a writer, possibly

In 15x15 he and Jack finally get a solo case together where they wear matching ties and are generally endearing to watch.

There's even a scene where Cas just tells Jack how proud he is to have him as son <3

Then in 15x17 when Sam doesn't trust Billie's plan to kill Chuck (it will kill Jack in the process), he and Cas work together to find a way to talk to Billie about her plan.

(I couldn't find any images of them from 15x17)

Sam says to Castiel that he knows he's being crazy, but he has to try something, and Cas tells him, "I don't think you're crazy. I think your internal compass is functioning perfectly." Something about that line really summarizes their sweet but chaotic dynamic for me.

And of course, 15x18 where Castiel in his final moments confesses his profound love for Dean and is taken by the empty :(

Where the hell is Ed’s husband?

We have problematic lesbians! Murder plotting widows! A nonbinary assassin! A killer nun! Pirate queens!

Zheng, Auntie, Jackie, Jim, Mary, and Archie are all featured significantly. But this extends to Nana, Evelyn, Hellkat Maggie, Mary Read and Anne Bonny too. Every single one of them has, in some way, rejected their social/patriarchal expectations and they have all flourished because of it.

Even the characters we only see for one episode manage to be presented in a way that is pretty much entirely complete. We understand exactly who they are, even when we don't know every aspect of their lives.

but it's especially funny with ofmd where one of the big themes of the story is that worrying about what you deserve is a trap. the only character we see talking about what people "deserve" is stede's dad telling him he should feel bad about inheriting wealth he didn't earn.

so stede goes off and builds a community that's willing to embrace a guy who's done nothing to deserve it. that's the whole point of izzy's arc. he didn't deserve better. he actually deserved way worse. he deserved for stede to leave him in the red flags brig for killing the man stede loved and lying to stede's face about it. but stede isn't his dad, and he doesn't think people should be shamed for accepting grace they don't deserve. and stede's crew, who learned from him, don't think you should have to earn your place in a community. the unicorn figurehead didn't have a FUNCTION on the ship but they loved it anyway and they're willing to offer love to izzy without him doing anything to earn it.

anyway i'm proposing a new ao3 tag that's more in keeping with the themes of the show: Izzy Hands Deserved Worse Actually (But It's Beautiful That He Didn't Get What He Deserved)

And then he sees him thinking he has to turn to violence to keep Ed safe.

Sometimes with shows or movies I will not remember, or only have vague memory of a character(s), and then I’ll find out they had so much screen time and I can’t believe I forgot so much about them. When I rewatch OFMD I’m always surprised at how little screen time some of these women have because they feel very present and important to the show (yes, even Olivia!) I love that ❤️

There’s one thing feeling though, and another in being able to nurture that feeling, and nothing in Ed’s life before Stede suggests he existed within an environment which allowed for that.

Life as a pirate is transient. People come and go. Folk are there one minute, dead the next. How many crushes did Ed have to see perish before he decided no longer to feel ? How safe was it to let those feelings be known even in the first place? According to Ed and Jack, they were treated ‘worse than dogs’ in their younger days. Stede himself suggests that most pirates had the constant mental pressure of wondering how they would next eat. I should imagine pirates live very much in the lizard part of their brain - fighting, fleeing, food, fornication. It’s not really conducive to romance.

Coupled with the idea that Ed likely has some form of c-ptsd, which can make forming relationships difficult, nothing about Ed’s past suggests an environment in which he could fall in love. And once he became Blackbeard, it would not have been safe for him to give away emotional control in that way.

There are several things about the situation with Stede which allows Ed to fall in love. One is the setting of the Revenge, if we ignore Izzy, being a safe space allowing that exact thing. We have Lucius and Pete, and Jim and Oluwande. There are friendships which flourish too, such as Frenchie and Wee John. Stede is paying his crew a wage meaning the next meal is guaranteed. Ed enters a world that isn’t living minute to minute. There’s time and leisure, pursuit of the arts, and a community built not just on survival.

Ed also feels safe to share his trauma. It’s confirmed in the Gravy Basket that Stede is the only person Ed ever told about the murder of his father. When Ed shares and Stede doesn’t recoil, instead offering friendship, it allows some of Ed’s walls to start to come down, and only then can he begin to move towards intimacy. Love cannot flourish without trust.

This leads to the third thing, which is that Stede sees Ed immediately. It was said at one of the cons that ‘vulnerability recognises vulnerability’, and the first time Stede meets Ed properly, there appears some truth in that. Stede intuits they are kindred spirits in ways he isn’t yet conscious. Ed now also wants to be seen, not caring to uphold the image of Blackbeard in quite the same way. Ed’s being seen, and then further seen, despite revealing what he views as his darkest parts, is what enables him to lay the groundwork to fall, properly, for the first time.

