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shallowrambles · 8 months

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Some interesting, malformed, shapeless thoughts:

DEAN (About Jess): Now, I don't know what it feels like to lose someone like that.

KAREN (about Bobby): Oh…I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say, you’ve never been in love.

Paired with Amara:

In O Brother, Where Art Thou?, Amara looks slightly confused before she kisses Dean

In Hell's Angel, Amara seems intensely perplexed as Dean shouts for Cas

In All in the Family, the same look of confusion comes over her as she hovers over Cas's chest and uses it for symbolic wayfinding: straight to Dean THE HEART OF THE MATTER

Earlier in the season, in The Devil in the Details, she carved a message into Cas's chest...for Dean to read

AMARA: Blue eyes, you’re not even worth the effort... and no offence, but you look a bit used up. Plus, I have a job for you. Amara puts her hand on Castiel’s chest and Castiel screams as he is sent away in a blinding flash of light.

It's played as a joke, because for one, it's genuinely funny, but for two, the fact remains that she carved a threat to Dean on Cas's chest: I am coming

Twice, she uses Cas's heart to deliver threats directly to Dean

But the fact remains: Amara's never been in romantic love before.

She can't recognize it for what it is between Dean and Cas. She knows it well enough to use it, but mostly it fills her with writhing confusion.

But she does notice it and wonderingly ponder over it. Like season 10's Dean, she's dealing with the wounds of her nursery in order to become able to engage in that kind of self-actualization. She's also a little like all those girls craving attention in season 10, from Claire to the girl who is murdered trying to capture the attention of an older, unsavory man just to plug the familial lack of support at home. It's about throwing yourself into any distraction just to ease that absence of familial self-worth and security:

MR. McKINLEY: By suggesting my daughter was a slut? DEAN: I'll admit that thought crossed my mind. Then I came here, and I smelled the deceit and the beatings and the shame that pervade this home. MR. McKINLEY: You shut your face right now. DEAN: And you know what? I don't blame Rose anymore. No wonder she put on that skank outfit and went out there looking for validation, right into the arms of the monster that killed her. (Dean looks at Mr. McKinley and in a very calm voice says) Joe, who did this?

It's about the core wounds of the nursery, her brother leaving her. It's like Claire needed a loving parent, not Randy or Salinger. It's like Rose needed loving parents, not Reggie, who would murder her.

Amara's a little like Hannah, too, as Caroline cries out for her husband Joe:

HANNAH: Being on earth, working with you, I've felt things. Human things -- passions, hungers. To shower, feel water on my skin... to get closer to you. But all of that was nothing compared to what I felt when I saw him. Her husband -- his anger and his grief. And Caroline was inside of me, screaming out for him, for her life back. These f-feelings, they aren't for me, for us. They belong to her. I know it's time to step aside.

Amara isn't very good at parsing emotions. Retroactively, we know she brought back Mary to extinguish Dean's volatile "fire" and to quell his inner turmoil. She's trying to assuage the core wound of his nursery, too.

#spn amara #amara is the hidden love #amor #the darkness #Angra Mainyu #spn gods who eat souls #amara + soul eater #cosmic hierachy #amara as apex predator #amara & dean #dean/cas + heart connection #dean + narrative heart

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shallowseeker · 7 months

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Shal, I hope you are feeling better! I wanted to add something to your Silvia-Amara meta if you don't mind me putting something into the mix as a long shot. Carmen from the djinn dream in What is and Should Never Be looks a lot like both of them. That seems like something!

Thank you. I'm feeling some better, but veeery sore and sleepless for the pain. (On the flipside, I can breathe better and already have more energy.)

This is so iiiiiiiinteresting, thank you!

I'll be honest...I had to go back to remind myself what Carmen even looked like. But yes! Carmen from the El Sol ad! Carmen the nurse! (I always thought she was a nod to one of Dean's psychosexual fixations, too; that is, films with hot men who dance like Swayze (Carmen 1983). I mean, hello Antonio Gades.

Plus, you know his thing for Spanish soap operas... ("Mi amor! Mi amor! Por favor despierta!" Poor Ricardo.)

And Dean's love for soaps from 7x03 The Girl Next-door. (Yes, the "My love, my love, please wake up!" one.)

Ahem. Anyway. Back to our Carmen. *points* Oh, my God. Yeah, it's El Sol, but it's also the specter of the beach. I am choking on my own spit here.

There's definitely something analogous in Sylvia (from season 15's Gimme Shelter) being an idealized something that Connor maybe thought he wanted, felt comfort going after, or tried to make himself want.

For that matter, I think there's something parallel here in how Amara views her love for Dean, too. Amara's view of Dean is idealized, draped in always-or-never statements, and impersonal. Meanwhile, the Dean of season 11 has grown immensely since the djinn dream in season 2. His conceptualization of love has become less romanticized:

DEAN: I can’t explain it, but to call it desire or love…it’s not that.

Carmen was an ideal, and Amara was perhaps the network's ideal, but Sylvia is actually not quite as one-to-one to either of them here. Sylvia was a real relationship with Connor, even if was perhaps a tragic childhood misstep for Connor while he was trying to figure himself out.

Of course, Carmen Porter's own words come back to haunt the Dean & Amara and Dean & Carmen relationships. Even our idealized romantic relationships falter, and they too become as baggage-ridden as our family, and our family is imperfect.

CARMEN: Well, you don't really spend a lot of time together. I mean, I just think you don't know each other all that well.

In early days, Dean's conceptualization of Carmen is adorably immature, like a teenager's dream: someone who accepts my eating habits n' idiosyncrasies, listens to me, and loves me. Someone who is "respectable" and stable. (In season 2, Dean is still, like Amara, dealing with the core wound of his nursery.)

Sylvia and Connor seemed to know each other quite well and were "a couple." He genuinely loved her, in his own way. Their connection just wasn't exactly what Sylvia thought it was, or wanted it to be. She became angry with Connor and called him a LIAR, and then she murdered him.

Dean has carried healthy relationships with dark-eyed beauties as well, like Lisa Braeden and "I-thought-we-had-a-connection" Risa from season 5's The End.

Hmmm. Okay, yes. I think your point is a good point. And it has branching points, too. There's a lot tangled up in here! Season 15's Sylvia Jones has some uncomfortable similarities to season 5's Risa, especially.

(REF: Here's the recent stuff about Sylvia and Amara-Silvia stuff and more Amara failing to recognize romantic love and Chuck setting Amara up for disappointment.)

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chuckwon · 1 year

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Concept: Jack Kline was turned into an Ostium

And looking at how the Ostium was used in the season finale further underscores what will be needed in the future for the story to move forward, and for Jack and his family to heal.

Let's go through it:

LATA: Our box has a name. They call it the Ostium.

CARLOS: Oh. Latin for "an opening in the body." What, didn't any of you guys ever go to Sunday School? ...So is that thing organic? Is it a mouth or... [chuckles] any other kind of hole?

LATA: Let's just stick with a mouth, please.

ADA: So this box eats monsters?

–SPNWIN 1x07, "Reflections"

–––

ADAM: It's one of my ribs, dude. Everything can contain the spark of the divine, but this puppy? It's packing enough punch to create life. Or, in your case, destroy God.

SERAFINA: Jack, making your vessel strong, reclaiming your human soul, it was... it was all preparing you for this.

JACK: What'll it do to me?

ADAM: Start an elemental chain reaction. It fuses your soul and your grace into a... Like a...

SERAFINA: Metaphysical supernova.

DEAN: Meaning what?

ADAM: You'll collapse into a living black hole for divine energy. One nothing can escape—not the darkness, not God himself. But once it starts... you can't stop it. So, don't use 'til game time. You dig?

–SPN 15x17, "Unity"

–––

Dean: All that prep work we did to turn Jack here into a cosmic bomb? Oh. Well, it turned him into sort of a power vacuum. He's been sucking up bits of power all over the place.

–SPN 15x19, "Inherit the Earth"

–––

"A living black hole for divine energy" / "a power vacuum" is akin to how the Ostium functions. (And remember that Chuck orchestrated this outcome.)

The final step of Jack's transformation in 15x17 and the way the Ostium is activated are also similar:

Adam's rib, containing extra "spark of the divine," was placed in Jack's palm and he absorbed its power. After his initial explosion outward, Jack was then turned into a vessel that acted as a vacuum for divine power.

When an item was placed on the Ostium–like a rock from the Akrida's world–it absorbed the item, which determines what powerful beings the box "eats" and where it sends those beings when activated.

Both Jack and the Ostium were also wielded as weapons.

Which, of course, this show condemns explicitly:

LATA: So you had a friend stuck in a cycle of violence, and instead of helping him, you wielded him like some kind of weapon?

