#the winchester gospel

[incesthemes]

something i keep thinking about is who mary is to sam. she didn't raise him; he doesn't know her except through the stories john and dean told him. she exists in pictures and print, not in memories. she's a stranger to him, yet his entire life has revolved around her. he seeks revenge for a woman he's never met or known or loved. she's just a secondhand god to a nonbeliever, omnipresent but never actually there, never actually touched or held or shared. he's outside the church looking in on the mass but never able to partake. it must be alienating, for your family to have known god while you're left only to your own faith.

[spnyouresostupid]

Winchester gospel, the inspired word of God Chuck

Suptober 23 day 3 part 2 - Inspired

[youchangedmedestiel]

Chapters: 1/1

Fandom: Supernatural (TV 2005)

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences 

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply 

Words: 5,542

Characters: Dean Winchester, Sam Winchester, Becky Rosen (mentioned), Original Characters, Original Female Character(s) 

Additional Tags: Post-Episode: s05e09 The Real Ghostbusters (Supernatural), Canon Compliant, Case Fic, The Winchester Gospels (Supernatural), Canon-Typical Violence, Dean Winchester meets a dean girl, Apparently this tag doesn't exist yet, this is my declaration of love to dean, Dean Winchester Deserves to be Happy, Dean Winchester Deserves Nice Things, Dean Winchester Deserves Better

Summary:

Becky got Dean’s phone number from Chuck and gave it to a friend of her, because she didn’t believe her that the Winchester brothers were real and that they might help her. This friend calls Dean and asks them to come and hunt a vampire that kills people in her town. The brothers can’t let people die, so they accept and this is how Dean ends up facing a dean girl.

[samdeancrimespree]

ok so. thinking of that post about how what we see on the show is the censored version of the winchester gospel, the version that makes them look “sympathetic” ….. now i just wanna write some between-episode cases that are so fucked up chuck was like oof ok let’s not talk about that

[sastielsmanuscript-draft]

oh thank god you're not into w1nc3st, bless up

im not into anything thats problematic. i ship sastiel but i have standards. cmon now i make sastiel centered memes 😭😭😭😭

bless up right to you too<3<3<3

[ricky-tiki-tah]

I know that there’s spn books that aren’t actually the episodes, but why hasn’t anyone published the Winchester Gospels? The books Chuck wrote and have them “written by Carver Edlund” ??? I wanna see those books!! I want more in-depth stuff. Kinda like how some movies have books written after the movie came out. But a book for each episode, up to season 5 cuz that’s where Chuck stopped iirc. I wanna read those books.

[incesthemes]

#the military upbringing (absolute obedience to patriotism and the myth of nationhood)#= patriarchal familial dynamics (absolute obedience to the Man of the household and his authority)#= American protestant cultural christianity (absolute faith and obedience to god and his authority)#all inseparable in the American mythos...#the Bioshock Infinite of it all..........#early spn was clever! sam framed as the prodigal son escaping heroism. who chooses to embrace his doomed destiny#dean framed as the obedient son pushed to his limits and ultimately rejecting his destiny/father/god#and reading the brothers as 'rejecting' john/god. there's a lot of complexity between them#sam who initially rejects family/john because he was the one rejected first! he's been excluded/an outsider his whole life!#and he is the one more eager to jump on the sword. because therein lies the belonging he's never felt he's deserved.#his ultimate longing for full acceptance into hunting = heroism = his family is what dooms him...#(i could write a whole separate meta on why sam's desire for 'normalcy' is a veneer. too many ppl buy into it at face value??)#dean who slowly grows more and more tired of the path he's been pushed onto. by john. by god. he's shackled by heroism#he defects but there's no escape bc he's so wrapped up in nostalgia.#his longing for domesticity and home <- all the cultural symbols by which Family reasserts itself as inescapable truth#but the Family is a power structure...and his absolute nostalgia for it is what leads into him recreating its power dynamics.#they're both just lil haunted rats running circles in the maze of America..........#< or however that nico vega song goes (via @finalgirlsamwinchester)

many people, especially in a culture where religion is so omnipresent, turn to religion for community and belonging—this is also how cults recruit new members: preying on people's feelings of isolation and loneliness and inviting them into a community of people just like them. it makes sense that sam, ostracized and alienated as he is, would be the one to turn toward religion, and since "religion" in the united states almost universally means "christianity" because of cultural reinforcement and the overwhelming presence of christ, this was the option presented to sam and the one he took.

dean on the other hand already has a god in his father. not only is there no room for christ with john consuming dean body and soul, but he's actively discouraged from believing in a higher power due to his lifestyle (and probably from john himself, since all mentions of religion in the winchester family are related to mary only, dean initially rejects the possibility that angels exist which means john probably never considered it a possibility either, golden boy dean would probably never disagree with his father on such an important ideological ground, and sam is treated as odd and Other for believing in god, indicating that religion is a stranger to the family).

