I think we have to be honest and say that Bobo spoiled us last night. He shared his frustrations with the Wayward judgement, and he basically said ‘fuck this we’re canonizing my ship right tf now’, and throwing in John/Michael mirrors and dealing with Dean’s fear and anger and just. Well. I feel like Bobo and I both would have written this episode similarly (except that I would have had Claire crashing in to rescue all the boys again at the end, but then, Kathryn Newton is busy so you can’t have everything). I also like to imagine a situation where Dabb shows up and he’s like “Okay, you get to write the Dean/Cas reunion” and Bobo is like “I’m sorry but every different way I try and write this they end up banging”, so Dabb throws his hands up in the air and is like “idk separate them, then!” So keep an eye on AO3 for Bobo’s coda any minute now, amirite?
For the record, despite the saltiness I’m sure there is about Dean and Cas being so clumsily separated, they HAVE improved on last year just based on the fact that they are showing us The Many Adventures of Castiel on screen rather than leaving them off screen this year. And okay, the many adventures still leave Cas as a bit of a failure, but his development emotionally and in respect to how much he fits in are leaps and bounds ahead of where he was pre-Empty.
But anyway, back to Destiel by proxy. It was clear to anyone with a brain that Dreamhunter was paralleled to Destiel. They crammed every inch of Destiel’s arc into a single episode to get this done, and it was so obvious it was there on the surface read that anyone in it for the Destiel saw it at once. I’ve already come across someone today who didn’t see the reveal coming, but they also don’t believe in Destiel and deliberately ignore and dismiss the Dean/Cas subtext. Well, surprise!
The thing is, the dialogue throws shade on all those things, but also underlines the parallels to Destiel for Sam explicitly. Let’s look at it again.
Jody: I promised Claire that human cases are mine but anything monstery I’d loop her in. This… Gah. Claire’s been doing so good. And I mean anything connected to Kaia she’s a powder keg. Sam: Hm. Jody: First love strikes quick, and to lose it like that… Sam: Oh.
Credit X <-Spookydestiel, please go reblog the original set, it’s awesome!
But more accurately, he runs the whole gamut of understanding with his ‘Oh’, and it really. You have to watch it over and over again. Remember, he basically saw Claire arrive with Kaia with no idea of their story arc, got rescued, and saw Claire mourning, then left while the situation was still raw. Jody’s not stupid, she’s been there watching Claire mourn, it’s turned her into a powder keg of emotion, frustration, pain, rage, because she’s lost her first love.
So Sam is a) finding out Claire is queer, finding out she’s lost the love of her life, accepting both, acknowledging – that’s what the headtilt is – and then moving on with this new knowledge.
But who else does Sam know that was a powder keg at the mere mention of someone’s name, who deliberately avoided saying it because it hurt too much, whose pain was different to his own because it was more profound?
It is particularly interesting to me that they film Dean snapping in a really similar way in this episode. This is by no means the last time we saw his fear turn to anger (and god I hate it btw I jump out of my skin like Sam and it’s a really hard narrative to watch and even if it’s growing into character development now I still… Dean dealing with his fear-to-anger issues is horrifying and painful and hard and it’s meant to be. I could write a whole post on just that subject honestly.) but this is the time it’s about Cas, so.
If I’m optimistic, then, this is the opportunity, or the catalyst, that Sam needs to put two and two together himself. That would of course require a Destiel endgame, and for the other writers to be on board with what was conveyed with just a headtilt, but honestly it’s right there on the surface read now. The Destiel parallels with Dreamhunter were blatant, and they’re basically just saying “here’s some more”, because Claire is once again paralleled to Dean, catatonic with grief for something she’s lost before it even began.
I need to go watch this episode a hundred more times. For now, I leave you only with this. Dean = Claire and Castiel = Kaia. She even stabbed her Claire mirror in the freaking shoulder and left a scar the same as Castiel’s, only opposite. To illustrate this they gave us the scene with Dean looking at it in the mirror. Directing choices showed us deliberate straight line parallels to Dean/Cas right there in our eye holes, so that we were reminded of it while we’re watching. The subtext in this episode in the Destiel mirror was outright moved from subtext into text. So what’s next? Where do we go from here? And what role could Sam potentially have in it.
The first thing, which is a law that must be remembered at all times, is that wings do not make sense on this show. It has taken me many hours of frustration to accept this law, yet it remains true.
