POV you are (G)od, but the objct of your affections doesn't believe in you, he doesn't pray to you, and the only time he mentions you is to beg for some washed-up, Very Flawed, standard-issue Angel

seen from United States
seen from Hong Kong SAR China

seen from United States

seen from United States
seen from Malaysia
seen from China
seen from Türkiye
seen from Türkiye
seen from United States
seen from Portugal

seen from United States
seen from United States

seen from Singapore
seen from United States

seen from South Africa
seen from Japan

seen from Malaysia

seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
POV you are (G)od, but the objct of your affections doesn't believe in you, he doesn't pray to you, and the only time he mentions you is to beg for some washed-up, Very Flawed, standard-issue Angel
OK so like thinking about the finale and why I was never really bothered by it.
Now I don't think it's good, Spn getting good needs all the stars aligned and that's rare. It often has good elements but the whole is more than the sum of its parts yadi yada. So I'm emphasizing that this isn't me saying it's a good finale (covid restrictions means it's as good as they could do within how bad it was gonna be anyway). Because it's not.
The thing is that we saw Dean being suicidal over and over and over for 15 seasons. For 20/22 episodes long seasons. We've seen Sam going from not wanting to be a hunter to "accepting his fate" to not and on and off and it kinda became situational more than something he might or might not want.
The whole 15 seasons long thing is important.
Now the basic idea would be once Chuck's done influencing his story, the brothers are truly free to do what they want, whether it's being a hunter, going full domestic, becoming that weird mysanthropic uncle in the woods, or killing themselves. Ideally the brothers would get to heal. Ideally Cas being brought back and Jack being hands off means they could actually heal alongside their family instead of fighting angels and gods and dealing with full on apocalypses. And on a meta level we wouldn't get to see it because what we were seeing was because of Chuck. Kinda like how in Squid Game the audience has stand ins and it's the VIPs.
But we spent years, 15 years aka 1/6th of a century aka a month of watching if you watch it 8 hours a day, with them being hurt over and over and over again. Having ONE episode saying "yeah they got to heal but most of it is off screen".... I would have been so enraged out of frustration.
Also you could make the argument that if that were the case there should not be an epilogue at all.
Now if the seeds had been planted earlier I'd definitely be more amenable to the idea, the characters gaining bits of autonomy by learning how to communicate and heal together. But 1 season wouldn't have been enough imo and what we had at the end of the day, by season 11, was Chuck's story rather than the brothers' story.
Also this isn't a short series. Where you just have two(2) 10 episodes long seasons to conclude in 1 episode. It's 15 seasons. It'd be hard to wrap a 15 season issue for 2 nuanced characters in 1 episode is just.... It's not impossible but it'd require a level of writing Spn doesn't have bc it's not the point of the show.
So we arrive at the end and Dean's still suicidal. His reason to live was protecting Sammy (and his friendship/romance with Cas I don't care how you see it). Neither is needed now and you can say that he lasted a full on 6 months, he sure lasted longer than in s13 where he basically committed suicide within a month of Castiel and Mary's deaths. Probably bc they didn't have the weight of the world on anymore so he could actually try. Meanwhile Sam's still lost. Does the family life suits him ? Probably not but the guy lost his nuclear family and trying to recreate one the 'normal' way is something he used to want and it'd fit that he'd at least try it. He probably adapts to whatever the person he dates wants too.
It's not even really shown as a tragedy because at this point it isn't. The tragedy was what we saw for 15 seasons. Now no matter what happens it's good.
So it's lackluster, it's bad, but it makes sense in the context because Spn was often more about putting one foot in front of the other and enjoying what you can when you can and fighting to lose as little as possible but they never really explored what you do when you lost the thing that helped you do that (at least for the MCs... They kinda tried with the Harvelles and Jody but never actually committed to it) since their solution was to always bring at least one back (usually one of the MCs).
And in the end I think anything else would have really really frustrated me.
Edit: that's why John's there too. They never fully dealt with their issues so they can't go no contact with him even in heaven
