Nivanfield-ShipMeme

& was Dean really living in the past that he needed to Learn a lesson? What kind bullshit gets praised to high heavens. Praise the acting not that cringefest writing

Probably because that speech Amara gave was almost word for word lifted from the meta/general opinions of the Dabb apologists who defended the writing of Mary during s12-14, so by applauding that scene they’re applauding their own opinions being backed up as canon. These fans and Dabb and co have always been in their own little jerk circle see, they actually communicate with each other sometimes (via that writing assistant probably) so it’s not a stretch to assume the writers aren’t influenced by their crap meta which then ends up in the show. I’m amazed these particular fans aren’t on the payroll. 

The Dabb apologists are happily ignoring the fact that this speech is a complete retcon of Amara designed to cover up Dabb and co’s bad writing of Mary, and the writers are now saying - “see, this was our intention all along!” when it wasn’t. 

In s11, Amara said that bringing Mary back was a gift as a reward. There was no mention of it being a lesson for Dean to learn. 

Then what happened was Dabb and co attempted to write Mary as some kind of feminist ideal, only they used outdated 20th-century feminism mixed with a storyline that was too complex for them and the actress Samantha Smith to handle, so it backfired. 

The Dabb apologists turned this failed writing into something else though, like all their meta they turned whatever was going on with Dean and Mary into their usual “Dean needs to learn a lesson” and it looks like the writers have co-opted it. 

You see, being a strong female character no longer means she has to be like a man, it doesn’t mean she has to be “kickass” all the time, it doesn’t mean she has to be the just the “cool chick with a gun”. It also doesn’t mean she can’t be soft, or caring or be a mother. Being a strong female character means being complex, interesting, charismatic, a female character the audience loves to watch on their screens. In Peaky Blinders, one of the main characters Polly Gray is a mother, played brilliantly by Helen McCrory and she’s one of the most interesting characters on the show, hell the actual main character Tommy Selby is a father who is adores his son. Love for their children does not weaken them as characters. Helen McCrory has also spoken about what makes a strong female character and has rightly criticised this idea that SFC’s are just girls with guns, because nine times out of ten they end up as just male fantasies more than anything else. They’re a man’s version of a SFC, written as an ideal to men, not women, and Mary was very much the product of male writing. 

Mary according to Dabb was more than “just a mom” which ok fine, except she wasn’t a mom at all, she didn’t really try to get to know her now grown up sons and when they fought, Mary’s arguments were very black and white (again written by a man) as in Mary saw herself as just a hunter/her own person like she couldn’t be that and a mother, and also ridiculous because not once did Dean ask or expect Mary to put on an apron and make him sandwiches! He just wanted her presence. 

Yes I know she went from being in Heaven with her babies to suddenly being alive again face to face with her grown up children and there was no inbetween but here’s where that level of complexity was just too much for the writers and Samantha Smith to do it justice. It just ended up very cack-handed, whatever their intentions were it failed to come across because I’m sure we were supposed to see Mary as conflicted towards her now grown up children, she loves them but doesn’t know who they are, and she’s out of her depth in this strange future world, but instead we just saw her as cold and uncaring, more like an older sister who didn’t really want to spend time with her brothers, who would rather go run off and be with anyone else. 

By the time the writers tried damage control, it was too late. 

It’s a shame actually that they had to cast Samantha Smith, because while she is the iconic Mary from the pilot episode she just didn’t have the skills to handle this kind of storyline. I’m sure Amy Gumenick would have done a better job. Speaking of which....Mary was already a decent version of a SFC anyway before Dabb got his grubby hands on her! In In The Beginning and TSRTS we discovered that young Mary was actually a hunter in a long line of hunters, and could hold her own in a fight, but we also saw her love for her future children, her world view and hopes for their future, her not wanting them to grow up like her, and we saw her love for John which lead to her making that dreadful deal setting everything in motion, all of which added much needed complexity to her character....which DEAN WAS MADE AWARE OF because he witnessed it all when he went back in time. 

So this whole idea that Dean only saw Mary as this “perfect untouchable mythical person” and needs to learn that she’s “human” is wrong anyway, his view of his mother was drastically shifted over 10 years ago in s4! So if that really was the sole reason for bringing back Mary then it was uneccessary. Not that there’s anything wrong with holding precious memories from when you were 4 years old, especially when you’ve had the traumatic life Dean has had. I can imagine Dean spent the first few years in Hell trying to remember her face, and the comfort she gave him when he was a child, as a way to get through the never ending torment until he could not remember anything at all, and can anyone seriously point their finger at Dean and say that was wrong? 

Plus, as a mutual said the other day...all those years when Dean dreamed of his mother as he remembered her, they were HIS memories, HIS thoughts, locked away in his head, he never knew he was going to see Mary ever again except maybe in Heaven when he died, so exactly who was he harming with those thoughts in his own head anyway? They had no effects on anyone except Dean himself, which were postive. 

Jill coming to ‘save’ her partner.

Give me the darker Anti-heros like Dean Winchester, Matt Murdock, Deadpool and Jessica Jones any day.

