#youngmarynatural

[angelsdean]

youngmarynatural 1/?

↳ Mary struggles to accept her strange new reality, riddled with grief as she mourns the babies she lost.

Sam: We're right here, mom.

Mary: I know. In my head. But I'm still mourning them as I knew them... Just feels like yesterday, we were together in heaven, and now...I'm here, and John is gone, and they're gone. And every moment I spend with you reminds me every moment I lost with them.

[angelsdean]

#all the more reason to dislike amara #how dare she uproot mary's peace just to teach dean a lesson he'd already learned via @foolondahill17

literally I was going to make an addition to this post about my issue with Amara's "explanation" for why she brought Mary back, because literally Dean already learned this lesson in s4 + 5 !!!! He met his young mother and learned she was flawed and real and not the Myth Of the Saintly Mary that John fed them as kids. She was a hunter! She was a badass! She was just a girl! She was put in an impossible situation, orchestrated by Heaven and Hell. She was bound to the narrative. It was a tragedy. And nothing Dean did in the past could've stopped it! He learned all of this, and accepted it. He was not still carrying around the "Myth of Mary" by s12. Amara saying she brought Mary back for Dean to see her as she really was and let go of his childhood fantasy is so nonsensical to me. He's already done that! He's confronted the past. Mary is the one we see struggle to accept that she is no longer the mom of young children.

anyways this post by @soft-pine articulates it all very well. and these closing lines are crux of it all:

"someone in this room is having trouble really looking at the people in front of them because of their idealized memory of who they were compared to are and It Is Not Dean... it wasn’t dean that needed to see the real mary. it was mary who needed to see the real dean."

mary's mind-palace in 12x22 shows us that if anyone of the two of them is projecting the idea that she ought to be "cutting the crusts off dean's sandwiches" it's her. that's part of her grief and her complicated relationship with her children. she is stuck with the image of her babies. she is mentally stuck in the mode of young mother to babies. and she is trying to navigate this new reality, and trying to figure out who she is now and how to interact with her adult children, but she's the one who was just in the past, she's the one who holds that past closer to her, the one who is struggling to reconcile with the fact that she's no longer the mother of babies. dean and sam are not asking her to be their mommy, they've had 30+ years to reconcile with the fact that they can never go back, never go home. having mary back doesn't reverse those 30 years without her, but what they want now is time with her, getting to know her, being a family, however that may look now. mary is the one still looking back, still trying to get home to those babies, who when retreating into her mind finds herself in a sundress fixing sandwiches for her 4 yr old and watching over her baby. like, it makes me think perhaps her "i'm not just a mom and you are not a child" was more about her trying to convince herself that this was her reality than it was actually criticizing dean.

[angelsdean]

Mary is 28. The year is 2016. Her whole life has been stolen from her. Some cosmic being plucked her from Heaven, took her away from her home, her husband, her babies, and placed her in this strange new world.

Her babies are gone, replaced with strangers a foot taller than her and nearly a decade older. They call her mom in gruff voices. They are hunters, something she never wanted for them. She has to hold back tears just looking at them. She sees glimmers of herself in Dean. His hair has darkened since he was a little boy, but she sees herself in other parts. The shape of his face, his cheekbones, his smile. She sees herself in Sam too, though he feels stranger. She can't quite match her pudgy little baby to this man.

At night, she moves through the bunker like a ghost. Nothing feels quite real. She takes scissors to her hair, thinks a drastic change will make this all feel more real. Throws herself into hunting. The adrenaline helps. Her racing heart reminding her she's alive, alive, alive. This isn't a dream.

This isn't a dream.

She sobs into her pillow, as the reality of it hits once more. She will never see her babies again.

These strange men look at her like she's a wonder. She understands what they lost. Understands they never had a mother. She imagines she'd look at her babies the same way, if she could see them again.

But she doesn't know how interact with this Sam and this Dean. All she knows is rocking babies to sleep to the tune of "Hey, Jude" and cutting the crusts off PB&J's and warming up store-bought pies for her sweet little toddler. She feels like she's failing at something she never really felt she succeeded at in the first place. So she focuses on the one thing she was ever good at: hunting.

