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Destiel 15x18 = queerbaiting y / n?

No... not to me. It hit me as tragedy. Proper, capital-T, heroic tragedy.

It's just as much queer love if it's lacking the happily-ever-after. Or if it's unresolved, whether Dean reciprocates or not, and if it's agony to watch it unfold because they're good people who deserve happiness and all the love and never catch a break. It's unfair. It's hard to watch. It hurts because I feel their pain.

I thought it was a beautiful scene, very real, and totally in keeping for stubborn-ass-there's-no-other-way-Cas to quietly save it all up for the worst possible moment to say 'I love you' to a man ill-equipped to hear it - and use that opportunity, his last precious moments with the man he loves, his last moments of a life he's come to cherish, to completely reshape how Dean sees himself by tearfully telling him why he's beautiful. That his imperfect example and loving spirit redeemed an angel.

I live for drama/acting that can hurt me this badly.

(Crying now.)

wait, you hadn't seen spn when you posted the good omens wip? the language with the angels is so similar and everything?

Nope. Pratchett fan of many years, completely new to Supernatural these past three months (with the exception of Cas' love confession, cuz I think everyone on the internet who didn't know to duck and cover in advance got sp*ilered for it that night in 2020.) Something of a lifelong thing for fictional angels, though.

I went with a quasi-Judeo-Christian-theological, liturgical, and poetic vocabulary for the Heaven and Hell/angel and demon stuff. More straight-up/slightly unintentionally ironic for Aziraphale, who wants to take it all at face value (even when he can't); more filtered through the questions of Milton's Paradise Lost, and more despairing and hurting, for fallen angel Crowley.

Muriel's dialogue has a touch of the innocence and wonder of catechism - a discovery, a flowering that opens up to them through the spoken and written word. They question without hidden motive.

Metatron's got a smidge of the manipulative certainty of commercially-driven televangelism: clinical, cynical, tailored for maximum impact on his target audience (Aziraphale). A performance.

I'd guess the Supernatural writers did much the same, cherrypicking for whichever aspect bolstered their storyline or character at the time! Throw a rock at the English language and you'll hit a Judeo-Christian concept somewhere, somehow. "Grace", "vessel", "the Michael Sword" and so on - that stuff paints a lyrical picture that "essence", "body", and "archangel's avatar" couldn't, because it pulls hard on sources rooted so deep in English prose and poetry that we infer deeper meanings without, necessarily, ever giving them a moment's thought before. I'd guess that Good Omens itself influenced Supernatural, too?

A lot of scriptural and liturgical vocabularly and cadence is hardwired into the lyrical use of the English language via influential sources like the King James Bible and the Book of Common Prayer.

"I'm the one who gripped you tight and raised you from perdition," tells us a boatload about Castiel's mindset before he even reveals to Dean that he's "an angel of the Lord". Then he's taken aback when Dean doesn't believe him - challenges him and keeps on pushing back; Cas expects this shit to be hardwired into Dean's brain and for Dean to respond accordingly by bending at the knees. Shock and awe using language.

They spend most of season 4 in that state of disconnect, barely communicating even when they both try, because Dean's just not doing "because it's God's will/because I say so", not for anyone or anything; he won't respond to that portentous vocabulary and Cas struggles to adapt to that (not least because he gets brutally punished when he tries).

Put 'em away Cas.

I know The Confession is the big takeaway from this episode/scene, but I'm captivated by everything that happens after Dean and Cas split from Sam and Jack. The whole thing.

Cas gamely follows Dean into the most suicidal plan imaginable, pulling 'I hate this but I'm with you, dear moron' faces behind his back along the way. Then when it goes south and Dean's spiralling into self-hating despair about the bigger picture, Cas... fixes it. During his literal heroic-sacrifice death scene he turns around, assesses the Dean issue, and fixes it. The no-win situation and Dean's self-perception. Not a word or gesture wasted because there's no time. That's badass-warrior!Cas dovetailing with doe-eyed-lover!Cas, and it's beautiful.