–SPNWIN 1x06, "Art of Dying"

And, with Joan / the Akrida Queen, we saw what happened to a hunter who absorbed monster essence: she became corrupted.

JOAN: What I decided was that the monsters weren't the problem, kid. Mankind is the problem. They always need saving. And Hunters are the ones who end up paying the price with our lives. And then what do these rescued humans do with their precious second chance at life? They waste it… kill each other, beat each other down, destroy our planet. Monsters have it right. Humans are nothing more than food.

LATA: Is that you talking? Or is it the monster essence that's powering you?

MARY: The monster essence drove her mad. She became so obsessed with making sure that Hunters were protected, and she believed the only way to do that was to wipe out everyone who needed saving.

–SPNWIN 1x13, "Hey, That's No Way To Say Goodbye"

(Joan is also a dark mirror for Dean, but that's a separate meta topic entirely.)

With how Jack is acting in 15x19 and the SPNWIN finale (and as part of Chuck Won as a concept), something seems to be wrong with him along those lines.

So in regards to the Ostium, what was the solution the team used in the season finale? What did they need to defeat the Akrida Queen?

ADA: The Queen is about to sing her swan song. We can't rewind this tape here.

CARLOS: Wait. What if we could rewind the tape? Metaphysically speaking, if you know what I mean.

–SPNWIN 1x13, "Hey, That's No Way To Say Goodbye"

–––

CARLOS: Well, whatever you feed it creates a portal connected to that object. So we fed it the rock, and it was able to shoot the Akrida back to their world.

MILLIE: So, if we feed it the journal and trace the sigils in reverse, the Ostium can bring here whatever was tied to the journal... the Mystery Man, if he's even alive.

–SPNWIN 1x13, "Hey, That's No Way To Say Goodbye"

They reversed the polarity of the Ostium to try to summon Dean, which required using the journal–something “personal” and “clearly connected” to him, as Mary said at one point.

Now, of course, the result when they used it on the Ostium was that it gave the team the Impala rather than Dean for plot reasons. However, the point holds: Dean's journal was the key to metaphysically rewinding the tape and getting the Ostium to release / return what it had absorbed.

That journal was filled with Dean's thoughts, which we got throughout the show in the form of the story he's telling / narrating. They're the healing lessons repeatedly demonstrated by the 1972 gang that Dean has to use in his own life to free himself from the trap he's in, break the cycle of violence, and get his own happy ending.

So, follow the through-line:

The Ostium and Jack are seemingly similar. Just like Dean's journal was used to reverse the Ostium and get it to release/return what it absorbed... The lessons inside of Dean's journal are what’s needed to reverse the polarity of Jack’s transformation, getting Jack to release the God power he absorbed too.

And what are those lessons in Dean's journal? Ah, well, that's what The Winchesters (the story Dean is telling) is dedicated to showing and telling us. That's the function of the entire show.

To highlight a few mirroring moments relevant to the topic at hand:

TONY: You're scared of your own son?

ADA: I'm not scared of you. I... you are my son, and I love you.

TONY: If you love me, you would've told me the truth.

[...]

ADA: I... was wrong to lie to you about who you are, and I was even more wrong for not believing in you. I know you're not your father. You're not the worst parts of him. You're not the worst parts of me. You're just... you're my... You're Tony.

–SPNWIN 1x05, "Legend of a Mind"

----

MAC (possessing John): Why did you give up on me?

TRACY: I didn't know how to help you. I was scared.

MAC: I was scared too. I needed my family by my side.

TRACY: I know it's about ten years too late... but I'm here now, and I am so sorry.

LATA: It's not too late, Mac. You can still break the cycle.

–SPNWIN 1x06, "Art of Dying"

–––

MARY: Because I still want to get out of hunting. I really do. But it's not gonna be at your expense.

–SPNWIN 1x06, "Art of Dying"

–––

Mutual honesty, apologies, and forgiveness between Dean and Jack are the vital place where they must start. After all... Jack went through with his transformation and later with the corrupting absorption of God power simply because he was desperately trying to earn Dean's forgiveness, something that was repeatedly emphasized throughout season 15. The cycle remained intact instead of broken, and that's why they lost.

So saying that they need to reverse the polarity... What does that mean? It means that their family needs to have emotional release for there to then be the cosmic release of God power, so that that power can be put back out into the universe and no longer have personhood.

Only then will they break the cycle of violence and be able to be free of Chuck's influence once and for all.

You don't need Jack and Ostium parallels to understand and know this about the story. But I do think it's neat, further enhances the overall themes, and once again supports the fact that a Chuck won plot / what happened to Jack was deliberately being centralized! :)

#the winchesters #spnwin meta #the winchesters meta #chuck won meta #chuck won theory #jack kline #spnwin finale #spnwin 1x13 #the ostium #chuck won truthing #me actually posting meta??? it's a fucking miracle #hi everyone I've been learning video editing so I haven't been writing all the meta pieces I still want to do about this show smh #my meta

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shinelikethunder · 1 year

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imagine a version of SPN s6 where soulless!Sam succeeds in killing Bobby, gets re-souled and spends a few episodes feeling terrible about it but mostly because he's afraid Dean will never forgive him, and then immediately eats enough radiation from Soul Chernobyl to depose Godstiel and usurp the throne of heaven

now consider original-flavor Godstiel, who is trying to fix the world with what amounts to a raging case of the If You People Would Onlies, a sheltered autistic teenager's understanding of what makes humans tick, a convert's zeal for the concept of free will with all the nuance of an undergrad who just got into Ayn Rand, several millennia of abstract knowledge of the world, and a reasonable command of his existing angel powers....... and replace him with a rambunctious golden retriever puppy with barely-controlled godlike powers and the emotional maturity & world knowledge of a six-year-old, who was parented by Winchesters and keeps getting people mortally injured in desperate bids for approval

now look me in the eye and tell me that Jack's s15 arc is anything but HILARIOUS and INSANE as a way to Fix Heaven and give the SPNverse a stable semi-optimistic ending. as opposed to a way to replace their Chuck problem with a brand-new, MUCH more exciting set of problems

("i guess if you stick to your plan to stay hands-off it might work, but how is that NOT a return to the eternal absent father-god in whose name all manner of atrocities, abuses of power, and ill-conceived bloodthirsty crusades can be justified?"

"because my vibes will be with you... always.")

#supernatural #meta #jack kline #chuck shurley #spn s15 #inherit the earth #spn s6 #soulless!sam #godstiel #castiel #sorry guys i just. i cannot take s15 seriously. first of all because it is VERY silly and does not exactly invite coherent readings #and second of all because any attempt to IMPOSE coherence on it carries a nonzero risk of me taking out a hit on andrew dabb #however. when i tell you. that reader i SCREAMED when i realized it was the world's most bugfuck insane remix of late s6--#shine watches spn

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incarnateirony · 1 year

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Hey. I've noticed, even doing what I can to cull out tumblr's porn bot problem, that I've gained a few hundred followers in the last month or so. I see a lot of fresh likes, but very little conversation. So while this post is to invite that, I want to break down what's really going on here in the current fandom malarky.

The long-skewed conversation in this fandom has kind of presented an image that I bite. But for what it's worth, I bite assholes, which is why I'm doing everything I can to paywall and ask screen them away so I can zen.

I cuss a lot. But like, this fandom gotta understand. While the majority are from a very privileged and "refined" culture bubble, and the upper class came to rule the dialogue via convention paypasses to content and the illusion of access, not everyone comes from that shit.

just like the show is telling you from deep in the soul of New Orleans, like I warned you, nobody has to take your shit either. If I want to dip my hair in holy water and camp the vampires to death so help me god I will. I literally told you this a year ago, that you weren't ready for this shit. That it would be in your face, breakdancing, loud as shit, and not giving two fucks about your civility culture.

Now those old paypasses are dated and they're literally watching what republicans would scream as The Great Replacement happening at conventions, like I also warned, while we shake our mardis gras gay asses in your face, also just like I warned.

And now the open homophobic comments come flying out of hookerwitch, and a bunch of concern trolls are trying to pearl clutch that we aren't Model Minorities and Model Gays that fit THEIR view of how we should behave. No, eat shit. This is stonewall, and I don't want anyone to forget who in SPN fandom threw the first brick, and half the wall shortly after.

