#spnwin 1x01

[spnwin-reader]

Sam would be odd man out on snacks even had his parents survived:

JOHN: Licorice drops? Nice choice.

Woe to Sam, continually and perpetually outnumbered, even when Jack joins the family. Hell, even when he eats, Cas like pork rinds and crap food.

Who will eat terrible rabbit-food alongside Sam? No one.

(Maybe Henry?)

SPNwin 1x01, SPN 7x10

[mad-as-a-box-of-frogs]

I brewed a potion to tap into my subconscious so I could access the echo of any remaining portion of the demon that possessed me.

Ada Monroe in The Winchesters Pilot and Teach Your Children Well (1x01 and 1x02): Best of SPN WIN Gals and Nonbinary Pals [9 / ?]

[minalblood]

Rewatching the Winchesters now that it's on HBO Max and I can at any time instead of 3 am and god the pilot is chaotic but in the best way now that I already love all the characters.

And more than that, I can actually enjoy John this time around since I can watch it without having SPN!John in my head. Still will rub me the wrong way when he says hypocritical shit that SPN!John has done, but it's sooo much easier to genuinely give him the space to be aka grow as a character without the constraints of who he would've become. And yea, he very much is still completely recognizable as the John we knew, like to the point that I believe him to be way more likely to become JDM!John than Matt's John (but we did spend very little with him tbh). But he still has time to figure his shit out and is willing to do it. Ughh, cant wait to rewatch this.

Same thing with Mary tbh, having her basically have to be honest about herself and having all this hope for a future where she can be happy and not have to keep hunting til she dies, and knowing that she doesn't have to become(and won't I think) SPN!Mary means I can see her talk about all of these things without wanting to cry. And yea, I can def see SPN!Mary in her clearly, the trying to stay detached due to her grief, the hardened hunter, the taking the initiative and not taking no for an answer whether that's good or back. But she hasn't yet lived through one death and the loss of her whole life so she can still hold onto her dreams and try to achieve them.

Now Lata and Carlos on the other hand tho were always fun. But knowing them already mean I can enjoy all the minute work that builds their chracters even from the get go and also made me realize just how much they also grow throughout the season. Still my faves tho. Like Carlos' entrence is another spn iconic entrence tbh. And also also just... the sheer disaster that Carlos is in the Pilot speaks to me personally. And Lata instantly endears me to her, she's sassy from the get go, but more reserved in the Pilot. U can see the strength and and courage and ... just potential these two have cuz it's all already therw, but it's being held back in the Pilot, they don't yet have a support system aka Carlos is in a lone wolf vibe where they cant afford to let people close and Lata just lost hers not too long ago and with Maggie, she also kinda lost and is losing Mary.

I genuinely forgot Millie's intro was pretty harsh initially. Like I knew ep 2 has the monster turning into her for a reason, but I forgot how much she reminded me of SPN!John (when he was around that is) that I had a double take. It was the passive agressive comment to John followed by soothing it with a hug and a smile thay just genuinely threw me a bit with how much of SPN!John is in her aka how much he clearly learned from her (his parenting style) which obv makes sense but damn.

There might not be too much Ada in the Pilot, but the little we do get tho and where she ends up (with Rowena ackowledging her power and herself believing in her own magic and just herself) from where we see her here with a book store and trying to lay low is phenomenal. And we have hints here of who she is, and who she grows into when she talks to John about Henry, but like with all of them its hints.

Anyways, I love this show and the Pilot is pretty chaotic but not as energizer bunny/break neck speed as I remembered, but still way faster than the rest of the show. But it does such a good job setting everyone up, both for us to understand who they are now and for us to have a jumping point to see where they end up.

And to close it, fuck is it still the best thing in the world to have Dean on the screen again. Ughh, hits just as bad this time as the 1st time. Also also, this joy really be checking the Samulet there so that Jack doesn't get close, like he really be out here on his own, fucking theripizing himself with journaling and vibing by himself in his usual hunters outfit when not being percieved and then the fashionista in him when in a crowded bus stop was like "Imma be as extra as I can be" just because he could and honestly, good for him. He's always found time for a nice outfit change when oportunity presented itself.

Long story short, I'll be writing down my thoughts this run through as they come with the episodes.

[clairedelune-13]

Going back to rewatch The Winchesters pilot is really interesting. Especially the start, where we see Mary walking out of a theater showing of Slaughterhouse 5.

According to Dean in Season 12, Mary watched it and loved it.

