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thegeminisage · 3 years

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Here's something I'd love your take on: I read a meta recently (would link it but I can't remember where, ack) that suggested that Sam is able to forgive John in later seasons because a) he's had the whole "family making unilateral decisions for your own good" thing repeatedly shoved down his throat, and b) whatever John did under this umbrella in their childhoods, Dean has done far worse by that point, and Sam HAS to forgive him so by extension he can't really be mad at John anymore (1/2)

(2/2) As someone who has admittedly only seen bits and pieces of the later seasons, this seems to jive with Sam losing a lot of his characteristic early-seasons anger, letting Dean call the shots almost all the time even when he thinks it's the wrong move, and moments of sympathy for John (contrasted w/Dean's growing resentment, which is so interesting!). But! I got some big ol' gaps in my spn comprehension, so was curious if you had any thoughts on this dynamic

wow okay long answer warning! i got carried away and forgot how to use punctuation. nobody is obligated to read all of this lol and the biggest part of the answer is behind a cut. anyway!!

first things first: i think a big thing to remember with sam’s characterization in later seasons is that it’s like...not there, and when it is there, it’s sometimes flat and inconsistent. because dean became sole the main protagonist after the first 8 (arguably the first 5 or even first 2) seasons, sam sort of got demoted to “side character we don’t know what to do with” along with cas and crowley. they all had good arcs pop up now and then (sam had some fun stuff going on with lucifer in s11 and s13) but most of the time the writers either don’t know how to give him a meaningful characterization or don’t care (or both). so we have to do a lot of that work ourselves.

so, for example, when we talk about sam losing his anger, i like to read it as him OVERCOMING that anger to avoid becoming his father (which may even be where some of the seemingly sympathetic comments come from, because he’s trying to be forgiving instead of angry), but really...it’s that the writers forgot he had anger issues. in-universe explanation vs irl explanation, yk? and i think pretty much all meta about sam in late seasons is written through that lens, whether the writer of that meta knows it or not. including this one! i can’t prove any of this shit, it’s my personal reading, i’m making it up. like there were just SO many different people involved in the production of supernatural that there was a lot of conflict and contradictions in things like continuity and characterization. (most of the writers room hadn’t even seen every episode!) so there’s not one definitive way to go about it. in many ways it makes the characters more nuanced and in many other ways it makes me fucking insane.

as for sam and john and whether or not sam forgives him, i’m actually glad you asked because this has been driving me nuts for a long time and it took me SO LONG to pin it down - sam’s relationship with john is very different to dean’s, and i couldn’t figure out WHY. it’s not that he was “abused less,” it’s not that he loved john less or was less hurt by his actions, so why doesn’t he seem as INVESTED in everything that happened to them as kids? like he says in season 14 he had to learn to let it go and that it was all a lifetime ago for him. meanwhile i think dean still deals with it every day. he’s still stewing in it to some degree 24/7. so like what’s the difference??

i think it comes down to two things. firstly, that while dean didn’t have anybody parenting him except john (and mary, but only for a very short time that he could actually remember), SAM’S parents were john AND DEAN. most of the time dean was the one raising sam, and in fact he arguably did way more parenting of sam than john did. so the person that made dean feel safe and like he could fight back against monsters, the person he was grateful to, was john. but the person who made SAM feel safest was dean. he doesn’t have that same gratitude towards john that dean does and he never will, because of how john made him feel alienated and excluded from their family growing up. dean’s resentment of john is so tangled up in this very deep and unconditional love and gratitude for him that sam just doesn’t have.

secondly, i think dean has a serious case of “i can fix him” re: john that sam doesn’t have and possibly never had. john just never showed sam the same kind of inclusion and warmth and trust that he showed dean (however rarely he showed it, and however fucked up it was). i think sam figured out very very early on that their quest for yellow eyes was either a long shot or straight up impossible, and that they couldn’t waste their entire lives doing it, and that even if the demon died, john was never going to change. dean 100% drank the koolaid - he really truly believed in a world where someday they’d kill the demon and all retire from the life and be normal and be a family again, because that’s what john said and dean took his father’s word as gospel. sam knew better.

so i think what sam did was just disengage. partially because he felt he couldn’t afford to nurse that kind of anger and not become either his father or lucifer, and partially because even though sam loved john, still loves john, he never needed him the way dean did, because sam had dean. so it doesn’t hurt him as much to just “gray rock” it. i think if sam stopped and really dug into it he’d find that he’s still quite angry (probably more angry on dean’s behalf than his own, at least at first, because in his mind he was able to move past it and dean was not, dean had it worse, HIS OWN trauma isn’t real etc etc), but he doesn’t do that because he doesn’t want to be that angry, and possibly even thinks that if he brought it up dean would jump to john’s defense and it would cause a fight, which the opposite of what a gray rock does.

