#spn 11.11

[mittensmorgul]

don’t mind me just watching 11.10 which is arguably the first episode of dabb era since this was penned by him as he took over the plot arc from carver and set the stage for his first season finale and the arcs of rowena and castiel began a long series of parallels where they’re both coming from entirely different ends of the spectrum but were both used horrifically in the name of power-- rowena’s in protecting herself and cas’s in protecting the people he loved-- and the choices they made in the name of that protection just went horribly horrifically wrong in every way, and dabb founded these two narrative arcs in the fact that cas did everything for love and put these words in rowena’s mouth about hate:

Rowena: I hate you, because when I look into your eyes I see the woman I used to be, before magic, before the coven. When I was nothing but Rowena, the tanner's daughter. A pale, scared little girl, who smelled of filth and death. I hate you, because when you were born, your father said he loved me. Then he went back to his grand wife and his grand house, whilst I lay pathetic and half dead on a straw mat, my thighs slick with blood. I hate you, because if I didn't, I'd love you. But love, love is weakness. And I'll never be weak again.

and yet hate WAS the weakness and true love isn’t a one way street but that being loved IN RETURN was the key all along and that’s honestly what all these characters up to and including chuck and amara actually needed though chuck was functionally incapable of it and that’s why his story sucked which we will learn IN DETAIL in s15, but for now the next three episodes of spn will detail three important facets of love

first we learn of romantic love and the torment of “heartbreak” as a concept and the introduction of Eileen to Sam’s life despite the fact that she will return only to die and be taken from him tragically before they could truly explore that potential for love in an episode where Dean confesses his fear of the strange warped attraction Amara forces on him to Cas but it’s not really Cas and Dean is so messed up he can’t figure out why Cas seemed “off” yet.... 

then we learn about familial love and what makes a family, and get proof it’s literally not blood in any sense of the word, it’s the people we choose of our free will and without the bonds of blood (vampiric or genetic), and our choices are most important in building a full life with happiness and freedom

then we learn about toxic obsessive love that isn’t really love at all but a walking talking mockery of love that will destroy everyone involved in perpetuating it symbolized by dean nearly being killed by a fake version of amara and finally understanding that this is the sort of love that amara seeks from him...

and then we have dean spending the rest of the season with one singular goal of freeing cas from his own bad decision because... 

and rowena returning from the dead and seeking out power and protection from amara only to begin to understand that power can’t protect her and will never protect her, and hate is maybe not enough to protect her either...

the rest of dabb era continues to hammer these themes home to us and then after Chuck is defeated and love is finally allowed to win.... ???????? the story that Chuck never intended to “write,” the one about love in all its forms, because Chuck never actually understood love at all, also fails to survive Chuck’s downfall at the very moment it actually had a chance to be freed from the depressing narrative in which it had flourished despite all odds stacked against it, and despite Chuck actively trying to murder it at every turn for the purposes of his characters’ suffering... like... so what was even the point of any of it in the end? Tell a story about love growing through every crack of the story while the author desperately tries to pave it all over, and then not let love and humanity and life truly win... wow, that’s honestly the least believable series of events in the history of ever

okay got it out of my system and am fully and cheerfully able to throw the finale in the trash yet again. hooray!

[actiongirlmary-archived]

JAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACCKKK

[oceansima]

[foxthefanboi]

Remember when Sam meets Eileen and has a perfectly nice interaction and then finishes it off by telling her “fuck you”

[foxthefanboi]

11x11 - Into the Mystic

[mittensmorgul]

I’m working on the 15.17 transcript, and I gotta say a few things (there will probably be more of these posts as I go through it).

I love how Sam and Dean’s positions have flipped here from s11. Their stances on what “needs to be done” regarding Chuck and Amara are inverted. Remember when Dean was prepared to do ANYTHING to save Cas from possession by Lucifer? And Sam was like... “It’s his choice!” and threw out the line about “the heart choice versus the smart choice?”