But Au!Mary was just getting her snacks for a stakeout. I actually prefer it cuz Mary commenting “Book was better” is totally something I would do. 😂

[castielscarma]

Just a quick thought about 1x01 and 1x02 of the Winchesters. I don't really know what's going on still lol except some Akrida monsters wanting to destroy everything and our beloved Dean is narrating as we see young Mary and John. But something is off... I mean... I see all the parallels with Dean. Like, that monster in episode 2 ( >.> I need to google her name again) is imo basically a mirror for John and Dean's lived experience with him when Dean himself was a kid. And we get the background with John and how he was in Vietnam and that he has stuff that he's going through, and how that affects him still now. But he's much more.... adjusted and more mellow than I pictured him to be lol. I also note all the people <3 (I love Latika, Carlos) that surround Mary and John. It seems that the hunter community is much more.... a community than in Supernatural. We know that, it's pointed out in Supernatural too, and that Dean and Sam's stance and life is kind of an anomaly, (at least in regards to the community aspect), probably due to John keeping them out. And to know that John does that, when he so far in the Winchesters has used that community and really found family for help, and strength and purpose is... bad. So... I'm still kind of narrowing my eyes at John and how he acts. Honestly, the best thing I could explain it as is that sometimes I get an AU feeling (not in the sense that, oh Jensen fucked up and doesn't know the Spn Universe, he does) but that these are not quite the same Mary and John we know from Dean's and Sam's supernatural world.

[spnwingifs]

DEAN KEEPS PICKING THE MUSIC (2/7) Music Playlist (2/2)

The Winchesters - S01E07 // Supernatural - S01E13/S09E23

[hotel-casifornia]

something that drives me crazy is that in the winchesters at the end of the pilot dean says hes picking the music and a song that was iN THE SAME EPISODE was Walkin’ After Midnight by Patsy Cline and well 1) dean listens to patsy cline in this day and age? gay but 2) this song is literally about a lover who goes out walking at night because shes missing her lover and walking reminds her of him and hes presumably away from her and she is walking and hopinG SHE WILL FIND HIM

crazy thing about this song is that this played as mary was walking away from john right after they fought a demon and THEN . AS a demon possessed Ada. its fitting in that if youre looking at the songs meaning to be the singer is searching for someone who is away from them its a perfect parallel for how mary and john are both looking for their fathers but also theres this weird foreshadowing about how john after marys death was so hellbent on finding her killer and theres something sour in that song playing when shes walking away from him after they met for The Second Time Ever when you know theyre gonna fall in love

but also my take on how this ties into dean is that he picks the music and he picked this song for a reason and not just because it fit for john and mary . i like to think its because he listened to it and related to it in that he might still be searching for cas post 15x18

this could entirely be me trying desperately for destiel crumbs but ive learned its fine to be unhinged and desperate when it comes to supernatural so

[rennerator]

They are SO CUTE!!!! :D I LOVE THEM!!!! :) Thank YOU SO MUCH for this!!!! You are WONDERFUL!!!! <3

THE WINCHESTERS 1.01 | 1.07

[happilyfeatherafter]

A compilation of Dean's voiceovers from The Winchesters, now in audio so you can listen along to my transcript post

(This is minus his final episode scene as that would have made it much much longer than 6 and a half minutes!)

[shirtlesssammy]

The Winchesters 1x01 // Pilot

[postmodernmulticoloredcloak]

The thing that really gets me? Is that, when you’re watching The Winchesters, you know that it looks and feels like Supernatural would look and feel if Jensen Ackles made it (because it is). And i love it! It’s warm and a mixture of gritty and mystical and lights have a slightly otherwordly glow to them (the glow of unreality and death, with its dream-like quality) and there’s an almost Tolkien-like quality to these abandoned bunkers and objects curated by people who don’t exist anymore and whom anyone hardly remembers, like an ancient civilization that knew how to keep evil at bay but whose memory has almost entirely been lost (the world has changed...). Information is found and shared on paper. It almost feels like the choice of subject, with its 70s setting, is almost an excuse to get rid of screens and online search engines and give Supernatural a vintage feel back, that Americana fairytale flavor it always wanted to have.

And now that I’m typing this out, I’m fully processing that the show is shot as a tale. The story of Mary, John and the others is not simply ‘happening’ in front of the audience’s eyes, it is being told, and it is shot as such! The warmth, the glow, the story-like feeling are there because that’s how the story is being told.