So now they're hate stalking and literally devoting a majority of their lives and energy to try to break past my walls and bother me, and I don't think they're understanding their own emotional investment here. They spend hours or days master planning to break into my server just to hear about me complaining about how gassy I am, or send one shit anon they thought about how to phrase for hours to try to troll, and most of it just gets screened, so they get angrier, and the hate capping and accusation throwing and pearl clutching to muddy up the dialogue begins, but we put a pin in the big racist and homophobic shit showing its face from the same recurring names. whether that be 2po, hookerwitch, whomever. Doesn't matter. Same ciswhitehetpatriarchy bullshit different day.

I cuss. I cuss about a lot. I am very enthusiastic about cheeseburgers and will say I will break a fuckers arm for a texas toms cheeseburger, and people have the context to get what I'm saying, and the culture and tone I'm speaking it in, rather than bad faith trolls. But those same bad faith trolls tried to hurt people I care about, so when they hear a real counter-threat to their threats, they hyperfixate on it, as they have, because they're scared.

They're scared because they realized they're running into my people in every greet, in every hall, in every op line. Sometimes literally. And they don't know until it's too late, and it's a different person every time, and they're realizing outside of the social club they sold themselves as small, elite and privileged that they lived in like a bubble, the convention space isn't their own any more than the show they're realizing they lost, and frankly, who they lost to, and how.

So my no bullshit attitude on concern trolls needn't scare away comments and additions from new blogs. You see my reblog ironworked and mattzerella and geeky panic additions a lot, and it's not bc we have some. Secret Connection or whatever. It's that they get it. And they have good content that always improves my content.

So whether that be adding your voice to posts (some have expressed being shy due to 2po/scripthunt/crowded table's doxxing patterns, I get that), or joining the server--remember, the Clubhouse section is free and still a lot of content. Any hour of any day you can check the Events calendar and find at least a radio event if not a group watch, a stream, a movie, a meta discussion section, a day you can take over the radio yourself, whatever. There's a lot of room.

If you follow me because you recognize the difference of someone that's very war torn as a fandom vet that has reached his end goal and is over totalitarian bullshit flying around passing itself as discussion, when it's just the noise of a cause that already lost and is getting cleaned out--by all means. Add.

The server says there's an illusion of me as some rabid dog, when I'm just really FUCKING excited about barbeque, don't let anyone tell me how I should FUCKING talk or live, and do not let anyone fucking TOUCH anyone I FUCKING care about. And they realized their time is ticking on literally everything and for the first time in their lives, they're genuinely afraid, and good.

But if you aren't that kind of problem person? Come on in. The server will probably feel like home. Or add to my posts or DM me on tumblr, though I WILL ignore and block any blatant sock accounts for the same reason as everything else.

But if you're here, slowly finding peace with the show, and looking for a garden to enjoy it in, come on in to POLOL, or message me. I'm really just a teddy bear deep down. Thing is papa bear will rip an asshole's ass apart if he fucks around in his turf or with the baby bears he already didn't cull himself in his land. But if you ain't one of those people? I just wanna cuddle and simp and talk about Supernatural and jung.

If that sounds like you, reach out some way or another.

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italwayshadtobeyou · 5 months

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@missjackil I'm putting this in a new thread, because it's sort of tangential to the original poll post, but I do think it's an interesting topic.

I'd argue that all of the 5 beings are at least a step down from cosmic entities, like Chuck. Lucifer's specific words ("only five beings in all of creation") don't include entities that never had to be created in the first place. They might not even include entities that were probably inevitable side effects of creation, rather than deliberately crafted by Chuck.

Given how wildly later seasons' worldbuilding diverges from earlier seasons,' it's hard to say if Amara counts or not. She didn't have to be created, but, prior to the Carver era, she... doesn't exist. If we're going by Kripke's canon, then maybe some of the pagan gods are immune to the Colt; if we're going by Carver's canon, then Amara is, and, probably, so is Death. However, since they may not qualify as part of creation, they don't count toward the 5 beings.

We know that archangels count, although we don't know if that means that each individual archangel gets a spot (which would account for 4 of the 5) on the list, if or archangels, as a category, get one spot. I'm going to assume the second, since I think it makes more sense in terms of worldbuilding.

Getting into real speculation: I think the horsemen (other than Death, who arguably isn't a part of creation) occupy the next slot. The only way that anyone even hints they can be killed is with Death's own scythe. Sam's powers would kill a demon, but they won't kill Famine.

Slot #3 and #4 probably go to denizens of Purgatory. According to Death, God created Purgatory because he was afraid that leviathans would eat "the whole petri dish." He could've just given the angels an order to smite any leviathans who got out of line, except that leviathans are, apparently, harder than angels to kill. Maybe they, or at least their king, are up there with archangels. Eve is another likely candidate, given that she's claimed millions of souls against the will of Heaven and Hell, without deals or consent.

#5? I don't think that early- and middle-SPN give us an answer, or even try to, but the Dabb era shows the Empty as formidable, evasive, and very old. If it's strong enough to absorb the energy of a bomb meant to kill God and the Darkness, then it's surely strong enough to absorb a bullet from the Colt.

My list:

#1: Archangels; #2: horsemen; #3: either Dick Roman or leviathans as a group; #4: Eve; #5: the Empty.

#spn #supernatural #meta #mine

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shallowstories · 11 months

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The story of the chicken and the black snake

NOTES FOR LATER:

1. Fun substitution stories: It bears a lot of similarities to the story of Zeus and the stone substitution. Zeus was supposed to be killed soas not to challenge ranking deity, who kept eating and damning any and all rival gods to his cosmic belly. Cosmic kings eat their rivals and their children in order to grow in power. The goal is to damn them to food, to becoming sources OF power, not challenges TO power.

///

2. Ineffective usurper God narratives: Cas tried to muster up "godly/creative" power by following the footsteps of cosmic paidophagy. By swallowing the Purgatorial souls and Leviathans, he became the black snake, and like all aggressive gods that try to entomb power by consuming others' children, he would arouse the mother's anger and fail.

The devilishly clever mother, knowing the usurper God is not efficiently boundless as she is, and is not strong enough Void, plants and incites a battle from within. This deception is typically wrought by enticing the predator to swallow poison (or a stone or a hardboiled egg), or by imbuing the children with secret strength to allow them to violently burst forth and overpower their father. So it was with Primordial Eve, hiding her her "bomb" from within, that would tear the inefficient God asunder.

Ergo, the Leviathans are the egg, Eve/Tiamat is the chicken, and Cas was the black snake in whose corpse the hidden children would feast upon. God overcome.

It's a cheeky reference to what Yahweh/or other culture hero god did to them, exploding and feasting upon the bodies of Leviathan as world nourishment to "create the world." Castiel's sundering is symbolically "Zeus as ineffective container" (or "Kronos as ineffective container"), bursting forth in an extremely violent reversal of Yahweh's original Leviathan victory. Cas can rouse chaos. But as "Heaven/Sky only," he cannot contain it.

This is because Cas is not a creator god, so in order to Wield Power of God, he must be facilitated by joining forces with Earth or other allies (Sam, Dean, Meg; later, Kelly Kline) in order to Complete the Circle. (When Cas turns his back on allies of Hell and Crowley, he effectively dooms himself.)

Cas "Heaven" cannot complete the circle "crown" alone. It is the Love and Healing, not War-making, that allows a more complete joining with his allies. (Image by LLA).

Interestingly, SPN 12x19 The Future (above GIF) is full of circle motifs because Jack is emerging into the Universe.

Jack, on the other hand, is much, much fuzzier in terms of his abilities. He's so strong that he embodies Both Modes (Earth AND Heaven, Human AND Angel). Jack is vast and boundless; Cas is not and never has been. That's why Jack is able to become God, but Cas is one-half-of-God/needing-allies, or else an ineffective solitary "culture hero" locked in eternal narrative of warfare without any real gains.

Castiel is more effective when he shares power/burdens and joins forces with his human family. (This manifests as, "support me and stand behind me 100%" VS "fight alongside me and don't be afraid to air your disagreements." It also manifests in the hiding of key details of the fights in order to "spare" them the burden of war's ugliness.)

Unfortunately, he tends to reach to share power with fellow angels on high, like Lucifer and Chuck, and that just leads to more of the same, ineffective "bright" wars. Ironically, it is his failing to share burdens (with his own rebel angels, Crowley, sometimes even Sam and Dean) that cause his most extreme losses.

Hell, Heaven, and Earth are most powerful when linked together; and they are weakest when ripped apart. Still, that isn't enough on its own, because they need to be linked together in peace, not isolation and aggression. (This is why Heaven, Earth, and Hell do not overcome Amara. Only choosing peace and reconciliation does. And yet, even that reconciliation is incomplete, because the light and the dark become too isolated from Heaven and Earth, cascading down into Lucifer's heartbreak and Dean's loss of Heaven in season 13's speech, "You said the earth would be fine, but it's not.")

