#something about the way dean says this ..

[the-mpreg-guy]

the hill that i will die on is that cas would have never said he loved dean if he had to deal with the consequences of it afterwards, meanwhile dean (who was SUPPOSED to tell cas he loved him in the original crypt scene script) would have eventually worked up to saying it without external pressure

[lambmotifz]

this is a controversial take but i don’t really think sexual wincest dynamic would be the same as the dynamics they have with girls. mostly because this interpretation tends to ignore canonical nuances that define sam and dean’s relationship, which includes dean’s extreme possessiveness, sam’s willing submissiveness with dean (especially when it comes to physical touch), the fact that dean is the only one with whom sam is able to be physically vulnerable in a way he can’t with anybody else, the fact that dean genuinely loves taking care of his little brother. it’s an essential part of their relationship, and it just makes sense for it to be part of their sexual dynamic too

[shallowseeker]

Once an angel, always an....???

Not for nothin, but the things Cas appreciates most about Jack are the HUMAN parts.

and Cas admires that Jack takes after kelly in that he’s a beautiful EMOTIONAL CREATURE and he LOVES MOVIES

13x12

EMOTIONAL. INTUITIVE.

///

And Cas is not without a smattering of PRIDE. "He looks like <me, not you> and his instinct is ME as his father" > "ON PURE INSTINCT HE REACHED OUT TO ME"

Jack called Cas father before anyone else; has maybe modeled himself after Cas

13x12, 13x01

And Cas is okay with that, but only up to a point, as we'll see when Jack starts to eat up his own soul...

//

but importantly, JUST AFTER ALL THIS experience with Lucifer:

UNDERCURRENT from script: cas gets depressed and horrified with HIMSELF because hanging out with lucifer is not that uncomfortable

13x14 via @spnscripthunt-inactive

bc there's some resonance with Lucifer's angel nature, awakening Cas's own angel instincts

and despite everything maybe even some battle exhilaration

they walk out like two predators on the hunt, smiling as the prey walks right into their trap

13x12 via @spnscripthunt-inactive

///

cas's not even that guilty about it when recounting it in 13x13:

okay, maybe a LITTLE nervous that Dean will be mad that Cas put himself in danger again to get the intel

Cas is like BUT I EXPECTED THAT

and as Lucifer pointed out, I myself have done the same thing before when I was taken prisoner and had to retake some grace...

...

///

BUT ANYWAY

On the nature of souls, I AM ALSO continually thinking about how Cas doesn't want Jack to be a purely celestial being

the thing is, jack isn't like soulless sam was, not completely. jack has GRACE.

(We see that in how, unlike soulless Sam, soulless Jack had a unique type of emotional volatility...)

//

but yeah

like mary doesn't want her boys to be hunters

cas in so many ways doesn't want jack to be an angel at least not ALL angel***

and jack gets that message early: BE AS STRONG AS THE ANGELS AND DO EVERYTHING THEY DO

and yet... when he's weak, he's not "quite himself"

///

be strong like them but don't be LIKE them

what an impossible task!!!!!

///

And later, even when Jack has no soul... there's still GRACE. His celestial essence was still strong:

///

What Cas isn't saying????

So do I.

///

SO yeah. When Jack loses his soul, Cas is affected too—but he doesn't say it. Because to admit it would be to admit what Meredith said in her script: that he's "not what he's pretending to be."

Or, worse—that maybe a soul isn't required to feel at all. Maybe they don't understand it the way they thought they did. Maybe all creatures great and small, grace or no grace, soul or no soul, have the capacity for "what we call humanity."

And if that's true, then all the self-hatred he’s buried—the angel side of him he’s never made peace with—rises to the surface.

But he won’t reckon with it. Not yet. Maybe not ever.

[wanderingcas]

from day 1 i've said that paradigm is best served as a wip, and tomorrow that will REALLY be true. tomorrow's chapter will be about the point in the fic where shit really hits the fan. so if you've been wanting to read it in real time but also don't want to wait too long for updates... now's your chance! i really think (and hope and pray) that reading this in real time will be worth it ;)

link to fic || link to playlist

[babybrothershaped-archived]

[s--strawberry]

this was so well writen its so good

[winchesterian]

just as people have done entirely too much in the opposite direction by trying to rehabilitate john as Not Abusive, Actually (entirely as pushback to trashy whumpfic which wouldn't have good characterisation as a priority anyway), this is true also for John Winchester Understanding LGBT Ally takes. yes he wouldn't be throwing around slurs 24/7 like an over the top cartoon homophobe. no i dont think he'd magically transcend the social context of his time and hold zero prejudiced views around queerness, particularly gender nonconformity.

[lambmotifz]

thinking about sam saying “you were the one who said don’t come back dad. you closed that door.” to john vs dean telling sam “if you walk out of that door, don’t you ever come back” i love it when they’re so unsubtle about samdean/samjohn parallels

[sammygender]

finally on s13 and jack is the best character in the whole world i love him so much i’ll protect him with my life. in other news i want to kill dean winchester

[castiellesbian]

no but really what if nora had actually been asking cas out. and cas said yes. and then dean showed up.