And now I’m having thoughts that inhabit that area between the accident and the purpose of Supernatural’s making. Because as Supernatural progressed, the visual quality of it became colder, brighter, sharper. Information was on the internet, shared on smartphones, with little romanticism left to the whole process. Of course this was due to out-story reasons, but it works in-story too. The story was being told by Chuck in an increasingly controlling, claustrophobic way. And the way it felt lost gentleness, lost charm.

And now Dean is narrating, and suddenly the visuals are very Dean. Soft, warm, intimate. Vietnam looks like Purgatory. The characters look beautiful and graceful. There’s a loving quality to the whole thing. Out-story, it’s Jensen’s love for the show, and the love for the show of all the other people involved in this. The care and respect they have for the show. In-story, it’s Dean’s love for what he’s talking about, his care and respect for the subjects of his story.

It’s only been one episode but I’m already in love with this show.

[spnwin-reader]

Loss in common:

Enter Millie, The Prickly-but-Hopeful Fixer

[We note that, even after all this time, Millie's building carries the MoL Aquarian star of protection, and it's still Winchester Garage, not...whatever-her-maiden-name is.]

When we first meet Millie, she's bitter. As the one who "kept the lantern on," "the one who stayed," she's hurt and defensive, a lot like how Dean grows to be in latter seasons of SPN.

(Even post-demonicity, Dean is still expected to be the soft place to fall for everyone. Even after Jack kills Mary, Cas has this expectation of Dean's soft-heartedness: "it's possible he could work through this. One day, he may explode and let it all out and breathe deeply and move on.")

Anyway, Millie!

Her reunion with John is part passive-aggressive but loving. We see that Millie, like Dean, has intense abandonment trauma. She speaks abrasively-but-affectionately. She calls John "Kid, Kiddo, etc." which was a go-to with Dean for both Claire Novak and Jack Kline.

JOHN: Love what you've done with the place. MILLIE (passive-aggressive): Well, my husband and son walked out on me, so. It's the best I could do. (growing emotional) Dammit. Welcome home, Kiddo.

Gruff, abrasive, imperfect? Maybe. But full of love.

Alt John and Millie are united by the common loss of Henry, just as Prime John, Sam, and Dean were united by the common loss of Mary.

John thinks Henry walked out on them, but I think Millie is likely more complex. With her tacit knowledge of the Men of Letters, I think it's reasonable that she at least suspects that he might be dead.

What does that tell us about her? It tells us that the loss of Henry was unbelievably painful--it's probably easier for her to consider he left than the very likely truth: his demise.

She's a fixer. That's what she does.

She holds out hopeless hope.

JOHN: I'm fine, Mom. MILLIE: The Hell you are. You've been chasing your dad since he walked out that door. I know that's why you enlisted. But it is time to let the past go, kiddo.

But Millie isn't healed either. She hasn't let the past go, even as she pursues her dream of being a mechanic and owning a garage (like her father). Letting the past go hasn't helped her heal.

In fact, carrying on hunting and the MoL business is what seems to soothe her loss, giving her new meaning and purpose. Millie and John's push-pull dynamic with hunting is much like how it was with Ellen and Jo Harvelle.

///

But overall, we see what Henry's absence wrought. It's just as Henry feared in SPN Prime (9x17 Mother's Little Helper):

HENRY: Therein lies the problem. As our initiation grows closer, I... I worry that this might be a selfish endeavor on my part. JOSIE: Selfish. How? HENRY: If anything were to happen to me, what of John? Millie? JOSIE: They'd be proud to know that you answered the call. HENRY: No. My wife would be a widow, and my son fatherless. I don't expect you to understand. You don't have a fam--[he pauses] I'm sorry, Josie. I didn't mean it that way. JOSIE: I know, Henry. You're a good man. Millie is lucky to have you.

This directly parallels Cas and his allegiance to his work, Heaven, (Heaven is a truck, and Cas is a truck-driver; Dean thinks he's Josie when he's actually Millie).

It also beings to mind the visual of ("little John") Jack's entrance as he wanders around muttering, "Father. Fa-ther. Father. I need to find him. Castiel. He was supposed to be here," while looking for his long-expected, lost father in 13x01 Lost and Found.

But it's also an off-key parallel to prime John, who would become as Millie was, a bereft widower in the cold, floundering and ill-equipped to handle the dangers of the supernatural world.

///

Enter Mary, Action Hero

(Note: Mary's got a short range, so I love how she uses speed to her advantage to get larger targets off-balance.)

///

And importantly, John...is NOT allowed to look cool. It's a RULE. He's a dorky...little...guy.