///

3. Cas as culture hero: We see more power struggles at play in season 15 when Cas returns to Purgatory, where Leviathan corpses are again linked to blossoming of godly power, specifically the power to take down God (reference to the Classic Chaoskampf). Corpses of Leviathan are symbolic of Yawheh's (El's) original victory.

In Supernatural, the Leviathan were defeated/banished by the uniting of Cas and Dean against them. This is why their reconciliation is a key component of defeating God. United, perhaps they can take down God. It's why in 15x09 The Trap's deleted scene/alternate future/victory, they arrive marching in tandem, with the specter of the Double Diamond casino representing their combined pragmaticism. (However, as with all war, even when you WIN, you LOSE.)

Another interesting thing about Purgatory, though, is that Tiamat/Eve does not appear to be hunting down Dean. She's hunting down Cas, for "killing her Alphas and predatorially swallowing [her children]." Cas is characterized within the landscape as "Bright" and "Orderly," the eternal threat to her chaotic children.

Cas's characteristics of being Awake and bringing both Narrative and Meaning to The Empty also make him an eternal threat to the Cosmic Void, the Shadow. Cas imposes Limits/Order/Rebellion on the boundless forces, but he is independent enough to be flexible (unlike Death/Billie/Dean who swung too close to Order at the end of the series). These qualities liken Cas to Order and Disorder, "the spanner in the works," and he functions as The Great Escapist, which likens him more closely to the culture hero. (Which is why to so many astute viewers, Cas feels like not just A Main Character, but The Main Character.) In bringing Cas to such high highs (Superman, puppet God, angelic warrior) and such low lows (object of ridicule and scorn and emasculation), and such a wise middle of the road (renewed faith and values, finding strength IN weakness), they've accidentally transformed him to true protagonist.

Ergo with respect to Eve/Tiamat and The Empty/Void, Castiel IS the real cosmic culture hero. (Sam and Dean are culture heroes in their own right, but of Earth, so they can be heroes when aided by God/Heaven/"Equalizer" favors).

////

Jack is triparted God, the same as he represents Sam and Dean and Cas. He's also the egg and the chicken and the snake.

But when you try to be all things, as Dean tried to be all things (re: his conversation with Mary in season 12), you effectively became nothing. "It's not fair!"

#theme ideas #the story of the black snake #usurper gods + ineffective voids #cas + usurper #jack + usurper #culture hero #order vs chaos #cas vs eve #cas vs the empty #fic ideas #wish i could've woven sam in more

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payphoneangel · 2 years

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🥧

Hi Duck!! *smooch u on the forehead* you picked: THE APPLE PIE SPREAD

What is your heart reaching out for? What has you craving, yearning, and aching? What do you look at the same way Dean Winchester looks at pie?

1) THE PRESENT (Two of Blades)

It sounds like you might find yourself in a bit of a moral quandary. Maybe you’ve come to a conclusion about yourself that contradicts a previously held belief. Maybe you have a tough decision to make that might go against your values. If I had to take a wild guess, I’d say you had to abandon your dreams of becoming the president because God decided to make you a prophet. I hate when that happens 😩

2) THE APPLE PIE (Three of Blades)

The Three of Blades is about loss and sorrow. Maybe you want to stop pretending everything is okay and let go for a while. If your heart is aching, let that ache ring out of you like a bell. Let it rattle your body and soul and let it shake loose who you are in your center. Loss is the first step of transformation. We shed our old skins to become something new. Werewolves, inherent beings of transformation, eat hearts to survive. Tell me, and feel it yourself: what’s eating yours?

3) THE OBSTACLE (Temperance)

Consider how you pick your battles. Temperance is a reminder to not be overtaken by your emotions. A sense of calm in a stressful situation can be hard to come by, but may provide further stability down the line. But, as nice as peace sounds to achieve, sometimes, we must stand up for ourselves in times of struggle. Could too much temperance be the obstacle you need to overcome? How do you find yourself navigating conflict? If you are one to barrel through it or avoid it, consider what you might be sacrificing in order to keep the boat from rocking.

4) THE ACTION (Queen of Pentagrams)

Queen of Pentagrams, like the bad bitch Anael, is all about pragmatism. Consider if you are fully meeting your basic needs. If there are cracks in your foundational needs, that may be causing more struggles for yourself. Be honest with yourself and those around you about how you are feeling. Don’t tamp yourself down to accommodate others. Seek courage and confidence to ask for what you need. If you have angelic abilities, use this to your monetary gain to run a faith-healing scam.

Overall, it feels to me like you are experiencing contradictory feelings about some aspects of your life. If you can, try to make time for yourself to feel your emotions without dwelling on the greater meanings behind them. Use this clarity to seek out what is lacking in your life. Trust yourself and don’t let others decide your perception for you. And, with how this spread ended up laying out, keep in mind the cardinal rule:

When a hot girl speaks, you listen.

@sleeparalyziz thanks so much for sending an ask!!! Sending all my love with this reading 💚💚💚

Send me a 🥧 😈 or 🫀 and I will give you an spn themed tarot reading

#vinny answers #tarotnatural

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mlobsters · 17 days

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supernatural s15e15 gimme shelter (w. davy perez)

DEAN Well, right now, weak is all we have, okay, 'cause nobody's found anything. And without Amara, we're screwed. So, Atlantic City? All-you-can-eat prime rib, and possibly one all-powerful cosmic being. Come on, man, sounds like a roadtrip to me.

it sounds good to me but i've been striking out with this season in the fun department :p

cracking up at cas trying to get sam to back him up that taking jack on a murder investigation is a bad idea, but sam backs dean instead and dean is so pleased. and jack is just happy to be involved. reminds me of that scene in hannibal 2x10

(rocktheholygrail)

all right so we get cas and jack being awkward with local law enforcement, that's a combo.

JACK Like Sam always says, when in doubt, try social media. CASTIEL Oh, yeah. I did that once. There were so many cat photos, it was just... There were too many cats.

gasp

JACK It says I need a parent or guardian's permission to join. CASTIEL You have my permission. JACK Ah. I have his permission.

cheap but i'll take it, it was cute

ZACK No one's making deals. Like, at all. Uh, Rowena has a hard "people will end up where they belong" philosophy. It can be nice, less quotas. But, like, look at me, uh, a crossroads demon who can't bring in a deal? Like, what even am I? CASTIEL You're a deviant soul corrupted by Hell. ZACK Well, yeah, yes, but II mean more in, like, a work-life-balance sense.

look at this, throwing the bog standard demon a bone and having some personality, and the potential changes rowena would make

SAM That's not what I meant. We've been on the road for almost two days, and I get not wanting to talk about it, I do, but, you know, what we're planning on doing, killing Amara. DEAN Well, we're not pulling the trigger. SAM Sure, but we still have to find her. And then, if we find her, we have to lie to her. We got to set her up for her own death. DEAN Hey, man, Billie called us "Messengers of God's Destruction," okay? Did you think that was, what, gonna be easy? Bloodless? Mhmh. We knew there was gonna be a catch. Least this time it's not you or me.

okay. i'm not sure i'm following here. it's like they have some good feelings about amara and they're bummed about having to kill her. but aside from the whammy on dean, do they? like, she decided to not wipe out existence and no one had to kill themselves to take her out, and she brought mary back so maybe there's some feelings from that? anyway, don't really get this but ok. i'm also not convinced she actually has to die, but whatevs

JACK Well, I have more dads than most, and I always just feel like I'm letting all of them down.

a) cute cute b) oh, jack

spn s5e8 steve bacic as dr. sexy / s15e15 as pastor joe

thought this pastor joe guy looked familiar, apparently he was dr sexy in changing channels 5x08. and 3 episodes (as different characters) of the xfiles! oh okay i looked him up before lol, he was in the episode pusher as someone who was compelled to kill themselves by the baddie. didn't apparently deem it worth an hiky though

PASTOR You have kids? CASTIEL I, uh... It's complicated.

find it kind of interesting how jack talks about his dads straight up but when other people talk to said dads, they deflect to avoid saying they have a kid specifically. or maybe i just selectively remember the times they worm around the question

PASTOR It's kind of part of the job. My wife, she grew up in this church and loved it. They were a bit more hardcore back then. Chalked everything that happened up to God's will. Never seemed to realize that– CASTIEL God just doesn't care.

getting some laughs out of me. look at you, davy

sitting on the cold, wet car 😩

appreciate their commitment to filming in whatever weather, and at least in some shots showing them with the rained on/snowed in hair

so, based on that dun dun DUN type music, are they wary about the amara business just because she's you know, a juiced up god and presumably hard to kill? and not because they don't want to kill her?