[incesthemes]

see what gets me about provenance is that sam is really scared of pursuing a relationship with sarah and other girls because he's afraid they're going to die. sam is cursed, the people he loves will die bloody, he doesn't want that, so he's staying away from people.

but this curse, textually, from sam's own mouth, can affect his family too:

so this isn't just limited to his romantic endeavors. anyone who's close to him, including his family, might die if they stick around him.

so what about dean??? he fits the criteria, but sam is still hanging onto him like a monkey on a vine. and what does this say about sam?

in some ways, i think there's a sense of hero-worship at play, like sam truly believes that dean can handle whatever comes his way and he'll be safe. there's a sense of protectiveness from sam throughout season 1, but dean carries himself in a way that is reassuring to sam. when he tells sam that he'll protect him, sam believes him without question, even if he's still worried. sam believes, or wants to believe, in dean's bravado.

which is interesting considering the episode faith, where sam very well could have blamed himself for dean getting hurt and almost dying (and maybe he did, and that was why he was so desperate to save him, no matter the cost—dean saw it as his time coming, but sam saw it as an unnatural death brought on by his curse, perhaps, and so he was willing to go to unnatural lengths to prevent it).

in other ways though, the context of the season makes me feel like above anything else the reason is that sam can't do this without dean, and he's willing to take the risk (and therefore handle the consequences himself, do whatever he has to do to keep dean safe from him). even in a story where sam has to choose between opposing forces that can't coexist—his revenge or dean, he can only pick one—dean is woven into every fiber of his quest for revenge. the revenge can't be pursued without dean, and dean is the opposition to sam's revenge, so sam never really had a choice to begin with: he was always going to pick dean.

i just love that even sam's greatest fears exempt dean—he wants dean there with him so badly that his no-relationships rule doesn't apply to him (and the same goes for dean, too, what a coincidence), and he accepts whatever risk there might be because he can't do this without him. dean is the exception, dean is sam's big brother, dean is the one person he can't lose even when he believes he's putting dean in danger just by driving around with him.

and dean doesn't even know any of this. he doesn't have a clue about the extent of sam's love or what sam is willing to risk to be with him, because sam never told him.

[found--family]

they couldn't let cesar and jesse return bc they would've taken one look at dean and cas interacting and known they had it bad for each other

[explainslowly]

I think Dean has had an Al Pacino era where he watched every movie that guy starred in he could get his hands on, which is the reason he saw Crusing. He has since blanked out what that one was about, funnily enough. Some detective thing? Al Pacino did a lot of those...

What do you think is Dean's favorite Al Pacino movie? I think it's Heat.

[acesammy]

There's something interesting about how sam and dean's hell experiences are portrayed. Dean has just enough agency in hell to become the aggressor, while sam is only the victim and can only be the victim

[pagannatural]

About halfway through, I noticed that the whole arc of spn season 4 focuses on faith. This is the season in which angels and god are introduced in earnest, whereas before the topic of god was nodded to but didn’t factor into the plot in a critical way. Episode 1 Castiel has pulled Dean from actual hell. The questions of faith, doubt, free will, and god’s will are explored consequentially. We meet a fallen angel and learn that angels can’t feel or empathize or choose or doubt. We also explore what it means to have faith in humanity, either because of or in spite of god. And, most importantly, this is also the season in which the Winchester brothers lose their faith in each other.

Up through season 4 (at least) this really is the central theme and conflict of the show. By the end of s2, Sam had gained complete faith in Dean as his older brother, as his protector, essentially as his keeper. Dean’s faith in Sam is really better described as his complete and utter devotion to him. Their senses of self, purpose, destiny, and belonging depend on each other’s faith and devotion to each other. Sam rails against this throughout his life, but his seeking normalcy is really just seeking autonomy plus acceptance. It’s Dean’s acceptance that he needs. God and heaven and hell and humanity are contained between them.

When Dean sells his soul and goes to hell for Sam, he’s also (mostly unwillingly) abandoning Sam. He doesn’t realize that damning himself will in turn cause Sam’s downfall, that one can’t be right without the other. So when he comes back, he comes back to a brother he’s forsaken.

Dean’s devotion to Sam wavers in s4 when he fears that he’s not really Sam, just like Sam’s faith wavers when he starts to believe he doesn’t need Dean, that Dean is not capable of protecting him. He pulls away from his brother, his god. His fall from grace (drinking demon blood, starting the apocalypse) happens both because of his doubt and because of Dean’s failure to be present and love him unconditionally.

And there’s so much more going on but to me this is what makes their dynamic so compelling and also so batshit insane. Just to caveat, I have not watched season 5-15 at this point and I have no idea if this framework changes or holds up throughout the series. And I’m new here so idk if this has already been talked about quite a bit. I also don’t care because wincest is rotting my brain and if I don’t analyze this text it will eat me alive. I’m now rewatching the first 4 seasons that I blew through to get a better understanding of it because it feels like a good place to pause and go back. Anyway, tldr Dean’s religion is Sam and being the god/brother/home that Sam needs and Sam’s religion is belonging to Dean and being accepted and protected by him.

[scottstiles]

i literally never said dean was right for what he did you fucking morons i said sam was wrong for what he said. can you even read the paragraphs you are deconstructing and reconstructing so absysmally?