Gonna throw a small grenade into a dumb discourse but --
On the topic of who tops/bottoms/whatever, first acknowledging that I am an avid enjoyer of all variations of each brother as top or bottom or dom or sub or vers or them constantly switching or no penetration or particular dynamic or or -
Like it's all food, I am fed, so long as the writing or art is good and interesting and the dynamic itself is done in a way that fits the writing/tone/etc and doesn't break my suspension of disbelief or throw me out of the narrative 👍
So getting that acknowledgement out of the way first,
Who else here has a general vague headcanon about early seasons Sam as more likely to top and then Dean going to hell throwing a big ol' wrench in that dynamic and then Sam going to the cage throwing several more wrenches in, so that s7 onward their dynamic ends up in at least partial reversal, and bunker era onward there is a lot more Sam bottoming as where they eventually find their new stable equilibrium 🙋
A decade before Sam was conceived, Mary made a deal that impacted her son. The narrative implies that this deal, her permission, was necessary for Azazel to have access to her child. We learn from this that mothers have ownership over their children even prior to conception. That Mary could give permission on behalf of Sam.
With this deal, Azazel is implied to hold some rightful claim over Sam’s body, a claim that he sealed by violating his body at 6 months old with demon blood. From there he manipulated and controlled his life with demons, never relinquishing his claim.
Sam sought autonomy, intrinsically aware of the lack of control over his own life, his own body and experiences. He rebelled, ran away, grew up and left.
Even so, demons dogged him. His prom date, his best friend in college. Visions, powers, migraines, nightmares -- all a direct result of how the right to his body was sold in a deal by his mother.
And then at 22, John Winchester gives Sam’s life to Dean. John Winchester tells Dean that he will either have to save his brother, or kill him.
This is a burden, a cruel and unusual responsibility for one man who raised Sam to place onto another man who raised him. At the same time, it is treated as a right. Dean has the responsibility of killing Sam, but also, in his father’s eyes, the right to. The right to make the call for if and when Sam can no longer be saved.
Sam’s body belonged first to Mary. It was claimed and violated by Azazel, by demons. And John gave what claim was left to Dean. Sam acknowledges this right in Playthings, doubles down and agrees to it. Whatever claim Sam held over his own life is now given to Dean.
Sam dies. Dean, the true owner of the right to decide if Sam dies, did not allow Sam permission to die, and so this is unacceptable. Dean sells his soul to buy Sam’s life back.
The narrative allows this. It allows for Sam to be bought by and for Dean. It tels us that Dean has this right (and the narrative goes on step further to imply that this decision is right. Dean is Righteous).
And Dean pays heavily for that purchase, ripped to ribbons and sunk to Hell. The transaction comes due, confirming his proprietary ownership is valid and true.
This relationship does not go both ways.
Sam does not have ownership over Dean’s body, over his life or his death. Sam is never able to save or resurrect Dean under his own power. Not in Mystery Spot, not when he kills the Crossroads Demon holding Dean’s contract, and not when Dean goes to Hell. Nothing of Dean’s can be purchased by Sam.
Without Dean, his body minder, Sam is infected by demon blood and manipulated by Ruby. He makes these choices himself, despite them being flawed. It is implied these choices were made in a direct absence of Dean. Without Dean, Sam’s body is corrupted. Ruby’s claws are in deep, a claim she is staking as the owner was absent. Finders-keepers.
When Dean discovers this, he reasserts his control over Sam’s body and locks him up in Bobby’s panic room to detox. He overrides any concerns Bobby may raise, and decides that even if this kills Sam, it will be worth it if Sam “dies human”.
We are once again reminded that it is Dean’s right to choose if Sam dies, and moreover that it is Dean’s right to choose how Sam dies. Sam’s body was bought and paid for by him, after all. Sam’s life and death are his inheritance.
Dean may lock Sam up as he detoxes and strap him as Jesus to a cross in the centre of that space, and we may look on in horror and Bobby may question if what they are doing is right, but he does not question Dean’s authority to do it. At every step, implicit ownership is upheld – by the story, by Bobby, and by Sam himself. Upon escaping Sam doesn’t tell Dean he was wrong to control him, only that he was wrong about the necessity of his own corruption. He questions Dean’s conclusions, but not his means, not his reassertion control.
In killing Ruby, Dean’s reassertion of his claim is validated.
And then Lucifer comes along.
Lucifer stakes a claim on Sam, millennia in the making. In the flash forward in time, Lucifer is the owner of Sam’s body, and Dean is still contesting that clam, still arguing a right to Sam’s life and death. Lucifer’s claim is upheld when the colt fails and future!Dean dies.