SAM How'd you find us? AMARA I smelled you from two states over. You have a very distinctive musk. DEAN Thank you.

okayyy. that's something. he's pleased, for whatever reason

CASTIEL My name is, um well, my name's not important. I do know what blind faith is. I used to just follow orders without question, and I did some pretty terrible things. I would never look beyond the plan. And then, of course, when it all came crashing down, I found myself lost. I didn't know what my purpose was anymore. And then one day, something changed, something amazing. I… I guess I found a family, and I became a father. And in that, I rediscovered my faith. I rediscovered who I am.

ha. after i just said they never tell outsiders that they do have a kid. here's cas, stepping up. i have no clue what the timeline would be on the, found a family thing. i have a terrible time keeping his plotlines straight

SAM The former Death, he told us you were the firstborn. AMARA Or he told you what you needed to hear.

they seem a little rattled about that, but they know billie hasn't always been right about everything in the past so it seems reasonable to not talk everything she says at face value? and presumably same for death 1.0

AMARA Chuck and I, we're twins. Creation and destruction, light and dark, balance. And when we split apart, all this was created. SAM The Big Bang? AMARA Eh.

huh. ok. how does that work with the alternate universes then? i feel like this is a very loosely thought out idea :p

this is very se7en :p if dude wakes up to thrash around....

DEAN No, no. No. Why did you bring her back? You said that you wanted to show me something, that you wanted to, uh to teach me something. I don't know if you were following along, but your little experiment, it came to a not-so-happy ending. My mom is dead. So what exactly did you want to show me? What was the point?

AMARA I wanted two things for you, Dean. I wanted you to see that your mother was just a person, that the myth you'd held onto for so long of a better life, a life where she lived, was just that, a myth. I wanted you to see that the real, complicated Mary was better than your childhood dream because she was real. That now is always better than then. That you could finally start to accept your life.

kind of shocked we're having this meaningful character moment and not plowing along with the plot. i... well. i'll be generous and attempt to believe that this was actually thought about when they brought mary back

DEAN And the second thing? AMARA I thought having her back would release you, put that fire out. Your anger. But I guess we both know I failed at that. DEAN You're damn right. Look at you. Just another cosmic dick rigging the game. You're just like your brother.

can't really argue with that, but they're making her out to be very nice this time around

AMARA It was a gift, Dean, not a trial. DEAN I'm not angry, Amara. I'm furious. To know that all my life, I've been nothing but a hamster in a wheel, stuck in a story. And you know whose fault that is? Chuck's. And it ain't just me. We're all trapped. Sam and Cas and Jack and even you. And you want to talk about the people that he's killing right now AMARA Stop. DEAN Why? He's not stopping. And you're doing nothing to stop it. Think he gives a rat's ass about you? Well, now who's living in a dreamworld?

this is all very convincing manipulation if he's just trying to maneuver her into a situation where she can be killed

PASTOR Whatever she needs, whatever it takes, I'll find a place where she can get help. I spent my life taking care of all these other people. Should've been taking care of her.

the subplot of the murdering pastor's daughter, all the meaningful looks between cas and jack. cas getting to come in and save the day, fingers, gut stab wounds

now cas and jack get to have a nighttime car chat about their feelings

JACK When we – When I kill Chuck and Amara, I'll die, too. CASTIEL What? JACK Billie's spells have been turning me into some kind of bomb, and when I go off, God and Amara will cease to exist. And... I won't survive. JACK Don't tell Sam and Dean. CASTIEL Oh, yeah? Why not? JACK They won't understand. But I know... This is the only way they'll ever forgive me.

of course! well, i can't say i'm surprised

CASTIEL No. I watched you die once, and I will not do it again. JACK It's not your choice.

true that

DEAN Wait. What's happening? Where are you going? CASTIEL Going to look for another way. I have to. DEAN What the hell are you talking about? CASTIEL Dean, in case something goes wrong and I don't make it back, there's something you and Sam need to know…

distressing way to leave the episode but ok. so that mean he's not keeping jack's secret? that's good

(wiki)

Alex Calvert posted a photo of the volunteer registration form Jack filled out at the Community Center

lol ok. that's a lot of exclamation points. and the marital statue made me laugh

didn't bitch my way through this ep, i'll take it

#supernatural #spnwatch #spn 15x15 #davy perez #steve bacic

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wintrata · 5 months

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and so the Righteous Man knelt;

pairing: dean winchester/castiel tags: spn 15x18 kinda-coda, angst, major character death, flash fic, 700wc (read on ao3)

Our Father, who art fucking around Somewhere, You know ain’t the praying type, but I don’t know what to do without him.

and so the Righteous Man knelt;

Our Father, who art fucking around Somewhere, You know ain’t the praying type, but I don’t know what to do without him. It’s been an hour and a half and I don’t think I’m getting up off of this floor, ‘cause he loves me. I never even got to say it back. Did You write my heartbreak, too?

Hallowed be thy name when he calls for You, even when You didn’t think to answer back, and that’s years, man, I watched him. I saw the fall. I’d say sorry for planting the seeds of doubt in Your good soldier’s heart but that was Your work as much as it was mine. You never even picked up the phone.

Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done, on Earth as it is in Heaven. Does that please You? Is that sufficient? That my mama died flaming on burning plaster over my dad, and You wrote the pages to that book, was it enough? My baby tells me he loves me and has to leave, did You need more, still? Why would Thy Will need all this bleeding? Why would Thy Will mean the first of the sins was love? That all we’d ever do was get it wrong? I’m no saint, I know my day will come, and You’ve no room for me upstairs, I won’t fight that, but I love him, and I haven’t let him know yet.

Would You give us this day, and the day after that? Just a fraction of a fraction of a moment of his time, I’ll make him sandcastles and breakfast, and apologise some more. I don’t beg, You know that, You wrote that into my wirings. You know I’m telling the truth, but just give him back to me, I’ll not bite the hand that I eat from. I don’t trust myself to be deserving but for him You know I’d try. Just a day. For a day with my baby I’d penance with my life. Pay another forty years in the pit You heated, for the forty years I did it all wrong. Your measure of a lifetime in sulfur and sores for the one I'm living now, I haven't got much left anyway. I’ll make churches with my bare hands, if You bring him back, I would swim the deep, dig the grave back open, fit back into the box. Say You are love. Say You loved the world so much You gave Your only son. Say I'm desperate. Say I love him so much I don't even have to be here for it if it meant he'd wake in his bed and hold his son, I’m praying, man, can You hear? Can't You give him the chance I'm not gettin'? I can’t be all grief and handprints and running.

Do You take deals, God? I’ll put the drink down, I’ll stop the lies, give back our daily bread, our tender meat, the next headless corpse or frightful spirit, another go at my soul. Bring my sweetheart back.

And forgive us our trespasses, I promise not to make any more, do You hear me? It means You’ve won, it means I’m Cain, means I’m crawling on the dirt, I’m the murder. Means I'm whatever you need me to be. Means I’m scared. Means I’m afraid that if I were to lift my stone-wielding hand and ask my little brother to close his eyes, he would understand and turn his back to me. He knows I'm asking for my love back. He’d forgive me for this, just as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil,

or at least deliver him to me. Or me to him. Or someone good to somebody who don't deserve 'em but loves 'em like nothing You've ever written in Your good Book. If You opened the door I would ask to be folded into the Empty just as he. I don't suppose I'm asking for too much. Heaven is a peace I'm not getting but long already made. If You can't lead him back to the phonebooth, can You at least let me slip into the dark?

Amen.

#helloooooooo #guess who's back #back again #ik i said in my last post i'd discuss my rewatch but i've been so busy #so instead i'll try to write at least 300 words a day for an indefinite period of time #or at least until i get the groove of writing back! it's been a looooong long time #destiel #deancas #supernatural #supernatural fic #destiel fanfic #destiel fic #deancas fic #deancas fanfic

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sarah-dipitous · 7 months

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Hellsite Nostalgia Tour 2023 Day 256

Alpha and Omega

Because I forgot to download today’s spn episode and because it’s Destiel’s 15th anniversary (of when they met), we’re just doing one episode today…and definitely not because I want to start the One Piece anime……….

“Alpha and Omega”

Plot Description: the team scrambles to form a plan that can stop Amara and preserve the universe, but one of them will have to make a big sacrifice

“Carry On Wayward Son” gets neglected again…fine. I’ll do it myself *opens Spotify*

Would I Survive the First Five Minutes??: no one died

Ok but why would Cas know where Lucifer went after Amara ripped him out? I didn’t know where my teeth went when I had to get a couple pulled as a kid. Frankly, I didn’t even know they’d been pulled, I thought the dentist had to go get bigger pliers

I have zero sympathy for god…..

