#mary studies

[soft-pine]

mary winchester, sweaty and exhausted, over the worst pain but still aching, holding her damp, bloody, crying, newborn, firstborn son and insisting he be named after her mother you will always be famous

[angelsdean]

All these thoughts also prompted me to think abt what John and Mary's fights were often about, especially the fight where John leaves and Dean then comforts Mary. And I think a big part of it was Mary keeping secrets and sneaking around with regard to hunting.

We know she was still hunting in 1980, when she saves Asa Fox. Dean would've been a year old and the hunt is not local, it's up in Canada. Mary says she's been tracking this werewolf for a long time and that they have history. I do think when she says "a long time" she means years and that she hasn't actively been tracking it but it's been something on the back-burner that she's kept an eye on all these years. But that still means she left for a number of days at the very least, and I wonder what she told John. What excuse did she come up with to justify suddenly taking off when they have a baby at home. And no, I don't think she needed to be there as "the mom" to take care of Dean or that she can't spend time away from the home or that fathers are incapable of taking care of their children or anything like that. But I think John would certainly wonder what's taking her away from them so suddenly. What could possibly be so important. And with a hunt like this, I don't think she could've exactly given him a set time-frame for her return.

Now, imagine that happening multiple times. Imagine that happening again when Sam is just a few months old. She says she has to go visit her uncle who's poorly (father of the Campbell cousins. The uncle that paid for her headstone when she died). And then she's gone for longer than she anticipated. And John is just suspicious. And when she comes back they argue about it. "I know you're lying! Just tell me the truth, Mary! What, are you seeing someone else?" And Mary holding firm to her lies because her family cannot know about the supernatural and hunting. Because she doesn't want her kids growing up like she did. Because John is her suburban fairytale. He can't know. And then John snaps. He's pissed. He thinks she's cheating while he's working to provide for the family AND watching the kids in her absence. So he flings a "Is Sam even mine?" at her in his rage and she slaps him and tells him "Don't you dare" and then John storms out in a huff but then calls later to talk about it more and Mary shuts him down. "No, John. … We’re not having this conversation again... Think about what? … You’ve two boys at home. …"

I can imagine a version of this phone call going something like this:

John calls. Maybe apologizes for what he said, but mostly just wants her to be honest with him.

John: Please, Mary, can we just talk about this.

Mary: No, John.

John: I just want you to tell me the truth! What are you hiding? What's going on that you can't tell me?

Mary: We're not having this conversation again.

John: Oh okay, 'we're not having this conversation again.' Well then can you blame me for where my mind is going? What would you think, huh?

Mary: Think about what?

John: You know how it looks, Mary. And I just, I can't keep doing this--

Mary: You have two boys at home. (and ohh the delicious irony of that in the context of her being the one leaving to continue hunting in secret)

John, probably, since the convo seems to continue: Oh that is rich coming from you right now, Mary.

Anyways, this is only one of many many scenarios I can imagine of their fights. And it's perhaps a little too sympathetic to John, but! I enjoy thinking of John complexly, especially considering how Young John is presented in SPN, and also John in the opening scene of the Pilot seems like the easy-going family man, who definitely had underlying issues prior to Mary's death (thank you SPNWIN for confirming that) but clearly those issues got worse after Mary's death, and for the most part he wasn't yet the guy we see him become after he is transformed by grief and anger. Also s12 Mary's rose-tinted recollections of John being such a good father, which starkly contrast to Dean's later memories of John, I think it's not a huge leap to say John pre-Mary's death was a good father, and I think seeing Mary leave them (likely repeatedly) under secretive circumstances for days at a time would have bothered John back then and been a continuous point of contention in their marriage.

And again, this is all simply one angle of interpretation, theorizing, and headcanoning and by no means the only possible scenario.

[cascigarette]

mary wants to be forgiven. sam wants to forgive her.

[your-local-painting-girl]

April 19, 2019 | Did some summaries of my linguistic studies about ancient italian in the forest, since the weather was nice. I didn't do much today, since I was a bit tired, but it's okay. It's better than doing nothing I suppose.

In the evening I read Canti XVII and XVIII of the Inferno, so a bit of "light work" is already done!

I hope you're having fun in the beginning of your Easter holidays!

[angelsdean]

mary having a complicated relationship to motherhood and not actually being the perfect mom and really struggling with wanting to continue hunting to ensure her family's safety VS wanting to be out of hunting and keep her family far from that world is so so interesting and important to me. like, just imagining her carving protective sigils under the welcome mat. salting the window-sills. putting little protective charms on her babies. trying her hardest to fit into the mold of "mother" all while aching for her own mother to be there and help her and teach her what to do. her sucking at cooking and feeling a little bit like a failure every time she reheated a store-bought pie. dean never knowing the difference until she tells him years and years later. her wanting so desperately to keep her family safe and yet still sneaking off to continue hunting here and there because she can't stand knowing what's out there and doing nothing. yet she vows to never ever tell her kids about any of it, even though it scares her that in their ignorance they'll get hurt by something. the war inside her as she writes out pros and cons lists in the dead of night wondering if she's doing the right thing by keeping them and john in the dark. and her becoming increasingly more and more distressed and conflicted as the decade runs out on her deal. she doesn't know what the demon will come for, though looking down at sam in her arms she's starting to suspect. so she puts up more protections. the months pass and the demon never comes. she thinks her efforts worked. she thinks maybe her family will be spared.

[angelsdean]

honestly mary strikes me as the type of person who wouldn’t want to have kids at all because she knows just how dangerous and fucked up the world is and she’d be terrified to bring a child into that world. which makes me think....the angels must’ve intervened there too, lulling her into wanting kids so they could get their perfect vessels, which is just so messed up and cruel. but then, once dean’s born and in her arms she does love him fiercely and is incredibly protective of him and i think that’s why she continues to hunt in secret. because she wants to protect her kids and she wants to at least try to make the world safer for them. but she’ll never, ever raise them to be hunters and she’ll never, ever force that life onto them like it was forced onto her. 

[jasmineintheforest]

Mary speedran adjusting to a new world in s12 and then escaped brainwashing and then immediately has to adjust yet another new world within one ep. Not to mention.... she's stuck with fucking Lucifer. Ew. Poor Mary. Give her a break.

[jasmineintheforest]

All my life, all I've had other than family, is my will. And it's going away.

What if I cry for her.