We learn that Lucifer’s stake is as valid as Dean’s.
Sam’s body is still not his own.
In order to save the world, Lucifer cannot be allowed to own Sam’s body. In order to make that happen, Sam must die under his own power. Sam must accept Lucifer into his body under his own power. Sam must choose his own destiny under his own power.
In order to save the world, Dean must relinquish his claim to Sam’s body. And finally, he does. Acknowledging Sam’s right to choose this, supporting Sam’s plan to do this.
Until Season 5 episode 22, Sam has belonged to Mary, to Azazel, to John, to Dean, to Ruby, to Lucifer. He has never belonged only to himself.
And when he finally does? He saves the world.
(For the record, this relationship is carried through the eventual finale. Any point at which Dean dies, he is brought back through means outside of Sam, either his own power or something else. Meanwhile if Sam dies, he is often resurrected through some request or action of Dean’s. So of course in the finale, Dean must die first. Because Sam cannot die while Dean still lives, because Dean owns Sam’s body and life, and does not offer permission for Sam to die except of old age by natural means. Dean gets to decide if Sam lives or dies, and how and when he dies, even then.)
Okay just to make it clear how hyperfixated I will forever be on The Flash -
I’ve been watching Supernatural recently (don’t ask, it sucked me back in) and in S09 episode 16, at 16:57 into the episode, there’s the outside of this building that in the show is labelled “The National Institute of Antiquities” in Kansas, MO.
I was reading the sign on the front thinking “ah, Kansas, MO, that just makes me think of Flash geography and Central City.” And then I paused because -
It’s the same damn building.
I can’t believe I recognized it from like 2 seconds of screen time. I have a problem.
not for nothing but i still think dean dying as a result of the writer’s strike is still one of the best things to ever happen to the narrative.
you’ve got this guy who sold his soul and you know he’s gonna be saved somehow. that’s how tv works, that’s how this story works. sam was just dead and then resurrected, dean’s had so many near-misses already, so of course the next season they’re gonna save him. that’s how this goes.
you’ve got s2 ending on sam saying there’s nothing he wouldn’t do for him, on “guess i’ve got to save your ass for a change”
and then he doesn’t.
and then. he.
doesn’t.
the descent storyline primed and ready to launch because, to reiterate, there is nothing sam would not do for dean (even make himself monstrous and into all that which dean hates).
and then - dean dies anyway. and sam turns monstrous anyway. not to save dean. to avenge him. to fruitlessly grasp at the remains of what they had. to have tried and hated himself for failing and hate himself for not descending sooner and hate himself for doing it now when it serves no true purpose except revenge.
i’ve said it before but i’ll say it again -- watching those seasons as they aired, and being almost disappointed watching in real time that the end of s3 was clearly going to involve saving dean, that that conclusion was already foregone so the stakes didn’t feel as high, and then the complete and utter shock when there is no 11th hour deus ex machina that swooped in and saved him. when dean died -- torn to shreds like the deal with the demon ultimately promised but i never once expected to deliver. stomach through the floor, yelling at the screen because there’s no way - there’s no way, how can this show continue without dean? oh god is he dead for real? oh god he’s dead for real.
and then that split second clip of him in hell, yelling for his brother, and the entire season break/hiatus wondering if s4 is going to be trying to rescue him, if it’s going to be him as a demon, what to expect.
it was exceptional. it was exquisitely painful. it was completely unexpected, in a way that subverted tv norms in a good way because narratives so seldom deliver on what they promise in the case of a character death that’s been foretold like this.
yeah that episode scrambled my brain for all of time, huh
there was a post on my dash a few days ago about an interview with jensen about the prequel. he talks about casting, and about how the actor they hired for john had both sam (1) and dean (1) in him, and the actress they hired for mary had dean (2) energy (that none of the other actresses were serving, apparently). and the post rightfully pointed out that dean himself is there (3). so three deans to one sam, they noticed.
(edit: here is the link for anyone interested)
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and looking at the reviews about how bland the pilot is, i can’t help but think that’s part of why?
the thing that is magic about supernatural is the gravitational push and pull between sam and dean and the forces that are so much bigger than them.
you could have that in the prequel. the gravitational push and pull between john and mary and the forces that are so much bigger than them.
it’s literally the canon backstory!
the first time they met, they bumped into each other and (presumably on trained instincts) mary laid john on his ass then apologized, and he was smitten. but he was only smitten because of cupid’s arrow. the cupid we meet in canon tells sam and dean that their parents weren’t a good match, that they didn’t (wouldn’t?) get along, and that their relationship was ordained and the love was manufactured.
so you have the gravity, right there. the push and the pull. the fighting and the mismatch despite the passion and the love they literally cannot help but feel. and it lends itself so well to telling an unhinged story where two people meet and fall in some kind of love at first sight and are weird about each other!
