#and like it’s about spn as a show as a whole

[wellofdean]

Just wanted to split this off from this post about why Mary Winchester is excellent because it's getting so long, but I wanted to respond to these tags from @kayliemalinza :

#sometimes i feel people hate john for reasons that while valid in our universe less valid in the spn universe#but mary gets it way worse#<-- prev tags yessss#also doing the math wasn't she like 28 when she died#i'm glad they didn't recast and of course samantha smith looks her own age#but mary is in fact YOUNGER THAN SAM AND DEAN AT THIS POINT#they are not children#and the tags copied above i think explains so sos ooo much#bc so many fans glommed onto dean because of similar family issues#and that means they are struggling as much as dean is in s12#and just can't disconnect that quite yet#but god#GOD how she struggles with that emotional intimacy#she was raised as a hunter you don't think she's chockablock full of maladaptive coping mechanisms too?

Because I whole-heartedly agree with this. John Winchester was not a good father in some major, major ways, and Sam and Dean had a childhood straight out of a...well, a horror/fantasy genre show...but I think people forget that Sam and Dean also do truly love John and truly are more or less at peace with their memory of him later in the series, and there has to be a reason for that, too. It's not that he's a mustache-twirling villain; it's complicated. He loved them, but he wasn't always able to do it right. They love him, but he hurt them and made the what they are, which is a double-edged sword.

It's really natural that we all identify with Dean, and get angry at people who hurt him, but I think it's important to realize that Dean processes his anger about Mary leaving pretty quickly, because it's not really anger and resentment, it's confusion, disappointment and hurt. And I think Dean is grown enough to own his own feelings, and able to accept that she needs time and space, and he's not such a child that he isn't capable of separating his legitimate feelings from her legitimate needs. It takes him time, but he gets there, because, and this is another conversation, Dean is really very reflective and emotionally intelligent, actually.

I also do agree that a lot of fans, in identifying with Dean, map their own feelings about their parents onto Mary, and dislike her for reasons that have nothing to do with the story being told on Supernatural, which is essentially a very healing one. Since I'm a Gen-X old, and the mother of an adult son, I actually had a pretty different experience, and as much as I love Dean, in this storyline, I identified a lot with Mary.

On the one hand, she has to be so proud of her two big, beautiful, brave and heroic sons, but at the same time she does not know them! They don't need her, and they are trying to protect her from the things she feels they should have been protected from, and at the same time, as adult men who are still, in some way, motherless boys, they are hungry (especially Dean) for her to be something that she never had a chance to grow into. I loved it that her own exigencies were too strong to LET her stay. I loved that she could not accept the role of mother that had been stolen from her, and could not sit still to let it just kind of settle on her shoulders.

It made me think that (aw yeah!) there was a difference between John's sainted white nightgown conception of his dead wife (his motivation to be what he was), and Dean's memory of her as the cutter off of crusts from his sandwiches, or the mother that he comforted when she was sad, and he was just a little man. I'm so glad that Mary turned out to be so much more than that. She is a woman with her own competencies, her own damage and baggage, and her own ideas about how to make things right, who doesn't agree with her sons all the time, who makes mistakes, who fucks the wrong guy, still loves her problematic husband, and can't actually cook, thank you very much. I love that her own disorientation and her own will are so strong that she really can't allow who she actually is to be subsumed into the communal role of 'mother'.

I think that socially, we don't really think about what we ask of mothers, or how hard we judge them. We underestimate what they give up of themselves to satisfy that role. My son was born when I was really young, and fellas, IT WAS HARD under more or less perfectly normal circumstances, to make the transition from being just me to being a mother. My magnificent son is amazeballs, and is a human being that I am so fucking proud to have made out of my very own actual body and raised to be the excellent human he is, and we are really close, but I was not always prefect, and even now when he is a grown adult, I still chafe against the perception of me as 'his mother' and not just ME all the time. One of the very greatest things about my son is his incredible ability to let me live, and make space for the fact that I am also a person, and not just his mother, and I am so, so grateful to him for that, so....

