From The New Anecdota Americana, 1944

diversity win! this farmer is poly

from NINETEEN FORTY FOUR

the word 'grateful' being used twice is what's killing me.

they make fun shapes this episode so have a triptych

Smtimes your house is haunted because there's a ghost sometimes your house is haunted because you miss grandma and your mom misses her even more sometimes your house is haunted because the subtext of how the last owners decorated rubs you wrong way sometimes your house is haunted because you've sublimated the fact that you didn't want to move in the first place and Sometimes your house is haunted because there's a carbon monoxide leak. Lots of options.

Pirate show fanart🤺

consider the rakshasa in 2x02 as an allegory for john.

he's just died, and this episode is about sam and dean's grief, as well as their struggles as they try to move on from his death. the circus itself represents hunters and the hunter society they've just newly discovered (also in this exact episode), and the rakshasa is a monster hiding within that culture of misfits. much of 2x02 is from dean's perspective, and dean has just come to view his father in a violently negative light (consider the end of the episode, where he destroys the impala in order to symbolically hurt john).

so the rakshasa as john. the monster can turn invisible, similar to how john's presence in the narrative is oppressively absent: in season 1 he's missing, and now in season 2 he's dead. yet he's always present in spirit, even though sam and dean can't see him. he's an invisible force weighing down on them, there yet not.

the rakshasa also preys on children. this could be symbolic of the way sam and dean are rather emotionally immature, frozen in time due to the abuse they suffered as kids. indeed when children are featured as guest stars in an episode, they act as allegories for dean (see 1x03 and 1x18). the same thing is true for teenagers, who are typically paralleled with sam (see 1x05 and 1x08)—this present, if sparse, theming could indicate the emotional states of the brothers, or the points in their respective lives which have shaped them most strongly: dean lacks a childhood because he was forced to grow up too fast and therefore imprints on children, and sam is stuck a rebellious teenager, allowed to grow into adolescence due to being sheltered but perhaps stunted in growth as he becomes aware of the world around him and his own situation, and as he develops a lasting resentment toward john. therefore, the invisible monster john winchester is preying on sam and dean, both in their literal childhood and as their present-day selves, trapped in a state of immaturity due to a life of abuse and neglect.

i also like the little detail that the rakshasa lives in squalor, as this can be compared to the motel rooms and the car that sam and dean grew up in: their constant instability and run-down, cheap housing that sheltered them their whole lives. it's a stark difference from the comfort of a stable home, and combined with the nomadic lifestyle of a circus, there is a very striking parallel between the rakshasa's life and the life that john forced his children into.

(an interesting aside, but the rakshasa feeds in 20-30 year cycles, which is quite similar to the cycle azazel appears to be working with to create new generations of special children, which is around 23 years. not sure if this is intentionally drawing a parallel between azazel and john, but i wouldn't be surprised given the tangled-up, impossible web they exist in together.)

in the end, sam is the one who kills the rakshaka, as dean has been immobilized by it (the imagery recalling that of 1x22, where dean is immobilized by an azazel who looks like john; additionally, one can compare the emotional arc dean is suffering at the moment, metaphorically paralyzed by john's final wish and his inability to act on his own because he has spent his whole life a soldier to john's instruction). if the rakshasa is john, then it implies that sam will ultimately be the one to save dean from his conflict, the one to free him of his paralysis—and he does in 2x09, when dean embraces his codependent relationship with his brother, abandons his father, and throws down his gun to choose sam as his guide and moral center. the conflict of croatoan is all about dean finally coming to terms with the choice he's been given and making his decision: sam, above all else. and so sam is the one who saves him and propels him forward into the rest of the season, with his head on straight and his mind clear of distractions. sam above all else, no matter what, no nuance. just like here, where sam frees dean of the rakshasa's literal binding, sam too frees dean of john's emotional binding.

coming back to this i think you could also say the allegory is of azazel. almost every one of these points is equally true of him, save for the "living in squalor" bit which we simply can't know because we've never been shown any physical space in which he lives. but azazel too is an oppressively invisible force in sam and dean's lives, the very being which shaped their lives in the worst way despite never being seen once until just a couple episodes ago. and azazel too preys on children, fits this parallel even better than john because he routinely kills the parents of the children he preys on and uses to further his own goals. he has his "feeding" cycle of 20-30 years. he doesn't, however, fit neatly into the symbolism of living within the circus/hunter society, so just like john there are some places where the allegory isn't a 1:1 match.

i like the implications of this, and i think the fact that you can parallel both john and azazel to the rakshasa allows the audience to see their similarities as well as the futility of john's goals. much of john's choices are made from a desire to protect his kids, to counterbalance the destiny azazel laid out for them, but in making those decisions he inadvertently primed them for exactly azazel's plans. john did everything azazel wanted him to do, even though he was desperately trying to thwart that design. and in the end, john and azazel aren't much different, both the absent gods pulling on sam and dean's strings and manipulating them, preying on them, even if their intentions are quite opposites. john and azazel are equally responsible for the lives sam and dean were raised into, for their becoming hunters. and it is only when sam and dean abandon their father that they're able to overcome their fates and avoid falling into the cosmic scheme tugging at them. john becomes over the course of the story just as much a symbol of their destinies as azazel does, and it is only in their letting go and refusal of the father as an authority that they can even begin to choose each other instead.

so that's fun and cool ✨

cornelius hickey, after josé de ribera’s ecce homo

(available as a print)

supernatural literally craziest show what did they put in it to make us turn out like this

too many times to count that dean and sam have been driving only for dean to slam on the brakes so he can throw his arm across sam's chest to grope his tits and say, "whoa, that was a close one"

as well, they will be driving and a cop car will come up over the horizon and dean will say, "quick, hide, the cops!" and grabs sam's head to shove it down towards his crotch

sometimes, sam knows it's coming and goes along with it just to throw dean off his course. more often than not, dean has to find an abandoned side road to drive down so he can finish what he started

we need to inject spn fandom with new insane discourse. liven things up around here. castiel was an incel. dean supported book bans. sam was pro-life. how do i know? that's not on me. fight amongst yourselves.

dean would have been an anti-masker. sam doesn't "get" neopronouns. bobby is a lifelong republican.

#dean calls things gay (derogatory) and sam loves watching fatphobic documentaries.

sam would act like "supersize me" as if it was a peer reviewed study

not doomed by the narrative but saved by the narrative. yeah i know you'd rather die than keep suffering but the story doesn't actually care what you want. you have to keep going, even when it hurts. even being erased from existence won't stop you from being salvaged from the wreckage of un-being. get up. keep pushing. keep bleeding. keep living.