If we are trying to be reasonable about angel wings on Supernatural, about how the wings interact with light vs how the light interacts with the vessel that is right there, we must in the end come to the following conclusion: angel wings are a manifestation of a nonphysical characteristic of a nonhuman entity within the mind of the viewer, which is brought to the attention other characters (and us, the viewer) via an expression of power or grace best defined as “glory”.
In other words, angel wings don’t fucking obey the laws of physics when it comes to light and they aren’t about to start now.
Let’s take a random dick pic. (Image heavy below cut).
I love everything about this, you freakin’ nerd. *smooch* Thank you for a very, very thorough breakdown. You’re awesome.
Side note: I figure if anybody’s wing-flashing is gonna be all special and extra it’s gonna be our fashion conscious Dean being possessed by a version of Michael who doesn’t bother with stairs, but instead floats down from landings to make an entrance, like he’s read too many comic books and has totally bought his own press. Also, there’s no way Dean is gonna suddenly have wings and not give Cas a run for his money in the ‘fabulous entrances’ category.
In my sound studies class today we spent 10 minutes talking about Brad Pitt’s introduction in the movie Seven and how when he is walking up the stairs there is a single steps that squeaks and how that represents his future “missteps” in the case he is trying to solve
but clearly thinking the shirt dean was wearing represents the bisexual flag is “reading too much into it”
7×20. The Girl with the Dungeons and Dragons Tattoo.
(Look at how confident Dean is in the first gif that this will work, though – and flirting your way through security, that’s not something you’re sure can actually be done unless you’ve done it before, because with the lives they’ve had, the Winchesters are painfully aware of the difference between movies and reality. So, no, Dean knows exactly how to make this technique work – because he’s used it before. And how many women work in this field? Police, security guards, bouncers? Mh.
So, again – the fact Dean can flirt with men doesn’t mean, in itself, that Dean actually likes men. Dean is a liar and a conman, and finding a way past security guards is simply a part of his job. But considering everything else we know about him, and – mostly – that TV narrative is very different from real life – yeah.)
Yeah – and in this episode Charlie is used to knowingly establish that false premise that you can only flirt with the gender(s) you’re interested in…
Yep. It wouldn’t actually mean anything that Dean routinely used flirting in order to get past security guards, because yes, he is a con man and it is part of his job. Except Charlie’s insistence that the lack of attraction to a particular gender makes said flirting inherently impossible, requiring the intervention of someone who does have an attraction to that particular gender. And Sam and Dean BOTH just roll with this rationale as if it’s a completely valid premise.
(and note, it’s not Sam who walks her through flirting with the dude, and it’s not Sam who we routinely see flirting his way past security guards, bouncers, and male police officers throughout the series, either… Sam prefers sneaking, bluffing, and assuming the guise of an authority figure in order to talk his way through these situations– or straight up lost-puppy innocent bumbling and apologies. Dean’s FIRST thought, his gut instinct, is flirting.)
(because again this is how Sam and Dean differ. Sam attempts to baffle obstacles by “selling himself” to them with puppydog eyes and logic, while Dean attempts to baffle obstacles by “selling them to themselves.” Aka, flattery and flirting.)
alright heads up you all for a little dutch lesson. sit back and enjoy. i know this isn’t the only ‘gay translation’ we’ve had in the past but i haven’t seen this one yet so here we go.
friend in dutch is ‘vriend’. but if you say ‘mijn vriend’ (my friend), you always mean ‘my boyfriend’. there’s no other word for boyfriend, except ‘vriendje’, but as this literally means ‘little friend’, it’s often just used by teens and adults don’t really use it especially not cool dudes like dean
if you want to say ‘my friend’ platonically, you’d say ‘mijn vriend hier’ (my friend here) for if they’re in the room, ‘deze vriend’ (this friend) if they’re in the room or if you’ve mentioned them before, or ‘een vriend van mij’ (a friend of mine) if they’re not around. dean in this case could’ve used ‘mijn vriend hier’, it’d be the basic thing to say meaning your platonic friend.
but he didn’t. he says ‘mijn (….) vriend’, which means boyfriend.
if you do use this phrase but you mean a platonic friend, people will assume you mean boyfriend and it leads to awkward confusion. trust me, it’s not how you are meant to refer to a platonic friend.
even if you don’t care about this at all, he calls cas ‘onweerstaanbaar’, which means ‘irresistible’. so yeah, that’d already be enough.