However, I do think for much of season one, Ed is in a state of limerence. He very much puts Stede on a pedestal, and has wild plans about running away. It’s as if he’s in love with being in love. In season two, now he knows Stede’s not necessarily got it ‘all figured out’, yet understands he returns his feelings, I think we see Ed truly falling in love. It might be partly why he’s so hesitant during the second ywftw. He’s been hurt, but this is also uncharted waters, and he knows this goes well beyond heady feelings. He wants a long-term relationship and a stable future, tenderness, nurture, and companionship, which is what they get in the finale.

The question of whether Ed has ever fallen in love before is complicated by a number of factors, but I think it’s safe to say he has never felt a love like he has for Stede. That doesn’t make it ‘pure’ or better than other ways of loving, it just makes it theirs - it’s their particular love story. It’s not a static thing either. It’s going to change and grow into something Ed, Stede too, never thought possible, and they’re going to marvel at what they create together. And I’m going to think about it, forever.

How 1.12 Dean immediately accepts the reality of death.

"Options? You got burial or cremation"; "Pick someone else"... He even, after being saved, appears to plan to sacrifice himself for Layla.

But in 2.01? Dean immediately wants to LIVE. He begs (though they can't hear) both Sam and John to save him.

So I was thinking about what happens in the lead up to each of these episodes and how that informs how Dean responds to his own approaching death + how Dean's heart stops after Sam and John start fighting in 2.01. And it's all connected to Sam and John and their family and how Dean is its breaking heart.

The lead up to 1.12 Faith? It's fucking brutal.

1.08 "Bugs"

Dean learns exactly how alienated Sam always felt in their family and how desperate Sam was to get out... all because John was utterly incapable of telling or showing Sam that he was actually proud of him (1.04; 1.08). John’s inability to express pride in Sam directly—only in his absence—is just this… stupid, idiotic, poisonous thing that Dean can’t do anything about... and there's an extra layer of ugliness to it too, because Sam grew up thinking Dean was perfect to John while he was a freak, while Dean... felt the exact opposite—like Sam was unconditionally loved while he was disposable and never forgiven. John's ability to make them BOTH feel unwanted is... if Dean reflected on it (which I think he did) already just... utterly exhausting to think about fixing as it poisons them both against John and each other. But it gets worse.

Dean adapts to what others need and Sam and John do not. John went around implying he was disappointed in Sam at every turn out of anger and fear of what would happen to Sam if he wasn't properly shaped. He wasn't willing to bend to Sam's personality or desires or needs. And Sam would never change shape for John, regardless of how much it hurt not to feel accepted. Meanwhile, Dean is paralleled with a literal shapeshifter in 1.06 because his whole life, he's forced himself into a multitude of different shapes in order to be what John and Sam needed—so that their family could survive.

The cruel irony is, Dean's second skin meant Sam thought Dean never felt bothered or trapped or stifled or like he was sacrificing anything... when Dean had actually sacrificed everything—silenced every complaint and crushed every dream. The shape Dean took on largely for Sam's benefit made Sam feel further alienated in their family because of how sharply Dean's lack of complaining contrasted with Sam's desperate, raging rebellion. Sam thinks Dean was perfect and he resents and is jealous of that. While, Dean sees Sam's bull-headed refusal to be shaped into what anyone else would want him to be, and he's resentful and jealous of that.

It's this ugly tangled mess that feels helpless as soon as you get a good look at it—like the layers of miscommunication and pent up resentments could never be untangled, and John swirls around at the center—a guy who is never going to stop long enough to see the poison dripping down and think anything other than, "I'll fix that later" (1.21) which is a goddamn pipe dream.

1.09 "Home"

In 1.09, Dean calls John crying and John does not respond. He instead hears a voicemail telling him to help himself. Dean never knows John came to Lawrence. Meaning Dean thinks John not just ignored him, but ignored Mary too—who all of this was supposed to be about. So does their family matter to John at all? Does Dean matter at all? (John's voicemail telling Dean he's all alone will be heard again in 1.12).

Dean also tells Sam about his voicemail later (1.10) and Sam absolutely has feelings about John ignoring Dean and that case too and Dean watches that further poison Sam and John's relationship too.

1.10 "Asylum"

Oh boy oh boy.... this is the most brutal one.

Sam and Dean learn that John is alive, but that he has no intention of seeing them, and Sam fucking loses it. John poisons Sam's view of him further, amplified by years of similar treatment. But what might be new for Dean is seeing how John's absence has poisoned Sam's view of Dean too.