Kiss, hug, full-frontal sexytimes... whatever, lovely. Irrelevant. This is true love in action. This is knowing another person the way you know yourself. Better. This is Castiel's absolute devotion and commitment to Dean, if 'proof' of his love be needed (it's not needed, it's right there).

Dying is easy, any hero can make the sacrifice play and Cas has already made it - for Jack, without hesitation - but reaching out to touch someone in the exact way they need it at the exact moment they need it most... Being selfless when time's run out. Opening your heart like you're opening a vein to pour out the right medicine for the other person's damaged soul... when did Cas even learn that? He came so far.

15.18 Despair

You think endverse Cas was really human? I mean was he a reliable narrator in that script or doing this whole performance to hide himself in plain sight while being more than human less than angel?

Good question! I didn't come away from that ep believing he was fully human, personally - his ability to both instantly spot time-travel!Dean and effortlessly identify what must've happened to him speaks to that. His senses aren't fully human, maybe - at the very least, he retains a mind free from the confabulation and confusion that humans can't avoid when perceiving the world. He sees - and trusts - exactly what's actually there in front of him when the 'wrong' Dean walks in. No hesitation or bewilderment because his brain's telling him two different things - just a few pertinent followup questions to get the context of Dean's time travelling. He still has the uncomplicated, uncomfortable clarity and directness of angel!Cas.

It says a lot that this timeline's Cas describes being human as a step down. Endverse!Cas equates his relative lack of power with becoming human, but losing his angel powers isn't enough to leave him fully human, I don't think. Mortal, maybe, and functionally diminished as a warrior, but not human. It's like he's using it as a catchall word for his fall from grace, and as a derogatory label for his own limited capacity to make a difference in their fight. I don't think he thinks less of humanity than he did before, but he thinks a lot less of himself. Not because he's human, or humanlike, but because he's failed.

I'd suggest that Endverse!Cas's ability to function as an ally who Dean can tolerate (or even allow to live) means that he's less affected by the substance abuse than a human would be. I can't see that version of Dean tolerating any liability in his ranks, let alone in the leadership tier. Maybe Cas walks a thin line with it, always a misstep away from Dean having to take decisive action about him, but he seemed ultra-competent, and trusted, for a guy mixing uppers, downers, and probably sideways-ers, with apocalyptic stress levels and the loss of his very identity.

I do think hiding in plain sight could be a really big part of what we saw from Endverse!Cas. Hiding from himself as much as anything else. Hiding what? Despair, I think. We see hints of that same bitterness and acting-out in regular Cas later in S5, when he thinks that Dean's about to surrender to Michael; that his faith has been (once again) misplaced and the fight is lost. Cas needs something to believe in and fight for because that's how he's made. He takes failure very hard and very personally. There's something defensive about Endverse!Cas, prickly and difficult, even when he's smiling and appears body-comfortable. That easy geniality vibrates with an edge of, "Just try me", like a neon warning sign. I doubt anyone but Dean ever gets the opportunity to see past it.

The End is such a brilliant script, such a well-made episode that it feels like a complete 'verse, but there are so many unanswered questions about how the characters ended up where that story found them. It's a headcanon and fanfiction goldmine because it's so sparing, and I love it. (But I'd just about kill for a Camp Chitaqua or Sam-as-Lucifer spinoff serial to tell me much, much more about it.)

what episodes of SPN didn't you like so much?

I don't remember having strong objections to any of them. I may develop some on rewatching! I'm not a great or patient audience when my mood is low, and I remember struggling to get to the end of... which is the one where we learn that Garth's become a werewolf and his mother-in-law turns out to be a homicidal nutjob hoping for Ragnarok? Sharp Teeth? And the (backdoor pilot???) one later that season, Bloodlines?

I didn't love the Abaddon storyline (much as I adore Alaina Huffman), or the British Men of Letters arc. Didn't love the Asmodeus storyline until Gabriel showed up and smote him. The past-time-travel storylines didn't do a lot for me.

I didn't actively dislike any of the above - more like I had no emotional response to them at all as I took them on board. On the whole, Supernatural got me good in some way with the majority of episodes. Even if it was just a moment of great acting or an aspect of the production that impressed me, there was usually enough of a reward to make me glad I watched.