Has anyone brought up differences in the Spanish translation between Cas and Jack’s “I love you, I love all of you”??
*screencaps from netflix so that’s why there is no image
Cas:
Jack:
Cuz I know they have different intensities and stuff
I don’t write meta so meta writers (if this hasn’t been brought up before), have some new material
Spanish is my native language and I can confirm that the platonic and romantic “I love you” are expressed differently. “Te quiero” is a lot more friendly. This is what you tell your friends and even family. “Te amo” can be used with really close family, such as parents and siblings -though not everyone is comfortable saying “te amo” to family precisely because it’s a lot more common for romantic relationships.
The fact that the official translation gives the platonic “I love you” to Jack and the “romantic” one to Cas is very telling. The person in charge of it understood the subtext and the context of both situations. “Te amo” was for Dean… and in Spanish, that’s the highest love declaration you can make.
– Lucifer ending up connected to Sam, no matter how hard everybody wishes to keep them separated (Sam being his vessel/Sam owing him his resurrection);
– Cas following Dean to the end, no matter how hard some people try to keep them separated. Cas being separated from the angels, and living on Earth with Dean – and also slowly losing his powers;
So what is different this time?
Dean and Cas are not alone – they have Mary, Jack, Gabriel, Rowena. Even Sam is not gone this time, even though he somehow ended up striking a deal with Lucifer (which was super unlikely only a week ago, but hey, fate is fate, even if it’s flipped fate). Dean and Cas have their family around them, and the sense of hopelessness is at least not based in the fact that “they only have each other”. (Also, last time Chuck was there with them, now Mary is there with them. With Chuck around everything was miserable. With Mary around, things look better. Make what you want of it.)
Cas is stuck on Earth and slowly becoming a human (c’mon, he is SO HUMAN this season!), but NOT because the angels left him behind – he actually is here because he wants to be here. He is losing his angelic powers, but it is not a tragedy as it was in the end!verse. Far from it – what in the end!verse destroyed him, is actually completely flipped, his depression gone, him being better than in a long time. His staying on Earth is his strength, not his weakness as Zachariah (and an endless queue of other creatures afterwards) predicted it would be.
[Castiel away from heaven: expectations vs reality. Reality wins this time.]
Zachariah, the creator of the end!verse, likes to think of himself as a master manipulator, the minister of propaganda, the one messing with people’s minds. In reality, he misses the point so badly, as illustrated this season by his trying to get to Jack by showing him different images that totally miss the mark. He doesn’t understand the brothers, he doesn’t understand Castiel. (Do you remember his ”erotically codependent” line? Well, AU Zachariah puts them in one bedroom when he gives a vision to Jack, so there is that. Once again he missed the point, because the codependency is weakest ever this season.)
At the end of “The End” Dean tells Cas to never change – and yet Cas did change, and he changed not only because he stayed on Earth and because he was around Dean, but also because he was always destined to change. This change turned out to not be for the worse, as Zachariah was predicting and Dean dreaded. Zachariah may have understood fate, but he didn’t understand free will, choosing your own destiny – and he didn’t understand love.
I think (and hope) we are about to see Dean in the situation where he will face AU Castiel, and by this he will see exactly what he was asking for when he asked Cas to never change at the end of 5×04. Because AU Castiel will be what Cas would have turned out to be if he had stayed with heaven, with Zachariah, with Michael, if he hadn’t choose free will. If he didn’t change. Our Cas made his own choices, he didn’t end up Zachariah’s way (depressed and broken), or heaven’s way (robo-Castiel, soldier for life). Dean tried to keep Cas from Dean’s own terrible influence, but in reality Dean’s influence was the best that could’ve happened to Cas, as we can see now – facing this new, ultimate apocalypse he is in better place than ever. Dean and Cas must eventually see it too.
[Compare and contrast: Cas waiting 2009 AD and Cas waiting 2018 AD]
Another good difference is the fact that this time around Sam is not gone, Sam is not dead (any more)(even though he is bound to Lucifer again – owing your life to your abuser is a terrible connection, but it is one), he is at Dean’s side.
The question is: will the last similarity be Dean wishing he could say yes to Michael this time around as well (just like end!verse Dean did)? We’ll see. A lot of stuff is not like the end!verse, but Dean is still defeated because as much as he has grown since 2009, his self worth is still super low. He sees his only value in being useful, in helping people, saving people, and he fails miserably at it this year (in his own mind, that is). He couldn’t save his family members, and even though they all came back to him now, he counts it as a loss, and a failure in his self-hating mind.