(in the way that sam and dean are weird about each other. breaking in in the middle of the night and fighting your brother is weird! disappearing out the door with someone you haven’t seen in two years while lying to your partner about why is weird! it’s all unhinged and so it compels the audience!)
to make that work on screen, you need to set up opposing dynamics so you get the push and pull, and you need chemistry. like, a lot of chemistry. the other magic of spn is the insane off the charts on screen chemistry that J2 have. lightning in a bottle, right?
the thing that made me ultimately decide not to watch the prequel was mary’s casting and character styling. despite being one of the few people actually excited about the story conceit (i love john and mary as characters!! i’m genuinely interested to see how the lying and hunting and vietnam trauma and the personality clash all played out!!), as soon as i saw the first promotional photos, the tentative hope i’d been harbouring for the show died a quiet death.
not only did this version not look much like either of the other two marys we had met in terms of face and height, but she had thick eyeliner and straight hair and a black leather jacket and a hard look and scowl. none of that jives at all with the mary we know and not just because she was sanctified in the memory of winchester men. we met young mary and she was dressed in bright tones with bright eyes! she was full of smiles (and lies), full of dreams for her own future, with bouncy curly hair and emotional frustrations and vulnerabilities.
she was bringing sam, not dean.
mary campbell is a rebel. she is like both her sons in different ways, much the same as john. there are parallels on both sides and i think it’s fruitless to say who is paralleled more to whom in the (main) show, who has more of who’s personality. but in that arc, in her youth, mary campbell wanting to leave the hunting life and have a civilian life with her partner john winchester was absolutely a parallel to sam’s similar yearning for freedom, for safety and simplicity.
so we know already -- mary’s rebellion looks like sam’s rebellion. it’s not the devil may care attitude of dean, it’s a more serious and anxious rebellion against her upbringing. she’s tense but soft. easily annoyed but not sarcastic, possibly too earnest (in itself a perfect lie, something that makes her interesting because she’s anything but honest with john). doe-eyed so that when she drops you on your ass, you’re shocked. this small woman with her sweet smile is kicking your ass? what in the - ?
casting a mary that is bringing forward features of dean, styling her in such a way as to look harsh and ‘badass’ instead of downright preppy, giving her that look and attitude and all of it? misses the point.
there is no dean without sam. or at least no story about dean worth watching. because there is no gravitational push-pull between dean and ... dean. meaning that if both the prequel leads are bringing dean’s energy to their role, there is no chemistry.
electricity isn’t formed without opposing charged ions. there’s no lightning in a bottle when everything is the same.
(there is no sense of pull between them to prompt a push. and when it comes time to write the push in anyway, without the pull? it will feel discordant and unconvincing to the audience’s eye. it will rankle.)
this issue sits as central, to me, even before any retconning of the original story. before the complete lack of 1970s vibe, and before what i’ve seen about them possibly(idk???) getting mary’s age wrong, and what i’ve heard about them making john bumbling or boring despite being a literal marine (who are...extreme) who quite literally just came back from vietnam, likely traumatized and intense. before the fact that they literally copy+pasted the plot of spn to the prequel with mary’s dad going missing.
all of these features, alongside the casting issues, the styling issues, all of it right down to the original prequelgate itself, speak to the same fundamental issue -
the prequel is missing heart.
the lack of sam (not even in presence so much as in essence) functions like a hole in the heart of the show from which it is bleeding inward. the lack of love letter to time era, to the stylings and setting reads like a lack of love to the story itself. the lack of care put in to re-introducing us to the version of mary that we knew, those changes to her style and personality and story, read like an insult to those of us who loved her already, as if she was not worthy of a place in the heart of the creators as she already was.
i wanted to love this show. desperately, i really did. the day it leaked, before i’d heard about the rest of the ensuing prequelgate nonsense, i wrote a post in defense of the concept (since deleted). i wanted so badly to love it. i can’t. because i feel like the people creating it don’t love it.
many will take this as a critique of jensen ackles and to some extent, it is, but mostly just a critique of trying to create a new show half-cocked while splitting his time acting on a handful of other projects instead of dedicating himself to the time and energy this show needed in order to be a success. i have no idea what his vision was for this story, and i’m not convinced he had a core vision.