I had a great time boxsetting this show! I think it's a mistake to approach any (network especially) TV show with the expectation that every episode will cater to my specific tastes, you know? That's no basis for fair critique, and it guarantees disappointment and frustration as a viewer. So much of Supernatural turned out to really hit the spot for me, against all the odds, that I was (and am) amazed and enchanted by the whole thing.

Credit to: @sodiumfreak @breha @stepdaddean @sundryvillains @autisticandroids @omniscientoranges

Metanatural part eight of ?

Putting together S15 and The Winchesters--- was Dean aware of his feelings towards Cas and vice versa or did the confession scene shock him? What is your take on why Dean didn't reply to Cas?

I reckon Dean's usually aware of his own feelings, even accepting of them, but he's also very good at compartmentalising emotional confusion - shutting a lid on it to let him get through each day with as clear a head as possible. He prioritises ruthlessly and pushes 'crap I have no idea how to deal with' right to the bottom of the heap. Aspects of his relationship with Cas have always been on that heap.

That's why it's so devastating whenever he does let go and say the things he's been bottling up: why he brews it up until he explodes or breaks down, and says things that do more harm than good. It's not self-deception or self-censorship with Dean when he represses emotional issues. It's a practical defence mechanism sitting between all that self-doubt and self-loathing and Dean's functional, day to day existence. It's not a great defence - the drinking speaks to that - but it's one he understands and relies on. Letting it go, becoming vulnerable, is what scares him. What Cas tells him - what Cas gives Dean before he goes - is part of the key to unlocking himself.

Dean's definitely in shock there, aghast, but I don't think it's from hearing, "I love you." He must be startled that Cas would out and say it after so long just wearing it on his sleeve, but Dean's reaction screams, 'Not like this, not now, not another goodbye when I'm already drowning and can't handle one more thing, let alone face this without you'.

Dean did reply, and I think his, "Don't do this," was exactly what he meant. It's grief because he sees what's coming and he can't bear it. 'Don't drop this bombshell on me and then go. Don't leave me with this open wound. Don't leave me alone here. Don't leave. Don't die, Cas, please, don't die'.

If they'd both survived the scene, everything would've been fine between them (however they chose to proceed) - I'm absolutely sure of that. They got the rest of the mess out of their systems in the first half of season fifteen. They're solid.

As for The Winchesters, and the Supernatural finale come to that... I'm still processing. Heaven!Dean is not happy - he's not at peace. He's not acting like a man given paradise, but like he's taken up another, new burden in place of the ones he left behind. Like it's crushing him, come The Winchesters finale. It's heartbreaking, but it bodes darned well for the feels value of any sequel.

Why the SPN mixtape scene from 12x19 is screenwriting gold, and should be taught to the next generations of screenwriters everywhere - analysis

20 seconds. Two lines of dialogue, three gestures, a couple more camera angles. Episode 19, season 12 of a genre TV show “Supernatural”. A single strike of screenwriting and cinematic genius. The mixtape scene.

Robert Berens and Meredith Glynn, I bow before you.

This scene should be used as an example for future screenwriters how you can put maximum of meaning into minimal time and dialogue. Should be analyzed and taught at universities everywhere, how to achieve the most using the least. How to write for TV, where you only have less than an hour to built something spectacular.

WOW.

Let’s just peel off all the layers of these 20 seconds of footage and these 13 words. 13 WORDS.

(Cas knocks, Dean doesn’t say anything. Cas opens the door, apologizes for disturbing Dean in his room, and then takes a cassette tape out of his left inside coat pocket, and puts it on the desk, while tapping the label on it that says “Deans (sic!) top 13 Zepp traxx”.)

Cas: Um, I just wanted to return this.

Dean: It’s a gift. You keep those.

13 tracks. 13 words. The future. So number thirteen is important for the future. I mean, are you trying to tell us something here, writers?

(Dean takes the tape, oustreches his arm, and gives it back to Cas. We see Cas’ hand grabbing the tape, and taking it back.)