HE IS SO DESPERATE FOR A WIN, HE CAN’T SEE STRAIGHT.
I think he if says yes to Michael, our Michael, it will be to get rid of the other Michael – which at the moment sounds like the title idea from the book of worst possible ideas (dude, Michael is a monster, and if you think our Michael will be better than AU Michael, you are delusional), and I think in the long run it will be his win – just like Cas choosing to save Jack sounded like the worst possible idea last year, and we know how that turned out.
Bonus points if he repeats endverse!Dean’s arguments.
In the meantime he will “die”, and then will come back. “Death” and resurrection, always the point of change, and a change for the better it will be – since it would be almost impossible for it to be a change for the worse right now. Dean is following Cas’ story – Dean will follow Cas’ path to recovery, to getting better (choice that seems bad that will turn out to be a good choice that will lead to good stuff, to death and to resurrection as a better man) that will in the meantime be painful for everybody involved.
This end!verse we are living right now is 1000 times better than the Zachariah-created one, but Dean still doesn’t see it. He still is sitting too deeply in his own issues, and there must come something huge that will turn his existence upside down for him to finally see that the self-sacrificing, depressing ending where everybody dies is not The End anymore.
Just as the viewers have to finally see it.
👆👆👆👆👆 YES YES YES
I am so freaking glad someone finally made a beautiful post that puts into words what I’ve been thinking (and feeling) about Apocalypse World all season long. Gorgeous. Thank you.
I think the dream told us a lot of information about Sam, and one of those things it told us was that Sam is extremely bothered by Dean’s eating habits, to the point where the dream centered, at the beginning, around everyone ganging up to pick at him about it. Honestly, my knee-jerk reaction was to be offended as well. Not offended, I guess, but protective of Dean, because clearly he didn’t like being the brunt of everyone’s jokes.
Which is interesting in itself, since this was Sam’s subconscious being aware of that fact, and interesting further because everyone else was joining in
so it wasn’t just about Sam, who is usually the one who is making comments about Dean’s eating habits. So this is Sam believing everyone feels that way and it’s not just him. Mary’s comments (and remember this is Sam’s subconscious, not actually Mary, were the final nail in the coffin, as it were, so Dean had to make a show of not eating anymore so Mary wouldn’t call him a piglet again. Sam imagined Dean actually still wanted more, just without Mary (presumably, probably Sam too) to judge him. Notice how he checks to make sure they are gone and not watching. So Sam has some idea about Dean that he sometimes does things to get people off his back or because Dean wants people to think certain ways about him.
The dream also tells us something about Sam and what he wishes his mother would be–namely, that he wishes Mary was more like a traditional mother, the one who picks up after them and generally is just motherly.
Which isn’t all that surprising, since Dean said something similar (not that he wanted her to clean up after them, but just that he wanted her to stick around and be a mom) during a family meeting in 12.14, where Sam was letting Dean do the talking for him.
And once Dean left, Mary implored Sam and Sam echoed Dean’s sentiments to leave.
So, I found it pretty interesting (and just reaffirming) that Sam clearly wants Mary to just stick around and be a mom too.
Further, it gives us a clear picture that Sam wants his mom to think of him as not only a good son as he helps with the dishes,
and a son who is caring, just look how proprietary he’s being with her
and not just those things, but he also wants her to see him as hero.
Sam wants to be able to protect her and be a son she can count on. Which takes us all the way back to 4.21 when Sam was having visions of Mary being proud of him when he was drinking demon blood, obviously not something Mary would have been proud of.
But Sam has a pretty big desire to be a good son, all the way back to when he felt John was disappointed in him too (gif from 1.08).
So, this dream was a manifestation of those feelings, and not just about Dean and his eating habits.
Keep in mind too that when Mary was there with them, the only family sitting around the table scene we got was Mary being bemused, slightly alarmed at Dean shoveling a pie into his mouth and she and Sam sharing a moment shaking their heads over it (12.02).
So, Sam dreaming about Mary and him commiserating over Dean’s eating habits and being long-suffering about it isn’t really out of the realm of possibility, which is probably why people are offended. And honestly, I can understand that. Let the man eat his pizza. He has so few pleasures in life, you know?
There’s also the interpretation about Dean not having enough to eat while growing up, which is one many in the fandom have and so there offense, on his behalf, in that regard, is understandable too. We just heard about Dean hiding food in his room in 13.19. Hidden cheeseburger in the bedroom, for emergencies, which may or may not have been intended to comedic effect.
