so many times, and while it would hurt Dean and make him doubt Jack, their deaths would be a sacrifice that Dean would feel obligated to respect, to give Jack a second chance like they would both want. (And God has been laying the groundwork for Dean, convincing him that Jack is evil, will be evil like Lucifer, can’t be allowed to live. All things God has thought about Lucifer over time. Was Lucifer inherently evil? Was their rift inevitable?)

So, here it is. The big test. Will Dean kill Jack? Will he betray Jack and cause an unhealable rift? Or will he find a way to heal, like he did with Sam against all the odds?

And, once again, Dean impresses God. He refuses to kill Jack.

But now we’re in the endgame. Sam, Dean and Castiel are aware that Jack’s life was only on the line because of God. It’s not something they can forgive, or understand. They’re all God’s guinea pigs, and while he loves his guinea pigs, he knows he’s hurt them in the name of science, of knowledge. or healing, and God can’t undo what he’s done. Free will is linear, after all. So it is time for the Winchesters, Castiel and Jack included, to be done with God. God is done with them, too. It’s time for them to be free and at peace. The experiments are done. God has decided not to kill Lucifer. He has decided to try to heal. He can get Lucifer out of the Empty and talk and try to fix things. He has forever to fix things, now that he knows he can. (The last element of this, Jack forgiving Dean for trying to kill him, is something I have limited knowledge of, but I am under the impression happens so... To be added in the edit once I finish the series.)

But the only way the Winchesters will be able to rest, is if they think God, the last and greatest villain, is out of the way. They know they’ve been manipulated their whole lives, first towards the sibling experiment and now the parent experiment, so they need to think God is gone so they can feel secure in their free will once more. Truthfully, God never took their free will. He set them up in situations, maybe even gave a bio-chemical nudge of anger (Dean) or attraction (Sam and Eileen) every now and then. But the choices were always theirs. Still, God knows they won’t see it that way. So he sets things up so that they can defeat him.

He lets them win. He wants them to win. They cannot defeat God, after all. It’s not God’s time, and Death is the only one who can claim God in the end, as the two embrace as friends and walk to the next existence. But the Winchesters need this, and so God allows it. A last gift, to the beings who have been such help, hope and inspiration to him.

With an eye for an eventual S16, 15x20 is written to be ‘an ending’ but also one that could easily be reframed as a bad dream.

For example...

Unfortunately, after Jack, suped up on a extra Grace God lent him, restores the Earth and expends all the Grace (”giving up the mantle of God so that their is no God, no plans, only Free Will”), and Dean, Sam and Jack head back to the Bunker to regroup and gather the ingredients to do the spell to rescue Castiel from the Empty, they’re jumped by monsters who are angry with how much God has fucked with them on behalf of the Winchesters. 15x20 is all a djinn dream Dean is trapped in.

16x01 is Dean waking himself up from the djinn dream, Sam and Jack escaping their own monsters, and then the end of 16x01 is Dean saying something about waking Castiel up from his own dreams in the Empty. The rest of S16 sees the boys save Castiel, reunite with Eileen, start a monster-hunting Bobby Singer/Men of Letters-esque organisation, Dean and Castiel getting together and getting married on Valentine’s Day, Jack getting to live a normal life, going to school, making friends, etc.

If their is no S16 ever (which would be criminal), then 15x20 makes no sense, unless it is plainly a recount of an old, hopeless ending written by God. However you spin it, 15x20 is not the way it seems (like owls).

All things being said, God is an antagonist, but he’s not evil. He’s an asshole, sure, but he never once worked against the Winchesters, never bet against them, never tried to erase or end them. He wanted them to win. He wanted to see the fruits of free will be love, second chances, hope, forgiveness, healing, and happiness, not just betrayal, pain, selfishness, jealousy, disappointment, and hopelessness.

Why is the ending he shows Becky ‘hopeless’? Because God is. He has spent his long existence losing his most loved family members. Amara, Lucifer. How can things end well for God, when they can’t even end well for humans? But Sam and Dean defy the script, again and again. They surprise God, defying the statistics, defying the hypotheses, throwing the experiment into disarray. Giving God hope. Sam and Dean were okay. Dean and Jack were okay. If God had a romantic love, he would find hope from Dean and Castiel being okay. But when God wrote the book he showed Becky, he was writing what he thought would happen. In the end, surely, not even Dean can be enough to hold Sam and Cas and Jack together. But in the end, as we see, as God sees, he is proven wrong and he’s happy to be wrong. He’s hopeful. And he can leave Dean, Sam, Castiel and Jack, and all the angels and all the humans, to rule the Earth and the Heavens. He doesn’t need to learn anything more from them, so he heads to the Empty, with Amara, with Lucifer, with Death (Billie or not, Death is there for God in the end), and they can all depart for a better existence of their own.

If you read all of this, thanks! I eagerly anticipate watching the remaining 10 seasons so I can come back and edit the heck outta this, but until then, if y’all have any thoughts, I’d be interested to hear them~

TLDR: God is a morally bankrupt scientist and the Winchesters are his guinea pigs, but he’s not evil and he does love his guinea pigs, even if he could really treat them nicer.