That tiny scene is ENORMOUS from the perspective of the narrative and the characterization. Let’s see what we can get out of it. (Prepare yourself: it’s gonna be long. Damn, how much meta can you write based on 20 seconds of television and two lines of dialogue?) (Hint: A lot.)

Keep reading

Re: The Boys you mention your 'father son angst fetish'. Just wondering if SPN/John hit you the same way or not?

Huh - no, it didn't. Because John's physical presence in the narrative was so fleeting, perhaps? Because there was no point where real resolution or reconcilliation were on the cards for them? Yeah, I have no idea why not.

Some of the flashbacks to Sam and Dean's childhood broke my heart, but mainly because John is a placeholder in those stories - a blurry figure in the car, an anxiety looming on the horizon, a responsibility too heavy for young shoulders to carry, an absence they're struggling to cope with.

Later, 'Dad' is a weight on their adult psyches as they try to define themselves and their purpose, but it gets harder and harder to know for sure how reliable Dean and Sam's memory-filtered recollections of their father are - both the good and the bad.

Some of the Dean-filtered memories are horrific, specific to the point of indicating neglect and abuse, while Sam's issues with their father are more generalised and more typically TV father-son-conflict tropey. I suspect that's my fetish - that angsty TV trope about a clash of wills/personalities causing estrangement - but maybe only where there's the possibility of resolution and growth? (Do I really sense that on the horizon for Homelander and Soldier Boy??? Rlly?!)

It's a mystery of the fanbrain!

You think John Winchester beat/abused Dean into suppressing his sexuality? You're great at taking these canons apart on details--- would love to get your take on this.

Dean's inner workings are such a huge field of study! You're very kind, but I think a lot of his nuances are still beyond my grasp of canon. I bet there's tons to pick up on rewatching. I'll have a stab at it though!

I think Dean's father taught him that practical reliance and emotional dependence on anyone or anything but blood family is dangerous. That indulging his private feelings - any feelings - is dangerous. And that doing those things makes him a danger to others, to Sam, to the mission, and therefore would make him into a bad person; that Dean grew up convinced that he can't afford to let himself have - or need - affection, support, connections, community, obligations, or ties outside the hunting life, and only limited access to those luxuries within it.

Dean fell into line with John's rules of the road while Sam pushed back and got himself out for just long enough to see a different way of living life - one I'm sure a younger John Winchester, married to Mary and with their two young sons in the house, would have recognised as worth fighting for and protecting. Sam brings that back with him, and never stops trying to share that wider perspective and personal growth with Dean - never stops offering to listen or be emotionally supportive, even when Dean shuts him down over and over again.

I think Dean learned from his father - from his whole rootless and overburdened childhood - that other people have to be able to depend on him, so he can't afford either to feel weak or to be perceived as weak, for their sake. For survival's sake. The performative mess we find him in come the start of Supernatural is him trying to fit that with his adult experiences and needs. If he's wrestling at all with his sexuality in the middle of all that, I think it's far from being the biggest or most damaging of his issues.

Dean's basically a decent bloke with a good heart, full of love to give, smart, capable, and intrinsically strong, but his self-worth is completely tied up with this need to be a protector, the strong one. His baby brother actually has to spell out to him that, now he's an adult too, Sam can, will, and wants to protect Dean right back. Dean had no inkling that it wasn't a one-way street, which is heartbreaking.

John's white-whale revenge quest taught Dean that life is short, that there's no higher meaning or grand plan. That you don't get what you want, you get the hand you're dealt and have to play it. That it's his role in life to serve, and to die young doing it. He doesn't think he gets to plan a future, and has mixed feelings when Sam tries to do just that by going to college.

I'm not sure Dean's hiding or repressing his sexuality in particular; more that he's not dealing - refusing or unable to deal - with the whole area of intimate relationships that go beyond a fun one night stand. Of emotional and supportive relationships and people's need for those, period.

