metamorphosis. yes there's a man transforming into a literal monster and yes it's about sam's descent into demon blood freak monsterhood but to me, above all, it's the episode in which dean's controlling codependency takes a monstrous turn.

he's petty and he's jealous and he's violent and he hits sam for lying and he hits sam again for talking back and he's trashing the motel room and he's the image of an abuser. dean is threatening to leave sam and to hunt sam and they both know he's not going to do either (i can't escape you, you can't escape me). there's dark fury and despair and panic in dean's eyes because sam (in tears, bleeding, taking it) is becoming more than he can control.

sam says "this blood, it's not in you the way it's in me" and dean can't fucking stand it. he immediately tries to write himself into this, sam's not doing this alone. that's his brother, his blood, how dare he go there. their blood not being the same is the gravest, most personal insult to dean.

sam says "i'm not doing it for you" and "this is my choice" and dean cannot STAND IT. sam still craves autonomy and dean STILL. CAN'T. STAND. IT.

the bucklemming era is crazy because sam will have like maybe 3 lines in an episode and jared is still there putting his whole pussy into every one. the soft voice and the flinches and overprotectiveness of the side characters he sees as previous versions of himself. how does sam have such a rich inner life because the showrunners definitely didn't do that. jared padalecki was able to build this in a cave with a box of scraps

"Dean didn't love Cas," "It was platonic," fuck off, when Cas died, he handled his loss the exact same way John did when he lost Mary. It's not even subtext, it's in the dialogue. Sam points it out, loud and clear. That's literally what the narrative was conveying.

"He's not just grieving about Cas, he lost Mary too." Yeah, but even when he's hellbent on blaming all of their loss on Jack, even he could see that Mary made her choice.

But to him, Cas didn't. To Dean, Cas was manipulated—deceived by some idea of "paradise," and it's easier to swallow that than to consider that Cas up and left them to protect Lucifer's child.

And you wanna know the cherry on top of all this??? Castiel's paradise consisted of them, together. Happy. Alive. Together. Castiel may have run away with Kelly to fulfill her wish for Jack, (to let him keep his powers where the Winchesters wanted to turn him human), but he only did so for that promise. In the end, he ran away so he could give them this.

(x)

I simply don’t like when people act like what happened to Jack is what should have happened (as if the show didn’t deliberately spell out it would be Bad beforehand!), or like we can hand-wave GodJack as being fine and good in a continuation as long as other ~more important topics~ like destiel are eventually addressed.

Jack’s fate is the crux of the tragedy of the finale. Supernatural is a show about parents and children, and that cycle of violence remains unbroken. Jack was forced to become like his grandfather (the cosmic Father of the universe) because that’s who his fathers needed/wanted him to be. Jack shouldn’t be seen as an afterthought or a side note. He’s the thematic center that ties everything together, including the queer family structure of destiel.

So here’s my hot take: whether or not they go fully explicit with any kind of Chuck won concept (and they don’t necessarily have to)… any continuation must address that what happened to Jack isn’t a good thing — for him, for their family, or for the universe since the show stated God shouldn’t have personhood — in order to truly be fulfilling.

You know I think you guys might be on to something when you call Sam woman coded cause - genuinely - how do you, as writers of a show, be so misogynistic as to not include any female characters asides from damsels and hookups (specifically referring to the early seasons), and yet need so desperately to have a outlet for macho masculine patriarchy power dynamics that you have an adult male character experience misogyny?? How do you mess up that badly??

It's like, although they thought that putting female characters in the narrative other than to exist as sexy distressed lamps wouldn't appeal to the true blooded 2000s American audience. But yet it was completely necessary for there to be a bottom rung in the masculinity pyramid because - well how else can we as a society function!!

Anyway, ik reading too far into things is my special talent, and in most circumstances all of this stuff is just a joke in the show but wow they really had Dean poking fun of any of Sam's characteristics that don't fit into this Hyper True Blooded American Masculinity ideology as a butt of jokes for 15 years. The fact that he has longer hair, that he cares about his hair, that he's tidy, that he likes salads and isn't a big meat eater, that he's sympathetic, that he's a bitch. And of course these are just silly little jabs that Dean makes in sibling-like fashion but like wow 15 years. Damn.