Sam needed a mother and a father and a protector all in one, and John needed a soldier and a coparent and a spouse. So Dean has attempted to sustain all of those shapes all at once his whole life, and he can't sustain any of them because they are conflicting and false—masks—he's a shifter wrapped in a second skin, repeatedly being asked to shed and take a different form as a new situation arises. Like Sam, Dean has no power over John's behavior. But Sam perceives Dean to have power because some of the skins Dean has forced himself into since childhood implied power Dean does not actually have—not over Sam, and not over John.

In "Asylum", Sam frames Dean's plans and arguments as orders due to this false perception of power. He also says Dean has no mind of his own, because Sam is just starting to get that Dean might be wearing a second skin all of the time... but he's also contemplating the terrible thought that Dean might be hollow on the inside—nothing but a shape that mindlessly executes John's orders. And... if that's the case... part of Sam wishes Dean would follow his orders instead. Sam also suggests (not for the first time) that it's Dean's fault that they haven't found the demon yet. Dean hears the trigger of his own gun click over and over and over as Sam tries blow his brains out.

Dean doesn't bother to talk to Sam about it after, because Sam immediately lies, refusing to admit that anything he said was even partially true, leading Dean to assume all of it was wholly true. It's another tangled mess that feels exhausting to unpack even if Sam was willing to tell the truth.

1.11 Scarecrow

One episode after nearly killing Dean, Sam is already blowing up at Dean again over John's absence and behavior. Sam leaves, because he will not mold himself into what John wants him to be, and Dean also will not mold himself into what Sam wants him to be.

What Sam really really doesn't get... is that John does not dictate Dean's shape. Dean is the one who chooses Dean's shape. John's and Sam's needs only inform Dean's shape.

The shape Dean wears is determined by Dean's heart. That's actually worse for Dean in some sense, because his heart is helplessly stuck loving his family—as a whole. He cannot hate one of them and love the other. He loves them both. He resents them both. They are ripping his heart in two. Dean can never go home... but he can also never stop haunting the highway.

DEAN You’ve always known what you want. And you go after it. You stand up to Dad. And you always have. Hell, I wish I—anyway….I admire that about you. I’m proud of you, Sammy.

1.12 "Faith"

Culminating from the hopelessness of 1.08-1.11, Dean's begins dying of a broken heart.

Sam and John will never mend their relationship. Sam despises John. John doesn't care about their family anymore. Maybe he never did. John will never change. Dean doesn't have the power to change him. The poison drips down. Sam despises Dean. Dean resents them both.

Their family will never be whole again. Dean won't ever be whole again. Never. Because Sam and John don't need Dean. Not like Dean needs them. Either the poison will finally reach Dean's heart, or Sam and John will rip it in half. Either way, it'll be discarded in the dirt. They won't be there to see it give out its last feeble beat. They won't even notice.

DEAN (sounding resigned and clicking the TV off) Yeah. All right, well, looks like you're gonna leave town without me. SAM What are you talking about? I'm not gonna leave you here.

Yet in response to Dean's impending demise, Sam doesn't leave. Sam says, "Watch me".

And in 1.16, Dean hears Sam say they'll never be a family again, but shortly after he sees Sam and John embrace each other in tears. And in 1.20 and 1.21, Sam and John fight and fight and fight... but they also find common ground. Dean sides with Sam against John on sticking together as a family and they wear John down and John finally starts including them. Dean likely thinks Sam will still go back to school... but he probably also thinks Sam would take his calls now too. Then in 1.22, Dean fights and fights to keep them alive—for Sam and John not to kill each other or themselves for revenge, and Sam listens. Sam is sitting there with The Colt ready to kill John and Dean begs him not to do it—his chest ripped open—and Sam chooses Dean and he says the demon doesn't come before everything while looking at Dean bleeding out in the rearview mirror.

2.01 "In My Time Of Dying"

In 2.01, Dean wants to live. One of the first things he does is ask Sam to find a priest to lay some mojo on him in a parallel of 1.12—the episode where Dean figured out that Sam cared.

But Dean's heart stops beating right after Sam and John start fighting.

SAM You care more about killing this demon than you do saving your own son! [...] You're not thinking about anybody but yourself, it's the same selfish obsession!

John hasn't changed. John still thought Sam should have killed the demon. John is going to abandon him like he did in 1.09 and 1.12. Sam and John will always be at odds. They'll always despise each other... and Dean will always be helplessly trapped in the middle.

JOHN If you'd killed that damn thing when you had the chance, none of this would have happened. SAM It was possessing you, Dad, I would have killed you too. JOHN Yeah, and your brother would be awake right now. SAM Go to hell. JOHN I should have never taken you along in the first place. I knew it was a mistake, I knew I was wrong — DEAN I said SHUT UP!