so sam fills the hole of belonging and community inside of him with god, but dean's is filled by john. john is just as much an absent father as god is, but dean pours his faith into john and doubles down on his belief in him as an absolute authority as a result of the shtriga attack, and then likely continually reinforced over time. because sam isn't given the responsibility dean is, he has more freedom to reject john's authority, but it doesn't change his upbringing: he needs to find authority somewhere else, and so he turns to god, hoping he will save him. this faith is strengthened by his feelings of dirtiness and sin, which is encouraged by christianity because of the concepts of original sin and penance and salvation.

but in the end they both need the same thing, because they're cut from the same cloth. the absolute obedience to a higher authority to tell them how to live. when sam's faith in religion begins to ebb, he clings more to dean as an authority; when john dies, dean clings to sam for direction. it's not an immediate shift, and they both constantly return to god/john as an authority, haunting them both long past they exited left stage. they're both seeking approval and direction from someone other than themselves because they've been raised soldiers, not leaders (and isn't it fitting, then, that christians call themselves god's warriors?).

even the marked physical absence of john in the narrative positions him as a god figure. he becomes no different from god because he's not here. all they have is the good book (dad's journal) and faith that following his path (quite literally) will save them and bring them closer together. the first season, then, can be a metaphor for a religious journey, for seeking god in america. the cross-country road trip (wild goose chase) is as literal as it is spiritual. and the ultimate critique is that god is absent; god is a deadbeat father; god is an abusive son of a bitch who demanded obedience from soldiers kept ignorant by design. the metaphor is extended when the judeo-christian god is revealed to be literally, actually an absent, deadbeat father demanding obedience from soldiers kept ignorant by design. john is the symbol of an absent god, and god is the symbol of an absent father.

kripke is jewish, not christian, so i'm sure a lot of this critique is by design. because as someone who is not christian, it's easy to see how christ-haunted america is. it's easy to understand the alienation and otherness that spawns from a lack of faith in the christian god. sam and dean are trapped in an americana nightmare they can't escape from. they can reject god, but dad is still there haunting them anyway. they can reject dad, but god is still there jerking them around on puppet strings. even rejecting everything and turning to each other doesn't allow them escape, because they're a product of their raise and they still crave obedience to authority, and they still act the way they were taught. you can't escape christinity when christianity is your culture. you can't change the way you were raised. you can't help that your father is also your god, and you can't prevent the damage of his abuse. free will is an illusion, and you will always follow the path god laid out for you because you can't escape your very nature.

guy who so desperately tries to find god. who wants to have faith in a higher authority to guide him out of the hole he's in. from the weight of guilt from simply existing, as the person he is. but every time he thinks he's answered his higher calling it turns out he's made the Morally Incorrect choice and his path to goodness and holiness was the road to the devil all along

[mrs-jamesbbarnes]

Sometimes I forget @gospelofthechosen isn’t canon and I get sad - for instance watching 4x17 and seeing Dean getting into the Prius and getting excited and then realizing it’s not actually Kat’s Prius

(Also RIP to the best fanfiction I’ve ever read ever)

[jinkieswouldyoulookatthis]

Undisclosed Desires - Pits

(Title and Summary/Prompt from The Winchester Gospels Discord server)

Summary/Prompt: Sam and Dean have been “together” together for a while now, and they’ve had a great time experimenting with a variety of kinks. But Sam has been keeping a secret from Dean. There’s a kink that he’s always fantasized about, but he’s never tried it. And he’s too embarrassed to talk about it with Dean. Sure, Dean’s game for just about anything in bed, but would he really want to do… that? And will he stop wanting Sam once he finds out about Sam’s fantasy? (“That” is entirely up to the writer. Let your freak flag fly!)

Maschalagnia: a fetish dedicated to armpits, including, kissing, licking and smelling. This kink may also involve inserting penises in the armpit for stimulation.

Olfactophilia: attraction to smells, especially pungent body odors. Osmolagnia is the fetish for sweat or gaseous emissions specifically.