as for being forced to forgive john because if he didn’t he would also have to condemn dean...i don’t think i buy that at all. sam is fine making dean his exception and he allows dean to get away with a lot of deeply horrible shit he would condemn other people for. partially because he’s dean and sam loves him, but in my ~personal reading~ of sam, this is also because once sam became an adult the weight of everything dean did and had to give up to raise him really sank in, and part of him felt guilty (even though sam arguably didn’t have a childhood either). you know how kids take care of their parents in old age to repay them for raising them? that’s sort of how sam is with dean in later seasons - he implies multiple times that he would leave the hunting life forever and not look back if it weren’t for dean.

and as a side note - sorry, this is only tangentially related - dean implies several times in later seasons that the job is where he finds his sense of accomplishment and self-esteem and meaning - he believes the world is a better place because of what he and sam do, and even though he doesn’t always like DOING the job, he likes the outcome. it’s weird because this is as close as we see dean get to even HAVING self esteem. sam, emotionally intelligent, would have picked up on that - and since he and dean have both tried to leave the life multiple times and have always come to regret it, i also think part of sam believes you CAN’T escape - certainly SAM could never escape so long as dean was still in it, because whether he meant to or not dean would always pull him back in. and part of dean doesn’t really want to escape because he’s made his peace with it. so sam stays, and i think even if he can’t find the same meaning in the job that dean does, he finds a lot of meaning in being there for dean. (this, like gray rocking, is also consistent with the seasons where sam’s sole character trait is caring about dean lol. but i’m happy enough to read it in a kinder and less bitter/resentful way.)

it IS worth noting i think that the most forgiving sam ever was about john was in the adam episode, where he said he understood why he was the way he was and why he did what he did, and when dean said they were alike sam decided to take it as a compliment. sam in season 4 is arguably at one of his lowest points - struggling with addiction, consumed by anger and hatred and the need for revenge. he WAS like john in many ways, and i think he justified what john was doing because it also justified what HE was doing. but what he was doing led to breaking lucifer out of hell and the apocalypse that followed, which is why i like to think sam worked so hard to reign in his anger afterward - both to avoid his fate and avoid becoming his father.

in short: i don’t think sam has actually forgiven john so much as disengaged from him and moved past it. because if he DID engage with it, it’d bring up a whole lot of stuff he didn’t feel prepared to deal with. one of the risks of gray rocking things is doing it to the point that you lose touch with your own wants and needs and personality, so i think by late seasons sam’s repression, which is much more sneaky and quiet than dean’s, has settled in to the point where he’s like “yeah whatever” about dad out of sheer self preservation - because otherwise, he’d end up going crazy about it like dean does. i think it’d do him a hell of a lot of good to be able to get to shout at john and finally say his piece/ he’s really afraid of his own anger, but i think it’d be healthy for him to get back in touch with some of it.

[spn masterpost]

#liz answers asks #bimbonaparte #sam winchester #john winchester #liz makes stuff #liz's spn stuff #liz's meta #whew this was a long one sorry.#i am so glad you have the same icon on tumblr and ao3 i was replying TO YOUR COMMENT when i got this ask <3 #fun cool coincidences!!!!!#anyway i didn't want to mention my fic but like this is why i had him yell in my fic. it's good for him #for himself and for dean he deserves to feel angry

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nonagesimus · 3 years

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hola! first, quick heads up that the fic tag & all content tag links in your sidebar are broken 'cause of your URL update (which I love, btw). Second, was wondering if you have any fic recs you'd wanna share? i am always on the lookout for more Sam-centric stories (and/or jess-centric, if i'm feeling really ambitious), and i feel like you might have some winners in your back pocket. thanks!

sWHOOPS thank you for letting me know about the links I completely forgot, they’re fixed now, and I absolutely have some fic recs for you! I have tried to give you a bit of a mix, and nothing super shippng (if you want sastiel recs that is something I can also do)

as far as Jess fic goes The Crow on the Cradle is the big one - I haven’t finished it because it felt a little weird reading it when I am currently writing my own jess fic, but now it’s added pressure to keep writing because what I did read was was damn good.

soft like a blue triceratops - the trials succeed and Sam and Dean are hunting in a world with no demons and trying to figure out ‘what now’ it’s painful and amazing

Emergency On Planet Earth - heartbreaking pre-stanford fic

Missing Persons - some good post-cage trauma for you

The Haunted Hotels - I have actually only read the first two because I’m taking my time, but just really well written, well thought out case fic. Also deeply funny because they keep being like “we’re never going to another haunted hotel again” and then they keep doing it.

still life - this one does involve jess! it’s also psychological horror, so heed the warnings

respite - an 11.14 coda since that episode did a... shall we say sub-par job of dealing with Sam’s lucifer trauma

head space - again, heed the warnings, but Sam gets hit by a curse and life has to change

katsidhe’s episode codas - i will never stop singing the praises of these. when the show won’t give us good acknowledgement of sam and lucifer’s relationship and interplay, we turn to katsidhe. The season 13 ones especially are EXTREMELY good.

