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ladylilithprime · 11 months ago

Text

Title: Diplomatic Measures

Fandom: Supernatural

Pairing: Sastiel, Sabriel, eventual CaSaBriel

Rating: General

Word Count: 5095

Summary: Sam Winchester was taking a Saturday breather to read just for the enjoyment of it when a pair of no longer dead Angels come calling with an offer he absolutely could refuse but doesn't want to.

Tags/Warnings: Post-Series Pre-Finale, Discussion of Previous Major Character Death, References to Past Trauma

Created For: SPN Pro-Ship Bang / @spnproshipbang

Author: LadyShadowphyre / @ladylilithprime

Artist: sidewinder / @hawkland

Read on AO3 | Official Art Post

ON A TYPICAL Saturday, or really any day of the week when the residents of the old bunker in Lebanon, Kansas, were home and not off to some other corner of the country on a case, Sam Winchester could usually be reliably found sitting in the bunker's library and one or more of the lore books in his hands. Sometimes it was research for a case, sometimes it was updating records after a case, but frequently it was just reading for the sake of learning. The Men of Letters had some fascinating research, as well as some terrifying research, and even the fiction books they chose to include were a lot less fiction than the majority of the human population believed. While Dean was much more comfortable spending his downtime in more obviously fictional media when he wasn't spending some quality time tuning up the Impala, Sam found the real fantastical to be just as engaging and, he hoped, more helpful down the line in their field of work.

He had just settled in with a book about faeries, privately wishing that he and Dean had had access to this book years ago, when the stillness of the library was interrupted by the unfamiliar familiarity of wingbeats. Given the wards on the bunker and the fact that the alarms didn't even flicker, Sam was able to keep his sudden burst of alertness from turning into true alarm, but he was still putting down his book and halfway through reaching for a weapon by the time the winged visitors spoke.

"Sam--"

"Hey, Samalam--"

The two angels stopped and eyed each other uncertainly as Sam processed what he was seeing, weapons forgotten. It was Gabriel, looking stronger and healthier than he had been the last time Sam remembered seeing him, standing with a self-assurance that Sam hadn't seen from him since that fraught confrontation in a mystical hotel what felt like a lifetime ago. Beside him stood Castiel, looking younger than he had, physically much like he had appeared when they had first met despite the more at ease posture, as if the years of hardship and Falling and being human had been wiped away from his vessel without touching the mark those years had left upon the angel himself.

And they were here. Alive.

"Is it okay to hug you both?" Sam blurted out, already rising from his chair. Even if they said no, anything that had two previously dead and newly resurrected angels showing up in front of him was probably going to require standing, but damn if Sam didn't really, really want to hug them.

Castiel was the first to open his arms, no doubt because he was the more used to offering and receiving hugs when it involved Sam, but Gabriel was quick to do the same. Two long strides had Sam close enough to hug them, one arm going around each angel and feeling the solid weight of them both along with the familiar zip and crackle of Grace just beneath the surface. Gabriel tensed up a little at first, but he relaxed surprisingly quickly, melting into Sam just as much as Castiel was. Sam let himself indulge in just getting to hold them both for a long moment, reimprinting the scent and sound and feel of them both, physical and metaphysical.

Eventually, when he had managed to convince his brain that this was real and both Castiel and Gabriel were really here, Sam made himself loosen his grip on the pair. The slackened hold drew twin sighs from the angels, and neither of them appeared to be in a hurry to pull away, so Sam made himself ignore that insidious little voice trying to tell him he shouldn't be forcing the angels to endure contact with him and let his hands settle on their shoulders as he drew back enough to see their faces.

"So, uh, in case it wasn't obvious, I'm very glad to see you both," he said, swallowing down the lump of emotion that kept trying to form in his throat.

Castiel's expression brightened, apparently glad of the verbal confirmation despite the hugging, and Sam mentally resolved to reinforce the idea that the angel was welcome for as long as he could be there. Gabriel's expression, however, underwent a rapid shuffle through several different emotions too quickly for Sam to follow before settling on concerned. "What's wrong?"

Sam blinked. "Nothing? Well, I mean, there's probably something going wrong for someone somewhere, but I don't know about it."

"That is good to hear," Castiel offered, glancing at Gabriel, who frowned.

"Nothing's wrong?" Gabriel repeated, glancing around the room. "Where's Dean-o, then?"

"In the garage giving the Impala a spa day," Sam answered, lips twitching at the smacked-with-a-fish expression that crossed Gabriel's face. "Full wax, leather conditioning, and detailing. I stopped listening when he started muttering about finding the tiny brushes. Did you want me to go get him, or...?"

"Perhaps later," Castiel said, when Gabriel continued to just stare. "While I am sure Dean would appreciate being informed of our renewed existence at some point, now is perhaps not the best time to invite the inevitable awkwardness and shouting."

