13.10 | 14.13 | 15.06

studio82a replied to your post: Hi Mittens! What an episode, phew! Cas told the…

I wish we’d seen the door for the only definitive set of canon soulmates– Jimmy and Amelia Novak. Since Amelia walked through the door and found the Real Actual Jimmy waiting for her, and not a memory of him, I’m assuming they share a door, you know?

We only saw Mary’s name on her door, though. So it seems incredibly unlikely that John’s soul was just hanging out there too. Why wouldn’t he also have a name plaque if that was also his heaven?

In 13x20, Mary has this exchange with AU!Kevin:

KEVIN: No! Michael says… that when I get to Heaven-- when he lets me into Heaven-- I'll get to see my mom again. MARY: I've been to Heaven, and what's there… it's just memories. Nothing's real.

She’s speaking from her own previous experience of her personal heaven. Unless there’s been a dramatic change up there, then she’s interacting with memories of him, not with his real soul.

Source: “Proud Mary,” Supernatural Magazine #18 (Aug 2010)

ew

14x06 watching notes

Bugs 2.0

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excuse me but this parallel just stabbed me through the heart:

okay okay okay, so harper was a mirror for mary - and her tragic and unnatural romance with john - and in the last episode mary was a cas mirror developing a healthy and natural romance with dean!mirror bobby.  but harper was also a mirror for dean, dressed in demon dean’s bad decision-making red and calling back to last season’s witch siblings episode which mirrored and excoriated sam and dean’s toxic co-dependency.  but harper was also a blatant cas mirror at first, someone who seemed effortlessly admirable and who attracted swooning suitors left and right (much like how every being who gets up close and personal with cas has to remark on how dreamy he is), who seemed to be motivated by love…yet who turned out to be an inversion of cas (similar to the way the fly guy was an imperfect mirror for charlie, telling one part of her story but twisted) b/c she loved selfishly and possessively, unlike cas who loves selflessly and without expectation of reciprocity.  i don’t know if this is coherent, but reading about the mary/harper parallel just like, unlocked a connection to another meta post i read today predicting that cas’s big sacrifice in an upcoming episode is going to be some combination of (a) letting dean go in some capacity, and (b) giving up his grace and becoming human.  there’s this fractal-like amount of mirroring going on that makes my brain tickle pleasurably and also makes me want to lie down with a fuzzy blanket b/c i’m sure i’m only scratching the surface but there’s just So Much.  

I think it’s ALL interesting to make us reflect on the characters, but honestly at this point what path will be foreshadowing and what was just character work is so hard to tell D: I love the hindsight rewatch so much more than speculating tbh :P

Catching up on episode reactions -- augh, okay, I’d been flailing around a bit trying to figure out what to do with that “first love” detail, and this is interesting. I hadn’t thought about John and Mary -- MY first thought was of Claire and Kaia... Of course they’ve been a John/Mary mirror (amongst other things) since 13x10, what with Claire’s vengeance quest against “the thing that killed Kaia” (echoes of “the thing that killed Mom”) and what with Mary & “Kaia” both coming back to life/coming back into the story.

But now with 14x03 and 14x06 we have more similarities: Vance was Harper’s “first love,” and Harper killed Vance. Kaia was Claire’s “first love,” and AU!Kaia tried to kill Claire. Kaia ended up being the one who died, and then, like Vance, she re-emerged into the story as an antagonist. 

Two similar stories only three episodes apart, how significant might that be? I don’t know. It’s getting to the point where everything and everyone reflects all the main characters in different ways (Claire is John and Sam going on their revenge quests; she’s Cas dramatically rescuing Dean from Hell/“Bad Place” monsters at their first meeting and then insisting that they need to talk; Kaia is Dean saying that he doesn’t matter and that he’s not the kind of person who gets rescued; Kaia is also Cas getting stabbed, and Mary and Jess getting burned on the ceiling; and she’s Mary and Cas coming back from the dead, and and and and and). I don’t have the brainpower for this :p

So why on Earth would Dean say yes to Michael?

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

=> This is all my meta on this boiled down to a gif. 

Thank you to my anon for summarising a whole season’s worth of Dean is John in season 13 and Season father figures especially John 13 and Dean has to show Cas he loves him meta to this exact moment that I had totally forgotten from 8 years ago but which fits in so perfectly with all the rest of my meta on this season that I’m honestly a bit awed that A. I had forgotten about it and B. that it just shows how the meta is clearly thematically on point because well it fits perfectly and is the epitome of the meta / speculation parallel I could ask for.