Mary knocks the demon into a blessed holy water vat, a call-forward to something prime John will do in SPNprime 01x21 Salvation.

//

When Alt John and Alt Mary meet:

Mary's father has been absent (missing) from her life for a short time, and John's father Henry has been absent for most of his life, just as when Dean and Cas meet, theirs too is a tale of missing fathers. Cas's father was absent for all of his life, and Dean's flaky dad has been gone for a (relatively) short time. It also very obviously parallels Sam and Dean searching for their missing father.

When they break inside the Men of Letters clubhouse, Mary keys into John's emotions about his father. This reminds me of of the first time Dean keyed in really hard to Cas's emotions in 5x16.

///

JOHN: How do you cope with it all? MARY (wryly, jokingly): I'll let you know when I find out. (SPNwin 1x01)

//

DEAN: Yeah, I get it. I know how you feel. CASTIEL: How do you manage it? DEAN (wryly, jokingly): On a good day, you get to kill [The Whore of Babylon]. (SPN 5x17)

///

Recent losses of friends & family:

Additionally, Mary and John have both suffered recent losses. Mary lost her narrative twin Maggie, and John lost his comrade Murph to war.

[Mary's cousin went to Hell, just as Sam's brother went to Hell in season in vintage and mid-SPN.] Mary's hunting family was torn asunder, parents separating.

And John? WIth war, John signed up to fill a void left by his father, to find meaning in life.

We can even recall Dean's words to Gordon in 2x03 Bloodlust, how Dean struggled with the idea of "The Invincible Dad" and how his death made the word more terrifying, how it left a wound of depression inside of him that he sought to fill with meaning through work:

DEAN: Yeah. Yeah, you know. He was just one of those guys. Took some terrible beatings, just kept coming. So you're always thinking to yourself, he's indestructible. He'll always be around, nothing can kill my dad. Then just like that (snaps) he's gone. I can't talk about this to Sammy. You know, I gotta keep my game face on. (clears throat) But, uh, the truth is I'm not handling it very well. Feel like I have this - GORDON: Hole inside you? And it just gets bigger and bigger and darker and darker? Good. You can use it. Keeps you hungry. Trust me. There's plenty out there needs killing, and this'll help you do it. Dean, it's not a crime to need your job.

Dean lost his dad, and Gordon lost his sister. This emptiness is depression. John lost his dad and suffered that loss all his life. He signed up to the war for the GLORY OF PURPOSE. He didn't sign up to the war for more pain and grief, but that's exactly what he got.

What's the thing Dean can't fill up, not with booze or love or even sex? It's grief and pain. It can only be filled with love, which is what Cas's confession narratively does in 15x18.

It's also what Mary's love and the love of the Core 4 will eventually do for John.

///

SPN Prime season 8 side-parallel: Connections of recent grief ALSO calls to mind season 8, how Sam connected with Amelia when they had both suffered a loss, Sam lost his narrative twin to Purgatory and Amelia lost her husband to war.

Theirs was a fast-paced reactionary relationship born of grief, something that pinged and annoyed Amelia's father, leading him to be very passive-aggressive with Sam. (Her father was a dick, but he's both a soldier himself and does know her best and probably has her best interests in mind. He recognized that was Amelia mid-freakout, OOC. He pings that her out-of-characterness is a weird reaction to grief).

He was right to be concerned about the shallowness and stability of it. These types of reactionary relationships are well-known: they can be very shaky, melodramatic, idealized, and weak when stress-tested.

Sam (and vintage Dean) both have this tendency to be all-in or all-out when it comes to The Cause. Neither strike a balance very easily. They tend to either be ALL IN for the Perfect War with Perfect War Companions at Your Side...or rushing into something tenuous that represents a weak idea that winds up unsatisfying because it's not genuine: Perfect White Picket Fence or Howling-at-the-Moon Dishibitory Party Life.

In SPNwin, John is doing a lot of running, too. He rushes into the thing with Betty (weak and tenuous), then he rushes into war, he rushes into hunting, and he runs into the relationship with Mary.

This theme of Running into Danger / Running From Danger persists. John certainly struggles with it, BUT in a departure from his past behavior, this new thing with Mary gets a lot of stress-testing, eventually moving from limerence into turbulence, power struggle, and de-idealization. (SPNwin 1x12, The Tears of a Clown)

///

SO.

Mary and her ragtag gang of friends embark on a journey to look for the missing Samuel Campbell the way Sam and Dean look for the errant John Winchester, the way the Banes twins look for their mother Tasha Banes in Twigs, Twine, & Tasha Bane.