"So long as you don't leave it too long," Sam cautioned, before fixing Castiel with a stern look, "And seriously, Cas, you gotta quit using 'I love you' to mean 'goodbye', dude. That was the third time! He's developing a complex about it."

"Kinda thought that would've been reason for you to go to Dean first, bro," Gabriel drawled, eyeing Castiel in a way that made Sam very aware of a second conversation going on beneath the spoken words, and of the way neither angel had let go of him any more than he had released them.

"The awkwardness of dealing with the aftermath of how I left things with Dean is precisely why I chose not to seek him out first," Castiel said evenly. "While I would hope he would know better than to misconstrue the meaning behind my words at the time, unlike so many of our siblings, speaking with Dean about emotional topics is... delicate."

"And will probably require alcohol," Sam chimed in with a sigh. "He's getting better about it, but then we're both still sorting out exactly how much of ourselves is really us rather than how Chuck wrote us to be."

They had already noticed certain differences. Sam still focused more on eating healthy and avoided certain foods, but Dean was less resistant to the vegetables that became increasingly present in their meals. Sam, too, had noticed that he had less aversion to baked goods, and had even managed to pull up some of Jess's recipes from the far corner of his laptop hard drive to start baking again. The grief was still there, but it bit at him less sharply without Chuck prodding the wound for his entertainment.

"So, you two had a reason to come find me specifically?" he asked, forcefully dragging the conversation away from that road for now. Castiel and Gabriel exchanged another heavy look, and Sam heard the faint rustle of feathers. "And I take it everyone's wings have been restored, since you flew in here?"

"We probably should have knocked," Castiel murmured.

"Guests knock," Gabriel argued. "We're still residents, or at least I assume so since the wards didn't kick us out."

"You're both still keyed into the wards," Sam confirmed, mentally shying away from the reason for that. No use unkeying someone who's dead, and no reason to put up anti-angel wards with Jack having promised to keep Heaven's business contained to Heaven. Which brought him back to why Castiel and Gabriel were here. "Animal, vegetable, mineral, celestial, or infernal?"

"What?" Gabriel blinked, just as Castiel said, "Celestial. Partially animal."

"Okay, then... human, angel, vessel, or nephilum?" Sam followed up. At Gabriel's slightly strangled noise, he added, "There's only so many situations that can be attributed to both celestial and animal, and intent to be hands off or not I kinda figured Jack knows Dean and I are willing to be on-call for the things that slip through the cracks. Technically."

"There should not be any further instances of angels taking human vessels," Castiel said at length. Gabriel grimaced, but nodded.

"Kid wasn't wrong about how skeevy and disruptive it is," he said, sighing. "While the practice was originally meant to allow angels to have the counsel of their vessel's life experience and cultural understanding when down here on assignment, that part of the deal apparently got deliberately forgotten when Mike and Raph started ramping up the early Apocalypse in favor of just using the human's soul as a back-up battery for their own power. Even the angels like Cassie here who tried to learn about human culture anyway didn't always understand what they learned. So now, any angels who're gonna be spending a lot of time on Earth get custom-tailored vessels. Ta-da!" he added, with an eyebrow wiggle.

"I thought you were a little taller than I remembered," Sam teased lightly.

"Just because you grew up to be a Samsquatch," Gabriel started, breaking off with a grunt when Castiel shifted very slightly. He gave the seraph an incredulous look. "Did you seriously just--"

"It felt both appropriate and pertinent," Castiel interrupted dryly. Returning his attention visibly to Sam, he went on, "As you no doubt suspect, creating a custom vessel that does not need to be sustained by a human soul but will also hold up to the strain of containing the essence of an angel - or Archangel - is a rather energy-intensive and time-consuming process. To that end, those of us who had previously maintained a lengthy and consistent presence on Earth were given priority to allow us to establish ourselves and create an appropriate orientation center for any other angels required to be on Earth interacting with people. And yes, I am aware of the irony of my being considered most knowledgeable in how to interact with people," he added.

"Don't give yourself so little credit, Cas," Sam said, squeezing the seraph's shoulder gently. "For having had to figure it out largely on your own with only what little, inconsistent help Dean and I have been, you've done an amazing job. And I'm sorry we weren't better help to you when you needed us most."

"Extenuating circumstances," Castiel excused delicately, no doubt not wanting to bring up Gadreel and Dean's complicity in the deception and Castiel's banishment from their sides. Gabriel was looking less than happy but unsurprised, which probably meant he had either been informed about the situation or was reading Sam's mind. To test that, Sam quickly cycled his thoughts through the latest of Jess's recipes he'd been looking at, which caused Gabriel to hum and Castiel to look abashed. "Apologies, Sam. Our current situation and continued proximity is making it difficult to respect your mental privacy as much as we all would usually prefer."

"I'll let it slide for now," Sam murmured, catching the implication. "You were saying?"