When the British Men of Letters approach her, she goes in with good intentions. She's doing this for her boys. It's the one thing she can do right, she thinks.

Except things go wrong. They always go wrong.

"Cas almost died," Dean says, a hard edge to his voice and his eyes swimming with emotion.

She feels terrible, tries to explain. "I'm doing this for you. I'm playing three decades of catch up here." She wants to say, I'm trying to fix things. If I can rid the world of monsters, if I can make it safe then you won't have to fight anymore. You can have normal lives. You can be free. But she doesn't know how to talk to them.

Mary watches Dean's expression cloud with his own grief. "And we're not? How do you think this has been for us? We're your sons, and you've been gone. Our whole lives, you've been gone," he says. And she understands. She's been gone. And her babies are gone. And it's all so unfair.

"You said that you needed time. No, you said you need space," Dean continues, and she can feel herself losing him. Them. Sam won't even look at her. "So we gave you your space. But you didn't need just space. No, you needed space from us."

He's not wrong. She told them when she left, how hard it was to be around them.

"That's not true," she lies. "Dean, I'm trying –"

"How 'bout for once, you just try to be a mom?" Dean cuts in, hurt, angry.

And it hits her harder than she expected. Because she wishes, wishes she could be a mom again. To her babies. But that's never going to happen. And if she's stuck here, then she needs to figure out some other way to be.

"I am your mother," she says, sternly, "but I am not 'just a mom.' And you are not a child." It's not fair. Part of her knows that's not what Dean was asking. Not how he meant it. She's the one wishing he were a child. Wishing she could be "just" a mom. But she can't be a mother to them. Not this Dean. Not this Sam.

Dean looks her in the eyes, his expression vacant, haunted, and says, "I never was." His lip trembles for just a moment before he regains his composure.

She was a hunter's kid once. She knows what it's like. There's little room for childhood innocence. But she also doesn't know. She had a stable home. She had two parents. She had no siblings to look after.

"So between us and them –" Dean continues, the question hanging in the chasm that has opened up between them.

"It's not like that." Can't you see I'm choosing you. This is the only way I know how to keep you safe.

"Yeah, Mary, it is." She hates how it doesn't exactly break her heart, hearing her name come from his mouth instead of "mom." It feels more normal. Because these are not her children. "You made your choice. So there's the door."

Dean walks out of the room without a second look. Sam rises from the table, averting his eyes. She understands this too. Struggling to look. To see.

But this isn't how she wanted things to go. She didn't mean to upset them. And she doesn't want to lose them completely. She just--needs more time. "Sam," she tries. Maybe it would be easier to get through to him. He never really knew her, has no memories of her.

But he tells her to go too.

And maybe part of her is glad for the easy out. This will give her more time. She just needs to focus on hunting. Save the world. Put her babies to rest. Then she can come back and they can...be a family. However that might look for them.

[angelsdean]

mary and jack looking closer in age than mary and her own sons. mary and jack bonding over being "new" to his world, struggling to keep up and fit in. mary finding it easier to be a "mom" figure to jack (more like older sister, looking as young as she does) because jack just lost his mother, whereas she doesn't know how to interact with her own sons as a mom. jack and mary learning all the new lingo and technology together. mary and jack being besties.

[angelsdean]

also, *whispers* mary is 28. not 27. not 29. it's a little confusing bc numbers (trust me i get it i am not a numbers girlie) but, she dies just a month shy of her 29th birthday. her bday is dec 5th, 1954. she dies nov 2nd, 1983. she is 28, would've been 29 the following month.