Certainly the core 4 are all "running scared" and clinging to one another, having all lost loved ones in a variety of ways. They are united in empathy over their respective losses:

John (dad, comrades)

Mary (narrative sibling, missing dad, splintered family and parental separation)

Carlos (whole family killed by a monster)

Lata (no-contact with her family because they allowed her beloved nanny to die; nonsensical/cruel hierarchy of human society)

Ada (husband lost to madness, son potentially a puppy-destined-to-be-wolf)

And finally we get Henry's letter:

If you're reading this, then I'm gone. I'm sorry I kept the truth from you, John. There's a dangerous world out there, and our family has fought that danger for centuries. The answers to all your questions are at the address below. I love you and your mother. Always.

I think this idea of Henry Winchester as a secret-keeper, and as Mary-prime as a secret-keeper fed into what we know about John-prime turned into: a neuroses of paranoia and over-preparedness.

But thanks to Dean, Alt John has some new tools to work through this: knowledge. Even his anger is useful, openly telling his mother how disappointed and betrayed he feels over being kept in the dark. For her part, she gives him her emotional truth: that she only wanted to protect him.

It's the first healing step for both of them.

[mad-as-a-box-of-frogs]

John: Well, what do you wanna do with the rest of your life, then?

Mary: I don't know. I just wanna live long enough to find out.

Mary Campbell in The Winchesters Pilot (1x01): Best of SPNWIN Gals and Nonbinary Pals [1/?]

[darkmisstressofunknown]

“The only thing worse than how it starts for a hunter is how it ends…”

[fallenandthefaithless]

I am having thoughts about the final fight scene and how everyone was split up. John is left in the underground well where it is darker than above and he kills the monster. @wigglebox mentioned in their nycc write up that John took to killing the monster very easily. Up above on the otherhand you have Mary, Carlos and Lata work as a team to exorcise the demon out of Ada and save her life.

There's something about John descending to a lonesome fight after Mary left as opposed to the teamwork happening above him. Also he is linked to killing whereas the others are saving someone. I'm not quite sure what to make of this except for foreshadowing of where John ends up in SPN but it would not leave my mind.

[castielscarma]

So I finally watched the first episode of the Winchesters

And I liked it. I liked it a lot.

I haven't been on here much nor on Twitter in forever because of reasons (writing do I even know her) so I haven't really been spoiled on... anything lol besides the insane notion that Jensen got rights and wanted to do a prequel like two seconds after the finale ended, so when I finally decided to watch it... I liked it. I wasn't really that surprised that I would like it... Jensen is in the seat and he loves Dean so much, and with Robbie being involved. I had more hope than doubt.

How I missed Dean's voice when I heard his narration. He will never leave me and it was so thrilling to hear it in a "new" context. Dean's never looked better. Meg, I already love her as Mary. She definitely captured Mary's spunk. And I love how Mary is just spilling things lol to John after they meet in the cemetery. A nice contrast to how Dean and Sam didn't. I like how they make John nuanced (I mean he is and although I really don't like John as a character at all in Spn) he is just that. I don't doubt that he thinks he loves his children but he has got serious issues and was abusive. You can still claim to love your children and hurt them. And 90% of Spn was related to daddy issues ; ) But it's refreshing to see a nice side to John, a more softer and vulnerable side. Ofc he has been affected by his time in Vietnam but he is still young and hopeful.

John as they enter the MoL crypt: Paranormal freemasons. xD Sure are, John.

All the references to Dean and Supernatural <3 just makes my heart happy.

As they are sitting in the car and John has a flashback to Vietnam and watching his friend die. "No ghosts in the car", Mary says yet John is haunted by the ghosts of his past. And isn't that a thread that will keep being interwoven in the trauma tapestry that will be Dean and Sam's life. Lmao, I dk who Carlos is but I love him. He just showed up and killed it xD I was captivated as soon as he entered the screen. And he's bi! Bless.

When John asks what she wants to do with her life. Mary: Idk, I just wanna live long enough to find out. Ouch.

John's mom wanted to protect him and do anything for him when he was born and said to John one day when you have kids you'll understand. Already there is so much about missing fathers, John wondering where his dad is, and Mary thinking about Samuel and children searching for answers. Saving people hunting things.... Things are the same, things are the same, repeated and cyclical but not. A spiral that expands. I also hope that the imagery of Dean writing in the journal and narrating this story (in a sense his story) has wider implications. As a Chuck won truther and Heaven denier I really hope so. But time will tell. Onwards to episode 2!