God worked best as a mysterious entity. He was the cause for everything, the one who set up this fucked up universe, the one who was responsible for the mess and misery but he was also an unknown, a powerful force whose motives were unknowable. Sure, we heard about him from Angels and Death, but he was still a mystery.

Sam and Cas kept focusing on how Jack’s done the things he’s done because he doesn’t have a soul, and that he lost it because of them, and how to hypothetically get it back. Dean doesn’t focus on the whys and the hows, but on what a soulless Jack is capable of—the lack of conscience, unchecked impulses, unparalleled power… They’re at cross purposes. Or maybe Dean does get their point—after all, he said himself that Jack was family, and he admits what he’s planning to do to Jack is hard and ugly, and he did look conflicted both about locking Jack up and about shooting him—but he considers their point less important than the one he’s making.

SPN 13x22 Exodus

Dean’s right in not wanting Lucifer talk to Jack. Lucifer’s good at mind games and messing with people. Just last episode, he managed to rile up Rowena so much that it eventually led to him getting free. Not to mention that the entire AU!world mess following Jack’s birth wouldn’t have even happened in the first place if Lucifer hadn’t managed to trick Sam into going the Cage to talk to him, and then convince Cas to say yes and release him.

Sam and Cas, who know very well who Lucifer is and what he’s capable of, were tricked by him. Because Lucifer knows how to get under people’s skin. He played into Sam’s hubris by making him believe he’s receiving visions from God, and he fooled Cas by giving him a chance to feel like he’s doing something important. In this episode, right in front of Sam, he showed his perceptiveness and ability to understand how to get people to do what he wants when he convinced Jack to leave by appealing to his protectiveness of the group.

So when Mary smiles in amusement because “Jack isn’t going to the dark side” as if Dean was fussing over nothing, and when she seems so sure that “He’ll see Lucifer’s true nature”, there’s no wonder Dean doesn’t seem comforted at all.

He is the multilayered Dean Winchester we adore, and Sam the truth-teller knew it here.

Tough but soft, firm but deeply affectionate. Specific but ever-versatile: pop music lover and pink comforting-nightgown wearer and closet (pun intended) fashionista who defies the endless list of unhealthy social conventions that A Real ManTM must follow. He’s indelibly caring, and generous, and emotionally apt, and instinctually sharp, and profoundly strong (“more than strong”, as his subtextual spouse Cas says in Dean-focal 14x10), yet the prime element of himself that he has finally embraced is LOVE.

Self-love…the unconditional love he holds for his family…love waiting to be released from the prison/spiral arc of toxic psychological suppression and emotional misarticulation, waiting to be self-fulfilled as he stops rejecting what/who he WANTS to have/be, waiting to spit in the face of destiny — was finally set free when he chose not to shoot his son Jack —> Dean’s first act of true free will - true defiance against God’s authorial Fate machine. And this act was his final rebirth, the ultimate WIN. He chose LOVE, LIFE, FOUND FAMILY, HOPE, FAITH (in himself and in his interpersonal romantic vs familial relationships) — all intrinsically linked universal forces that Chuck was never able to control. Now S15 shall see Dean further emancipate himself from his last remaining personal shackles to achieve self-actualization/complete positive self-process, and this includes HONESTY. Using his words. Verbalizing the unsaid. Pursuing his unadulterated self (again, he HAS, and he’ll continue to do so).

*dances across table*

The upper echelons of internal progression. It’s vindicating!!

Me since 14x20 aired/S14 wrapped up:

Billie, 13.05 Advanced Thanatology

Yeah, well, all cool and fair, but surely this number of books should be there for every single person on this world. Because for everyone there are a gazillion different lethal things that could happen to them at any given moment.

Billie ought to have just one version of every person’s death - the one that sticks.

So unless Dean literally dies all those different deaths (and ok, given his previous history, there have already been what? 110 deaths for Dean…) there is NO. POINT. To those books. 

Everyone could write down those versions and it wouldn’t have any meaning besides it being potentially interesting fiction.

It gets a little more interesting in “Nihilism”, when Billie says there are only two versions left (even though - why would any books have to be re-written: those two versions should have been among the original versions, right?). Either Dean gets somehow killed by Michael possession OR the one to do with the book Billie gives him.

And again: in Billie’s library there should be only the one version of whichever death Dean is finally going to die, otherwise, why have a library of death books at all?

Basically what we’re told is that a) those books could be written by anyone with at least a little imagination, b) that same number of books should exist for everyone, not just Dean and c) there is absolutely no point for death to have any of those books unless they are immutable. (The same goes btw for Rowena and Sam - there should be one book, and one book only about her death, anything else is just more fiction.)

TL;DR: The concept of Billie’s books may seem cool, but basically to be of any interest to anyone there should be exactly one book for every one person, and that book should be immutable.

(via juppschmitz)

You know, when Billie talked about her library, the first thought crossed my mind was, hey I have a particular “shelf” colleting different versions of how Dean dies, too! Though it’s just a bookmark-folder for my favorite Death!fics…

SPN 14x19 Jack In the Box

Jensen was absolutely phenomenal in this scene.