Back in s11 that line caused a full-body cringe in me. Because in the end, Cas possessed by Lucifer was in no way “the smart choice.” And it never was. Because it was all Chuck’s story.

Cas said years ago that he felt he was experiencing “punishment resurrections.” Well... this was a “punishment possession.” I hope folks can actually see that now... and that it wasn’t just folks trying to push a shipping agenda with Dean and Cas who understood that Dean had been RIGHT about trying to save Cas from his own poor choices... and not letting that choice stand... just like SAM is now right for exactly what he said to Jack in this episode:

SAM: Jack, look... I wish you'd have been up front with us. But sacrificing your life for a cause... takes a lot of courage. I still think it's wrong, though.

HE STILL THINKS IT’S WRONG, AND WILL FIGHT TO SAVE JACK FROM HAVING TO MAKE THAT SACRIFICE.

But back in s11, Sam was referring to Cas as an “it,” merely as a vessel for Lucifer, and fought with Dean about whether to risk Cas potentially DYING as Lucifer’s vessel should they confront Amara.

In effect, Sam was thinking EXACTLY what Dean is now-- only about CAS.

THIS is what has now been reconciled.

Turns out the “smart choice” is a terrible choice.

Follow your heart, as Mildred once told Dean. That’s the secret to living a long, happy life. And Sam... he’s beginning to get that. Dean is still struggling to reconcile that with his self-doubt, with his fear that nothing in his life had ever been “real.” But now-- after 15.17-- he’s got a far clearer picture of what is, in fact, real. As he told Cas back in 4.22, it’s people, families. Yes. THEY are real. And only now that it might be too late for Jack has Dean actually realized it.

[mittensmorgul]

Do you think Chuck made Sam and Eileen like each other? Are you sure? Because that is not exactly the truth. They had a legitimate attraction since s11, when they met. Chuck just manipulated the situation, using a spell and helping her to reach the bunker. He didn't need to do anything else. Chuck knew that the two of them together in the bunker would undoubtedly result in a romance. Because their attraction is real. Their feelings are real. Chuck didn't manipulated it.

*sighs heavily and then looks into the endless depths of your sunglasses and wonders why we’re still doing this three months on*

If you see it that way, more power to you, honestly. I wish I could. 

but also, and perhaps most importantly:

The fact that I am incapable of seeing it that way has no bearing on whether or not *you* see it that way.

Seriously. You are free to carry on with that cheerful and unproblematic view of events. Please feel free to continue to enjoy the ship as you see fit. You do not need the permission of randos typing on the internet to enjoy the show in whatever way pleases you best.

Here’s where I’m personally hitting a wall with it that nothing in canon has enabled *me personally* to climb over. To me, this isn’t something I can personally engage in a debate over, because everyone attempting to debate me on this point insists that the only satisfactory resolution to a conversation here is my unconditional acceptance of Sam and Eileen’s relationship as incontestably pure and free from the stain of Chuck’s influence. And I’m gonna put this next bit in its own paragraph, because I really, really need people to understand this, because it’s not about *you* it’s about *me*:

Because of experiences in my own life, I am incapable of seeing it that way.

Please reread that last sentence, and really, really think about what I’m telling you here. And then reconsider this campaign to convince me that I’m somehow wrong here. If I’m wrong, if canon is headed toward a Sam and Eileen happy endgame scenario, that will play out on screen in a way that I won’t be able to deny, with both of them making choices out of their own free will, untainted by Chuck’s control going forward.

If you can truly see them as already romantic, then please consider yourself lucky. Understand that some of us do not have that luxury.

As to your other points, I have never said that Chuck “made Sam and Eileen like each other.” Of course Sam and Eileen liked each other before. That’s literally what I said in the post I made about this *yesterday*:

On the surface, it’s different because Sam and Eileen actually LIKED each other before, years in the past before her untimely death.