Why indeed would Dean - who’s been mirroring John all season while simultaneously been emotionally open with everyone else to a new level but holding back specifically from Cas, after a decade of Dean/Cas built as romantic, an I love you from Cas to Dean last season that he felt rejected by and the long established mirror of Dean/Cas v John/Mary - say yes to Michael?

 I salute you nonny.

*resurfaces* @tinkdw Yes! There was some meta/spec/chatting about that a few weeks ago, I don’t know if you saw:

https://flyingfish1.tumblr.com/post/172320790523/will-dean-say-yes-to-possession-to-save-cas 

(That’s one branch of the convo but there’s more good stuff in the notes.)

The John thing from 5x13 is definitely what made the light bulb go on in my head. That, and Mary’s deal with Azazel. Dean making a quote unquote “deal” with Michael to save the person he loves would tie all those threads together. 

After seeing Dean’s mindset in the latest episodes, I have a greater sense that he’d be driven to save everybody, but --circling back to the start of the season -- I think Cas’ safety would be the straw that broke the camel’s back.

I’ve seen a lot of people outraged by others comparing Dean to John since last night’s episode (this is mostly on twitter but I wanted to make a post here because reasons). So I get it if you love Dean and hate John you’d be upset to see people comparing the two of them, but it doesn’t mean the people doing it hate Dean.

Like, even in the PR they said this season is dealing with Nature vs Nurture, and of course, we all thought that meant when it came to dealing with parenting Jack, and we were right! BUT that is not all. It’s apparent to me now that they will be exploring that theme with Dean and Sam as well.

Jack is the epitome of nature vs nurture, his father is evil, but his mother was good and he chose Cas as a surrogate father, who is also good, and Jack himself so far seems like a pure little bean who just gets scared and hurts people sometimes (not so pure obviously, but the INTENT is not to harm so that is good!) Dean was raised by John, who a lot of us see as… pretty evil himself, though if we’re being nice we’ll say, neglectful at best. Dean and Sam were raised in a negative environment, they turned out pretty okay human beings, BUT the question becomes how do they parent?

Dean is IN the role of John at the start of the series. He lost the love of his life and now he has to parent a child that he resents and blames for that death. There’s really no getting around that comparison. But beyond that, he has introduced that idea of “if you go dark i’ll have to kill you” which is what John told Dean about Sam before he died. Dean is gutted, he’s had a lot of loss. None of that is an excuse for walking in on a guy who is obviously distraught and STABBING HIMSELF and saying that he will kill him if he doesn’t behave, basically. He has REASONS for being upset and very very powerful ones, but they are no more just than how John treated Dean when growing up. Jack did not have control over his powers, he did not know what he was doing, just trying to survive. He’s not /innocent/ exactly, but he’s also not deserving of what Dean is putting on him. 

Anyway, my point is, Jack can be good despite his nature, and Dean can choose to be good by not going down the same path that John went down despite the situations being so similar (we know how he parented Sam, but this is a different set of circumstances). BUT before they can come to that, both Jack AND Dean are going to do some shitty things. Doesn’t mean there aren’t good reasons for those shitty things, especially when you can see INTO Dean’s feelings, as he is our protagonist. It’s understandable that we feel for Dean and feel the need to justify his actions.

But comparing Dean to John is not being done out of nowhere, there is substance behind it, and the parallels are there PURPOSELY. This is the subtext of these first two episodes. And we know they deal with some stuff in the family counseling episode too, so… idk i’m just seeing a lot of defensiveness about Dean being compared to John and it’s just like… we are literally SUPPOSED to be doing that narratively.

bye world

I just need to say, Dean made Cas a mixtape with his favourite Led Zeppelin songs.

Friendly reminder that John impressed Mary by knowing all the lyrics to Led Zeppelin songs.

Just saying, the Winchesters have a family history of using Led Zeppelin songs to woo the loves of their lives.

Making the most of teachable moments

Supernatural 12x12, “Stuck in the Middle with You.”

Anon, a few days ago, you asked me, “Why drop the ‘I love you’ bomb right now? What do you think?” and lo, I have remembered, and actually have an answer for you! It’s all about the teachable moments, you see.