(for whatever else you might critique about kripke’s era of spn, it had a vision and it knew what it was. that vision was central to its resonance.)
more than that though, it’s a critique of all the producers and creators involved who thought that they could build off of what we already loved while gutting the core pieces we loved in the first place, while replacing these elements with their own versions instead, versions seemingly uninterested in the emotional foundations on which they were building.
i can’t help but feel they were arrogant enough to think that making us love it would be as simple as checking boxes on a list and slapping a shine over it, thinking we’d be satisfied with the empty shell they deigned to put together. that they didn’t need to push each other, challenge the story, question the character favoritism or biases the team members were bringing to the table.
it’s the dean story with dean producers and writers and no one thought to question if they needed more balance? if the story needed more heart? if john was intense enough, if mary was sweet enough, if the characters had dimensions?
was it ignorance? arrogance? were they all too up their own asses that they dismissed legitimate concerns as fandom wank because of prequelgate and fandom bullshit until it was too late?
i’m sorry, that got more charged than i intended. bottom line, this isn’t a love letter to supernatural or its fans. love takes effort and dedication and care and heart. i’m not convinced the prequel has any.
Kind of wanting an AU where Sam goes missing (either from Stanford or they never find him during AHBL or something) and around what would be the season 4 era and shit's getting real, Dean is on the trail of this Big Bad Demon that's a General or the Antichrist or some shit, and when he finds him, of course it's Sam
Bonus points if Sam is a reluctant or semi-unwilling boyking here (I'm not into the over-the-top ooc boyking Sam takes) or -- even better -- if he's actually been working against the demon army on his own (with a few demonic allies...) and is himself trying to take down Lilith (in his own special demon blood way) but he Can't Be Trusted because he has black eyes and smells faintly of sulfur
every now and then i think about how, back when i was a teenager and the show was first airing and i was watching in real time, i didn’t really enjoy reading fic where sam was cursed to need to fuck dean, or stories where sam had feelings for dean first.
my reasoning at the time being that it was a foregone conclusion -- of course if sam was cursed and needed to fuck dean, needed anything from dean in order to not die, that dean would immediately and unquestioningly provide. of course if sam fell for dean, it didn’t even matter if dean reciprocated or not, he would stay by sam’s side and this wouldn’t break them apart, just get absorbed into their dynamic one way or another, because there was simply no universe in which dean rejected his brother. even if for some reason they didn’t start a sexual relationship, it would be fine.
and look, i was a teenager and a little uninterested in the layers of complexity there were to unpeel there, and how “will this break them apart” is not necessarily the only element of that conflict worth exploring, and in the 15+ years since then i’ve definitely come to enjoy every potential trope and examination of their dynamic and write them this way too.
but my point isn’t actually about the tropes that writers choose to explore, it’s that -- if you watch in real time without knowing where it’s all going, even to a younger viewer with some critical thinking skills but not a lot of media literacy, the first 3-4 seasons make very obvious that sam has more agency in his dynamic with dean than dean does, and that dean’s decisions are foregone conclusions in a way that sam’s aren’t.
(this is beautifully, necessarily challenged and complicated by the very back end of season 4 and the start and then progression of season 5, most especially their breakup at the start of s5, but that is such an extreme tipping point for them that it’s delectable in its horror and what if offers, and part of why those episodes are painful as hell but riveting)
and anyway i just find that fascinating, because i think it’s something many fans sort of forget in retrospect or something that gets washed out by more recent canon. knowing where the story goes and how the relationships develop can undermine our ability to keep crystal in our memories how they were at that point in time. we get retroactive memory interference.
and i think it accounts for at least some differences in fics written during that 2005-2010 era vs those written later, and for some of the discussions in fandom with different points of view. consuming the narrative slowly over years vs. binging it, watching while knowing where it’s going vs. not, re-watching vs. initial watching, etc -- all of it influences our experience of the story (let alone all of the other stuff like which characters we do or don’t identify with, etc).
which i think is kind of neat, and i like to try and sit back and reflect on my initial experiences of the narrative, because young and naive and media-savvy or not, those first impressions and interpretations in their raw, unfiltered form have a lot of value for me now, still, in understanding the characters and the story.
I know it's the brainworms talking but prev reblog made me want to write a fic about kisses Dean has stolen over the years.
(y'know that ao3 tag that goes something like "Dean Winchester is obsessed with Sam Winchester"? Yeah, like that)
It would start cute like the forehead kiss to baby Sammy in the opening scene of the pilot, a goodbye just for the night, a promise of protection (turned, we know, fast to ash).