Dean looks at the comfort and support system available to other people with their lovers and spouses, and doesn't see a Dean-shaped vacancy anywhere, be it with men, women... or angels. Yet he wants it, or something that looks like it. He longs for family and home, and not only because it's something he knows he lost once. He's terrific with children, from the small ones up to the angry teens, so he knows instinctively how to give the kind of support and validation he denies himself - but does he even know that he finds those encounters rewarding? Is he even aware that it's a good thing for those relationships to be mutually rewarding? I'm not sure he lets himself think that way. Maybe it's just an itch he can't quite scratch?

The moment he has the opportunity he goes straight to Lisa and Ben and tries to make it work with that ready-made family. He remembers just enough of the time before his mother's murder to feel a pull towards 'traditional' family life, but it's like he's living a fairytale. He's waiting for the big bad wolf the whole time, waiting to flip back to high alert protector mode. Once the monsters touch his little family and shatter the bubble, he can't sustain the relationship. Lisa gives him every chance to have it on his own terms, but Dean can't do it.

My take is that Dean suppresses anything and everything that might give him comfort, peace, softness, or what others (including his father in vengeance mode) could perceive as outward signs of weakness. Talking about his feelings, about things he can't have, dwelling on and processing his feelings - that's what John taught Dean that weakness looks like. That unaffordable luxury of weakness. You get up, wash off the blood, keep your weapons in good order, and keep fighting until you can no longer fight. Dean denies himself anything that could be used against him or Sam, and for the longest time he thinks that's a good thing. Later in the series, he's learned enough to know that this kind of strength is brittle at best, and to be afraid of the consequences of stress-testing it too hard.

I think Dean doesn't even bother digging into what he wants and needs from a lasting partner. Into his feelings and sexuality, his ideas about couples, about hearth and home. It's not just that he's terrified of losing it if he has it: he's sure he'll lose it if he ever has it, because he's sure he doesn't deserve it.

I reckon Dean stopped exploring himself at a very young age, and learned to ignore his own needs and feelings beyond the limited avenues that got a nod and a wink from John Winchester. Being good at hunting. Taking care of Sam. Drinking. Driving. Polishing the roleplay and the hustle to stay under the radar. Taking care of Sam some more. Shut down everything else tight and keep a lid on it. Grab gratification where you can but don't ever try to keep hold of it or set down roots.

Dean lives in maintenance mode. Other than his brief idyll with Lisa and Ben, there's never a time when Dean doesn't feel he has to stay in that state of toughened battle-readiness. The only reason he's able to get close to Castiel over the long term is that Cas can join him in the fight, is willing to take Dean as-is without needing him to unbend, and can tough things out just as hard as Dean can.

I don't think John necessarily needed to pile on physical or targeted psychological abuse to shape Dean this way and make him equate processing and personal exploration with weakness. Just making the adult-responsibility demands he did of a child, and exposing him to the monsters and the killing and the awareness of how precarious life is, would've been plenty. I get the sense that if John had ever posed a danger to Sam through violence or drunken carelessness, Dean would've killed him. (For the first few episodes, I sorta thought he sekritly had!)

(Ask me again when I've rewatched Supernatural and my answer might be completely different!)

Does Dean know Cas loves him?

Oww, that question's hard on the feels! Okay... okay. Yeah, I think so. Dean's not unobservant and he doesn't lack empathy, so he must be aware on some level. I think he's hung up on not knowing what it could possibly mean for either of them - what the devotion of a creature like Cas could even mean in human terms.

It seemed like Dean stuck and held on the whole "angels don't have the equipment to care, and when they try, it breaks them apart" bit. When was that - season 7, while Cas was off in mental honeybee land? Dean couldn't possibly have held onto that once he saw Cas parenting Jack with such unconditional love, years later, but by then there was so much water under the bridge... too much they both should've done, and shouldn't have done, and did do but then never talked about...? I dunno. I think it just became too big to tackle by then. They never had the luxury of enough time without a crisis to even start.