Yeah. As much as I didn't want to see Dean hurt, I LOVED Mary, and love that they wrote her as her a full human being and not a tropally perfect mother. I loved seeing her as a flawed parent that deserved her adult children's understanding and mature love, who deserved her own space and her own processes. What's more, I loved seeing Dean process his feelings about her, and seeing him become a son who was capable of loving a real human woman who happened to be his mother. So... yes. I love her.

Mary Winchester forever. A+.

#Mary Winchester #Supernatural #spn #dean winchester #sorry y'all for another long ass post about this #but #I just have a lot of fucking feelings about Mary ok?

[an-android-in-a-tutu]

I think I would like the bunker more as a concept if they were squatters rather than legacies, you know? Like the the like inherited secret society birthright thing doesn't do it for me but two crunchy regular dudes who find an abandoned secret society hide out and go Aw Shit Free House? THAT I'm into.

#spn #the bunker has some not great effects on the structure of the show #and there's the loss of a certain roadtrip style charm that comes with the characters getting a permanent home #but like I'm fine with it and I think giving the boys a secret base full of magic stuff is kinda fun #I just don't like the whole legacy thing #they should be little thieves about it actually

[boywifesammy]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[paellegere]

thinking... maybe there's something to be said about soul survivor and salvation. this would be the first time sam has actually saved dean in the show since faith. sam has protected dean several times by sacrificing himself, but every time sam has tried to save dean's life in the same way dean so often saves sam, he's failed. i didn't think about this at first, but curing dean of being a demon really should count as saving dean's life.

so that opens the door for the interpretation that by giving himself into codependency at the end of season 9, and through the role reversal that persists through seasons 9-10, sam is able to step into dean's shoes, which does involve saving his brother's life because that's what dean does. in that case, it's another way which the narrative rewards their codependent relationship: the more codependent they get, the more capable they are of keeping each other alive (the most important thing). it's not until sam wholeheartedly embraces a codependent relationship with dean that he finally sees success in his endeavors to revive dean and bring him home to him. by contrast, dean was able to bring sam back all those times because he was all in with their tangled-up, unhealthy relationship from the start.

insane show for insane people. seriously

#supernatural #wincest #i will never stop talking about 9.23-10.04 sorry #this show is so crazy for rewarding codependency and unhealthy attachment. i appreciate that #spn is like if you don't give up all of your independence and personhood you'll never be able to achieve what you really want #you are a failure unless you define yourself by your brother and he defines himself by you. unless you are two halves of one whole #unless there is no end to you and no beginning to your brother. unless everything about you is inextricable from him #.txt #the winchester gospel

[angelsdean]

something i really love about the prequel is the emphasis on community. people on this show have friends, support networks. we constantly see people in groups, even the akrida, they're not one big bad, they're a whole community. they are a hive mind, they work together. the witch speakeasy this ep was another example of these communities that exist in this world. spn was so often devoid of that. so many characters were on their own, lone wolfs, cut off or cast out. in spn hunting especially was portrayed as this very solitary, isolated lifestyle. but in the winchesters we see that's not true at all !! we saw glimpses of this in spn with the roadhouse and at asa's funeral but in the winchesters it gets reinforced even more. they are a group. they rely on each other and all bring something to the table. and every ! episode ! the core four at least is there, and then there's ada and millie too. and they all feel equally important and not just there as a convenient plot device.

i forever mourn the ensemble cast spn that lives in my mind<3 if they'd have realized that the show had evolved past being centered on the brothers we could've had so much !! but i love that clearly that is what they are trying to achieve with the prequel. this isn't just about john and mary. this could've easily been a show with two leads again and a few recurring characters but no, they made the conscious choice to make it four leads and give those characters their own subplots and struggles. anyways i just love it so much. like ironically, for being called 'the winchesters' it's abt more than just them !! it's about community and friendships and chosen family !!!

#literally also. i whole heartedly believe calling it the winchesters was a strategic move and a fuck you to certain fans......... #who are obsessed w/ the brothers........bc remember when creation con made an announcement abt merch being banned #that featured the name winchesters bc of the show and like copyright or something ?? #yea. also now when you look up anything about 'the winchesters' instead of getting stuff abt the bros it's the prequel<3 #anyways. #spn prequel #spnwin #vic.txt

[girl-bateman]

How does one get assigned as sam coded / dean coded ? Do I need a doctors note ? A psych evaluation perhaps ?