Flash forward fast to disturbing territory of Sam blackout drunk as a teen and Dean dropping him in bed, dodging all Sam's octopus limbs trying to attach themselves to dean until he's just - out. And maybe Dean doesn't go for the kiss this time, or maybe he does, but either way he stares at Sam's lips an unsettling length of time, and the scene bleeds into Playthings and there is this distinct undercurrent of 'how often has this exact same thing played out this way over the years'.
We move from there to AHBL and Dean kissing Sam's corpse as if in goodbye, as if seeking atonement, as if that alone could revive it (sense memory still on his lips when he makes his demon deal).
After Sam's wall breaks, comatose, and Balthazar's joke to Dean about not stealing any kisses while he stands vigil over Sam's sleeping form uncomfortably apt, and Dean knows the angels know too much but could he at least keep his goddamn trap shut in front of Bobby, who's looking stiff and away and it figures. It figures he knows too. Figures the whole goddamn world does. (But not Sam, not Sam who is never conscious for these transgressions, these offerings.)
During the trials when Sam is fevered and ill and dips in and out of consciousness, and Dean feeds him and wraps him in blankets and while Sam shakes out the fever, Dean is wrapped around him, presses kisses to Sam's hairline, his forehead, his temples, chin (lips) catching on the grain of stubble dusting Sam's cheeks, thumb grazing his lips until Sam, unconscious and open, sucks it in like a pacifier, like an infant once again.
And maybe if we are going for a 5+1 format, 5 kisses Sam was unaware of and 1 he was let in on, we twist the knife in just a bit?
Possession, we know, involves an open mouth. And how Gadreel entered Sam with Dean's help is a little speculative. If Dean, holding hands with Gadreel, pressed his lips to Sam's mouth and pried it open, stayed there the duration of the trickery he pulled with Gadreel in Sam's brain, so that Gadreel could flow through Dean like a conduit into Sam's open mouth... One wonders if it would be Gadreel or Crowley who would rustle up the image in Sam's mind for him, the strangely familiar sensation of Dean's lips on his.
Of course we could also reject the 5+1 format or subvert it with a happier follow-up, as if two distinct +1s?
Or we could do short snippets of post!finding out Sam (make a whole different 5+1 sequel? 5 kisses Sam let Dean steal, and one that he stole himself?)
We could frame an awake, eyes wide open kiss with demon!Dean that's filthier than all the rest, tongue and suction and bodies pressed firm to each other, Sam's back to a wall, the perfect opportunity to jab Dean with a needle or to get the cuffs on him but only if he's adequately distracted.
After the bmol, after they save Sam, before he's washed, Dean following him to the showers, restless and desperate to touch, to confirm the solidness of Sam's skin away from their mother's prying eyes, but Sam's awake and Dean's never -- never had permission, never stolen one like this, not except as a demon, and between that and Gadreel... But Sam doesn't argue when Dean helps him to the showers, lets Dean help him pry his shirt off when he hisses at the movement and how it strain his limbs, his belt, his jeans, doesn't argue when Dean helps him into the shower itself while maintaining a quiet freeflow ramble about Sam's back needing someone to wash it and not falling over on his still-sore foot and giving himself a concussion. Devolves into Dean kissing Sam's shoulders and hugging him, Sam twisting eventually to look at him, quiet promise of "it's okay" and then Dean takes what he needs and sets his lips on Sam's.
From there, a quiet, not-quite-stolen one of comfort after Sam marches into camp in Apocalypse world with Lucifer behind him, away from the others and Sam melting into the now-familiar, now-comforting sensation.
Dean pulling Sam in after Michael's possession to ground himself, shirtless in his room, out of place in his own skin. His hands on Sam's jaw, his head, more demanding and less feather-light than most times before. Sam's fingers delicately finding a place along Dean's waist, the warm skin there, finding a sense of comfort in feeling how solid Dean is, a sense of fresh understanding as he slides his hands up Dean's back. Dean telling him the beard has to go after he pulls back.
Then after Nick brains Sam and he's dying or dead on the pavement for a moment before he's healed, who cares who sees, this is understood between them, this helps place their jagged pieces together in ways he's not apologizing for anymore - Sam waking up breathing in the air from Dean's lungs on a gasp, lips tingling, mouth opening under Dean to accept him before he even has oxygen in his blood.
The +1 here is either the barn scene (if we're masochistic) or more likely in heaven on the bridge, both of them seeking it together at the same moment, a kiss that means the same as all the last -- I'm here, I'm not letting you go -- but this time untinged by pain or separation, finally together forever, safe.