And of course it's not only this that leads to the rather odd interpretation of a woman-coded Sam, but also the way he is treated directly by the narrative. Like, for example, being the family's possession, rather than an equal member. Dean has seen it as his job to look out for his little brother since he pulled him from the fire and the wellbeing of this infant was thrown onto his shoulders at age 4, and this has created a lot of ricocheting effects on both of them. This isn't to say that Dean doesn't love, care, respect, and value Sam, but it does mean that sometimes he treats him like a possession rather than a person. He makes a lot of crazy decisions in the show that he justifies as being for Sam's own good, even if it goes directly against Sam's wishes. After Sam leaves a note to Dean telling him he's going out for a bit to handle a case, Dean weasels his way in, not trusting him to handle it due to the mental issues Sam is facing at the time, and kills Amy, despite Sam begging him not to. Even though Dean knows Sam would never consent to an angle possessing him, he tricks him into it anyway. He does these things, and many others because he believes that he is acting in Sam's best interests, totally disregarding the fact that Sam has capacity to make judgements and handle the consequences himself, even going so far as to oppose what he directly knows or Sam tells him he wants.

Then of course there is the fact that the fear integral to his character - a loss of autonomy (bodily autonomy, but also autonomy to make his own decisions about his future, to be good, to be pure and faithful), is an explicitly feminine one. Then there is the strong subtext in his story of SA themes, I think in s4 a demon even refers to Sam as a 'whore' or that he's 'whoring it up' (with respect to Ruby), and the interesting prevalent idea of Sam questioning or going against the ideals/ideology of the masculine figure head (which would be Dean I guess) and getting punished for it. Sam suggests that maybe they take a more humanitarian approach with the cow blood drinking vampires in s2 and Dean punches him, Sam tries to get him to talk about their Dad and Dean punches him, Sam tries to get him to talk about Lisa and Ben and Dean punches him, Sam gets caught simply using his abilities and Dean punches him - twice. I think you get the picture.

Anyway. This post comes off as rather critical of Dean, which wasn't really my intention. It's more sort of a broader criticism of the rampant sexism that had its part in shaping the show - being one to come out of the early 2000s. Ideas such as this - you could really go on for hours as its fascinating how ideological frameworks are presented certain ways in media - and the way masculine and feminine social dynamics, to list only one, is presented in supernatural is definitely a can of worms.

"Don't ship real people"

But...they are?

so i know we just have to accept certain retcons, but the big one that bugs me is yellow eyes's plan for sam and how it doesn't fit with all the vessel stuff. how do YOU make that work in your head?

hallo hallo anon, you have hit on one of the Great Big Bugaboos of spn canon and also the #1 evidence we have to throw in the face all those goofs who uncritically repeat the "Kripke had a 5 year plan!" factoid. He clearly did not, he was flying by the seat of his pants, and while he managed to put stuff together in a fun way the pants are Not Coherent.

Nevertheless, we can make it work, and the way we make it work is that the various members of the angelic and especially demonic hierarchies do not have complete information. Let's do a rough timeline:

In the beginning Chuck created the universe. This is widely regarded as a bad move.

Then, you know, handwaving on him setting up some version of a 'destiny' story arc which will inevitably end in his two sons fighting to the death, via characters he'll create called The Winchesters.

After inventing demons and being a real jerkface, Lucifer ends up in the cage.

In the 70s or whatever, Azazel goes to Ilchester to butcher a bunch of nuns and talk to daddy Lucifer -- Lucifer says "you have to help get Lilith out of her pit so that the seals on my cage can get broken." Azazel says, "But how, Evil Daddy?" Lucifer says, "This really special child." -- HERE IS WHERE THE RETCON APPEARS TO HAVE HAPPENED, BUT WE CAN WORK WITH IT

Sam Winchester is fated in the demonic archives among the true higher-ups, but lower-level demons don't necessarily know about him and his importance.