"Yes, well," Castiel's eyes darted to the side away from Gabriel before going back to determinedly meeting Sam's. "Part of establishing ourselves on Earth and creating an orientation center is finding appropriate human partners. To help keep us in touch with the culture about which we are meant to instruct our brethren when they come down." He shifted, and Sam felt the hand the seraph still had resting on his back curl to grip his shirt. "While the nature of this partnership and the accompanying bond is not required to be romantic or sexual in nature, I trust you understand why I would choose to broach the subject with you first before speaking to your brother."

"Um," Sam managed intelligently. Yeah, he could understand why Castiel might want to hold off on talking to Dean about something like that, especially with the mention of a bond. It was hardly a secret that Dean had issues with intimacy and commitment, and after so many years and a bored God making them dance around for his amusement it was safe to say that Dean's issues had issues. Sam, at least, had been "lucky" enough to be the consistently emotionally self-aware one between the two of them and so had less of his own psychology to actively question or attempt to rewrite. Hearing words like "partnership" and "bond" didn't cause Sam the same level of panic he knew Dean would feel.

Nor was it at all unexpected that Castiel would choose to come to them to form those bonds, however undeserving they might feel of being chosen. Eleven years was a long time for a human, and Castiel's perceptions of time and humanity had undergone several changes during those eleven years. His attachment to the Winchesters had also undergone changes, but had remained fairly constant despite Naomi's best efforts, or so Castiel had told Sam once. It didn't surprise Sam that Castiel would come to him and Dean for such a partnership. It barely surprised him that Castiel would come to Sam first.

What did surprise him was Gabriel.

"Hell, Sambala, it's not like I spent a lot of time hanging out with a bunch humans knowing who and what I am," the Archangel huffed, avoiding his eyes when Sam looked at him. "You and Deanmeister are pretty much the closest I've got to friends left down here. Sure, I could probably go out, find someone to hook up with, but whether I could actually open up to them enough to bond like that... At least you know the history I've got, and if you say no then I'm no worse off than before."

"I see," Sam mumbled. And he did see. There was a lot of drama and upheaval and tragedy in Gabriel's history, things that made it difficult to open up to people. Sam had been there for some of that history, or been there for the aftermath and heard the stories. They had a connection, had since that case years ago in Ohio where Gabriel had led a pair of experienced but painfully naive hunters on a merry chase, even tried to make friends in his awkward way. Sam knew there was probably a lot that he didn't know, but apparently Gabriel trusted him to know it or to let Gabriel share it in his own time.

He also didn't seem to expect Sam to agree, but had still been surprised by Castiel's presence when they had arrived. And neither of them had left, or let go of Sam. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Tell me about these bonds. I'm guessing there's nothing preventing you from having bonds to multiple humans if Cas was looking for me with the idea of talking to Dean later. Are the humans restricted to bonding with just one angel?"

"Kinky," Gabriel drawled, waggling his eyebrows again. "Looking to start an angel harem, Samnykins?"

"Not sure two really counts as a harem, Gabrielicious," Sam deadpanned, getting a startled look from Gabriel in response. More seriously, Sam went on, "Look, whatever your reasons, you both came to me and I'm not going to turn either of you away. I missed you both."

I mourned you both. Again, he thought silently, unable to push the words past his throat but still needing to convey them. From the way both angels shifted closer, he could tell they heard it.

"There is no limit to the number of bonds permitted save in the compatibility of all individuals," Castiel murmured. "Monogamy is a human convention meant for tracking the lineage of children prior to science developing to the point of DNA testing, and is quite unnecessary in our case."

"Cassie's one of the few angels I can even relate to anymore, and I already figured we'd end up sharing space," Gabriel shrugged. "If he can put up with having me around, I'm fine with sharing."

"We're figuring out a different way of explaining it to Dean, though," Sam warned, getting understanding nods in return. "Anything else I should probably know about this before I agree?"

"Look at you, learning to get all the info before jumping in feet first," Gabriel cooed. This time, his jerk in response to whatever Castiel did put him in range for Sam to flick his ear. "Hey!"

"Nothing's broken and the world isn't ending," Sam said dryly. "I don't actually have to make a snap decision based on limited available information this time, and I do remember certain conversations about angelic bonds. Eternal commitment isn't something you just jump into or we'd be having this conversation in Vegas."

"We still could," Gabriel pointed out. His shoulders slumped at the looks both Sam and Castiel shot him. "Okay, no, we couldn't. Your brother would break out the holy oil to deep fry us if he didn't get to attend your wedding."

"So this is more along the lines of a marriage bond?" Sam raised an eyebrow, glancing between Castiel's sudden bashful look and Gabriel's unrepentant smirk.

"Hey, you're the one who brought up Vegas," the Archangel said. Sam just looked at him, and eventually Gabriel rolled his eyes. "It's more like an engagement than anything, at least for us. I'm not gonna make any promises when it comes to you and Cassie, though, especially given how thoroughly entangled he's been with you and your big bro the last decade."

"Those bonds would have been broken with my death," Castiel pointed out without inflection. Sam felt the very slight tremble in his frame and squeezed again. "The entity would have wanted to ensure that I had nothing tethering me to life any longer."

