you don't ship dean/amara, do you?
No, I don’t ship them. Have said before will say it again. I find the bond Dean and her share an interesting yet troubling topic to meta about, because it is mind control. And in that regard comparable to what essentially is the big arc of Marvel’s “Jessica Jones” with Kilgrave or Castiel’s arc from S8 with Naomi.
So no, I don’t ship them, but I am interested in discussing and exploring in meta and spec if their bond is due to a part of Dean having remained in the Darkness and a part of the Darkness having remained in Dean when the mark was removed (my moth metas are largely about that) and that is why they gravitate towards one another and share a connection that is comparable to the one Harry Potter and Tom Riddle shared , which was just as unwanted as this connection is unwanted by Dean.
So no, I don’t ship them, I don’t see anything romantic in that arc at all, nothing equal. It’s a storyline about the loss of free will and someone asserting power over another person and controlling his mind (and it seems even body) to their liking. It’s non consensual, it’s terrifying, it’s Dean becoming Amara’s puppet, the scarecrow to Amara’s Calliope. And with that it is framed in no way, shape or form any different than Sam’s connection to Lucifer. And that’s has been made clear right from the beginning of the season, the mid season finale only made it as obvious as it was in the fine print before already. Both brothers integrity as a person is at stake. The mid season finale showed both helpless to forces much mightier than themselves that made it unmistakably clear that they can make them do whatever they want even if it’s the last thing one of the brothers wants.
And all that is definitely not something I would ever ship and want to ship. If you thought I did because of this tag “DeanxAmara” - I only recently created it because it was wished. I use it every time I am discussing Dean and Amara scenes, but it has nothing to do with shipping.
Amara on her own and without the mind control thing I find a really compelling an interesting character to talk about, because in the end limiting her to a mere love interest is exactly what this character imo was created to subvert. Especially when bringing feminism into the mix and the erasure of women in our history too. But that may just be me.
As for liking problematic characters: And that is the thing, one can find character well developed, interesting or compelling while knowing at the same time the character does horrifying stuff. It’s the same with Lucifer. He did so much bad stuff, tortured Sam, yet people live the way Mark Pellegrino brought Lucifer to life. There’s a difference between excusing something and acknowledging something or discussing a character without that aspect. Probably the one character that in this regard gets the biggest pass is Gabriel. I love Richard Speight, I love his trickster and Gabriel. But Gabriel is far from a saint. What he did to Sam in particular was the furthest from funny and just as horrifying as what Amara does only in a different department. But yeah. Not shipping Dean and Amara. Also never shipped Sam and Lucifer for that matter or Cas and Naomi cause all of these relationships come down to the same thing: they are unwanted by one half of the pair and that part is helpless against the stronger ones will and with that it’s non con and just wrong.
