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boywifesammy · 1 year

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fucking 4x04 metamorphosis man. i think it's the first time spn really addressed sam being a "freak". like it's set up beautifully for the first 3 seasons but the psychic/demon blood arc pulled it to the forefront.

sam has felt this feeling of alienation, this wrongness inside of him his entire life. not fitting into the hunting life, never having a stable home, being nerdy and empathetic and emotional trapped in a big 6'5 body. and when he finally gets a life outside hunting with jess, it gets ripped away from him. for the first 3 seasons he kept that all bottled up inside and let dean take the reigns (very lil bro of him btw), because whenever he tries to break out of it (jess, meg, etc etc) it ends horribly. and to have that feeling of constant otherness validated by learning that he has demon blood inside of him? sam must have believed that he was sick to the very core. he must have looked up to dean as his amazing big brother, who was rough around the edges but good and normal and always dad’s favourite. so it’s no surprise that sam kept a lid on all of those feelings around dean, because he was used to being the freak, and he was used to suppressing it.

then dean is gone and sam suddenly loses the one person who saw something good in him. hell, his own father thought he was a monster, and other hunters, who are the only other people he could make any sort of meaningful connection with without putting their lives in danger. he’s stuck with this awful thing inside of him, rotting away at him, his whole family is dead, and ruby is there, telling him he’s not evil. he’s not bad. he can make something good of this thing inside of him. and sam must think that ruby understands; she’s a demon, trying to be good, she gets it. so sam gets so deep into it that he forgets why it would ever be bad. he basks in this feeling of otherness and he embraces being a freak because for once in his life, it's actually a good thing that he's different.

then dean comes back to life and suddenly everything is flipped on its head. in the eyes of dean, he’s a monster. that awful feeling of alienation returns. he’s a freak, he’s a ticking time bomb, he’s tainted from the inside out. so of course sam hides it from dean, because he wouldn’t understand. not like ruby apparently understands, not like the other psychic kids, to sam dean could never understand him because he was always the freaky nerd younger brother and dean was the cool, sweet talking older bro that always seemed to have everything in check.

so that look of absolute hurt on sam’s face when dean says he has something evil inside of him, something in his blood?

that is genuine betrayal. dean's loss is still fresh to him, and now that he's finally found something that makes him belong, it's ripped away from him. just like stanford, just like jess, just like anything else in life that he tries to make his own. so he blows up on dean, screams about how he feels like a freak, just unloads all of this shit that he's been holding in his entire life. his entire damn life. because sam has been an "other", a freak, as long as he's known. the only person who he had was dean, but now he was losing him, before he even got him back fully. all because he tried to embrace who he really was.

so yeah. 4x04 metamorphosis man. wow. just fucking wow.

#oc #sam winchester #spn meta #absolutely phenomenal episode like CHRIST #4x04 metamorphosis #also this is NOT meant to be dean cr*t #i 100% understand dean's reaction to this he's obviously terrified shitless #sam's insecurities about himself doesn't mean that dean doesn't love the hell out of him #i mean he'd die for that boy #he's just not the greatest at showing it #and sam's a very talky touchy feely guy so he doesn't respond well to the whole “tough love” thing #not with his dad and not with dean either

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amwritingmeta · 5 years

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Tell me if I'm crazy but I have the strange feeling that Michael doesn't have access to all of Dean and by that I'm talking about feelings of course. Every time he talks it feels like it's his own constatation of the events he sees. For Anael it seemed more easy to point exactly what she wanted but for Dean he lies when he could use a shameful truth. Sorry to bother you with this

Hello, lovely Nonny!

You’re never bothering me, are you kidding? And this is a great question!

So, first off, you’re not crazy for having your own impression or thought process around how the information of the show is delivered to you, yeah? Perhaps you’re being hyperbolic, but just to be perfectly clear: thoughts=valid.

Secondly off, this is all about interpretation, isn’t it? This all comes down to how you read that information given and there’s no right or wrong here. No, I mean, really, there’s no right and no wrong.

I wrote about Michael as the Truth Bringer at the start of the season. In 14x01 he brought with him the thematic thread of Lie vs Truth, and established - to me - how lying to yourself is narratively unacceptable and will warrant some sort of judgment. And punishment.