"That just means when you reestablish the bonds they could snap back into place even stronger," Gabriel pointed out. He shifted slightly, and Castiel's eyes fluttered closed before going wide to look at Gabriel. The Archangel smiled wryly at the seraph. "Can't fool me, baby brother. That's the real reason you came to Sam first, isn't it?"

"Is that not why you came to Sam first yourself, brother?" Castiel responded archly. Sam was once again aware of another layer of conversation taking place between the two angels, like a static feedback against his nerves. To his surprise, all humor fled from Gabriel's expression as he turned very serious.

"I was always going to come to Sam first," he admitted with the weight of confession. "Dean's easy enough to build a rapport with on the surface, but that's as deep as it goes. For a real bond, it was always going to be Sam." Then, like a light switch being flipped, the smirk was back. "Plus, as volatile as the Dean Machine was last I knew, I'd just as soon wait and see how his psychology is gonna shake out now before I trust him to get all up in my feathers. They need a delicate touch, you know!"

As if a skilled mechanic like Dean would not have a delicate enough touch for an angel's wings. Sam kept that thought silent where it could be ignored by the angels as he rather suspected that it wasn't the capability of Dean's hands to manage delicacy that was in question.

And then the full impact of the implications hit Sam and he found himself clutching at the angels' shoulders to keep himself from falling over or sinking to the floor as his vision tunneled. He vaguely heard what sounded like a yelp from Gabriel around the roaring in his ears as strong arms hurriedly went around him from two directions. The vague awareness he had of that skittering electric Grace grew stronger, enveloping him in buzzing bees and crashing waves.

Is this another dream? Sam wondered, closing his eyes and holding on to Castiel and Gabriel for dear life as he struggled to push past the dizziness and the magnitude threatening to sweep him under. Did I fall asleep and dream you both back to life again and that's why you're here offering me everything I ever could have imagined wanting?

"Breathe, Sam," Castiel's voice rumbled close to his ear, and Sam struggled to obey, to draw in a deep breath that filled his nose with the scents of petrichor and sage and candyfloss thick enough to drown in. "You are awake. I am here. Gabriel is here. We are real. We are alive."

"We love you, kiddo, honest," Gabriel's voice echoed, just a little further away, a whisper of breath against the skin of Sam's throat where his shirt collar opened. "Not a trick or a prank or a goodbye. No obligation, no time constraints, no need to choose between us or anything else dumb and limiting like that."

Sam trembled. Swallowed. "Can I... can I look at you?"

"All you gotta do is open your eyes," Gabriel answered, but there was a note of confusion in his voice, like he couldn't understand why Sam would ask such a thing.

Castiel understood better, if the sharply indrawn breath was anything to go by, and his voice held a note of urgency when he said, "Take it slowly. We are at full strength again and will be considerably brighter than when you last looked upon either of us."

"Oh, sh--" Gabriel cut himself off on the realization as Sam's hold on both angels tightened and he let down his mental walls, all the shields and barriers he had built to try and keep his powers in and other beings out, then gingerly opened his eyes.

Bright was an understatement. Staring directly into the sun would have seemed dim in comparison to the brilliant aurora that filled his vision, a clashing kaleidoscope of colorful energy patterns that swirled and danced together and apart, contained to each separate angelic sphere even as they reached across the barriers to entwine together with each other. Sam squinted into the brightness as he let his eyes adjust physically and metaphysically, the tears gathering in his eyes from seeing and recognizing the way those tendrils of angelic energy were reaching out to him as well, not as an invasion but as a supplication.

They really, truly, honestly wanted him, were practically yearning for him, and yet still they were leaving it up to him to say that they were welcome.

"Sam," the glowing form to his right resonated with the sounds of crashing waves and trumpeting horns. "Sammy, hey, dial it back a notch, kiddo, your eyeballs are starting to smoke."

"Can we not 'dial it back' for him?" came the voice to his left that echoed with tolling church bells and screaming crows amid the hiss of rain. A moment later the harshly glowing figure to his left became softer and less focused and yet somehow more solid. Sam caught the flurry of color from his right before that form, too, became both more condensed and more diffuse at once, easing the strain on his eyes and awareness.

With that lessening of brightness and pressure, Sam became aware of the fact that his eyes burned and his skull was practically splitting open from the pounding headache. Quickly, he began pulling up walls and barriers, one after another, until he could look at Castiel and Gabriel again and see their new, chosen vessels with only the hinted afterimages of their respective halos and the shifting, rustling expanses of full-fledged, whole and healthy wings, Castiel's two leftmost wings brushing and entwined with the three rightmost wings of Gabriel's set, the other five wings reaching out to embrace Sam without actually touching him, a silent and intangible offer of their support and trust.