Sam could happily live with his face pressed into his brother’s armpit. It’s hot and stinks most of the time, because he only occasionally remembers to use deodorant, after all, he spends most of his time in his car with only Sam for company and it’s not like Sam reminds him to use it. What’s the point of smelling good when he can drive his little brother crazy with his stink. If only Dean knew exactly how crazy it drove Sam. Because he is insane, he knows it and he has known it for almost as long as he can remember. And Dean’s B.O. is what home smells like to Sam. It permeates the car and all their clothes, which get mixed up together because Sam keeps stealing Dean’s shirts to wear. And when Dean’s not in the room, when he can’t see him, Sam’s nose is buried in the fabric, inhaling deeply, trying to permanently affix the smell to the inside of his nostrils. And if he’s all worked up and hard and eagerly grabbing at Dean when he comes back, well, Dean doesn’t need to know the exact thing that got him going. Dean doesn’t need to know that when Sam has wrestled his shirts over his head and pinned him to the bed, or the vinyl of the car seat, grinding their hips together in a bruising, desperate rhythm, licking and kissing and biting all over Dean’s neck and shoulders and chest, that he’s just biding his time, not wanting to seem to eager, before he can flatten out his tongue and drag it up through the sweaty patch of hair in Dean’s armpit. Dean doesn’t need to know how much time Sam has spent, and will spend, trying to plot out a way to get his dick up into the clenched space between Dean’s arm and his ribs, to feel the sweaty slide of the fine hairs there along his hard, aching length. To know that his dick will smell like Dean’s pits and the idea of his own cum mixing with his brother’s funky B.O. almost too much. No, Dean doesn’t need to know. Dean already knows too much about him, has too much ammo to use against him, doesn’t need yet another thing to tease Sam about. He just needs to figure out a way to make it seem accidental, incidental… there’s gotta be a way.

[incesthemes]

i can't stop thinking about the first episode of season 6, when sam tries to convince dean to come with him, to come back to hunting. he says "it's just better with you around, that's all." it's an interesting line because sam is soulless, obviously. and even though he doesn't understand the details yet, he knows something's wrong with him.

"it's better with you around" he says, citing dean's compassion and care for others as the reason why. and how interesting is that? sam's working with plenty of other hunters who still have their souls—they're all more than capable of caring about the people they save. but sam needs dean specifically. he knows he's missing something, and he sees dean and recognizes that something in him. even cold and calculating and unrelentingly logical, sam recognizes that dean, alone, can "complete" him, give something back to him that he's supposed to have.

in episode 8 he tells dean he "needs his help." he doesn't elaborate; he never explains what he means by that. he has a whole family of hunters who'd be willing and able to help him, but still he needs dean. even without his soul, his hyperrational mind knows he needs him.

soulless sam isn't capable of caring about dean. but he doesn't need to care to know they need to be together, no matter what—to know dean is good for him, dean completes him, dean needs to be there for him.

it's like a sick reversal of season 1. sam drags dean back into this life because he can't keep going without him. because he needs him. because when you think about it logically, and sam has no other choice, there was never any other option for them.

[incesthemes]

thank you for explaining!!! this is really interesting!

by god i'm assuming you mean the christian god and not the pagan gods they interact with. i do enjoy the (kripke era) deconstruction of christianity and the ambiguity of god's presence in the narrative and how that interacts with the very real and corporeal gods they find themselves antagonizing regularly, especially with episodes like hammer of the gods. the religious conflict between sam and dean is a theme i really like and thought was done super well, especially through utilizing john as a godlike figure to substitute dean's lack of religious faith and to haunt the narrative in the same way the christian god does.

i do think a lot of the lore is lacking and shallow in the show. early kripke era made efforts to pull from real folklore or at least make it look that way, and they were fairly creative with it i think, comparatively speaking, but especially as the show went on it got very trigger-happy and boring. like why does this spell require chicken feet? what are the magical properties of that? why does it work and how does it influence the results? many such examples. it would have been nice imo for the show to depict sam and dean as being much more knowledgeable about spellcraft and pagan folklore... especially when it came to defensive magic. i mean—it's all well and good to say sam and dean are against using magic in their hunting, but the anti-possession tattoo is a form of magic. the summoning spells they use are magic. devils traps and angel banishing sigils are magic. there's a dissonance between what's said and what's acted upon, and that gap leaves a lot of room for what other magic they can utilize to protect and defend themselves. lots of wasted potential, frankly speaking, and in the ideal version of supernatural that only exists in my mind i think they would both wear a lot more accessories with defensive properties (concept: jessica asking why sam never takes off his bracelet and sam stumbling through a lie to avoid telling her it prevents tracking spells from working on him, or something along those lines), or have more tattoos and warding etched into their bodies—maybe even some more dubious magic they use offensively, like fortification spells or even like those little resurrection sachets rowena has in her body, stuff like that. there's soooooooo much they could do and the shallowness of the text rings loudly in my ears at all times 💔

i do also like the very existential questions you're posing here with regards to what god is and what it means to be divine. imo a lot of these questions are answered by the text (seasons 1-5), but a lot of things are glossed over quite a bit. sam and dean both take opposite sides on the theme of doubt: sam has faith, while dean does not. i think both of their arguments are rather compelling, and the developments they go through between seasons 2 and 5 especially have a lot to say about the relationship between doubt and faith, and of course gnostic disdain. the uncertainty of the christian god's absolute existence creates the tone and gothic atmosphere of the (kripke era) show which i really enjoy. therefore when god's existence in chuck is revealed, i find it heavily undermines the original themes of the show. it's through god's precarious existence as a neglectful, absent father and the potentiality of complete nonexistence that the gothic anxieties can arise in the first place and position sam and dean as opposing forces on the topic of religious doubt.