#i keep going back and forth on it #bc i used to identify with dean for the longest time bc i was so repressed and emotionally closed off (+older sister) #and at that point id spent my youth very purposefully protecting my younger sibling from our dad #and i guess in my brain i paralleled that with dean staying behind with john while sam took off for stanford #and dean protecting sam from knowing too much abt the supernatural #BUT having grown up ive now become the one resentful and angry at our father while my sister protects him #and our fights remind me a lot of scenes from the show where im obviously identifying a lot stronger with sam #plus the whole thing abt being the families designated academic or whatever #while also feeling cursed from the minute i was born and crushing at the guilt of everything wrong with me #and trying to be a good person and saving others to make for the fact that i feel an intrinsic evilness about myself #so like... yeah sam is very very relatable too in that sense #bc he also has that hope in him- the belief in god. in angels. in goodness. and i have that too ! #im just also a miserable cynic at the same time :) #so ???? #i havent been in the fandom for long enough to know the full requirements of being a sam or dean girl #(and by that i mean i havent been in the fandom for long AFTER i rejoined from my 10 year hiatus) #i literally would love to read someones page long explanation of what sam coded vs dean coded entails #someone with a spn hyperfixation or special interest needs to provide me with the goods fr 😭 #spn

[ardentpoop]

the s4 parallels are putting my heart through the wringer :)

sam extends levels of compassion and patience to the vulnerable people in his life that he was never offered when he needed it most

#like he consistently has these scenes with struggling young people in particular where he's telling them what he needed to hear #you know he had to do all this work on his own to feel okay about himself bc DEAN sure as shit hasn't changed! #im going to fucking explode lmfao my angel..... never thought i'd get a whole arc like this so late in the show it's a good kind of hurt #spn #liveblog tag #13.03 #also remember cas asking him ''weren't YOU all alone when you went off to college at claire's age'' and sam saying ''that's different'' #''how sam?'' #HOW. part of him still sees himself as undeserving of all the love and care he gives to other people #and can you blame him? historically he's gotten so little in return

[quietwingsinthesky]

Dean is such a paradox for me because on the one hand, I have been actively triggered by him in the show, there are moments where, intentionally or not, the writers managed to create a portrayal of manipulation and abuse and control issues that it sets off actual alarms for me. And on the other hand, I would not have him any other way. There is something — not comforting, that’s too soft a word — about knowing where Dean’s actions stem from, having seen and learned all that we do about his childhood neglect and parentification and the trauma he goes through repeatedly in the show, and that he doesn’t come out clean. He comes out a goddamn mess who ends up hurting the people around him in reaction to his own pain!

There’s a reality there that’s. Almost nice, actually. Distressing to watch, but it is a fucking mess, it’s a good mess! He’s got zero healthy coping skills and a healthy relationship with say, his brother, is terrifying because it leaves him open to abandonment!

I’m not sure I’m wording this correctly. There is a way to be a good abuse victim. Take the pain, martyr yourself on it, and then, even if you have no support or idea how to, then you have to become a Good Person who never hurts anyone the way you have been learning to your entire life. Simply toss everything that shaped you out the door and emerge a saint with a tragic backstory. And Dean is not that. And that’s so fucking good. Everything that he has gone through continues to effect the way he treats the people around him, and he can’t fight the behaviors he might recognize as harmful because he also sees them as protecting him (or protecting Sam by keeping Sam with him.)

And sometimes, idk. It feels good to see a guy who didn’t heal the “right way.” Who mostly didn’t heal at all, just keeps the wound open because it’s easier that way.