"Are you sure?" Sam mumbled, then felt like kicking himself. They were angels, a seraph and an Archangel, older than Time! They knew better than he could even begin to imagine what "forever" meant, and yet he still couldn't stop himself from asking. From making sure that they had really thought about this, being bound to him, for eternity.

"Been sure since Ohio, Samaluscious," Gabriel answered with a crooked grin that didn't quite conceal the edge of pain and shadows haunting that humor with the ache of a mystery spot in Broward County, Florida. "Kinda gave up on the possibility for a while there, figured I'd blown my chances sky high. I mean, even your phenomenal capabilities for forgiveness had to have a limit, right?"

"I trust you have learned better since then," Castiel remarked in a dry tone, the feathers of his wings rustling with smugness. "After all, you have not harmed or betrayed Sam or Dean as cruelly and thoroughly as I have had occasion to do, and if Sam can find it in his heart to forgive me..."

"Yeah, well, he loves you," Gabriel huffed, eyes darting away. "Even traumatized and half-comatose, I could feel that. Yeah, you did a lot of shit, but you also stuck around to make up for it. Me, on the other hand..."

"You were deprived of the opportunity to either remain or return to Sam's side," Castiel pointed out with that same delicate bluntness he had used to refer to his and Sam's shared traumas. "We cannot know now what may have happened if you had been afforded the opportunity, not for certain, but you and I both know well the pull of Sam's soul on those willing to see."

"Oh, yeah..." Gabriel all but purred, golden eyes slanting up through darker golden lashes to look at Sam. Sam felt his cheeks heating up with embarrassment at the literally glowing intensity of that gaze, more than aware that the Archangel was taking the opportunity to get his own peep show at what Sam kept beneath the bounds of his physical body, just as Sam had been looking at him and Castiel before. He let him look, figuring it was only fair, and tried not to fidget in discomfort over being so thoroughly seen, every sharp edge and scar and shadow on display, more exposed to his angels' sight than he'd ever felt buck naked.

"Beautiful," Castiel murmured, soft and insistent close to Sam's ear before lightly chapped lips brushed the stubble-roughened line of his jaw in an unmistakable kiss.

"Like looking at kintsugi marble given life and breath to speak its history like a poet to a lover," Gabriel hummed in agreement, leaning in to press his own kiss to the rightmost just of bone at Sam's clavicle, his nose brushing Sam's throat as he swallowed. The Archangel once called the Messenger of God certainly had a way with words! "Don't ever think the damage you've survived makes you less than glorious, Samazing."

"I'll have to work on that," Sam muttered, unwilling to lie to them and say he believed them, not when he knew he didn't, but more than willing to try now that he knew there would be no more divine puppet master pulling his strings to keep him from healing the wounds on his heart and soul. He took another deep breath and let it out slowly. "How do we do this, then?"

"So, I'm not sure what Cassie's plan was gonna be," Gabriel started, and Sam felt more than saw the shift of one golden-edged teal wing nudging up into iridescent rainbow-brushed black, "but assuming you didn't laugh in my face or something at the suggestion I was thinking of taking you out on a date. Nothing fancy or over the top, not this time, just someplace new to explore without the excuse or distraction of a hunt or a fight for your life."

"I, too, had something similar in mind," Castiel admitted. "Perhaps a walk through the woods that surrounds the bunker, investigating some of the terrain we had not yet ventured into the past few years?"

"That sounds nice," Sam agreed, privately thinking that it also sounded safe in case Dean came looking for him and didn't take the note he planned to leave on the table beside his book at face value. He hesitated, biting his lower lip in indecision.

"You can tell him we're alive," Gabriel said with an air of resigned humor. "Neither of us expected you to keep that a secret from him. Just say we came to you because we had a more diplomatic situation going on and we'll be around to catch up with him later when the time crunch is more relaxed."

"Nice and vague and plausible," Sam snorted softly, but smiled. It took a few more long seconds and a stern mental reminder to himself that they wouldn't disappear on him the moment he let go for Sam to unwind his arms from around them and pull away enough to scribble the intended note on a clean sheet of notebook paper. Making sure that the notebook was positioned nicely visible on the table with the edge of his book pinning down the loose edge of the paper just enough to keep it from flipping over without obscuring it, Sam straightened up and turned back to the angels - his angels, soon, and potentially more - and reached out his hands to them, smiling a little helplessly when they both immediately reached back to clasp his hands in theirs. "So, going on a walk in the woods outside isn't far, but if you'd rather fly us out there..."

"You don't mind?" Gabriel's eyebrows went up.

"Eleven years I've been around Cas, and known you for longer," Sam reminded him. "I never had the same... difficulty with angel flight that Dean does, and even humans have a thing about when a limb that was broken is finally healed and useable again we can't help but want to use it a lot."

"Fair enough," Gabriel nodded, then looked at Castiel. "You lead. Since you suggested the woods, I bet you know just where to start."

"I promise not to drop you," Castiel deadpanned, smirking when Gabriel actually groaned.