[angelsdean]

part of what makes it all so complicated is that, to dean, this young woman has always been his mother. because lets think about it, okay.

despite the two mary actresses and the fact of sam smith aging, in-world dean has only ever known his mother as a young woman. all his pictures of her and memories are from before she died. when he meets her ghost she is the same as the night of the fire. in his djinn dream she appears just as he remembered her, despite her being the mother of an adult. and when he time travels he meets her even younger than he ever knew her. he's always known mary as her young self. and he's always seen her as his mother. the one who is completely displaced in s12 is mary. SHE has only ever known her sons as babies.

but what is different now, for dean, is that he's older. when he met her in s4 + 5 he was closer to her age. he'd been to hell but he didn't have multiple apocalypses under his belt. he was on more even footing with her, as a hunter and a person. but now? s12 dean is more experienced, wiser, and more mature than she's ever been. so while yes, that is still his mom, that is still the mom he's always known, looking exactly as he remembers her, he now notices her immaturity more, especially in her actions, and it activates a part in him that wants to protect and mentor. and it's fucked because he's been parentified his whole life! he's been made to be the responsible one. he had to take care of his brother and father when he was still just a child himself. and now he has his mother back and...and she's just a kid in his eyes now. and he wants to take care of her while simultaneously the inner child in him is crying to be cared for, to be treated like someone's kid for once.

like I absolutely think the Mary and Dean stuff would’ve hit harder if Mary had looked her actual age of 28 but not for the “dean looks insane asking her to be his mom” reasons but because dean would be asking her to act “act like a mom” while simultaneously actively trying to adopt her and parent her. he looks at her and sees claire. the parentified child in him wants her to take on the burdens and responsibilities he’s been shouldering his whole life. wants her to be someone he can rely on. can turn to when life gets hard. but then he sees this young woman who is so lost herself, and he just wants to take care of her. Protect her. Wants to teach her things. He’s giving her life advice. And it makes everything all the more messy and complicated.

[angelsdean]

i said it here in longer form but it needs to be said succinctly as well, youngmarynatural wouldn't be jarring to dean (or sam). they have always known their mother as a young woman. from memories and photographs, to her ghost, djinn dream, and time travel, they have always known her as her young 20-something self. that's their mom. always has been. what would be jarring in s12 youngmarynatural is the fact that dean and sam are now older, wiser, and more mature than her. her immaturity would stand out more than it had when they'd met her before.

[angelsdean]

like, my parents were 27 when i was born. and whenever i look at old pictures of them with me as a baby i am still like, those are my parents. like yea that's my mommy, even though i am now older than she is in those pictures. no matter how much time passes they are always going to feel older than me, even in those pictures. and that's how it is for dean and sam, though even moreso because mary never ages beyond those photos. they only ever know her as a young adult. and she's still their mommy, even as they get older than her. she's always going to be their mom. and they're not insane for seeing her, resurrected, and now younger than them, and still thinking "mom." and this is the hill i will live on, build a beautiful house on, and take others down on.

[angelsdean]

people are misinterpreting your edit to be like "dean and sam are wrong for being upset with her"

i know lol but whatever i've said my piece. mary is the one struggling with the reality of who her children are, not sam and dean. like yes she is 28, but she has ALWAYS been 28 to them. they have never known her older. their mom has always been a young woman AND she's still their mom. they're not insane for looking at her, even as adults, and seeing "mom." that's what their mom has always looked like to them. and they are not wrong for wanting her to care about them, wanting her around, wanting her to want to Know them as they are now. wanting them to be a family instead of strangers. just like she's not wrong for struggling with her own grief. they are all going thru it. it's tragic and heartbreaking but no one is "the bad guy." and any future youngmarynatural edits will continue exploring that thesis. also, come on, 28 is not that young. especially for mary's generation. the way some people talk about her you'd think she was 18 instead of nearly 30. sometimes it's giving "my 20-something yr old minor" vibes. like no, she's an adult. people don't talk abt s3/4 dean or s7/8 sam the same way and they're the same age as mary.

[angelsdean]

like she's not 29, but she gets to turn 29 in s12. and then she gets to turn 30. and then 31. and then she dies again. sorry for making it sad. anyways i think we should've gotten to see her celebrate her 29th birthday. they should've had a party.

also, *whispers* mary is 28. not 27. not 29. it's a little confusing bc numbers (trust me i get it i am not a numbers girlie) but, she dies just a month shy of her 29th birthday. her bday is dec 5th, 1954. she dies nov 2nd, 1983. she is 28, would've been 29 the following month.