You can read that whole (long) post here, because pulling statements out of context doesn’t serve anyone:

https://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/190972379710/mad-as-a-box-of-frogs-mittensmorgul-i-just

But canon has also informed us that despite having LIKED each other when they met in 11.11, Eileen did not become a major part of Sam’s life until we saw her again in 12.17. That’s fanon. The assumption that when we did see her again, that she and Sam had been carrying on a year-long relationship offscreen. We WANTED it to be true, because how many times has Sam had someone in his life like that? But canon has told us that despite that initial chemistry, they had not had that sort of relationship. Between 11.11 and 12.17, Sam never once mentioned her. And within a few episodes of 11.11, watching in real time, most of us accepted the fact that she was-- as a hunter and a legacy MoL-- a potential future ally, but like every other one-off episode hunter, not someone who had become central to Sam’s story. The vast majority of us... accepted that and moved on.

There was a LOT of excitement over the potential for her return in 12.17, but with the power of hindsight, and s15 literally doubling down on the fact by literally making Eileen’s return a direct manipulation by Chuck for this exact purpose, when she died in 12.21 for Sam’s pain, we took our outrage at that ending for her and began writing fix-it fic, headcanoning that she couldn’t really be dead, and inventing a mythical romance between her and Sam filling in that entire year between the two times they’d actually interacted in canon. Because we were ANGRY. Rightfully so.

But canon has told us again that this did not happen. That wasn’t real.

Did they like each other? OF COURSE THEY DID!

Did they have the potential to have become a romantic couple? It really seemed possible back in 12.17, yes.

Did it actually happen that way? Canon says it did not. Sam himself repeatedly said it did not. That their relationship wasn’t like that. The fact that Eileen felt she had to leave after the events of 15.09 confirms it did not. If she knew for a fact that her feelings for Sam were real, if they’d established a romantic relationship before she died in 12.21 and therefore already had a solid foundation for their feelings for one another, she wouldn’t have felt conflicted about staying.

Look at it this way, and try to understand why--in addition to everything else I’ve written about s15, about Chuck’s manipulation, about the specific story he wants to unfold, about all the rest of what canon has been working through this season regarding Fate and Free Will and Chuck’s Will controlling the events of the story, how Chuck not only had Eileen stashed in Hell for two and a half years but then brought her back and arranged it so she was literally the only soul to escape hell to also escape Belphegor’s containment spell AND Rowena’s death spell, only to show up at the exact right moment after Chuck’s previous “lessons” to Sam and Dean had brought Sam to his lowest moment of hopelessness and tormented him with horrific visions only to give him a moment of reprieve, and then orchestrated the entirety of 15.06 specifically to give Sam yet another false sense of hope before ultimately breaking him in 15.09-- I can’t ignore these facts, or convince myself that they somehow don’t apply, or can be overlooked for the convenience of insisting that there aren’t any seriously complicating factors in this singular case.

Again, if you’re able to do that, seriously, please, consider yourself lucky. And maybe try to understand how the phrasing of your message feels like it’s doubling down on the gaslighting. 

I don’t know how many times I need to reiterate that I have zero objections to Sam and Eileen together as an endgame couple, but I can’t see them as already having established a romantic relationship. They literally had one kiss, and in context it was a “goodbye, but please know that I actually do like you, that part was real” on Sam’s part.

I mean... Dean canonically gave Jo a similar kiss in 5.10 right before she died. I don’t really see Sam and Eileen’s kiss any differently. I can’t. Because of ^^^ all of that. Dean and Jo’s kiss wasn’t the acknowledgement that they’d been carrying on a romance up to that point. It didn’t prove a canon romantic pairing here. It was a “if only this had happened differently, maybe we could’ve had a chance.” The difference here is that Eileen... is no longer dead. They do have a potential chance in the future, and I have never denied that. I have no idea what you believe you need to convince me of here, but until canon actually has Sam and Eileen express their desires and intents to pursue a romantic relationship in a way that isn’t inextricably tied to Chuck’s plot manipulations, I’m gonna stand on what I’ve already said. Please stop trying to convince me that Chuck’s manipulation isn’t very, very real. Because in my personal experience here, the manipulation is very, very real. Waaaaayyyyyyy too real for comfort.