"This is the thanks I get for restoring your memories," he lamented, shaking his head theatrically to Sam's amusement. Then he smirked, stepping closer to Sam's side. "I'll just hold on nice and tight to Sammykins here, since I know you won't dare drop him in a frozen ravine."

"Of course not," Castiel said in an affronted tone as he settled himself against Sam's side in mirror to Gabriel. "It's summer, after all."

A strong beat of dark wings, a twist of celestial energy, and the three of them disappeared from the library, leaving only the echo of Sam's laughter to mark their presence.

-End-

#rk writes #supernatural fic #sastiel #sabriel #casabriel #sam winchester #castiel #gabriel #wings #angelic true forms

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synesindri · 1 year ago

Text

lucifer gender symbolism essay part 1: mostly non-spn background, context, & caveats

masterpost

this section is about historical non-spn representations of lucifer as a feminine/female figure, and associations between lucifer/satan/etc and female and feminine entities. my purpose in this section is to connect lucifer supernatural to a bigger cultural phenomenon to give some context to the rest of the more spn-centric parts.

the devil presenting femininely is part of a cultural tradition that i expect kripke, various supernatural writers, and others involved in the making of supernatural were at least partially aware of. there are enough nods in supernatural canon to theology, mythology, and pop culture about the devil that it seems reasonable to suppose that the devil appearing with a variety of gender presentations was not a totally unfamiliar concept to the show’s creators, and might be deliberate seasoning stirred into the character we ended up getting.

part i: historical fem!lucifer part ii: lucifer as a cultural figure and gender norm breaking part iii: some of lucifer supernatural's various other political parallels

HISTORICAL FEM!LUCIFER

whether or not biblical angels have sexes or genders such that using gendered language to describe them even makes sense is a whole topic, but anyway. a lot of the early history of the figure of satan/the devil/the antagonist/etc is as a male figure, or at least written about using masculine terms. i’m going to take the male representations as a given and not go into all that here. i'm focusing on the other ones.

let's start with names. specifically, “lucifer” and “the morning star” (both in relation to the figure we know as the devil and not)

the roman goddess diana is sometimes known as “diana lucifera.” i’m just pulling from cicero’s discussion of that via wikipedia but here:

... people regard Diana and the moon as one and the same. ... the moon (luna) is so called from the verb to shine (lucere). Lucina is identified with it, which is why in our country they invoke Juno Lucina in childbirth, just as the Greeks call on Diana the Light-bearer. Diana also has the name Omnivaga ("wandering everywhere"), not because of her hunting but because she is numbered as one of the seven planets; her name Diana derives from the fact that she turns darkness into daylight (dies).

so, this isn’t about biblical lucifer, but still, the name has connections to a goddess here, and specifically in the context of childbirth (a traditionally gendered process).

the morning star is venus, a planet associated with one of the major roman goddesses, venus, whose femininity is important. this is kind of a circuitous connection; to the best of my knowledge, the reason for the connection between the devil figure and the morning star stems from the planet’s trajectory through the sky-as-seen-from-earth, that makes it look like it is falling from highest heaven downward, which is relevant symbolism. afaik, though, lucifer’s connection to that planet has nothing explicitly to do with any other goddess’s/god’s/other figure’s connection with it, so this is kind of a mood point. nonetheless, the two are connected now, even if they weren’t at origin. this planet is also associated with the goddess inanna/ishtar, as well as various other religious and mythological male figures.

so, there's that. now for representations of the devil as such ~

the reason i personally hopped onto the fem!lucifer train originally was lucifera, the representative of pride in edmund spenser’s the faerie queene, which i read the semester in college before i first watched spn! so that was a fun convergence, and made me especially excited when spn lucifer was played by women in their first three appearances. here’s part of a description of lucifera:

And proud Lucifera men did her call, That made her selfe a Queene, and crownd to be

this isn’t much, but it establishes her as a regal bitch immediately. she’s an interesting fixture i think, and afaik one of the earliest depictions of the biblical figure of lucifer as a feminine figure.

a lot of medieval paintings of genesis 3 depict the serpent as a kind of naga, with a long snake body and a woman’s face and torso. the serpent from genesis isn’t necessarily the devil, but because a lot of lore connects the two, including supernatural itself, that seems like as much fair game to mention here as most of the rest of this. medieval and renaissance depictions of figures that are more explicitly the devil are often sexually ambiguous, sometimes with breasts and a beard and a mouth instead of genitalia, among other interesting setups.

satan appears in female forms in a lot of folklore. this usually seems more instrumental than anything — as in, satan appears as a hot woman to seduce some guy to evil — but honestly, who’s to say if she just likes being a girl sometimes. regardless of the reason, this creates a cultural image of the devil as gender-shifting. lucifer spn appearing as sarah to nick and jess to sam etc is a good example of this trope.

there have been various other more recent pop culture depictions of satan/lucifer/the devil as a feminine figure, an androgynous figure, or as a woman specifically, some of which are outlined here. others are presented in per faxneld’s article “woman and the devil: some recurring motifs,” which i can’t link because it’s behind an academia paywall but i recommend it if you can get a hold of it.

probably there are more examples, but i feel like this is enough of a survey to prove my point that historical depictions of lucifer/satan/the morning star/whatever you want to call this figure are not exclusively male and masculine.

tl;dr: lucifer the mythological figure and the appellations lucifer/the morning star are not uniquely masculine, and they have long histories of genderweirdness. depicting the devil as a feminine, female, androgynous, or ungendered figure is part of an established cultural tradition. imo, picking up evidence that lucifer supernatural is being represented as a feminine figure is not a reach.