Azazel starts seeding the earth with special babies. COMPLETE CONJECTURE TO FOLLOW: While he knows that Sam is the one who will be Lucifer's vessel, he also knows that a series of events will need to occur so that Lucifer will get out of the cage to take his vessel in the first place. The first seal is the most important: a righteous man must shed blood in hell. How do we get that to happen? CONJECTURE TWO: I think that Dean must be the Righteous Man because of his place within the tripartite celestial structure: God-Michael-Lucifer mirroring John-Dean-Sam. I do not think that John could have ever actually been the one to 'spill blood' that would allow the first seal to break. (Ethical conjecture three: perhaps it's the weakness itself which has its own kind of righteousness? John's implacable; Dean is not.) CONJECTURE UHH FOUR I GUESS: Azazel is designing an elaborate scheme to ensure that Sam will die on a particular day (maybe bc it works well for opening the door to hell?) specifically to ensure that Dean will sell his soul to bring Sam back, and thereby doom himself to the hell where he will break the first seal.

This should be 6b but tumblr doesn't work this way: now, would it be a hell of a fucking lot easier for Azazel to just ensure Sam dies somehow? Yeah. But given everything we know about him and the dorky-ass demons who hang out in s1 and s2, Azazel is clearly a dramallama and does stuff for the lulz. Plus, I think there's an element of 'proving' to Sam how much destiny has a hold on him, because that is so important for his grooming into saying yes to Lucifer. If he was just hit by a car or something it doesn't have the same effect than if he's part of the emo hunger games.

Sam dies; Dean sells his soul; Sam lives, and wants to save Dean. But of course, he can't save Dean, because Dean *must* go to hell to ensure the first seal is broken. This is why the angels don't help Sam at all, and why Ruby is allowed to run around with impunity. Happily the writer's strike intervened and gave us a miserable fucking s3 finale where that happened, because that is WAY more interesting than Hero Sammy Saving The Day.

Ruby has been getting instructions from Lilith the entire time, presumably since she became a demon herself, and gets launched literally as soon as Azazel is out of the way to continue the Sam-grooming.

CONJECTURE FIVE(?): Azazel and Lilith fucking hated each other, lol. But it's Lilith who's the *actually* important demon, so she wins and Azazel gets sacrificed for being really bad at teaching drama.

It's not actually that complicated, but you do have to take "the special kids were just sacrifices on the altar of let's see what we can get Sam to do" as a given. If Sam had actually started killing all of them, that'd be one thing, and Azazel could have turned that to his favor before maybe having Ava stab Sam in the back regardless. (Then, a Special Kid will go and open the devil's gate for him anyway, so the demons can get out there and start their important seal-breaking prep.) Since Sam was being such a Good Guy -- well, so what, Ava will kill all the rest of them, and then either her or Jake will get turned easy-peasy and kill Sam too. Dean will make his deal either way, and the apocalypse is off with a bang. Or a sick crunching of knife into bone.

Anyway, that's my theory. It fits alongside my ironclad theory that all of history and fate and destiny was leading toward two brothers standing in front of each other in a cemetery, and the only real free will starting once Dean could choose what to do when Sam-as-Lucifer stood in front of him, and what he chose was to be there for his brother. Thereby giving Sam a solid space to grasp and overcome Lucifer, and then save all the days. The Righteous Man who begins it is the only one who can end it, as they say.

so of course the basics of the jack/Azazel parallel is “yellow eyed thing that kills Mary Winchester,” (who saw that coming), but it’s also about the parallels between sam and dean in the early seasons with the Azazel storyline, and them at the end of s14, which the show directly makes with that “we got work to do” trunk shot (and sam even saying in 13x01, “these yellow eyed things just keep coming.”)

early season 1 is about an angry grieving man who lost a woman dear to him because a yellow eyed monster killed her and that angry man wants revenge, no matter what it could cost him or how it could destroy him. in fact, it’s a worthy sacrifice to destroy himself, if it means he can get revenge.

end of season 14 is about an angry grieving man who lost a woman dear to him because a yellow eyed monster killed her and that angry man wants revenge, no matter what it could cost him or how it could destroy him if it means he can get revenge, except this time the yellow eyed monster in question is his son, and he cannot bring himself to kill his son even when he’s so grief-stricken he can only see a yellow eyed monster. this time he has something that’s worth more than revenge, and so he chooses forgiveness.