#there’s a whole other bit to this about how like. it’s hard for fandom to hold the idea that someone can be both a victim and abusive #at the same time. that the ways someone has been hurt don’t always shape them into kindness and wide-eyed sympathy. occasionally it just #makes them hard to live with. and I think most obviously is the thing that a lot of what Dean does is an expression of love. of protection. #he’s very much his father’s son in that way. that’s why Sam. the guy he’s been Told to protect his whole life. is also the person he ends up #hurting the most. it’s tragedy. it’s realistic. it’s a good fucking mess. #and that’s why I don’t get interpretations of dean that are determined to shave off the ugly parts of his character. to me those are the #parts that make him a character worth revisiting. he’s so full of love. and he uses it to hurt people. he means to sometimes. a lot of the #time he doesn’t but hurts them anyway. he has been shaped by violence his whole life. and it’s just. I get why someone might take this #part of him away. to make him easier to love. because I get that he’s stressful to watch also like I get that. but he is. #he is compelling. in his anger and his controlling behavior and his strangling love. he is compelling in all the ways he has become this. #Dean’s degradation into these behaviors can be both a failure of a show that ran to long but also the believable trajectory of a man who #can’t heal. and I love him for that. I love him for emerging from pain as a angry sharp thing. I love that it brings the glimpses of him #being gentler and recognizing his actions as bad into stark relief. I love that this recognition often only lasts until he is hurt again and #then he backpedals into the safety of behaviors he knows will allow him to control a situation through force or manipulation. #it’s good fucking mess. you know? dean winchester everybody. #maybe I should have put all that in the main post. oh well. too late now. #spn #dean winchester #tw abuse

[biblionerd07]

Btw if my Wynonna Earp spamming has inspired anyone to start watching (all 4 seasons are on Netflix, at least in the US), please be prepared for…let’s call it camp. Not sure if it counts as camp when I don’t think it was on purpose, but that’s what I’m calling it. The CGI is BAD. It gets a little better as the show goes on, but I’m warning you now. Sometimes the actors outside the main cast are……..less than stellar. (But the main cast is very good! Don’t worry!!) Sometimes the writing will unintentionally make you laugh, and there are some plot holes that never get resolved. BUT WITH ALL THAT BEING SAID: your payoff will be hilarity, kickass women who don’t fall into two stereotypical personalities, loving found family that will die for each other (and often make horrible deals with dark entities to save each other), and happy endings. It’s worth it!!!

#wynonna earp #like when I was rewatching I was like ‘my god I don’t remember it being this bad???’ #but it’s about the relationships!!! and the love!!! and my main beloved Wynonna!!!!! #unkillable gays save for two demons in the early part of season one #who Wynonna then references as haunting her for having to kill then #I think some of the clunky writing is mostly due to the fact that a whole group of the characters are from the old west #so they kind of try to write them as talking old-fashioned #but it can come off really awkward #I also think that gets better as the show goes on #and the cast really really loved making the show and they all love each other and I’m such a sucker for that #everybody is who they are and who they are is just stone cold gay #even the characters who aren’t explicitly gay in canon are gay #honestly truly if you watched spn you cannot judge the acting or writing #and the payoff for Wynonna Earp is way way better too

[touchlikethesun]

seeing dean’s speech to mary in 12x22 in webweavings about mothers and daughters like. yeah. “i need you to see me.” robert berens how did you do it. how did you understand.

#dean #mary winchester #dean and mary #spn #like fml #ik i say this about a lot of scenes but i think that might be the best scene in the whole goddamn show

[jarchaeology]

oooh wait that's cool! was phillipe on days too?

nah, he was on one life to live. never watched it, but the role was still talked about by the time jensen got on days. the issue of queer characters on soaps was still largely untouched so it was very much discussed by fans and journalists.

#there’s that really fascinating episode of the decoder ring podcast about the soap opera machine #i highly suggest listening to it if you’re interested in the interaction between cultural shifts fandoms and the creatives behind tv shows #you don’t even need to care or know about soaps #it honestly sounds like they’re talking about spn the whole time #but please pay attention to the trigger warnings at the start of the ep

[sunglassesmish]

and of course i was watching a trailer for a horror movie in the cinema and my brother was like ‘OH MY GOD THAT WAS ANTONY STARR!!!’ and i thought he was joking but nope

#i’m trying to get him to agree to come to cr8 with me because it’s a mix between the boys and spn #but he’ll only go if ‘homelander’ is coming #he doesn’t care about antony he just likes homelander #which is so wrong. i keep telling him everyone hates homelander and that’s the whole point but he refuses to believe me #i sometimes doubt he’s watched the show because does he not understand the point of the show is that superheroes are not always good