Now might not be the time to ponder on canine eating schedules, but at least “I didn’t know dogs had breakfast” is the most solid proof that Castiel is in fact back

I don’t know what I’m supposed to be seeing in the sky there. It looks DIFFERENT, sure but I’ve literally seen worse. This year.

I swear if Cas never gets to confront god himself I’ll be so fucking mad

“If you got something for me to punch, shoot, or kill, lemme know, and I’ll do it. I’ll do it til I die, but how are we supposed to fix the friggin’ sun?” They really wanted me to take that line seriously and not laugh

Why are we in London all of a sudden?? Who is she?? And why is she after Sam and Dean??

Rowena and Chuck talking about parenting is a much needed moment of levity, especially paired with Crowley being thankful the world is ending, hearing about himself at one year old

I’m just confused what Sam wants them to ACTUALLY do. “Anything” is not a real counter

Where ARE Dean and Cas going?? Beer run? Joy ride?

Behold, the face of a man whose crush just told him “you’re our best friend” and “you’re our brother.”

What an interesting solution. And honestly, I should have seen it coming. You can’t have just either darkness or light. Both have to be in existence equally….but what if equally….meant none at all?

Rowena’s eye makeup is fucking gorgeous, but omg did she really just say “if you get me enough souls, I can build a bomb”??? I am equal parts “this is a ridiculous line” and “LET. HER. COOK!”

I can’t believe we’re gonna try to vacuum some ghosts out of an old mental hospital to get some souls

Oh I bet the person…….I was wrong. Omg. The Reaper that wants Sam and Dean dead. All she DOES is collect souls!

If this pigeon feeding old lady convinces Amara to not destroy all of existence, I’ll scream

I’m…unwell at the thought of Dean being the bomb. They’re gonna shove hundreds of thousands of souls into him……and half of what I’m thinking about is when Castiel took all the souls out of purgatory and the parallels and how they’ll be the only two with that kind of experience. The other half is don’t let Dean sacrifice himself!! Billie’s gonna take him to the Empty and he’s not the only one with a PERSONAL CONNECTION TO AMARA. Chuck is literally right there

One day, I’ll figure out how to put eyeshadow or more liner under my eye without it looking bad. I want to make this look work. It’s stunning

Oh are we getting the London lady again? For like ten seconds……

Take those souls out of Dean and do it yourself, you fucking coward

“I could go with you” CASSSSSSSSSSSS

Watching Dean say goodbye to Sam is so hard. After all the times they’ve fought tooth and nail to keep the other from dying…to have this air of acceptance because it’s for the sake of all existence

Why are all these family therapy sessions led by one or more Winchesters working so well??

Guess the sun’s back…so what does Dean do with all those souls now?

The way Cas’s first thought upon seeing the sun back was about Dean

So Amara heals Chuck, Chuck takes the souls out of Dean, and then Chuck leaves again

One, I can’t believe that lady just shot Sam, Two, I can’t believe Amara and Chuck just left Dean stranded……EXCUSE ME?!?! What I really am having trouble grasping is MARY’S BACK?!!

#hellsite nostalgia tour 2023

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shallowseeker · 8 months

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Gosh, Chuck really set up Amara to trust Dean and then lose hope, didn't he?

What a cosmic dick!

The truth is: Amara's love was an immature love, a love of childhood, and even a little like Harper Sayles. In her own way, she's struggling with the Idealization of Apple Pie and the Romanticized Notion of the White Picket Fence.

In season 8, when Dean was reeling from total 24/7-360-degree war and the uncomfortable grayness of real-world civilian life, he too became fixated on an unobtainable concept of love (and people) as something that will never let you down.

In season 15, we find Amara dressed in vibrant hues and exploring life. And it's lovely that Amara has gained so much wisdom in her time spent individuating.

She encourages Chuck to see meaning in his creation. She lectures Dean about how "now is always better than then." She laments the loss of the opportunity to get to know Jack.

However, she's not integrated in terms of how she conceptualizes love, and in particular, she speaks of Dean in always-or-never statements.

AMARA: Like I told you when we first met, you and I will always help each other.

On accepting the wholeness of life, we can turn to Buddhist teacher Pema Chödrön, who wrote in her deeply insightful book When Things Fall Apart:

“We think that the point is to pass the test or to overcome the problem, but the truth is that things don’t really get solved. They come together and they fall apart. Then they come together again and fall apart again. It’s just like that. The healing comes from letting there be room for all of this to happen: room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy.

Amara is a long, long way from the disillusionment necessary to truly see another person as a complex individual. She's a long way from the mature disillusionment-and-choosing of real relationships.

In season 15, it's even more of a contrast than usual, as it's flanked by the disagreement-and-repair spousal dynamic that characterizes Dean-and-Cas. Dean became disillusioned with Cas as early as season 4, when Cas and Uriel attacked Anna and especially so in season 6 during the Angelic Civil War. Cas became disillusioned with Dean as early as Dean giving in to Michael in season 5.

///

Chuck eases Amara into thinking that her love connection is real, in exactly the way she had conceptualized it:

CHUCK: The Winchesters have gotten to you, huh? Figures-- you and Dean have that whole weird... thing. AMARA (an awed, wondering smile): That wasn't you? Writing? CHUCK: Ugh! Not that part. Gross. Amara gives another, privately pleased little smile.

Then, once the plan he knows is brewing springs into action, he in turn snaps his jaws shut on her. He'd been grooming her for hopelessness and slaughter all along. And so, he consumes her.

AMARA: No, but... but Dean can't hurt me. CHUCK: No, but he can lie to you. He could send you into the meat grinder with a wink and a smile.

He capitalizes on and then leverages her naivete to cannibalize her. He cuts off her development in order to use her as fuel. "She's in here somewhere," is so ominous. It calls to mind how Amara talked about the beings she devoured, not an egalitarian shared mind-space of equals.

CHUCK: Look, I get it. You wanted him to care about you, but humans... they'll break your heart every time.

Chuck thrives on hopelessness.

#chuck & amara #spn amara #amara is the hidden love #amor #the darkness #Angra Mainyu #spn gods who eat souls #amara + soul eater #cosmic hierachy #amara as apex predator #chuck shurley #spn chuck #spn god #spn the light #spn season 15

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maipareshaan · 9 months

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Okay plan, i infilitrate D/sticule, how? Channel a gay fetish, Heller googles, self centered whiny "activism", zero doing media right or fandom right but hyperfocusing on doing it positive and right bcz its good and happy narrative for me. Violent hatred and superiority complex for anyone who doesn't watch spn for ultimately being good and progressive via found family D/stiel. Also be real most blogs going to be cancelled do this too, they are just more proship about fanon and like problematic stuff within this attitude. The attitude itself being the problem. Anti eat anti world whatever.

Then i make a hateblog and be like 'w* dni, or i will stab you" and say 'send hate asks guys for fun and ofcourse activism.'

Okay practice

Dean loves Cas, Dean could fuck Cas and poeple would be like Dean is straight, Dean fucks women bcz he is gay and is forced to fuck them by comphet that his homophobe father forced on him, god why won't this homophobic het evil incest supporting world get this. We were queerbaited and silenced. #Deanisgay. I am such a brave pure innocent soul and an activist, everyday i endure.

Convincing?

#Fandom wank #Guys i am very bored

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impishglee · 3 years

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Angels as Eusocial Insects: Caste Determination and Task Allocation

hey guys im back at it again with the applying my studies to xenobiology and my cringe interests <3 and im here to talk abt the angels of supernatural bc i saw this post and it made my brain start zooming. i don’t know shit abt christian or jewish mythology nor will i be digging into it bc thats just not what this is about. im explicitly treating angels basically as a species of alien and only working w what is provided by supernatural itself.

In Supernatural it’s implied that angels are separated into predetermined ranks, largely determined by how powerful they are as a function of their grace, as well as having several specialized angels such as cupids, rit zien and grigori. You know what else experiences a similar phenomena?

(image source)

ANTS!! As well as other eusocial species like some bees, wasps, all termites and weirdly, naked mole rats. I’m going to be focusing on ants primarily bc that is what i know best. i’m going to be breaking down angels as eusocial insects in two topics:

CASTE: what are the castes and how are they determined, and what are analogous biological examples?

TASK ALLOCATION: on a smaller scale, how do angels divide work among the same caste?

Before we get into it, let’s just get a definition of eusociality out of the way and see if angels check the requirements: Eusociality is the most “advanced” or “complex” form of sociality, defined by:

• Cooperative brood care - we know basically very very little about how angels are “raised” and they more or less seem to be created fully matured, but from the vibes it seems like younger angels are taught and accountable to a variety of older angels.