dean
Hi Beka I'm a newly turned Dean girl and I was just wondering what your favorite episodes are from season 10. Love your blog! Such amazing content ❤️❤️❤️
welcome to the Dean side. it’s nice here, we have pie.
season 10?
Easy Peasy...
Soul Survivor (10x3) and The Werther Project (10x19)
i love mute dean hcs. we need more of those. he went mute for a year as a kid and we need more of that. a dean who goes mute post rescue cas from the empty? hohooo that heady mix of overwhelming grief that was suffocating him and then being hit with the absolute relief of getting cas back? alive and whole, even if he is traumatised, but he's there! dean gets choked up and. that's that. maybe even his prayers cant get across properly anymore, more like feelings and jumbled up radio reception. (eileen: i could teach you sign language? VS sam: just write it down man 🙄). cas who is convinced that dean may be happy to have him back, but his confession must have ruined their friendship. with how much pressure it seems to have put on dean:( it'd be best if he left the bunker for a little while. naturally this is like a kick while he's down to dean. so dean gets into more and more stupid situations, all in a bid to get cas to stay. ranging from school kid tricks at immitating a fever in order to stay at home (fail. cas heals him or detects nothing wrong with him), to touching cursed objects (specifically of the teen girl crush variety. object of your affections must stay close or you will die. ykno. real chill and stuff) all the way over to accidentally almost dying on a hunt (take THAT cas, doesnt feel good to see the love of your life die in your arms eh? well you can burn my body on a pyre for once). kicker in the teeth if he actually says that last one out loud:) fun times on resurrection thursday
This ask has everything btw:
Mute Dean
Eileen the teacher
Impatient Sam
Dean getting choked up at the sight of Cas (God, that's giving me “Better now," script vibes)
Avoidant Cas
Dean's increasingly reckless bid for attention
Cursed object that keys into PINING
Dean almost dying in Cas's arms
Passive-aggressive grief cycles
Mute Dean leaning into sign language is wonderful, and I raise you that he also does charades.
It's a tragedy really, how Dean bonds so effortlessly with people who have shouldered the burden of parenting.
DEAN: You know, I gotta say, you did a bang up job with those two. TASHA: You must be drunk. [...] Yeah. I did the best I could for Max and Alicia. DEAN: No. TASHA: I got lucky. DEAN: I see how you are with them, all right? 12x20
Dean has to tell this woman. I SEE you. I SEE how hard you've worked. You are appreciated, you've done a GOOD job.
Dean's struggle is so often invisible too.
And yeah, Dean WAS A KID. But it was still a struggle that, as I've said ad nauseum, tends to get pathologized “Tangled up unhealthy thing," and fetishized (SEE: all of the incomparable Zachariah).
But no matter how unfair it was to live with, Dean needs his struggles to be seen for what they truly are. Fellow parents are more likely to see that, especially if they've been through the school of hard knocks and familial loss. Some people, like Ellen for example, see it so effortlessly , but others just... don't.
Like here, it doesn't occur to Tasha that Dean could be speaking from experience here having parented his own brother. She instead, gives him some advice about relating to his own parents. Not being one.
And yes, Tasha's words ignite sympathy in Dean re: Mary's struggles.
TASHA: Yeah. Family's always complicated. Parents always seem smart and strong and perfect. It's only when you grow up that you realize that they're just people. (12x20)
But Dean isn't often seen. We'll find him a couple episodes AFTER this... begging Mary to SEE him.
///
It also make us think about Dean's relationship to Bobby (SEE: Weekend at Bobby's) and ofc Sam's extended arc of seeing Dean in a more adjusted light:
SAM: No, the Dean I know... the Dean who raised me – he'd never give up, no matter how bad things got. (15x09)
It's a hard thing.
"I've been re-hymenated" sure hits less like a joke now that I'm spending time with all my wicked, smart Alastair friends. :(((((
Thinking randomly about how Zachariah's attempts to "recruit" dean initially started in making him feel ashamed about "steaming a latte" or listening to NPR or something "soft-" coded.
But then! A much more effective nightmare scenario turned out to be the bruh-huh-huh and beer can crushing of Endverse.
Dean was more afraid of being that than being that.
And like, that's just fascinating, isn't it? Zach assumed Dean would be ashamed of the "wussy" world of Dean Smith, but it was actually... the opposite. And this is sooo like a microcosm for how Dean gets misread, isn't it?