I think Dean believes that Cas shouldn't or mustn't love him, for various reasons, so he avoids consciously dealing with it as far as possible, and mentally frames it as doing them both a huge favour. Dean's aware, but can't bear it and feels completely unworthy of it, is my take. He wants to protect the people he cares about, including - especially - from himself. The more losses they suffer, the more he doubles down on the self-blame.

In reality, even when he's in absolute torment, as he was while fully human, Cas actually does just fine with his developing emotions - he accepts them, for starters - but from where Dean's standing, from the fragmented parts of the story Dean witnesses, it looks like a long-running disaster movie in which Cas gets repeatedly broken down and diminished and punished for choosing the Winchesters.

Even for a man who started out faithless, having an angel willingly fall from grace and choose him over heaven, brethren, and actual god must be... so overwhelming. It must feel wrong to be the focus of something so big and incomprehensible, even if it wasn't his choice or his fault. Dean's not even close to deciding what to do with that big picture by the time Cas flat-out says, "I love you," and makes it so very, very simple and human.

IYO has Dean done sex for money?

I wouldn't be terribly surprised, especially in his barely-legal years. Younger? God, I hope not, but...

If he has, would he admit to it, own it in his own mind as a necessity, or bury it deep with all his other shame? He's fiercely pragmatic and unapologetic about everything else he's done to fund "the life", but it's all dependent on a degree of anonymity. What'd he do if someone recognised him years later? Someone he went down on in a backalley at age 21 winks at him in a bar ten years later while he's wearing his FBI suit and standing next to Sam, questioning the barkeep about local deaths. I... don't know what he'd do. He's not great when his worlds collide.

Which one of TFW got the best line in Spn?

Huh. If it has to be one of Team Free Will then you've got me. They all had so many great lines. Crowley, Bobby, and Lucifer all got some stonkers, too.

The line that really seared itself into my brain from all of Supernatural was guest-character Hester's:

It really shook me! I mean, in and of itself it's a great line. But there's so much worldbuilding packed into the combination of the line with Emily Holmes's delivery. This idea that Castiel fetching Dean out of hell was the first domino tipped over, not only in Cas's personal fall ("You have fallen in every way imaginable,") but in the subsequent chaos and destruction in Heaven. And she's not wrong to single that event out as the turning point, but she turns the blame on Dean, who hardly got any choice in the matter:

"Why should we give you anything after everything you have taken from us? The very touch of you corrupts. When Castiel first laid a hand on you in Hell, he was lost! For that you're going to pay." Supernatural 7x21 - Reading is Fundamental

She says these lines to Dean, and it starts as the whole aloof, disdainful shtick we've seen from other angels speaking about and to humanity. But Hester reaches max gross load right there and then, so it finishes raw. She breaks down, shouts, loses all self-restraint and just hurls her grief, rage and pain at Dean. Moves to punish him. When Cas deflects Hester from physically attacking Dean - no small intervention, given his fragile state of mind - she whales on the helpless Cas instead, trying to claw back some control of her life by attacking what she sees as the source of her problems.

Hester's completely adrift in this new world of free will and personal responsibility that Team Free Will have dropped on her, and on all the other, surviving angels who didn't get a starring role in the Apocalypse or the war in Heaven. Hester's fallen too, they all have, and she only knows it when Inias begs her not to kill Castiel. Then she snaps completely, and Meg kills her before she can kill Cas.

That's some corking dialogue right there, and in some ways it's more of a reveal about the state of things in Heaven, post-non-Apocalypse, than all Castiel's season 6/7 power-grab arc with its exposition about what's going on up there. Hester's public breakdown is one of the few hints we ever get of exactly what Cas is so regretful and self-hating about in later seasons. Every time his storyline trips him over another failure or mistake, it adds to this guilt until he ends up just desperate to do something right. So desperate that it blinds him to the nuances of an evolving situation, sometimes.

I don't think Cas understands until almost the very end of the story, after becoming Jack's father and reaching rock-bottom in his relationship with Dean, that the one thing he always thought he got right in the first place - pulling Dean Winchester out of Hell, saving him, taking his side against an absent and uncaring God - was always victory enough.