[controlaltdelete-my-existence]

well somehow there’s a miniature john winchester redemption arc in the spn anime. That show made some interesting choices that for sure

#though I could say that about the actual show too lol #I do kind of like it even if on the whole it’s pretty mid #spn the animation #supernatural the animation #spn #john winchester #he actually apologizes to Dean which is more than I can say for the one in the show proper lmao

[flugame-mp3]

it's wild to me that dean is always so shocked at children of monsters, especially relatively well-adjusted adjusted ones à la garth and the werewolf family in 9x12... like the concept of a second generation werewolf baffled him. but is he not a direct mirror of that?? are he and sam not the second generation of a way of life that ostracizes one from society and often results in premature death (dare i say... see: 15x20)? like hunters and monsters are at odds, sure, but in a way that just makes them interesting foils to each other, meaning that he's a mirror to the very thing he can hardly believe exists. very... dean.

#idk. just a strange look into how he thinks of himself and the things he hunts maybe #having thoughts about the winchester bros' childhood(s). yeah. #it feels like a look into the fact that he really did internalize the things john taught him. good writing. my favorite ghost in the show i #john winchester haunting the narrative #like it feels like a continuation of the whole 'i could never have anything in common with a monster' thing that he had going on during #sam's demon blood addiction arc #mmmm. dean you have changed so much but you never change. god #spn #the brothers winchester #dean #theo.txt #and im sure im not the first one to have thought of this but god these characters make me insane

[miharuhebinata]

i genuinely think when if mike/will become canon, yes it'll be a whole big thing, yes there's sure to be homophobic outrage, accusing the show of pandering, bad writing, etc. obviously. there's just simply no way of avoiding that. but in general i think once the idea is planted into the general audience's heads that this is what they were building toward all along (which so far we know is actually 100% true, at least in will's case, like.....lol), once people actually rewatch the whole show with this knowledge, it won't be that big a deal. because once you watch the show through that lense, a lot of things (particularly mike's character, especially throughout seasons 3-4) start to make a lot more sense.

#idk i just feel like people worry too much about the GA's reaction. like if by some miracle it DOES become canon why would the d*ffers care #what the GA thinks? like what would they even do? boycott the show? it's the last season anyway 😂 #........i mean i SAY that. but then i remember spn & i. 😐 you know what let's not talk about that right now. #my point is in the event that they do get together i think more of the GA will come around than most people on here would expect #& if you need proof? literally just look at this whole hsm2 parallel nonsense 😭 #byler #p: the best thing i've ever done #stranger things #st5 #📺 tag #send tweet

[acesammy]

I know I get so blinded by Sams plot when watching spn that I often overlook deans, but do you ever think about deans s2 arc? Bc it’s batshit good.

John sells his soul for dean and dean spends the entire season suffering for it - to the point that he /explicitly/ makes the point that selling your soul for a loved one is a selfish and cruel act - only to do that to Sam. Bc Dean just cannot fathom living while Sam is dead. and thinking about all this makes me want to start chewing drywall bc Dean KNOWS how selfish he is being here, but the idea of sacrificing yourself for someone else’s life - regardless of how much that person WOULD NOT WANT THAT - comes across as the most selfless caring thing you can do.

#Anyways I wish they had pulled on the thread more after s2 #Morally grey dean who is still deeply caring is so interesting #and I LOVE that they spent a whole season focusing on how shitty Dean felt over johns deal #for dean to be like ‘I know how this felt. I don’t care. I need him to be alive’ #and it puts Sam in such a vulnerable position too bc now dean is not only his big brother #but Dean /sold his soul/ to bring him back #good stuff #and it really makes me frustrated when I think about the conversations I’ve had about this show over the years #bc people bring up selfishness as one of sams flaws #and I disagree completely #self righteousness; self isolation; bullheadedness #those are flaws of sams #but he never does anything on the show that makes me go ‘oh yeah that’s /selfish/. That’s out of the bounds of what is reasonable’ #going to college is a /reasonable/ ask #but bringing Sam back from the dead; knowing full well that Sam would rather be dead than /dean/ be in hell? #that IS selfish #but it feels so kind and self sacrificing #Idk id argue this is one of the few truly selfish moves in the show #lea speaks #spn #meta