• Multiple generations living in the same colony - eyup.

• Division of labor into reproductive and nonreproductive groups - I would argue yes! In this case I am defining angelic reproduction as the ability to make more angels (excluding nephilim, we are just. ignoring nephilim for the purposes of this meta). In this case God and Archangels are our reproductive castes.

o Angels reproduce asexually, so we thankfully don’t have to worry abt sex determination. There are no drone/male equivalents.

Stunning. Incredible. Angels are eusocial. MOVING ON!

CASTE:

Caste in eusocial organisms is a morphological category that is roughly split into the queen(reproductive female), workers(nonreproductive females) and drones(male reproductives.) These are not harshly defined in all species and you can get intermediate forms, as well as highly specialized subcastes of workers. If I were to apply these castes to supernatural angels I would sort them like this.

Queen: Chuck lmao

Intermediates: Archangels

Workers: Basically everyone else

• Some specialized sub castes of worker would be the cupids, rit ziens and grigori. Examples of some cool specialized ant castes are twig nesting ant soldiers who have a big flat head they use to plug the entrances to their nests and honeypot ant repletes who basically just eat a bunch of food and hang around and feed other ants through trophallaxis(regurgitate into other ants mouths)

Now castes are morphologically distinct, and these morphological differences are determined by a combination of genetics and environmental factors. In many eusocial insects, reproductive caste determination is a product of how much they are fed in the larval stage, quantity over quality, royal jelly is fake and doesn’t actually affect the development of queens.

In some eusocial species(some wasps, naked mole rats) the reproductive queen is determined by who can beat everyone else up. If the current queen/alpha female dies or is removed from the colony, the strongest females will then enter a period of conflict where they will beat each other up, sometimes even killing competitors. I think this is basically how spn angels work and why the archangels are at eachothers throats as soon as God dips.

In summary: angel caste is determined by “genetics” aka how they were initially made, how much power they obtain, and dominance.

TASK ALLOCATION:

So! If 90% of angels are the same caste, how to they decide who does the smiting and who gives the heavenly lobotomies?

In social insects there are a couple theories and it varies by species, but in the case of angels I think the two that align the best are morphological and spatio-temporal task allocation.

Morphological Task Allocation:

This one is pretty straight forward. In social insects, often bigger, burlier workers will do more dangerous/physically demanding jobs, like defending the nest, foraging and scouting for resources. Smaller ants will be in charge of tasks like tending brood and queen, cleaning the nest, and nest construction.

Bigger, stronger angels will be in charge of more dangerous jobs like smiting demons, fishing the michael sword out of hell, etc and weaker angels will be in charge of maintaining heaven and it’s souls and ambiguous corporate angel duties. Also the lobotomies.

Spatio-Temporal Task Allocation:

This theory on task allocation is the idea that as an individual gets older they do progressively more dangerous tasks, a good example of this is honeybees! When a bee pupates into a bee, it’s first job is tending brood, then it moves on to nest maintenance/construction, then nest defense, and then the last thing it does before it dies is scouting/foraging. This is the temporal aspect. It’s basically to maximize the efficiency of a lifespan.

The “spatio” aspect is that ants are essentially doing whatever job needs doing wherever they are, so when they are born they tend the the brood, then other ants pupate and they run out of work, so they move further out in the nest to see what else needs doing like nest maintenance, then more ants start doing that job, so they go further out to forage.

I think there’s decent enough evidence for this for angels. The temporal aspect is less strong admittedly, though I do think younger angels are probably more relegated to working in heaven instead of going to earth or hell. A strong piece of evidence to me is that Metatron gets saddled with the job of being God’s scribe just because he was there, he was just a random worker in proximity to a job that needed doing, so he did it.

SUMMARY: Bigger angels do more dangerous jobs, stronger angels also do more dangerous jobs, older angels do more dangerous jobs, and also angels just do whatever job is in front of them.

WOW I THINK I’VE SAID EVERYTHING I HAVE TO SAY ON THIS TOPIC! THIS WAS SO LONG! IF YOU’VE MADE IT THIS FAR, I LOVE YOU <3 I LOVE ANGELS AND ALSO ANTS!

#supernatural #supernatural meta #spn meta #xenobiology #entomology #eusociality #long post #sorry guys its. literally over 1k words but ahaha im the person i am

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you-cant-spell-subtext-without · 3 years

Text

so get this. I was gonna roll around in Tombstone related fluff today - but no, no - this post came across my dash so Now We Are Gonna Discuss the Carnal Consumption of Meat as it appears on That Show Supernatural. YEAH BUDDIES!

(also my sincere apologies to OP of the inspiration post who innocently tagged it with “lunch date!” because I am about to go Elsewhere, cursedly).

Let’s all go meat man, after the cut!

This analysis centers primarily on 5x14 Bloody Valentine. The title of course is a semi-homage to a 3D Slasher Film Jensen starred in circa 2009.

Which I will be renting soon I guess. ,[<- parasocial panda GET BACK IN YOUR ENCLOSURE]

Also Its Really Fun that the trailer for Said Cinema ends with “nothing says date movie like a 3-D ride to hell” [are you also thinking of Cas pulling Dean out of hell, or are you normal?] ***unironically the teaser for 5x14 is -

EXT. SIDEWALK - IN FRONT OF ALICE'S APARTMENT BUILDING

RUSSEL

First date.

They then eat each other. Literally they eat each others flesh. They also do it while dirty talking about it. SPN IS A SHOW

ALICE Ugh! I've been so alone. So empty...

RUSSEL I know. Me too.

ALICE I want you, Russel---All of you... inside me...

[they both take bites out of each other, Alice chewing on a piece of Russel's flesh]

****Remember this detail, as it is important.

ANYWAY, it’s truly Cursed that not only are we doing an homage to this 3-D Jensen Horror Date Flick but also this episode is specifically centered on Valentine’s Day. The day honoring romance and love Now Coopted by Hallmark, everyone, that is the day spn writers chose to introduce us to

Sir Horseman of THE Biblical Apocalypse Famine.

Canonically, we are aware that the show is drawing from the book of Revelations in its depiction of the Four Horsemen. Here’s what it says about Famine -

"When He broke the third seal, I heard the third living creature saying, "Come." I looked, and behold, a black horse; and he who sat on it had a pair of scales in his hand.”

-Revelations 6:5

Famine holds scales (used to weigh out grain in times of food scarcity). Spn’s depiction is represented as hunger, a bottomless pit of need. It consumes souls (demon and human alike).

Cas describes Famine a little more poetically:

CASTIEL

"And then will come Famine riding on a black steed. He will ride into the land of plenty... "

"... and great will be the Horseman's hunger, for he is hunger. "

"His hunger will seep out and poison the air. "

***Consider a prior season in which we are introduced to the Seven Deadly Sins. Which are the sins associated with hunger?

Gluttony

and Lust.

***this is also important

Back to the episode. Case cold open, and we find out that Alice was a Nice Girl. In that she didnt drink, smoke or

have premarital sex.

***So Alice’s hunger for the sin of Lust caused her to succumb to it; and her demise was presented as Gluttony (literally eating her partner’s flesh). HMM

Famine’s presence is affecting the town, and Cas is not immune.

DEAN

And when did you start eating?

CASTIEL

Exactly. My hunger-- it's a clue, actually.

***They lay it out a little more in case you missed it ->

SAM

I thought famine meant starvation, like as in, you know, food.

CASTIEL

Yes. Absolutely. But not just food. I mean, everyone seems to be starving for something--Sex, attention, drugs, love...

***this is so important. but of course because its spn and our textual narrators are generally unreliable (even in a Ben Edlund episode, yes I know)

we get a red herring

CASTIEL

Right. The cherub made them crave love, and then Famine came, and made them rabid for it.

***but that’s not accurate. they didn’t get married or become obsessed with each other (remember the cursed coin in 4x08 Wishful Thinking and the unconditional love wish? not what happened here). they had premarital sex. they did the thing Alice considers wrong, and dark, and sinful. and then they ate each others’ flesh.

DEAN

Okay, but what about you? I mean, since when do angels secretly hunger for White Castle?