Azazel, to keep it simple, is a monster. he’s a force of sheer evil and destruction with poisonous blood he uses to infect his soldiers. he destroyed numerous families while creating his army, and he destroyed the Winchester family by killing Mary Winchester, launching john into a spiral of grief and anger and vengeance that only further destroyed them.

Jack has always struggled with the fear that he’s evil and a monster and can only ever cause destruction, particularly towards his chosen family; jack winds up living this fear as a reality when he kills Mary, inadvertently destroys the Winchester family and launches dean into a spiral of grief and anger and vengeance that only further destroys them. he’s also blatantly accused of infecting sam and dean because of who his father is (read: his blood) and of, you guessed it! destroying the family.

the only difference between Jack and Azazel is that jack is family. he’s one of Mary’s boys. he’s just as much her kid as he is TFW’s. he is loved by them and he loves them back. he becomes psychotic with grief over Mary, and the sheer horror of what he did to her—what he did to his family. in s15 he is suicidal with guilt over his Heaven murders, of destroying Mary and destroying his family. he had spent his life trying to be good and safe and prove he wasn’t a monster or villain or bad guy, just for it to happen anyways and to almost become Thee Bad Guy that started it all

@insanesonofabitch :3c

no particular conclusions on this, or even any definite takes on What They're Out To Do Here, but my slow/intermittent SPN groupwatch is just now heading into s9, and...... wow, the midseasons sure do have a preoccupation with "free will" as "congrats, you've recognized your One True authority figure as fallible, deceitful, and/or outright malicious and renounced your unquestioning deference to them! and now your job for the foreseeable future is to choose, over and over, between a whole-ass rogues' gallery of fallible malicious liars vying for a situational position of trust and leadership in your life. have fun figuring out which of these manipulative assholes to listen to this time!"

"--oh btw the exciting part about having to pick between shitty wannabe authority figures, rather than just obeying your single shitty authority, is that if you pick wrong the results are now fully your fault"

Tell me how Dean fucking Winchester became a vampire, a demon, and an angel and somehow still managed to be a better dad figure than John.

The secret lore of supernatural is that Sam, Dean, and Cas are anti-heroes at best.

The scene at the start of All Hell Breaks Loose where Dean talks to Sam's corpse in that shack in the middle of nowhere is soul crushing to an incomprehensible level that the show hardly ever manages to reach again.

Firstly, what is revealed about Dean as he spills his heart open is devastating on a whole other level. Like there's grief and then there's this - it's like a piece of him has been torn out and he's left unable to literally function. It's not really a new idea in the series up to this point that Dean has centered his life around his family, in particular protecting Sam. As he starts off, he wishes so desperately that Sam didn't start asking questions about their family so Dean could preserve his innocence just a little bit longer. No doubt John put a lot of pressure on Dean to protect and look after Sam, but taking on this role was something that was all but written inside him, as he says, John didn't even have to tell him to do it, Sam was his responsibility. The tipping point in this scene is when Dean finally asks "what am I supposed to do" - how can he even begin to move beyond this? He doesn't care if the world ends anymore, doesn't care if Azazel wins and he never gets revenge. In asking this question Dean realises that he is incapable of letting go of Sam, of the responsibilities to his family he has built his life around like the grain of sand at the centre of the pearl, and of the crushing guilt that comes with 'failing' these responsibilities. The only way forwards is to force the laws of nature to bend for him and bring Sam back from the dead, no matter the cost.