[ao3feed-destiel-02]

Paper Flowers

Paper Flowers https://ift.tt/t0CgDSV by unholyangel777 Colette Winchester has always been babied by her two elder brothers. While they are out saving the world, she's always been left behind, whether that be at Bobby's or stuck in motel rooms. She's never gotten a piece of the action, and hell ensues if she tries. Eventually they land in the Men of Letter's bunker, and she feels like she's in heaven. It's cozy and she can read as much lore as she can get her hands on, being a help to her brothers in the safest place possible. Safe, until, Dean gets the mark of Cain and eventually turns into a demon. It's then that she realizes her brother has always had other intentions for her. Can she save him? Or will he just her traumatize beyond repair?   *Colette is their half-sister, John had her with another hunter. There is a significant age gap between her and Dean. Read the tags, because like all my other fics, this is messed up. Words: 2467, Chapters: 1/?, Language: English Fandoms: Supernatural (TV 2005) Rating: Not Rated Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage Categories: F/M, M/M, Multi, Other Characters: Dean Winchester, Colette Winchester, Sam Winchester, Castiel (Supernatural), Cain (Supernatural), The Mark of Cain (Supernatural), Crowley (Supernatural), Rowena MacLeod, Charlie Bradbury, John Winchester, Bobby Singer (Supernatural) Relationships: Dean Winchester/Original Female Character(s), Dean Winchester/Sam Winchester, Castiel/Dean Winchester, Castiel/Original Female Character(s), Sam Winchester/Original Female Character(s) Additional Tags: Sibling Incest, Rape/Non-con Elements, Demon Dean Winchester, Sister Complex, Brother/Sister Incest, Lolita, Blood and Gore, Age Difference, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Sexual Abuse, Demon Sex, Dean Winchester Bears the Mark of Cain, Angels vs. Demons, Men of Letters Bunker (Supernatural), Stockholm Syndrome, Abusive Relationships, Canon-Typical Violence, Post-Demon Dean Winchester, Little Sisters, Torture, BDSM, DDLG, Daddy Kink via AO3 works tagged 'Castiel/Dean Winchester' https://ift.tt/z90Eoxv September 20, 2023 at 04:57PM

[mittensmorgul]

Hi Mittens! Happy holidays! I love your meta and I had a question: I've seen you make a couple posts about Miracle lately, and while I'm definitely angry at canon replacing Cas with a dog, I was kind of taken aback at some of your comments about Dean and dogs (specifically how much you seem to hate that combination; I've never felt strongly about it one way or the other). Do you have a tag or post about your feelings on Dean and dogs? Or could you explain in a little more detail, please?

Hi hi!

Dean... has never been associated positively with dogs on this show-- up to and including that scene in Scoobynatural where he does the SCOOBYDOOBYDOOOOO! and Cas rolls his eyes and tells him flat out he’s not a talking dog. I mean, even in one of Sam’s heaven memories, he’s effectively replaced Dean with a dog... so while Dean was being implied-harshly-punished by John for “losing” Sam, Sam had been having the time of his life with a dog instead... Sorry, I’ve got a lot of resentment for dog symbolism in the show...

Cas has also been associated with dogs in a lot of... let’s go with derogatory comments, and since this dog in the finale was SPECIFICALLY a replacement for Cas in Dean’s life... I find it particularly insulting, you know?

5.14: We get dog comments about Cas and Dean both in this ep. Famine refers to Cas as Dean’s dog... “You sicced your dog on me, I threw him a steak.” And we see Cas crouched on the ground eating meat. Earlier in this ep, Sam teased Dean about his lack of any “appetite” for anything with the comment, “when a dog doesn't eat-- That's when you know something's really wrong.“

7.21: after being banished, he reappears at a dog track, where the dogs were unhappy. so... Cas was basically just another unhappy dog in this part of the story.

10.22: Rowena compares Cas to a “dog who thinks he’s people” for being an angel who rejected heaven and chose his family with the Winchesters.

10.23-11.03: Cas is literally under a spell referred to as “Attack Dog,” which he fights against but is slowly turning him into a killing machine. He seeks help from Heaven, but they only want to use him, to torture information out of him and then kill him once they get what they want. It’s implied he even kills a dog in 11.01.

11.06: when Cas is in the bunker still suffering from trauma related to the attack dog spell, lying in bed and watching tv, he changes the channel to a news story about a dog riding a skateboard, and the newscaster uses Rowena’s line from 10.22: “Aw, that dog thinks it’s people!”

12.19: Lucifer refers to Cas as the Winchesters’ “purse dog,” and s12 is littered with dog references, especially between Lucifer and Crowley (which started back in s11 when Lucifer was using Cas’s vessel and treating Crowley like a dog... there’s a lot of negative baggage attached to dogs on this show)

13.16: Scooby is obviously the one dog Dean’s okay with, having positive childhood associations with him. But when comparing themselves to the scooby gang, Sam says they don’t have a talking dog, and Dean replies that Cas is sort of like a talking dog... which is interesting because at the end of the episode Cas tells Dean he’s NOT a talking dog. And this, in a scene that was directly foreshadowing Dean becoming Michael’s suit...again, more negative baggage for both of them.