CASTIEL

It's my vessel-- Jimmy. His, uh, appetite for red meat has been touched by Famine's effect

***mad lad Jimmy Novak’s hunger is for...red meat? He is starving for red meat? You are telling me that the Novaks, red blooded conservative religious midwestern Novaks, ate RED MEAT SO SPARINGLY that Jimmy Novak was LITERALLY starving for it?!?! No way. Absolutely no way. This is a man who was such a religious zealot he STUCK HIS HAND IN BOILING WATER and accepted an angel of the lord into his own body but his secret hunger was for fucking ground beef?

give me a damn break.

to me this is an absolute coverup. Because Cas’s burger consumption is not related one iota to his vessel Jimmy Novak.

it is a representation of Cas falling. Cas’s cravings for meat represent his growing (and very much prohibited) feelings for...humanity (Dean Winchester), and they are presenting as Gluttony in the form of his downing more and more copious amounts of red meat.

SERIOUSLY, consider this - at one point the depiction is so desperately carnal that he is eating raw ground beef with his bare hands. It is fucking uncomfortable. and it is SUPPOSED to be. Famine stirs up hunger for the prohibited. For the sinful. That which we are starving for but do not believe we can ever have, so we lust and we lust and we LUST after it, but should we allow ourselves even just a taste of what we have been ravenously craving, we binge it until we ourselves disappear into the oblivion of our own sinful, dark desires.

Since You Want More Examples of why this cant possibly be hunger for Cheeseburgers and Cheeseburgers alone, Consider Famine’s effect on Dean. Remember his doctor kink?

**when its revealed that Doctor Corman has succumbed to Famine’s poison by drinking himself to death, Dean - very uncharacteristically by the way - reacts by saying out loud

DEAN Thanks. Crap! I really kind of liked this guy.

***please note that Doctor Corman says the following to Dean in the prior scene they have together -

DR. CORMAN [to Dean]

Agent Marley, you just can't stay away.

****was that a flirtation?

***Also, Dean doesn’t want to go out and chase tail for Valentines Day.

SAM

I mean, what do you always call it-- Uh, unattached drifter Christmas?

DEAN

Oh, yeah. Well... be that as it may...I don't know. Guess I'm not feeling it this year.

SAM

So you're not into bars full of lonely women?

DEAN

Nah, I guess not. [takes a sip of his beer] Ahh. What?

SAM

That's when a dog doesn't eat-- That's when you know something's really wrong.

***oh look we are relating things to eating again. sex/lust to gluttony. hmmm hmmm hmmm

ANYHOW - *takes deep breath*

this is also the Episode Where This Scene Lives

****JACKTING JOICES

oh and speaking of jacting joices, this is also the Dean Notices Cupids Crotch Episode.

frAckles, I am once again asking why you only permit celestial beings to hug you from behi-[gunshots]

but Dean isn’t hungry. Why? Famine has the explanation, and we get it after Dean immediately runs inside after Cas heads in to complete his portion of their plan barely giving him any time to do so because he misses him that much.

FAMINE

I disagree. [Famine moves closer to Dean and touches him] Yes. I see. That's one deep, dark nothing you got there, Dean. Can't fill it, can you? Not with food or drink. Not even with sex.

DEAN

Oh, you're so full of crap.

FAMINE

Oh, you can smirk and joke and lie to your brother, lie to yourself, but not to me!

***not Dean making all of those homophobic/homoerotic jokes every time he’s in danger or feeing uncomfortable; not that, that can’t possibly be what Famine is referencing, right?

I can see inside you, Dean. I can see how broken you are, how defeated.

***not THIS parallel:

AMARA:

You're a mystery. I can see inside your heart. Feel the love you feel, except… It's cloaked in shame

You can't win, and you know it. But you just keep fighting. Just... keep going through the motions.

***not the motions of performative heterosexuality!!

***Dean’s not hungry because in his heart he truly believes that he can’t actually have what he hungers for. That Thing Which This Episode Overtly but Also Very Clearly Made Obvious. It’s an angel riding shotgun [I did Do That and I am Not Sorry], eating a burger in the front seat of the impala. But, I’ve deviated from the meat of this essay [gunshots] [this time just for the bad joke].

BONUS

there’s Exists another episode in which a man ravenously consumes red meat; eventually succumbing to eating raw beef with his bare hands in the season prior to this one.

Yes Supernatural the Show That Brought Us Not One But Two Scenes of Persons Carnally Consuming Red Meat With Their Bare Hands.

This episode is a MOTW - the man in question is a rougaru - a monster that starts out as human but due to some specific genetic disorder (hmmm hmmm hmm crack in THE chassis hmmm hmmm) soon begins to be extremely hungry - “for everything, but eventually long pig.” AKA human flesh.

Wanna know the kicker?

Episode’s called Metamorphosis.

(GIF by jackttwist)

I’ll see myself out.

[DOUBLE BONUS for extra credit:

if you really wanna wild out, go watch the scene of Jack the rougaru looking at himself in the mirror in 4x04 - and then meander on over to 7x01 and check out God!stiel looking in the mirror as the leviathans writhe inside him over there. It’s worth the walk.]

***oh and @lilac-void im tagging you in this one because in exchange for your KIND creator content nomination I guess I will respond by cursing you with an Honorary tag in this, a Meat Meta. you’re welcome slash I'm sorry XO [but seriously thank you again for your kindness and appreciation; it really motivated me to sit down and get moving on making more content <3]

#yes I did do a meat meta #and what of it #destiel #spn #spn fandom #supernatural #spn family #myspnmeta #my spn meta #hellerism #deancas #longpost #spn analysis #spn 5x14 #spn bloody valentine #meat meta #<- I do not even want to know or see what else that tag would lead to

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autisticandroids · 3 years

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i had incomprehensible/incoherent thoughts on consumehimnatural and i thought i'd share because idk where i'm going with this but i'm going... somewhere... anyway consumehimantural discourse is so interesting i think because one of the most consistent threads of the show re: monsters is the theme of the literal consumption of humans (werewolves, vampires, rougarous, eps with pagan gods usually define their monstrosity thru their consumption of people, etc)

this comes up a lot especially whenever a monster that used to be human is featured like in s1e2 & s14e16, also theee consumehimnatural thesis my bloody valentine, because it really is just how do you make a monster out of a man? you make him hungry. you make him so hungry he makes a monster out of himself.

& like i think it’s really interesting how what separates regular angels who are just kind of neutral antagonists most of the time (dicks but not necessarily inherently evil), from the grigori who are portrayed as true monsters (in the context of the show) is that the grigori are consuming human souls??? as if that was the most monstrous perversion the show could demonstrate (consumption being the ultimate corruption of an entire class of angels)

(and i guess as an aside, i always thought this was a particularly interesting route to take given that grigori have sometimes been associated with the passage in genesis about the creation of nephilim, so the show was drawing a veeery direct parallel there between consumption and sex imo)

and corporeality is tricky in supernatural but i think it’s interesting how appetite for anything is rooted, inherently, in corporeality/consumption being about having a body/vessel with which to consume things? ghosts in general kill but don’t consume people because they can’t, they're incorporeal. angels and demons, on the other hand, experience consumption thru vessels, but for demons this is familiar (they were human once) whereas for angels it’s new so it takes a while for them to want it

also with death 1.0 it is actually so interesting that we only know a few things about him and the most interesting aspect imo about his portrayal is that he eats food. and a lot of it! he enjoys it even! literally why??? because death is ravenous. 100% appetite. because death. in the end. claims everything, consumes everything. but death is not a monster, not really, so on screen he eats junk food, & not people.

and like, i know this is something that’s been discussed a lot, hunger/desire being construed narratively as inherently bad (particularly re: cas wanting dean) but that made me think about the way the show portrays its hollow masculinity as so purposefully defined by its specific, excessive, and insatiable appetites, especially for (heterosexual) sex and (heroic) violence, and also alcohol (but only beer and hard liquor), red meat not vegan bacon, etc...

narratively the show generally treats this masculine consumption as correct or appropriate (we get hints that perhaps it is not, but they never really follow through on it?) whereas monsters are clearly consuming inappropriately. and it’s reeeeally interesting to think about where tfw is in terms of consumption and appropriateness (food, intimacy, violence) anyway lol that's all i have but i have been thinking thoughts about this

i love all this. interestingly enough, masculinity on spn is defined by appetites but at the same time those appetites are closely bounded:

DEAN: Yeah, well, there's times I want to get slapped during sex by a girl wearing a Zorro mask. That don't make it a good idea.

even heterosexual sex must be desired extremely normatively to be acceptable. and desire for sex is more about identity maintenance than pleasure:

DEAN: It's been a while. But you owe yourself. It's nothing but a ground ball – you just got to put your mitt down. You are Dean Winchester. This is what you do. [emphasis added]

like dean is a real man because the sex he has is about identity maintenance for himself and the way other men see him more than it is about fun.

but yeah your overall point is very good and i'll be thinking about it for a While. like a While while

#Anonymous #[john calvin shrieking and descending from the ceiling]#spn #asks

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