How the Wild Things Start - angst with a happy ending! very good dad!sam fic

#bimbonaparte #fic rec

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ketzwrites · 5 years

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bimbonaparte replied to your post “It's obvious HF is not going to work on Clary because it's way too...”

I'm actually quite interested in what's going to happen next with Raphael. He and Magnus -- who are textually very close, if the show writers would just REMEMBER that fact for a hot second -- are now going through the exact same experience of having their powers/identity taken away, but Raphael sees it as "the greatest gift." Here's to hoping they get to speak to one another about this eventually -_-

It would be awesome to see some scenes on the contrast between Magnus and Raphael. Like you said, they are going through the same thing but with vastly different perspectives.

I mean, Magnus chose to trade away his magic. We can discuss the duress he was under, but ultimately Magnus had full awareness and agency. Raphael did not (he thought he was going to be tortured and killed). Magnus sacrificed himself while Raphael was seeking for punishment. Those two mindsets (the hero and the martyr) would be enough to make a conversation between them compelling to watch.

Then we get to how they are dealing with their loss. Magnus is not doing well. Not at all. Raphael was thankful even though Rosa is already dead and he’s lost his community. Raphael even seemed cheerful as he made jokes about his will to fight being intact.

And finally, there is the matter of getting the power back. Magnus has been trying to find ways to get his magic back all season long. All Raphael would need to do was ask a vampire to turn him. That’s the difference between a warlock/seelies and werewolves/vampires. They are all equally downworlders but the former were born that way while the later became downworlders later in life.

That is a scene I want to see happen, even if they just talk about one of these three things.

#bimbonaparte #magnus bane #raphael santiago

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thegeminisage · 3 years

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Genuine question: what is the difference between woobification and whump, or h/c? is there a reason you'd go for one but not the other? (also thank you for the One Shot fic rec, f*ckin PHENOMENAL)

OH YOU’RE WELCOME. fucking love that fic. imo, there’s really no difference except that h/c woobies characters on accident and whump does it on purpose. like, in h/c whump is the unfortunate side effect and in whump it’s the point of it all. so sometimes if something is labeled h/c i’ll click it anyway, cautiously. whump is always a hard pass.

a semi-related rant is that the thing about h/c that drives me nuts is that it’s next door to what i want but ultimately not in the same house. the TROPES and TOPICS are spot-on to my tastes but the execution is usually so fucking bad...for example: i would have loved to see sam or dean’s whole trauma re: hell addressed better or like...addressed at all. but if you search for hell trauma fics you either get: whump, which is straight-up misery porn and actually a little unsettling sometimes. (that rec list of past hooker dean fics is like playing russian roulette, it’s a COIN TOSS on whether the author is there bc they want to explore dean’s trauma or bc they think underaged dean tricking is sexy. yikes.) or it’s h/c which is like. we pull back on the misery fetishism but in exchange we get sam and dean curled up in blankets drinking hot chocolate and watching disney movies. which is a rad thing for real people but it’s NEVER what sam and dean would do.

like dean canonically has hypervigilance, right? so in theory a fic about someone metaphorically prying his fingers off the wheel where he’s white-knuckling it long enough for him to put it down and get some REST could be like an emotionally charged intense thing involving trust and vulnerability which would be apinful and good and compelling and make me nutty. but most of the fics that cover stuff like that are h/c fics, and if you looked for h/c fics about it it’d be all someone giving him a teddy bear and stroking his hair as he falls asleep. (i’m exaggerating so as not to make anyone feel bad, but you know what i mean.) idk, maybe i’m missing the point of h/c and the teddy bears and disney movies are part of the draw? but it just feels grossly out of character, and there’s no name for “that, but without the garbage!” so i just continue to suffer lol. i hope that makes some kind of sense

#liz answers asks #bimbonaparte #liz watches spn #the irony here being almost every fic i've ever written involves one classic h/c trope or another #sometimes many at once!#but i'd rather die than label them that bc i don't do that woobie shit and that's the connotations it has #so the people most likely to enjoy them probably won't find them LOL #i really like loquaciousquark in the dragon age fandom bc she writes so-called h/c with such INCREDIBLE nuance & respect for the characters #good tropes but none of that woobie garbage #also her prose is like. has me on the ground every time #anyway.#you can't shake a stick in the exploring trauma direction on ao3 without running into woobie shit #and h/c is very deceptive in setting itself up to look compelling and then being awful #so it drives me crazy. i almost click against my better judgment

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