But we already know he’s been hungry to the point of starving (gif from 4.04).
We also know he had to resort to stealing to make sure Sam ate, (gif from 9.07)
so it’s really not out of the realm of possibility that people are interpreting that Dean eats the way he does partly because he grew up not always having food, something which Sam wouldn’t have experienced as glaringly if Dean was taking care of him and making sure he got food (notice it was I knew you’d get hungry, Sam, not I was hungry and also notice that Dean and Sam routinely hustle people for money now so it’s not out of the realm of possibility either that Dean was trying to play a card game to get more money for things they’d need). And probably people who are upset are wishing Sam understood that, especially because I’d venture to say Sam has his own issues with food, mainly having to do with purposeful deprivation as a means to cleanse himself.
That dream scene in 13.21 was also played for comedic effect, even if it did give us a lot of interesting information about Sam and the way he thinks. And Dean’s family all being disgusted by him makes people feel protective, no matter if it’s meant to give us information, or a laugh, or both.
But I will say we also got to see how very fond of Dean Sam is. Just look at his face when Mary amends her words to say you and Dean.
Sam’s smile says it all. He’s clearly proud of his big brother and wants his mom to be as well and I think that’s important to remember too.
The flannel seems a little big for him (the sleeves look long), so maybe it’s Sam’s? The cuff comes out much farther than it usually does on him.
He was originally wearing Bobby’s clothes, I presume, because his dug out of his own grave clothes were kind of shot when he goes to meet Sam but then he’s changed again after he and Sam hug it out.
After I made this, it was really bugging me because I was pretty convinced that brown jacket was Sam’s too (it’s buttoned back in the first gifs up there because it’s too long, I guess) and lo and behold
Sam’s corduroy jacket, which we see a few times throughout the series, but this one in particular was 3.10. And we can see it has the fleece lining.
which we can see is in the jacket Dean’s wearing, as the edge flaps in the wind, in 4.01 iafter Sam and Dean leave the demon cafe
And while we’re at it, that’s definitely Sam’s shirt too. Sam wore it in 2.04
The diamond buttons (I know the colors don’t look the same, but that’s because of my poor giffing skills shhhh)
There, curiosity and deep obsession with everything Dean Winchester satisfied.
Dean in Sam’s too-big clothes is fucking adorable. I know that’s not really the point of this. But that’s my first take-away.
It was kind of the point, no lie here. I am loving how the cuffs are too long he looks like a little kid in Sam’s clothes. It’s definitely adorable.
This makes so much sense though? Dean’s clothes are who knws where after he gets back from the dead and he wears Sam’s. I love this kind of detail in the costuming…
Wow, this post just blew my mind. The attention to detail in every department of this show blows my mind. Mind blown. Fuck.
What I enjoy most about the symbolical implications too is that Dean isn’t dressed in his own clothes when he meets Cas – properly face to face – for the first time. He’s dressed in clothes that are too big for him (like when he donned John’s leather jacket) and he’s trying to get back into his own skin again. The point here being that he actually won’t be allowed to. Cas is coming into his life to push for change and it may have taken a decade, but Dean’s finally getting into his own skin, his true shape, thanks to this angel of his.
Even though this symbology is an accidental byproduct of the absolutely sensible choice to put Dean in someone else’s threads after he’s been gone for four months and doesn’t exactly have his old wardrobe handy, it’s still a rather lovely coincidence.
Speaking of misconceptions about Dean (specifically about him being some kind of lothario), have you ever noticed how very not smooth Dean is when a woman propositions him? How surprised and flustered he gets? After Ellie asks him if he wants to go back to her room and have sex, this inarticulate babe comes out:
Or this woman who has this in reply to Dean telling her (as FBI and not meant as innuendo) he has ways to compel her to talk:
Or Suzy, he was not expecting that:
He can’t even remember he’s supposed to be kissing Anna back he’s so confused:
Or when Pamela said it might be his lucky day, just look at the wonder on this man’s face:
He had to give himself a freaking sex pep talk after it had been awhile (since Lisa, presumably, and wow that was a like a year):
I mean, in the second episode, he can’t even believe he’s getting a kiss on the cheek from a woman:
Flustered and frequently confused by a woman’s interest in him? Yes. Guy who takes advantage of women and does anything to get them into bed? No.
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