This isn’t the first time the show has used the phrase “teachable moment.” Way back in season 9, I believe, Dick Roman had a gross teachable moment that involved auto-cannibalism – I didn’t watch that season (for which I’m newly grateful, because ewwwww), so I’m relying on transcripts and whatnot (I think elizabethrobertajones mentioned it in her meta too, which I haven’t finished reading yet). But anyway, as Dean tells us, teachable moments are important.

I mean, obviously he was being a little shit at the time, but what Dean says is nearly always Significant, and so it is here.

So, how do we recognise a teachable moment?

We have several different teachable moments in the episode, although i think it’s debatable that anyone learned anything from them (apart from Castiel).

All of these moments, Anon, are about love.

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12.09 First Blood

THE VERDICT

Oooohhhh boy. That was damn good. So much understated stuff in pretty much every single performance, too. Loved seeing the difference in Sam and Dean’s reactions to being confined to solitary. Isolation as Dean’s true hell has long been something I’ve had in the back of my head, so seeing that played so well in this was excellent. I’m disappointed to see Billie go, but as far as character deaths go it made sense and wasn’t gratuitous, so at least it’s not the rage-inducing kind of disappointed. And I’m relieved that they didn’t shove Mary back in the fridge.

A play-by-play recap with meta-adjacent notes is under the cut!

Weiterlesen

Ok, rebloging this again, because I remember you were wondering about the diner Mary was in in the first scene. According to the SuperWiki it is the same diner she and John had her first date in (as Dean told her in 12x01). I feel like the tumblr dot com meta community should have noticed this, but the episode all left us in a puddle of Cas emotions we didn’t.

Oooh yeah, it is, and she was drinking coffee just like Dean said they did on that date (I mean that’s not a wild stretch but :P)…

Anyway I was mostly just dropping by to suggest Mary blatantly pining for her lost husband goes alongside Cas and his moping, never mind the time they hang out in diners but…

(I feel it’s worth pointing out that though they don’t know it that Cas scene is during the brief time the Winchesters were legit dead)

I mean there’s bigger parallels as well about their mental state in general because they’re both messed up, but I like that Cas left his phone in that spot, just like at the end of 12x03 we get back to the Bunker and Mary had left John’s journal there - since once we see the phone alone without Cas moping over it waiting for a call, it actually is Dean ringing it.

Dean on the phone: “Stop telling people I’m dead”

OH MY GOSH THANK YOU. I’d been driving myself BONKERS trying to remember why I associated Mulroney’s diner with John and Mary’s history. I guess it’s a factor of not having completely internalized s12 yet the way I have past seasons, but the only reference I could come up with was John taking Mary out to dinner in 4.03 to propose to her… and that was at the Jaybird Diner… and I kept thinking I was losing it. :P

FIRST DATE. NOT MARRIAGE PROPOSAL. Thank you for clearing that up. :D

and then ugh oh mary with john’s JOURNAL, the paper record of his life, because that’s all that’s really left of him to communicate with Mary now, and Cas with Dean calling up on the phone… It’s the whole past/present thing yet again, too.

On Led Zeppelin as criteria for a man’s attractiveness

Guys. People. Friends. Comrades. You all.

So. Mary and John’s first date. You know. Mary and John, soulmates. Got married. Had children. Had sex in the Impala. You know, those two people who canonically had sex and it’s strongly implied they did it in the car among other places. Those two people who were sexually attracted to each other and happily decided to do the do together.

Alright. Mary and John’s first date.

You bumped into a big marine and you knocked him right on his ass. You were embarrassed and he laughed it off, said you could make it up to him with a cup of coffee. So you went to, uh, Mulroni’s, and you talked, and he was… cute, and he knew the words to every Zeppelin song. So when he asked you for your number, you gave it to him, even though you knew your dad would be pissed.

Let me reiterate it for you:

On Mary and John’s first date, Mary inquired John about his knowledge of Led Zeppelin.

Mary decided to give her number to this guy because he was cute and knew Led Zeppelin very very well.

In fact, Mary knew her father wouldn’t be happy about it, but she decided that angering her father was worth it, as John was cute and knew Led Zeppelin very well.

Mary judges a man’s attractiveness according to their knowledge of Led Zeppelin. If a man knows Led Zeppelin very very well, the guy is sexy. In fact, sexy enough that she can ignore her father’s opinions about who she’s allowed to be with.

Long story short, Mary decided that she and John should have sex in the Impala thanks to his extensive knowledge of Led Zeppelin.