Secondly, this is heart wrenching to me for Sam too. Here he is, 23 years old and lying dead on a dingy mattress in a shack in the middle of nowhere - the only escape from his dark destiny found in death. But the primary reason it seems that Dean makes this massive sacrifice to bring him back isn't because he's 23 and has so much of life he deserves to live, but because he is incapable of living under the weight of his guilt in failing him - that he is Dean's responsibility that he can't live with letting down. And this is not to say that Dean doesn't also bring him back because he loves and care for him as a person, but it's not like Dean was sitting there talking to Sam saying you didn't deserve this, we were so close to ending this, you deserved to go on to have a life that hasn't been built around and in grief and revenge, hell, you could've even gone back to university and had your happy ending. You know? It's like selling your soul for someone is a crazy batshit insane thing to do - the ultimate sacrifice. But same as with John, it seems that the reason behind it wasn't just pure love and desire for that person to live just because they didn't deserve to die. John needed Dean to be there to ensure Sam didn't go darkside - to kill him if he can't save him. In both cases it was out of love, but in this weird objectified way.

It's just so fascinating how this dynamic between the three Winchesters, love and sacrifice plays out in the early seasons. How supernatural finds selfishness at the centre of this seemingly sacrificial selfless act. The selfishness in martyrdom.

That's why this scene is just heart wrenching in my sad insane little head. Sam and Dean were crazy codependants before this but this scene marks a turn for the worst (in codependence) for them. This scene is like the solidification of Dean's belief that he is worthless and incapable of functioning without the responsibilities he holds to his family and solidifies that Sam is the little brother possession for Dean to protect and regulate until his time runs out and he's shipped off to hell - leaving him at the centre of his massacred family with all the fingers pointing in his direction. His mum was collateral damage to his anti-baptism by a demon, his Dad sold his soul for his brother's life to be the final yes or no in the decision of whether Sam deserves to live or not, and now his brother's gone and done the same for him. But hey, at least when Dean gets dragged down to hell it isn't with the weight of guilt that he failed his responsibilities.

(spoiler alert: he feels guilty for leaving Sam anyway and Sam spirals anyway).

christ literally started tearing up over dean wearing a nightgown and his little fucking old man cap i cant do this. something about him going from sleeping like in his fucking boots jeans and shirt on a motel bed to his robe his nightgown/nightcap in the bunker and

Wildest thing supernatural ever pulled was the “two prophets can’t exist on earth at once” thing cause it results in a malformed prophet and..something something balance of the universe..something like that..I can’t remember. Like..what do you mean we can’t just have a cool prophet duo? We just deserved more prophets in general! They were so interesting and had layers to them,their whole entire concept was so cool to see and yet we saw so little of them in a sense. I just wish they were utilized a biiit more.

//Dean never really went evil, or had to suffer the guilt because of it.// This is such a wonderful point. Sam suffers because of the choices he made. Dean doesn't have to suffer, because anything he did that is "evil" is done under some outside influence. And Sam had Dean there, ready to point out every wrong choice he made. That scene in season 8 when Dean is listing off all the things he think Sam needs to confess is just the most obvious example. Dean had *Sam,* who was there with eternal forgiveness and never threw his mistakes back in his face after the fact. I think that's why Dean was so shocked that Sam briefly took off after Gadreel. It was the one time he had consequences that lasted.

Precisely! And through that suffering (as hard as it is to watch sometimes), Sam grows as a person. Dean doesn't grow because he doesn't suffer.

And even that time with Gadreel, Dean only suffered briefly before turning it back around on Sam, thereby turning Dean into the wronged party.

The biggest growth Dean experienced in the last few seasons of the series was finally letting go of Sam's 'sins' and accepting Sam for who he is. It was a process, and there were setbacks, but I think one of the earliest examples of this was when Dean trusted Sam to lead the raid against the Men of Letters. And at the end, when Dean was using his last few minutes to share his parting words, he was proud of Sam. He trusted Sam to continue on without him. That was Dean's journey.