LUCIFER AND GENDER NORM BREAKING

cw for discussion of irl sexism in religious doctrine (and some mentions of homophobic and transphobic sentiment with religious underpinnings) through much of this section.

so, ok. the intricacies of scriptural feminism are wayyy beyond what i am adequately educated on to speak about in depth. i’m also much more familiar with christianity than other religions, so i will mostly be speaking to that unfortunately. but. i gotta talk about it a little, because it’s important culturally as background for why fem!lucifer is an established trope.

an example of someone who knows more than me writing about this, as a jumping off point:

Phrasings like ‘Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord’ (Eph. 5:22), and the ways in which they have been used to serve patriarchal ends, make it easy to see why some feminists would later view God as the protector of patriarchy (and, occasionally, Satan as an ally in the fight against it).

— Woman and the Devil: Some Recurring Motifs (Per Faxneld)

this is basically the foundation for a lot of this. god the father is the patriarch, who demands subjugation from men to him, and from women to both him and to men. satan, god's antagonist, might plausibly want the opposite of that.

in john milton’s paradise lost, satan as the serpent certainly uses an anti-patriarchal angle when trying to tempt eve to eat the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, telling her that there is no reason she should be lesser than adam, or even lesser than god, that eve is smart and impressive already, that god can’t really be all that great if he is jealous enough of his creations to deny them their full potential — and so she should eat the fruit for the sake of knowledge, and of power. this obviously doesn’t go well; milton did not intend this to make eve or satan seem admirable at the time. but idk, i’m not a 17th century protestant. imo what satan as offering was pretty sweet; i don't feel like there's much wrong with it. i got got by milton's trap lol. satan’s motives were rotten in PL, but even so, he kind of identified with eve at the same time as trying to get her to fall: he was basically luring her down the same path he took that led to his own fall. his temptation worked because he and the first woman had a lot in common. while his intentions were bad, the emotions behind them put him and eve in parallel to each other. regardless of whether this was a good or bad thing, it does position satan as someone who gasses up and identifies with Thee woman in PL.

the supernatural lore on temptation and the garden interesting in this context as well. i can only speak to season 5, but within kripke era, lucifer is described as having tempted lilith, not eve — but that is a relevant tie-in as well. lilith is a figure who refused to be subservient to man also, of her own accord, so to connect that to lucifer and temptation aligns lucifer once again with an anti-patriarchal stance. i will also stress that throughout s4-5 the description of the interactions between lucifer and lilith are of temptation, not torture, which parallels the eve story.

(certainly these temptations can be looked at as being anti-feminist as well. personally i'm more into inspecting the parallels between satan and eve or lucifer and lilith (and doing that is the most on-topic direction for the argument i'm trying to make here), but there are a lot of other good frames for analysis of these dynamics as well. just acknowledging that this, like everything else about this character, is slippery.)

lots of disliked and norm-breaking women — and gnc people, and genderqueer people, and trans people — have been described as devilish or of the devil or as worshipping the devil subsequently to demonize them. you can probably think of at least a handful of examples. in a very simplified way, to people who are on board with biblical patriarchy, anyone who isn't is bad news. who else is bad news? the devil. match made in hell.

obviously all of this is super misogynistic and part of a long tradition of religious vilification of women. “women are inferior because eve succumbed to the devil; women are the reason humanity exists in a fallen state,’ etc. my let's-complicate-satan agenda does not extend to trying to minimize the harm that has been done by associating some groups with the devil. the devil is, almost all the time, just a different way of calling someone or something fundamentally evil, and it is not good to go around aligning marginalized people with that figure who do not want to be associated with it. that is something that has happened a lot, to a lot of people’s detriment, and it has been used for a lot of human rights violations — which is relevant here, for better or for worse.