*Cathryn Humphris laughing in the distance*

There’s been a lot of meta and speculation over the years about how Dean may be similar to his mother.  So far in S12, not seeing anything that contradicts those conclusions…

i can’t concentrate on anything except mary campbell/winchester (because i love her so much i can always concentrate on her), so i’m just going to stop fighting and lean into it. so, thought experiment: if sam inherited john’s personality, let’s work backwards instead of forwards and say that dean inherited mary’s. 

which means that mary is viciously loyal, protective, and nurturing. she doesn’t spread her sympathy as widely as john does (must be that suspicious hunter nature), but when she does identify with someone, she identifies fiercely. she’s also judgmental and impulsive (well, making that demon deal to save the man she loves, she can’t live without, her soulmate, certainly qualifies). she tries to protect the ones she loves by keeping secrets, trying to handle everything on her own, which works out terribly, of course.

she idealizes the people she loves (john and his apple pie, white-picket life?). when they can’t live up to her expectations, her disappointment crushes them, threatens to shake them apart. and nobody lives up to her expectations. especially not her. john’s disappointment followed after dean and sam like a deathwish, still does, dogs every step they take. but if mary would have lived, maybe it would’ve been her cutting disapproval that made dean insecure about his ruthlessness, sam ashamed of his inextricable relationship with the darkness of life.

actually, i want to talk more about that, in the context of mary and john. mary tells john, “i love you for exactly who you are,” but that line is a hard one to swallow. when john says it back, after all, the dramatic irony is pointed enough to kill. john’s delivery is hollow. the intended meaning of that line, that i know you better than anyone, even your father, even you, and i love you, is something john cannot possibly know or say while mary lies to him about herself. so when mary says it, even though john isn’t keeping anything from her, what reason do we have to believe it is any less hollow or distorted than john’s version? in both cases, the verbal message of honesty and unconditionality are shattered. john’s isn’t honest; mary’s isn’t unconditional.

(weirdly, though mary’s version is better-informed, john’s may be more true. for the brief moments when john knows that he doesn’t really know mary at all, he still loves her, enough to slit his hand open to paint sigils on her weird friends’ say-so, enough to let an archangel in to save his family; not himself. if mary had lived and john became a hunter anyway, even one like samuel campbell or his own father, one that didn’t leave his sons in motel rooms without enough money to eat, how long would her love for john as a person be able to hold out against the destruction of john as an ideal?)

in fact, so much of mary’s phrasing when she waxes rhapsodic about john is alarming. she likes him because he’s the opposite of a hunter, not for what he positively is; the worst thing she can imagine is not her children’s or john’s death at the hands of the supernatural, but her children becoming hunters. her children growing up to be like her. what she is disgusts her so much – she disgusts herself so much – that it becomes the all-consuming talisman against which she measures what she wants, what she loves. everything she loves she loves because it takes her away from that life. which – how much do you have to hate what you are to make the opposite your north star, to the point of near-apocalyptic self-destruction?

hey, that’s another thing mary and dean have in common: self-loathing deep enough to drown a small town in.

So, in conclusion, one could say Mary was in love with the ideal John represented? That of a normal apple pie life? Because if so, the same thing applies to Dean and Lisa. Imo Dean never loved Lisa for herself, but for what she represented. Before 3x01 she was just the reminder of a fun and ahem.. bendy weekend. But then he found out she is a mom, with a kid old enough it could be his, and this whole idea forms in his head that this could be his life as well, the version he never dared to admit he longed for. That is why he dreams of her, why she is the only one of the many women in his life he tells goodbye in 5x17, that is why Sam urges him to be with her after his death. It’s never been about Lisa, instead it was always about Lisa & Ben, not the woman, but the family, and with them their home, and picnics, and soccer trainings and barbecues. Could Dean have been in love with her if she wasn’t that, if she wasn’t a mom, or more, if she was a hunter just like him? I doubt it.

(Cut to Cas, who is a soldier just like Dean, who never stays, the opposite of domestic, of everything Dean dreams of, and yet he can’t help but be in love with him.)

(Cut to me who just turned another meta into destiel trash.)

okay i saved this response for last because asdfghjkl;lkjhgfdssdf;lksd;fkld;f when i posted the original mary ramble like ten years ago i actually had half of another post about dean and lisa typed up to finish out when i felt less like old tissue paper but nerdylittleshit has TOTALLY PRE-EMPTED that post with all of this here, this is OUTRAGEOUS lmao