I'm thinking of other hunters who haven't known Cas from the moment they were resurrected meeting him and feeling this unnerving feeling of something being off. Sometimes when Cas moves it's like he's struggling to make all the strings work on the muscles, just barely concealed by the coat. He stares them down and they know he's seeing past their face, and he never gives away anything about what he's learnt, but they swear they can still feel eyes following them. No matter how much the Winchesters play him down, Castiel carries himself like someone used to doing worse for the cause, someone who's always reevaluating every person he meets on a list of priorities and threats. He inclines his head like he's listening to something else, and he's always deceptively armed.

Happy birthday Castiel. You rocked an awful lot of socks that day.

I didn't watch Supernatural until this year and I spent all that time avoiding plot-significant spoilers like the plague, but two got through to me in real time in my other-fandoms bubble: 15x18 in 2020 when fandom convulsed in agony... and this unbelievably iconic 4x01 entrance back in 2008, when fandom gasped, then squeed its panties off at the smokin' chemistry of this scene. Spot the common denominator. ;)

Few scenes make fandom history all on their own, but this one did. Like... WOW, Supernatural. And this performance did. Like, wow, Misha Collins (and the genuinely-startled-looking Jensen Ackles oozing the "what the fuck?!" vibe of a lifetime!)

16 years ago today Supernatural peaked with the most iconic introduction in the history of television

Happy Sweet Sixteen to Castiel, the only character ever

Controversial question maybe--- do you believe Sam and Dean = soulmates?

Huh. I hadn't thought of it like that! I think "soul mates" could easily have been Kripke's intention with seasons 1-5, for sure. Taking Supernatural as a whole, I'm not sure that's the word I'd use... but my brain's not coming up with a better one at the moment, either. Is there one? They're kinda unique. More like they... balance each other out?? Combine to make a force greater than the sum of its parts? Like they're the culimnation of something when they stand together?

When things go bad for them, when they're at odds with each other, it tips over into that unhealthy codependency that other characters occasionally comment on, but when they're on the same page, sure. "Soul mates" works. In terms of the epic, overall story arc, they have the sort of bond - and the kind of conflicts - that you see more often in adoptive-brotherhood/best friend stories than in blood-family ones.

I think that's what twists Chuck's nuggets so badly - he wants Cain and Abel 2.0, familial jealousy and destruction, epic tragedy that they bring down on themselves with hubris and petty, self-serving desires. He wants them to mirror Michael and Lucifer and wind up fighting it out bloody in the dirt with very few nuances. But Sam and Dean stubbornly do their story Epic of Gilgamesh style instead, fighting all comers back to back rather than taking up a single cause, always returning to each other after conflict, always creating something together that's greater than the sum of its parts to let them stand against impossible odds. Against Chuck's entire rigged game. Because they bend instead, and because one of the brothers can usually be strong whenever the other falters, they're unbreakable together.

If you mean soul mates in the slashy sense then I don't get that vibe from them myself, not even a glimmer of it, but I wouldn't argue against the idea that their story - certainly their early-seasons story - is fundamentally a devotional, cathartic, and redemptive love story. And intentionally written as one during Kripke's tenure, at that. To me it's a platonic love story, somewhat removed from a standard sibling one by their status as reluctant, capital-H Heroes in their own epic narrative. But death of the author (and of the meta writer too) is totally go here on this blog!

(Yeah, especially you, Chuck. Go fug yourself with your own typewriter for what you did to these boys.)

I know this storyline is peak Cas-and-Dean-are-so-married. I know. I loved it. And all the angst. But Sam. SAM. In the middle of their shit, watching his brother - who could drive competently whilst unconscious or dead - nearly run them off the road so Dean could turn around and continue his glareful (possibly) marital with the guy in the back seat.

Sam trying to mediate as the dispute gets more and more childish and petty. Sam dying of secondhand embarrassment in their pointed silences. Sam getting a headache because he's stuck between the unreasonable rock and the dickheaded hard place, and wishes he was anywhere but here. Sam when Dean can't wait two minutes before following Cas into the cafe against his wishes. Sam when Cas takes his head off later for saying something pertinent about the peril! situation. Sam actually talking with and listening to Lily Sunder and figuring out that All Is Not As It Seems. Sam looking ten years older at the end of the episode than he did at the start.