"for better" because sometimes, people decide that if they're going to be called evil anyway, they might as well embrace the devil, and turn him into a symbol to rally behind. and the devil is a pretty badass symbol, all things considered. people are scared of him — of her — and having people fear you and your allies can be a lot better than being subjugated.

again, you can probably think of examples of this. a lot of people lean into witch stuff even without being practitioners of witchcraft specifically for feminist or gender-subversion reasons. same sometimes goes for succubi and other demonic entities. lil nas x’s “montero” made ample use of edenic and demonic imagery (including that fucking fabulous fall from grace via pole) to represent queerness. lots of people in the supernatural fandom have Feelings for meg and ruby and other demons who are ostensibly female characters with significant roles on a show mostly about men, etc. there are also examples of satan being good for women in gothic literature, some uses of satan as a subversive rhetorical device for lesbian causes, etc (i’m referencing in passing various things from per faxneld’s book “Satanic Feminism: Lucifer as the Liberator of Woman in Nineteenth-Century Culture” for these last). satanism and luciferianism aren’t necessarily concerned with worshiping satan/lucifer, but they do use the names of that figure for their ideologies, which also aren’t necessarily explicitly feminist but do place a pretty heavy emphasis on free thought, self-empowerment, subversion of tradition, and liberation.

tl;dr: the devil has a history of being used to vilify and empower subversive individuals and cultural movements, including feminist and queer ones. as in the previous section, imo this makes interpreting lucifer supernatural’s gendered portrayal as feminine and/or genderweird part of a well-established, morally complicated cultural tradition.

an opinion: in stories where the devil is a (failed) rebel, i think it’s really compelling to give the devil figure characteristics that put them in opposition with the reigning power. there’s something about the devil being a mirror for god as well, of course, but it speaks to at least some versions of The Disenfranchised Experience to have lucifer be Different in a pivotal way. someone who wanted equality/freedom/whatever, but was denied it, and was therefore unendingly punished, but never lost their pride…it isn’t necessarily empowering; lucifer's revolutionary story can be a cautionary one (e.g. “this is what happens if you lean into the bad things people assume about you and let yourself become overcome by hate”), but it’s…idk it’s something. it’s interesting, at the very least. the villain era phenomenon speaks to it; the buttress’s song “brutus” that was circulating on everyone’s spotify discover weekly a few years ago speaks to it…it’s gripping. it’s a relatable antihero or villain story to many, i think.

(a few people in the tags of this post about satan in paradise lost, which makes no mention of gender or sexism, assumed that the post was about reacting to sexism and/or cissexism, which i thought was interesting and relevant also lol)

SOME OF LUCIFER SUPERNATURAL’S VARIOUS OTHER POLITICAL PARALLELS

[cw for mentions of fascism and other violent ideologies]

i want to be super clear that My Agenda here is not to use gender to try to make lucifer seem like a better or worse character, morally or in quality. imo whether lucifer reads as more feminine or more masculine or both or neither is morally neutral. beyond that, i fully recognize that supernatural’s lucifer is represented in ways that align him with a range of political metaphors, both reprehensible and sympathetic, that are difficult to disentangle from each other. if i’m going to talk about the character’s implied alignment with subversive movements and marginalized groups, i would feel remiss not to acknowledge that kripke’s lucifer is also explicitly an ecoterrorist — an ecofascist, even. in many ways, this character is written to mirror the way Some People feel that they are entitled to shape the world to their own liking, disregarding human life at their own whim. it’s not for nothing that the actor who plays the most recognizable version of lucifer on spn is a blonde white man; there’s symbolism there that must have been more important to the show’s creators than alternative directions they could have gone with casting purely on the basis of demographics/appearance, and that makes sense. i understand why people would compare supernatural’s lucifer to the boys’ homelander, for example; i’ve written meta about the parallels between them myself. i think the comparison is apt in many ways.

however, while homelander is a specific villain tied to specific current political and cultural issues, lucifer is more abstract than that, and as such is harder to fit into specific contemporary human ideologies. any version of lucifer/satan/the devil/whatever fits into a HUGE mythology, and when you write a sympathetic devil character — especially one deliberately and explicitly inspired by sympathetic devils of the past — you are inevitably ringing the same bells other sympathetic devil characters have rung before. and supernatural did not shy away from connecting its version of lucifer to that mythology! kripke’s lucifer is, paradoxically, a lot harder to pigeonhole as Bad through a contemporary lens than homelander is because lucifer is part of a myth that touches a huge number of times and cultures, rather than a direct commentary on and product of a particular modern american context.

the “taking the lives of others i deem unworthy” perspective is bad, but it’s also what hunters do, at a different scale. supernatural from the start has been a show that features situations designed to question the ethics of its protagonists as well as its villains, and lucifer is one of THE examples of that. pretty impossible to build a lucifer based on milton’s satan and not have him come across at least partially as a rebel against injustice (even if he has gone rotten in the process) and everything else that milton’s devil was. hard to do the devil-as-a-woman trope and not make her part of that tradition along with all it entails, misogynist and feminist alike. lucifer spn doesn’t fit tidily into political or identity boxes because he’s written to be harder to categorize than that — that’s part of the horror, and it’s part of what makes the heavy-handed connections to sam (and dean) all the more unsettling.

with all of that said

let’s get into lucifer’s genderweirdness on supernatural ~

part 2: gender in supernatural masterpost

#spnluciferweek #lucifer #spn #spn thots #meta

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