And that is EXACTLY all the truth I need.

[mittensmorgul]

I was just about to reblog a lovely gif set of Billie from 14.10, but I had a mental record scratch. I noticed something in Dean’s room that I’d never noticed (or maybe I did, but I don’t remember noticing before...), and it was one of those OH MY GOD RUN ME OVER AND CALL ME A HIGHWAY moments.

To set this up a little bit, in a post I made shortly after 14.10 aired, using the song Searchin’ For A Rainbow to point out some of the subtext of what was happening in Dean’s dream loop:

http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/182101822505/searchin-for-a-rainbow

One of the things I pointed out was the similarity of Pamela’s Psychic Advice to the advice the Wise Woman Mildred gave to Dean way back in 11.11. Because Mildred WAS framed as a wise woman, and 11.11 was the same sort of screaming meta episode on Dean’s Happiness. I wrote about this extensively here:

http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/138098505040/ibelieveinthelittletreetopper-thecwspn-dean

and here:

http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/138223635045/when-we-got-the-preview-of-deans-sunset-chat-with

(and in a bit of shameless self promotion, my holiday fic,  McMansion Hell, is 21k worth of case fic heavily influenced by 11.11)

But what Dean’s chat with Pamela about the things he thinks he can’t have reminded me SO STRONGLY of his sunset conversation with Mildred, right down to the fun but ultimately meaningless flirting:

MILDRED: Well, come on and sit down. I'm not gonna bite. Never really was my thing. DEAN [slowly moves over to sit next to Mildred] Okay. [From behind Dean and Mildred we see a beautiful sunset out the window in front of the couch] MILDRED: I have the same view from upstairs. West-facing rooms, they cost extra. You know, you got to pay for the view. DEAN: It's not bad. MILDRED: Not bad?? Honey, it's almost as gorgeous as you are. DEAN: Ha! MILDRED [Chuckles] [Dean looks over as if looking for Sam to help him] You know, tell me something. When's the last time you watched a sunset without waiting for something to go bump in the night? [Dean shakes his head and smirks] MILDRED: Hmm. You should try it sometime. DEAN [rolling his eyes slightly] Yeah. [...] DEAN [Chuckles] You ever miss life on the road? MILDRED: Nah. Nah, I had my fun. You want to know the secret to living a long and happy life? DEAN: Actually, yes, I do. MILDRED [Placing her hand on Dean’s chest and patting it] Follow your heart. You do that, all the rest just figures itself out. I did that. I followed my heart. Traveled the world, made people smile, forget about their problems for a while. And then my heart said, “Well, you're done”. I had my fill and... And I retired. And I love it. [Mildred pats Dean’s knee for emphasis]

So in this context, the scene in 14.10 with Pamela (an aspect and projection of Dean’s own mind) seems to be asking Dean why he hasn’t followed that advice yet... just watched a sunset, not because they were waiting for a monster, but for the sheer pleasure. Why hasn’t Dean followed his heart?

(The El Corazon painting above the bar seemed to acknowledge that Dean knew what his heart wanted but hadn’t been able to admit it even to himself yet).

So where does this tie back to Dean in 14.10 with a sunset? After all, it was storming outside of Rocky’s Bar. There was no way he could see the sunset from in there. Even if it had been clear skies, his view was warped through the wavy glass block windows, made even worse if he was isolated in his little closet of an office. There was just no good view from inside that bar. Dean was still not able to see his true happiness yet.

But he seemed to acknowledge that he did know what it was, and that Mildred’s words weren’t something he’d forgotten. He might live in an underground bunker, but-- and again, I have never noticed this painting hanging in Dean’s room before-- he’s hung a painting of a sunset over a lake. If you don’t have a real sunset, apparently store-bought will do. At least for now, as a placeholder for when he’ll finally be able to have the real thing.

Maybe someday, when Death herself isn’t blocking the view...