at the same time, there's a lot of magical elements within the show that stem from christianity: demons are harmed by the "name of god" (which is actually referring to jesus christ) and are exorcized through latin (christian) chants, angels speak of (the judeo-christian) god intimately and of his work, heaven is real, hell is also real, so on and so forth. so judeo-christian constructions and concepts shape the world of supernatural, but the origins of their magic are never fully explained or explored until chuck pops out and reveals himself to be god. and you're right, i think they could have stood to explore this origin more. if god doesn't exist, then explain heaven and hell. did christians rip off the concept from another religion (hello zoroastrianism)? what makes latin so effective against demons? who invented the magic that made these mechanics work in the first place? if god isn't real, then where did angels come from? and to top it off, who or what made the world? which religion got it "right" if any did at all (this is actually something i was disappointed with in season 11 because they had the perfect opportunity to bring in proto-indo-european mythology via "god's sister" but instead they did, well, that)?

they take a lot of things for granted, both from a doylian and watsonian perspective. they never really stop to question these things, and the show itself doesn't either, and this slowly devolves into a strange christianity-reinforcing narrative over time after kripke leaves so the questions are never really given the opportunity to present themselves and generate more anxiety and doubt. real shame!!!

anyway thanks for your explanation. sorry my response is so long haha, i really like themes and motifs and most of all worldbuilding so you really snagged me with this one.

i wish the winchesters had had way more strange folksy rituals rooted in the lore. they SHOULD have been grappling with their own faiths way more explicitly and deeply. they should have been covered in tattoos of protective sigils, protective oils rubbed into their hands, charms woven into leather bracelets and necklaces.

[transsexualgriffith]

actually it's crazy to me how in the monster at the end of this book the very first act unforseen by chuck is cas helping dean. that he didn’t write, that he didn’t dream of. even when everything else complied. it literally changes course of the episode. the free will untangling the script.

[catnipster69]

Hey, all my wincest writer friends out there! Come join the wincest writing Discord server, The Winchester Gospels! It's a place to brainstorm story ideas, talk about wincest fic, and participate in weekly writing exercises like the Monday Drabble Prompt or the Thursday Writing Relay. It's a really comforting, welcoming space, and a great way to stay motivated. Send me a direct message with your AO3 username, and I'll give you an invite.

[shadypoliticianfromplanetvulcan]

i feel like the whole jack storyline was just god killing off an old character (chuck) and creating a new one (jack)

[cardi-c]

Sam you had one job

[891movies]

500 to go (!!!)

The Gospel According to St. Matthew (1964, dir. Pier Paoli Pasolini): Given how radical and anti-establishment this movie feels, it's kind of amazing to me that every line of dialogue is taken directly from the gospel.

Winchester '73 (1950, dir. Anthony Mann): This is the history of the US in microcosm. Was this intentional on part of the filmmakers? I don't know but it sure works.

Throne of Blood (1957, dir. Akira Kurosawa): Best Shakespeare adaptation I've seen since 10 Things I Hate About You. Toshirô Mifune gives such a beautifully unhinged performance, even if the rest of the film didn't match up (it does!), it would still make it a 10/10.

Amour (2012, dir. Michael Haneke): Heartbreaking in such a straightforward, understated way. There's no dramatics, no sentimentality, just a devastating scenario shown as true-to-life as possible on film.

Hugo (2011, dir. Martin Scorsese): I'm not normally a fan of this type of magical realism 2000s/2010s Hollywood children's film (highly specific genre but if you know, you know). The subject matter and the deft hands of Scorsese made it hit for me, though, and I was legitimately tearing up by the end.

Shame (2011, dir. Steve McQueen): Spent so much of this movie worried that Fassbinder was gonna try to fuck his sister. Hey, I've been burned before!

Skyfall (2012, dir. Sam Mendes): I was mostly entertained throughout, give or take a couple of sour notes (the treatment of Séverine was pretty heinous ngl), but I was also ready for it to wind down around the 100 minute mark. And then it kept going for another 40 minutes! I do prefer Daniel Craig to Sean Connery but if we're going there then I also prefer Benoit Blanc to James Bond.

Phantom Thread (2017, dir. Paul Thomas Anderson): A meticulously beautiful film, in a way that truly complements the narrative.