I poured one the fuck out for Sam Winchester's innate patience and virtue, watching this episode.

12.10 Lily Sunder Has Some Regrets

Dean and soulless Sam having a whole conversation debating over whether they should agree to work for Crowley in 6.07. The dramatic irony is very thick. I'm getting a bit ahead of myself on my rewatch but I noticed that conversation near mid-season and wanted to point something out.

Here's the thing. Yeah at the time S6 aired I was annoyed because Dean was yelling at Cas how could you!! How could you work for Crowley!! As if that made Cas the worst betrayer ever, when they've all worked with Crowley before and will again.

But it's a purposeful dramatic irony narrative TRAP. I hope people get that now. Dean's not being hypocritical--he's doing some transference, he's deeply upset, it's understandable--but it's not actually about Cas working for Crowley.

It is about Dean being very extremely and very personally upset about Cas lying to him. About Cas not coming to him particularly for help. About Cas going off all on his own to work with Crowley for a long while and keeping secrets away from Dean. "Working for Crowley" almost becomes code standing in for Dean's deeply wounded personal hurt that Cas didn't choose him, and instead of saying all that, he yells about working for Crowley.

That storyline is also heavily coded as marital cheating, but textually, no subtext needed it's Dean's deep sense of emotional betrayal. Not because of some self righteous morality where he really thinks Team Free Will working with a gray area demon for a greater good is wrong. He knows better.

That is dramatic irony and it was done 100% on purpose. Working for Crowley isn't actually how Cas messed up and hurt Dean. There's a lot in S6 that is about Dean and Cas and how much they have come to care for each other.

The Destiel is so strong.

What d'you think gave Cas back his sanity between season 7 and 8? Purgatory?

*tries for several minutes to turn reply into a punchline with an exploding Dick joke but fails*

I don't know. I'm not sure how far gone Cas really was in the first place, you know? He was fragile after he woke up in the hospital, dissociating for sure, scared to be himself having effed things up so badly - broken by taking Sam's torment into himself - but he was lucid at that point. He'd learned at some point offscreen to discern Sam's leftover hallucinations from reality.

He seemed to be looking for safety or some peace by refusing to engage with reality, rather than struggling for balance because he couldn't tell what was real. Like he shut parts of himself down so we're only seeing limited aspects of him, softer and much more open, childlike, and his resulting behaviour is so jarring compared to his usual persona that we go with 'crazy' because there's no good word for that sort of sudden shift.

Suddenly arriving in Purgatory with Dean to worry about might have jolted him awake, bucket of cold water style. "Make this important decision or Dean is going to die" might've been enough all by itself if Cas wasn't so much crazy (in any human, clinical sense) as hiding or suppressing parts of himself that he couldn't face or trust.

Did you bother with SPN seasons 1-3 or start in just for Castiel?

Wut?! I started at the start!

I didn't know S4 was where Cas came in - I'd made huge efforts over the years to avoid sp*ilers.

I saved Supernatural until this year because I wanted to be in the right headspace to watch it right through, start to finish, without a break. I suspected Castiel would float my boat based on what little I knew of the show's premise (and of myself when faced with Fictional Men Who Happen to Have Wings), and because I knew how good Misha Collins is at selling a role, but it turned out to be the overall story arc that prostrated me at the altar of Supernatural - the meta arc with Chuck dicking the Winchesters around, the destiny vs free will thing. I was breathless with anticipation between Chuck's appearance in The Monster at the End of This Book - the first explicit suggestion that the boys are part of some in-universe controlled narrative working against their attempts to exercise free will - and the eventual reveal that Chuck was, indeed, writer!God (and a monster).

I won't say the early seasons are my favourites - I don't share Kripke's love of visceral horror and splatty onscreen violence for one thing, and the cool film night scenes are practically black on my crappy TV for another, so I kept having to turn on audio-describe to know what was happening - but they're completely unmissable.