The Dean vs Dogs imagery really kicks in when Dean’s soul is destined for Hell in s3, though.

3.10: In his rant to his dream self, Dream!Dean accuses Dean of being as “mindless and obedient as an attack dog,” just a few lines before he gives the “daddy’s blunt little instrument” line that Cas reminded us of in 15.18. So I do think this is something that the writers couldn’t possibly have been unaware of in invoking that specific line and the specific baggage attached to it.

3.11, one of the MANY deaths Dean suffers is from a seemingly nice dog he tries to pet in a friendly manner. The nice golden retriever mauls him to death, like the hellhounds are due to do to him in just a few short episodes... 

3.16: literally torn apart by hellhounds... don’t know how else to make it clear that Dean Is Not A Fan of this.

4.06: suffering from Ghost Sickness, and being magically forced to experience heightened levels of fear, he runs from a lil Yorkie with a bow in its hair, pausing only long enough to warn another person on the street to run before it kills them. We are invited to see how his biggest fear-- of Lilith, of being tortured in Hell, and having been dragged there by hellhounds-- is literally tied to his feelings toward actual dogs, including nonthreatening little lap dogs.

6.01: When Dean falls under the djinn’s spell, he hallucinates an unseen monster, presumably something akin to a hellhound, but when he thinks he’s caught the monster, it’s the neighbor’s Yorkie. Just like in 4.05, Dogs, Hellhounds, and Things Dean Fears In His Soul are all tangled up together.

6.08: aka that one episode I forget exists until it comes back around on the loop (actually I don’t forget it exists anymore, I’ve seen the show too many times at this point, but meh...). But it does plant this fear, that any dog anywhere might not really be a dog. The “sleeper cell” skinwalker packs in cities all over the world? Yeah, not a happy thought for someone who really doesn’t like dogs. Or at the very least has a low-key fear of them.

7.15: I would qualify this one as just “symbolism,” but since this episode is full of anvils, it feels legit to mention that the spell Jeffrey uses to summon his demon back to him involves using Dean’s blood and a dog’s heart. Not really a dean/fear thing, but Dean AS a dog-- and a sacrificed dog at that.

8.01: When Dean gets back from Purgatory, he gets in the Impala and smells dog. Bringing on the famous rule that he’s quite angry about Sam having clearly violated even when he wasn’t on the same plane of existence at the time-- No dogs in the car. He’s still clearly not a fan. Early s8 becomes a long string of “Sam hit a dog” comments, too.

8.15: for all this episode’s grossness, it does remind us over and over again that Dean really does not like dogs. Even flat out having Dean say he likes dogs, and the woman who literally is a dog familiar tells him that no, he doesn’t.

9.05: Dean... is basically a dog. He bonds with the Colonel a bit, even identifies with the dog while he’s under the spell, but all that good will that built up between them effectively shatters again with the ominous last words he gets before the spell wears off and the knowledge that dogs were not created to be man’s best friend, but had some other-- and in this context seemingly sinister-- purpose.

And then we have every other ep that deals with Hellhounds, Dean’s failure to kill one leading to Sam taking on the trials instead of him, tied up in their mutual discussion of what they see as their respective futures-- Sam wants to live, and he wants Dean to live, too, instead of Dean constantly running toward death and self-sacrifice. So like, these themes are all tied up together, and makes all the dog stuff incredibly not fun when it comes to Dean specifically.

So when Dean does lose Cas-- and everyone else on the planet-- the dog being the ONE living being they’ve found, Dean picking her up and putting her in “Cas’s place” in the car, only to have Chuck snap her away like she was a manipulative trick the entire time? Not even really real, just one more thing to give Dean a tiny bit of hope only to maliciously snatch it away again?

And then for the SINGLE thing Dean asked for from Chuck being to bring Cas back?

And then he doesn’t get Cas back, but apparently kidnaps this random dog instead?

It’s just... indescribably weird to me, and so entirely out of character and insulting to Cas on top of it all. Like this was the only happiness Dean was allowed after saving the universe. No found extended family, no life outside of Sam and hunting, no dream of retiring and finding a beach to sink his toes in the sand for a little while. He just gets a dog, which he canonically doesn’t like and has a lot of issues with for entirely understandable reasons. So like.. .how is this cute or happy or nice?

[swimmingtvshowghostwoman]

A list of ideas for better spin-offs then the upcoming prequel about John and Mary:

*some I thought of, some I saw online sorry for not giving credit I honestly don’t remember what I saw where

*@wordytales gave several of this ideas

Sam and Dean as kids/teenagers

Henry Winchester

Men of letters

British men of letters vs. American (gang revelry style)

Destial

 Saileen

 Garth

Wayward sisters

Donna and Jody

Adam and Michael

Angels and demons (Bible time)

Angels during the war of season 6

Lucifer's Rebellion

Any Bible story

Any alternative universe

John cena and Mary Winchester (WWE spin-off)

Banes Siblings

Jo

The roadhouse

Bobby and Rufus(young or old)

Samuel colt

 Rowena as queen of hell

Stanford Sam