Jamil (fuck I spelled his name wrong in the other post) was telling himself lies about who he truly was, as was Anael, and they were called out on it by Michael. Meaning that the devotee and the angel (the human and the heavenly) were both dismissed as undeserving. The monster, driven by instinct and clean want, was chosen specifically for its honesty and, really, its inability to resist giving into its own nature. Right?

What’s funny, though, is that this is also the season when we have the ultimate self-deceiver roaming through the narrative, which is the concept of the Shadow. The Shadow, in essence, is a liar and an emotional blackmailer. That’s how it keeps its power. Peddling its subliminal messages of worthlessness and insecurity and self-hatred.

It’s funny because Michael is deceiving himself in thinking he’s in control. He’s driven by anger, and his anger stems from him not dealing with feeling as though he’s a disappointment to his father. He’s constructed a reason in his mind for why his father left him, and it’s created a sense of being wronged so strong that he’s going to murder his way through the universe on a path of revenge unlike any we’ve ever seen on this show before. Like holy fuck with the repressed abandonment issues, Mikey.

So, then, why is he lying instead of using truths to manipulate TFW?

Well, firstly, two different writers are writing different perspectives of the same character, so that might be one very straightforward reason.

But, okay, narratively then, reading into it (as we do) I might say that Michael’s motivation is to divide and conquer and, to me, him being able to read them, know their memories and their past, means he knows sowing seeds of doubt has always worked before. Shaking their trust in one another has always served to cause a rift.

Because, narratively, it’s been a necessity.

But, aw, Mikey, you’re in a different beast now. Times are a-changing. And what’s worked in the past isn’t going to work as easily now, because those deep, deep insecurities that pushed for that rift had nothing to do with them not trusting each other, and everything to do with them not trusting themselves. And each of them are moving out of that stage of their arcs now. If it holds. But I think it will.

Each of them have reached a point where they feel This Is Where I Belong. It’s a point of safety, an anchor, knowing that they are wanted and that they are, without question, working as a team and living as a family. It gives them reason to feel just as anchored in themselves, which opens up for further digging and growing self-knowledge as it feels safe to open themselves up to what it is they truly want. That anchor allows them to feel they deserve to want things.

I believe Michael is very aware of all of this, it’s just that he is 100% underestimating how powerful it is.

To my mind, the fact that he used a lie instead of outright truth signals his awareness and how the confrontation between him and our boys end underlines that he underestimated how far they’ve all come.

Because these men aren’t lying to themselves anymore, not in the same way that Jamil and Anael were lying to themselves. TFW are moving past that.

What Michael hopes to do with lying to Dean about how he relates himself to his closest support network - and, in effect, pushing on Cas’ and Sam’s insecurities as well - is to try and bring them all back into their old state, opening them up to those old insecurities, making it sound as though these insecurities are still holding sway over them, in order to force doubt. Doubt that, if allowed to fester, would actually make those old insecurities take hold again.

It’s a manipulative tactic, and it fails spectacularly.

What’s interesting, to me, is how his chosen buttons to push highlight so many things to us. As I said in another post: it pushes Cas and Sam’s own insecurities to the fore, but it does the double-whammy of also letting us know Dean’s old fears: that Cas only sticks around out of a sense of obligation and that Sam would be better off not hunting and that Dean ruined his life when he came and pulled him back in.

The double-whammy delivers the confetti of letting us know that Dean doesn’t believe in these fears anymore. I mean, he steps up to his Shadow and tells it to shut the hell up. *heart strings tugged so hard they’re playing Zeppelin*

Aw it’s just :’)

Steve Yockey.

Dearling, I hope that answers your question!

This is my perspective, mind you. If you see this through the perspective of Michael not having proper access to all of Dean, I’m not contesting that, but I will say that I think he does. At least, I’d like it if he does.

Because, you know, the Empty and his tulips and knowing all about Cas’ internal life? I feel Michael is a reflection of this. *shadows* But he’ll always underestimate Dean, just like the Empty underestimates Cas, because neither Shadow representative can fully comprehend emotions like compassion, love, loyalty, joy or selfless sacrifice. They can’t comprehend because they fear these things and view them as weaknesses that have to be repressed.

And I believe with all my heart that’s why they’ll lose in the end. :)

#answered asks #spn 14x10 #michael #tfw

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